Laura's doctors were sure that the girl was dying.  She, her mother and her brother had all contracted scarlet fever; but her illness had progressed into spinal meningitis, for which there was no medical treatment at the time.  The doctors told her parents they could do nothing, and that she would die an excruciating, screaming death.  Her parents were advised not to remain with her to witness her last days.  She remembers her parents and Rev. Lang throwing kisses and waving goodbye to her from the door of her hospital room.  Then she remembers "a sea of pain."
     Later, after losing her eyesight, she was lying on her right side when she heard a voice behind her say, "Laura, turn over."  She said, "No, it hurts too much to move. You come around to this side of the bed."  Then the voice said, "I promise you it will not hurt - turn over."  Turning, she saw Jesus.  She remembers no other words Jesus said, yet she knows they talked. She watched his hand reach out and touch her thin, twisted leg.
     Sometime later, she remembers remarking to a nurse about what pretty red hair she had.  The nurse looked at her in shocked surprise, realizing that Laura  had greatly improved and had regained her eyesight.  She rushed from the room to get the doctors. Soon the room filled up with doctors asking questions.  Laura was a very shy person and there were too many doctors, too many questions. But she could talk to Rev. Lang about what happened:  He was the one person in all the world she wasn't too shy to talk to.
     Years later as an adult, she heard he was preaching nearby, and went to hear him. His sermon included the story of a little girl who, as she lay dying, had been healed by Jesus.

     Laura's experience was an intensely private encounter in the confines of her own blinded state of approaching death. But to the extent that it can still inspire us with the transformative love that she experienced in that moment of healing years ago, it is relevant to us today. Indeed,  her account serves to demonstrate how one person's apparent encounter with Christ can continue to inspire hope -- if not actual healing -- in others who hear or read about it.
     Of course it is fair to ask, was Laura's experience what it seemed to be?  That is, did Christ actually heal her?  And, more importantly for the rest of us, does Christ really manifest himself to individuals today?  This might, on the surface,  seem like a naive and childish wish.  But if one accepts both the possibility of a non-material or spiritual realm, and the unparalleled spiritual mastery which Jesus Christ exhibited, it requires little stretch of the imagination to answer, Why not? And if we add to this the modern-day testimony of a widening circle of credible witnesses,  then we might conclude -- with some wonder -- Yes, he does.

A Largely Overlooked Phenomenon

     Contemporary Christ encounters have thus far received scant attention from theologians and ministers  -- those who might be expected to recognize their significance.   T.R. Morton, author of  Knowing Jesus, points to the obvious reason the church and its spokesmen have tended to overlook and discredit such accounts.

 "We can well appreciate how the church has always been a bit suspicious of an individual's claim to know Jesus by himself. When you acknowledge the claim, you open the door to all kinds of strange, subjective ideas.  You give individual experience precedence over the wisdom of the past.  Personal knowledge is always a challenge to accepted opinions and a threat to established institutions...It is no wonder that the church has been chary of these claims."14

      This attitude is by no means a recent development.  Actually, the church's position on such things developed quite early when, in the second century, a man by the name of Montanus claimed to be channeling messages from the risen Christ.  Montanus claimed that Christ would soon be returning to erect the New Jerusalem in Montanus's home province in Asia Minor.  The Church authorities saw this as a self-serving prophecy that would establish a dangerous precedent,  and  declared it a heresy. 15
      Montanus claimed Christ was speaking through him.  This conferred upon him an authority that no ordinary person could hope to dispute.  But what I've found in my  research is that most Christ encounters have Christ speaking to the individual about his love for them.  Such interventions seem to inspire spiritual work without conferring political or moral advantage upon the recipient.
     Some Christ encounters of this type can be found in the writings of a few contemporary figures who are somewhat outside of mainstream Christianity. For example, Starr Daily, the author of  Love Can Open Prison Doors, says that his life as a hardened criminal abruptly ended when Jesus came to him in a dream.  After a tortuous stint in prison, Daily said he saw in a dream "the man whom I'd been trying to hate for years, Jesus the Christ." In the dream, Daily encountered Jesus in a garden.  Jesus came toward him,

"...His lips moving as though in prayer.  He stopped near me eventually and stood looking down.  I had never seen such love in human eye; I had never felt so utterly enveloped in love. I seemed to know consciously that I had seen and felt something that would influence my life throughout all eternity."16

     It is interesting that Daily had often dreamed as a child of meeting Jesus in the same garden environment, but had gradually forgotten the experiences. Significantly, Daily follows a largely forgotten age-old Christian tradition in regarding the dream as an acceptable avenue for directly encountering the Christ.  Daily went on from this experience to author numerous books on the healing power of faith in Christ.
    Edgar Cayce is another well-known figure who apparently experienced several encounters with Christ.  Known principally for his clairvoyant readings on the holistic treatment of disease, he is probably the most famous and well-documented psychic of the twentieth century.
    Cayce was a deeply religious Christian and an immensely popular Presbyterian Sunday school teacher.  And yet, he never made his Christ encounters a matter of public record.  One of the only ways that we know about his experiences is through a letter he wrote to a friend in 1939.

     "...often I have felt, seen and heard the Master at hand. Just a few days ago I had an experience which I have not even told the folk here. As you say, they are too scary to tell, and we wonder at ourselves when we attempt to put them into words, whether we are to believe our own ears, or if others feel we are exaggerating or drawing on our imagination; but to us indeed they are often that which we feel if we hadn't experienced we could not have gone on.
     "This past week I have been quite 'out of the running,' but Wednesday afternoon when going into my little office or den for the 4:45 meditation, as I knelt by my couch I had the following experience: First a light gradually filled the room with a golden glow, that seemed to be very exhilarating, putting me in a buoyant state. I felt as if I were being given a healing.  Then, as I was about to give the credit to members of our own group who meet at this hour for meditation (as I felt each and every one of them were praying for and with me), he came.  He stood before me for a few minutes in all the glory that he must have appeared in the three on the Mount.  Like yourself, I heard the voice of my Jesus say, 'Come unto me and rest.'"17

     In addition to his extraordinary faith, Cayce's actual encounters with Christ probably had something to do with sustaining his commitment to a life of serving others. Considering how little time he took for himself during his later years -- when his reputation was attracting a never-ending stream of requests for his psychic readings -- one is left to conclude that he derived the greatest satisfaction and meaning in life from serving the Lord who had appeared to him during his hours of need.
     Psychiatrist George Ritchie has reported one of the most detailed Christ encounters in the literature.   While his Christ encounter has been thought of as primarily a near-death experience (NDE) -- perhaps the most famous NDE on record -- it is still, above all, an encounter with Jesus Christ. As we shall see in the following chapters, very little meaningful distinction can be made between near-death Christ encounters and those occurring in non-life threatening circumstances.
     While Ritchie was ill with pneumonia, he was administered a drug to which he reacted so severely that he was considered clinically dead for several minutes prior to his resuscitation.  During this interval, Ritchie experienced an encounter with Jesus and, presumably, a detailed escorted view of the afterlife.
    As in so many Christ encounters, when Christ appeared to Ritchie, he realized that:
     "This person was power itself, older than time and yet more modern than anyone I'd ever met.
     "Above all, with that same mysterious inner certainty, I knew that this man loved me.  Far more even than power, what emanated from this Presence was unconditional love.  An astonishing love.  A love beyond my wildest imagining.  This love knew every unlovable thing about me...and accepted and loved me just the same."18

     One might think that such experiences would come to a very few devout individuals. But from what I have discovered in my preliminary research, Christ encounters apparently happen as much to ordinary individuals who are simply striving in their own way to do their best.  From a scriptural standpoint, this is what one might expect. For, Jesus made it clear to his followers that he would manifest himself to anyone who loved him and followed his commandments:
 "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest to him.(John 14:21)."
     Understandably, most of us give this promise little thought.  Or if we do, we disqualify ourselves without examining the reasons. Feeling unworthy, we may assume that Christ would manifest only to those who live exceedingly virtuous lives; and that rules most of us out.  Or, feeling insignificant in the cosmic scheme of things, we assume that he would manifest himself only to individuals who have far greater needs than our own.  In this vein, one client of mine, who prayerfully calls upon the assistance of spirit guides and Eastern gurus, told me that Jesus had much more important things to do than to attend to her.
     Even if we allowed ourselves to hope for such a visitation on the basis of Jesus's  recorded promises, what if  Christ did not come?  Would that not underscore our sense of unworthiness, or feelings of abandonment?  Or, maybe worse yet, if he did come, what would he require of us?  A nurse told me that she dreamed she looked out of the window and saw the bright light of the rising sun and  Jesus knocking on the emergency room door.  Not wanting to face him, she went up to the window and closed the blinds.  I can still see the anguish in her face as she told me about this -- her one and  only Christ encounter.  Another person  intentionally sought an encounter with Christ, and thereafter dreamed that a basement door opened in her home, and light poured out.  She knew Christ was coming up the steps and would appear at any moment.  She ran to the door, and slammed it.
      How many of us are ready for such a meeting?  Are we really ready to hear what this Being has to say to us?

The Problem of Telling Other People

       Samuel Johnson once said, "Wonders are willingly told and willingly heard."  And yet, it seems apparent that the act of sharing a Christ encounter is strewn with interpersonal difficulties.  When one believes himself to have encountered Jesus Christ, an intimidating set of problems arises to legislate against sharing this otherwise wondrous experience with others.
      Some may be afraid that the experience will be seen as corny and all-too-conventional -- part of the allegedly outworn paternalistic religion of the past. Others probably worry about being seen as inflated with their own sense of importance.  And still others may refrain from disclosing the details of such encounters because they are afraid of being judged crazy, or called liars of the worst kind.  In many of the letters I've received from persons who believe they have encountered Christ, the letter begins with such words as, "I know you won't believe me, but..."
     There is also the problem of stirring up feelings of inadequacy in other people who have not had such experiences.  Even if they share a worldview which allows for such encounters, it is by no means a sure thing that they will be secure enough in their own spirituality to hear it with an open mind. Jesus, himself, admonished his followers on several occasions to "tell no man" about what they'd experienced with him; and his statement about not casting one's pearls before swine is well known.
     Even religious authorities may not be able to hear about Christ encounters with an open mind.  One woman told us that she finally worked up her nerve to share her Jesus experience with two different priests.  The first man listened to what she told him, then resumed talking about altogether unrelated matters, as though he had not even heard her. The second priest became angry, saying that he had sought such an experience all his life.  Who was she, he asked, to have been so blessed by Jesus's presence?   In recognition of this dilemma, C. S. Lewis wrote, "Once the layman was anxious to hide the fact that he believed so much less than the vicar; he now tends to hide the fact that he believes so much more." 19
     For these and other reasons, it is not surprising that people generally refrain from sharing such experiences. Unfortunately, their silence creates the impression that Christ encounters are less common than they actually are. Because of this, one of the purposes of this book is to provide a vehicle for sharing these experiences that can avoid some of the sticky interpersonal problems cited above.  By preserving the anonymity of contributors, this book has provided a way for them to relate their Christ encounters without having to worry about reactions from others.
     On the receiving end, the sympathetic reader is perhaps in a much better position to appreciate the experiences without knowing the other persons, or having them present. By reading multiple accounts of anonymous, ordinary individuals, the reader might more easily resist the inclination to conclude that the other person is a better, more virtuous individual who deserves to have such encounters.  And, relieved of the burden of knowing the other person's personal foibles, the reader may also be able to appreciate the validity of the account without letting his knowledge of the other person get in the way.  Thus, except for losing whatever benefits might proceed from a direct person-to-person exchange, a collection of anonymous written accounts can, arguably, assist both witnesses and readers in reaping the greatest benefit from Christ encounters.

How can we evaluate the validity of Christ encounters?

      Given the difficulty, if not presumption,  in evaluating any intensely meaningful experience, we must be careful not to impose some arbitrary set of beliefs or doctrines -- no matter how widely accepted -- upon Christ encounters.  And yet, most people would probably agree that an important facet of any investigation into Christ encounters should involve some kind of evaluation concerning the degree of relevancy or validity exhibited by a particular experience.
     There are precedents that can assist us in this regard.   For, evaluating the validity of spiritual experiences -- especially prophetic pronouncements -- is an age-old concern. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah suggested a simple test of validity -- that the prophecy come to pass! He suggested that "when the word of the prophet come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord has truly sent him. (Jer. 29:9) ."   And Jesus's own words,"By the fruits, ye shall know them,"  expands Jeremiah's test of prophecy into a general rule for evaluating the quality of our lives as a whole.  By making the fruits of our beliefs and experiences  -- the good that comes from them --the only criterion by which we are judged, Jesus provided a way for us to avoid what might be called the "demonization" of other peoples' beliefs and experiences .
    Of course, people have rarely been content to abide by the test that Jesus espoused.  A person's beliefs -- and the particular details of their personal spiritual experiences -- have traditionally figured much more prominently than the fruits of their lives in determining their treatment from others.  Indeed, concern about the validity of spiritual beliefs and experiences reached absurd proportions during the days of the Inquisition, when even the most devout individuals came under suspicion.  The plight of Teresa of Avila is a good example of how attempts to evaluate spiritual experiences have too often mirrored the fears and biases of the evaluators.
     The young and vivacious Carmelite nun began seeing Jesus appear to her on a regular basis, sometimes when she would be conversing with the visitors who came to the monastery each day.   When the local religious authorities -- who were threatened by her growing influence -- found out about her visions, they called for an investigation which immediately threatened her life.   Everyone knew she would be burned if her experiences were judged demonic.  Fortunately, the Jesuits intervened to supervise the investigation and to protect her from the Inquisition.
     But while her Jesuit protector was temporarily away, Teresa was forced by less sympathetic church officials to do something totally repugnant to her:  She was told to test the vision by making an obscene gesture to the Lord.  "Give it the fig!" the inquisitor demanded. "If it is the devil, he may take it as an expression of your contempt, and if it is the Lord, he will not hold it against you, for you are merely obeying an order which I have given you to protect our holy faith."
     With great sadness, she complied.  "This business of giving the fig," she related, "caused me the greatest sorrow, for my next vision was one of the suffering Lord."  Even so, Christ knew her heart; and he did not abandon her for her compliance. 20
     Eventually, even the considerable authority of the Inquisition could not discredit Teresa.  One of the most notorious inquisitors finally acknowledged the authenticity of her visions. She went on to reestablish the Carmelite order as a beacon of spirituality during a relatively corrupt and materialistic era.
      Given the presumption involved in trying to validate a Christ encounter, I have made little attempt to conduct this evaluation for the reader, except to point out when a Christ encounter contains possibly controversial or unorthodox content.

How do we know if Christ encounters are "real"?

     It is easy to dismiss a Christ encounter -- particularly one that happens in a dream -- as a purely subjective experience.  For, these experiences generally fall outside the range of ordinary waking experiences which are comprised, in large part, of external events which can be verified by others.  But if one is so inclined, much of our experience in life can be similarly undermined:  One can dismiss virtually any private experience, including the mere act of thinking, because there is no way to confirm the independent existence of anything unless it can be viewed by others.  And yet, whoever takes this position is eventually faced with the absurdity of it.  After all, what scientist has yet seen a black hole or a quark?  We forget that science, too, operates on faith and conjecture when it comes to the most profound mysteries of the universe.
     Of course we would all like to have proof to substantiate the reality of our most precious experiences. But our ability to prove our experiences diminishes as we approach that which potentially holds the greatest meaning for us.  How can we prove love, faith or wisdom?  Ultimately, perhaps, we are left with only the irrefutable conviction of those who have had certain experiences, and the deeply resonating affirmative response of many of those who still have not.  Others are free to criticize such claims; but a careful analysis of much of what passes as objective criticism often reveals a defense of simply another form of faith in what cannot be proven.  Author Henry Fielding essentially proclaimed the absurdity of most criticism when he asserted, "'Til  they [his own critics] produce the authorities by which they are designated judges, I shall not plead their jurisdiction."21
     In spite of the unprovability of something as potentially meaningful as Christ encounters, one can at least confirm the psychological "reality" of something invisible by establishing that the experience is widespread and has predictable, recurrent qualities.  Certainly, we now agree that everyone dreams, even though we accept the fact that we cannot produce them for scrutiny. Even much less common subjective  experiences can, in time, become a widely accepted "reality" if enough witnesses come forward with similar accounts. For instance, Raymond Moody,  George Ritchie, Betty Eadie and others have provided compelling evidence of the universality of the near-death experience --  to the point where many people believe that what persons experience on the verge of death points to the certainty of an afterlife.  In a similar way, this book may contribute to the acceptance of the Christ encounter as a  universally occurring phenomenon with predictable features, and promote further enquiry into the subject.

How Christ Encounters Come to Us

     The Christ encounters in the following chapters occurred in a variety of states of mind.  Almost half of the experiences were waking visions.
     A few occurred when it was unclear whether the person was awake or asleep.  In these, the witnesses have typically been lying in bed during the encounter.
      Over half of the experiences collected were unusually deep and clear dreams.  In most of these, the witnesses were not aware at the time that they were dreaming.  A few, however, were "lucid dreams,"  in which the dreamer realizes consciously that he is in a dream.  Similar to "out-of-body" experiences, the lucid dreamer enters the dream as a fully aware, interacting participant while the body remains apparently fast"asleep".  In an out-of-body experience, the person also seems to be outside of his physical body during the experience, and often observes his sleeping body from an externalized vantage point.
    Only one of the accounts was clearly a near-death experience (K.V.D., Chapter Two).    However, several  accounts -- most of which were deep dreams -- closely resembled NDE’s, except that none of them occurred in life-threatening circumstances.
       I believe it is important to examine some of our assumptions and biases regarding the states of mind in which these Christ encounters have occurred.  Otherwise, we might unfairly overvalue or undervalue an experience merely because of the state of mind in which it took place.

     Dreams.  It is probably true that most of us give waking visions more credence than dreams. We are somehow reassured when a person tells us he was on his feet with his eyes open when it all happened.
     But dreams have not always been considered less real or meaningful than waking experiences or so-called waking visions.  Morton Kelsey's analysis of both the Old and New Testaments reveals that dreams and visions, or rather the singular concept of the dream-vision,  occupies a central place in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Actually, Kelsey points out that the ancient position was to regard the dream as the state in which a vision naturally occurred.  The vision, according to this view, is the content of the dream.  Although the vision can intrude upon waking awareness, the dream was considered the natural state in which visions were experienced.22
      Kelsey is fond of displaying a Bible from which all references to dreams and visions have been removed:  There is simply not much left. While it is sometimes unclear in the Biblical narrative whether the writers were referring to waking visions or dream-visions, since they were regarded as synonymous,   we find many unambiguous references to dreams.  Certainly Joseph's dream of the angel warning him to flee Herod's soldiers can be seen to be sufficient evidence that dreams can communicate God's will.  And Peter's dream, which prompted him to accept an invitation to dine at the "unclean" table of a non-Jew, signified the beginning of a new attitude toward Gentile followers of Christ.
      Kelsey also points out that during the first few centuries of the Christian era, the great spokesmen of the Church typically regarded the dream very highly.  Origen asserted that the dream-vision was an important part of God's method of revealing himself to individuals.  He divided them into two categories:  direct and symbolized experiences.  He reported that many of the early Christians were actually converted to the new faith through dreams and visions.  For instance, Gregory Thaumaturgus, a major force in the early Church, was converted from his pagan beliefs in a dream of John the Beloved and Mary, the mother of the Lord.
     Another early Church father, Cyprian, claimed to have experienced direct manifestations from God in his dreams. He even had one dream in which a young man of striking appearance informed him of his imminent martyrdom.  And Constantine's famous dream of Christ on the eve of his great military victory not only accounted for his conversion, but also made a place for Christianity in the Roman empire -- thus ensuring the religion's survival through a torturous time.
     Like Origen, many of the early Church fathers believed that dreams originated from different levels of the soul.  This approach allowed for the confusing and disturbing nature of many dreams without ruling out the possibility of God speaking through other, clearer dreams. This sophisticated multi-leveled view of dreams was gradually forgotten as the Church  adopted the more arid, rational theology of Thomas Aquinas.  Fortunately, this earlier understanding has been resurrected in the modern work of psychiatrist Carl Jung, who re-asserted a multi-leveled view of dreams.  Even as an empirical scientist, Jung was compelled to admit that the Divine spoke to us through dreams emanating from the deeper levels of the psyche.
    Even so, the belief that dreams are inferior to waking experiences still prevails.  To give dreams a fresh chance, we might do well to look at the extent to which the dream involves the person in a dynamic and rich interaction with Christ and with the thrust of his message.  By looking at it this way, the dream-based Christ Encounter may emerge as an experience on an equal footing with waking encounters.  Indeed, we might even conclude that the capacity of dreams to symbolize complex truths may better serve the purposes of the Christ encounter in many instances.

    Lucid Dreams and Out of Body Experiences.  A few of the Christ encounters occurred when the witnesses were fully conscious and aware of what was taking place, but were nonetheless in a dream or a non-physical realm.  The presence of full waking awareness goes a long way toward satisfying our ordinary concept of what is "real."  But since these experiences took place while the witnesses were ostensibly "out" of touch with their bodies, they remain non-physical experiences -- like ordinary dreams. Paul himself alluded to this feature of his conversion experience, when he said, "...whether in the body, I cannot tell; whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth (2 Cor. 12:2)."
      Those who have had such non-physical experiences report, paradoxically, that the vividness and sense of reality exceeds our everyday sensory experience.    These experiences owe their "realness" to their amazing clarity and intensity, not to their physicality.    Ordinary dreams in general -- and lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences in particular -- challenge us to consider why we cling so tightly to the idea that an experience in the physical world is inherently more meaningful and valuable than a non-physical experience.   This requirement would disqualify many of the most moving, life-transforming experiences included in this volume.  Actually, if we examine each experience closely, we find that virtually all of the experiences included herein took place outside the realm of normal sensory channels.  Just because the individual remained aware of his surroundings does not mean that the vision was any more physical than a nocturnal dream.  Such experiences may say more about the capacity of the mind to operate on more than one level at a time than about the physical reality of what the individual observes.

    Near-Death Experiences.   A couple of the Christ encounters also satisfy the definition of a near-death experience (NDE).  An a few  other experiences  -- which did not take place under life-threatening circumstances -- exhibit many of the features of an NDE, such as a life review, an encounter with Christ, and the message that the time is not yet right for the person to remain in the afterlife.
      Actually, NDE's  in which Christ appears can be considered a category of the Christ encounter phenomenon.  After all, Christ encounters occur in a variety of altered states of consciousness, as well as in (or overlapping with) ordinary waking consciousness. They are not exclusively associated with physical trauma or any other single mental or physical condition. So the additional designation of NDE, or dream, or out-of-body experience, should not distract us from the focus of this work.    For the purposes of this study, the particular state of consciousness in which the Christ encounter occurs should  remain secondary in importance to the larger question of whether the content of the experience satisfies the definition of a Christ encounter -- an experience in which one perceives the presence of Christ.
       What do these various states of mind have in common?  Perhaps they all assist the individual in surrendering a limited ego- and body-based identity. Whether this surrender occurs involuntarily -- as during physical or emotional crises -- or through the intentional spiritual practices of prayer and meditation, it seems as though the Christ encounter witnesses all report arriving at a  state of openness and surrender prior to the manifestation of the Christ. In the Revelation, Jesus said to John, "I stand at the door and knock," implying that Christ is always waiting for us to do our part. And what is that?  It may be that all of our efforts to bring Christ into our lives end -- and finally succeed -- in simply surrendering to a relationship with him.

How Christ Encounters Fit Into Modern Christianity

     Since I am a not a theologian, I am not prepared to assess thoroughly the Christ encounter's place in Christian tradition and theology.  However,  it occurs to me that there are two traditional ways of analyzing the Christ encounter from within the Christian tradition -- as a precursor to the Second Coming and/or as an indication of the availability of the risen Christ to people today.  The first might be called the  "Millennial" approach and the second, the "Perennial" approach.
     The Millennial Approach.  As we approach the end of the twentieth century and the second millennium, there is a resurgence of interest in various prophecies that allegedly pertain to these times.  A great many Christians -- in particular, fundamentalist Christians  -- expect the eventual return of Jesus Christ.  There are numerous versions of how this might take place, but the more orthodox view is based on the expectation of an eventual bodily return of Jesus Christ.
   The widespread belief in Christ's Second Coming originally  grew out of the Old Testament messianic prophecies which foretold of a savior who would come in power and glory to establish God's kingdom on earth.  Because Jesus was crucified before he could fulfill these expectations, his Jewish followers came to believe that his second coming was imminent.  Jesus's own words support this view in some of the New Testament passages,  most specifically when  he promised to return and fulfill the messianic prophecies before his own generation had passed away (Matthew 24:35).
      When this did not happen, many of his followers who were struggled to reconcile the apparent discrepancies between the Old Testament  prophecies of a powerful messiah and Jesus's death as a criminal.  Those who anticipated the fulfillment of these prophecies faced more and more of a problem as time passed.  They had a choice. They could look to the future for his return, or they could accept Jesus's role as redeemer through his sacrifice and resurrection.
     The Perennial Approach.  Jesus began appearing to his followers within days of his crucifixion.  They did not always recognize him at first; but there was no doubt that he had begun appearing to them.  No one came to regard this as the Second Coming, because it still didn't fit the prophecies of a Messiah who would come in power and glory.  He appeared to them ostensibly to show them that he was indeed alive and would continue to be available to those who loved him -- not to set up a kingdom among men.  He also told them that he hadn't yet ascended.  So, it was a special transitional period during which Christ walked among men in his resurrected body.
     But following Christ's' ascension,  something altogether unprecedented occurred: Paul encountered the risen Christ --  not as an embodied man, but as a formless radiant Being who identified itself as Jesus.  Thereafter, Paul began to offer a perspective that complemented the traditional  emphasis on the Second Coming as the fulfillment of  Jesus's work. He certainly embraced the traditional prophecies about Christ's return; in his later writings, however, he began to shift to more of an emphasis on the resurrection as the wholly sufficient fulfillment of Jesus's mission to us.  Recognizing the problem of basing one's faith on an event which might not happen for a very long time,  Paul shifted early Christians away from waiting for Jesus to return, and refocused them on the everpresent redemptive power of Christ's resurrection,  exemplified by his own dramatic conversion.  He thus freed Christianity from a deadline, and opened up a future in which Christ's undiluted spiritual influence could be palpably felt by each and every one of us.
     As the reader shall see in the ensuing chapters, the Christ encounters included herein  tend to support the Perennial view of the risen Christ's intercessory role in our lives. However, not one of the experiences recounted in these pages refutes the possibility of a Second Coming.

The Positive Impact of Sharing Christ Encounters

      Not all Christ encounters are equally dramatic and uplifting.  And yet, they almost always seem to represent a pivotal moment in a person's life in which encouragement or healing seems desperately needed, or in which  Christ calls the individual to serve him in some way. Of course, it is not always clear what specific need the encounter has served, nor exactly what has taken place.
     Some Christ encounters are so moving that when they are told, they awaken in the listener a profound sense of love, self-acceptance and forgiveness.  These experiences seem to speak to a depth in the human psyche which transcends religious and interpersonal differences.  If so, we owe it to ourselves to consider the sharing of these accounts as a form of therapeutic experience.  Further, there is evidence to suggest that sharing Christ encounters can open up the listener to having his or her own encounter.
      When this book was still in the early stages, I was working with a young man who had derived a great deal of strength from his relationship with Christ.  As we confronted his rather intractable drug addiction problem, we would often talk about Jesus's love for his unruly disciples, and his forgiveness for their weaknesses.
     During our work together, I often had the occasion to share some of the Christ encounters I'd been collecting for the book.  One day, when he was feeling particularly despondent, we again began talking about people who had experienced Christ's intervention in their lives, including Bill Wilson, the founder of AA.  My client expressed a hope that he, too, might be blessed with spiritual healing, since all other remedies had failed.  Specifically, he hoped that Jesus would come to him to help him end his longstanding problem.  He had always been able to relate to Jesus as a person and had even written some moving poetry and prose about Him;  but he had never experienced a direct encounter with Christ.
      As he talked on about his desire for such an intervention, I  thought about a woman who had experienced Jesus actually coming to her bedside while she had been praying one night (M.L.P.#1 in Chapter Two).  In that experience, she had reached up and felt his hair, confirming that He was, indeed, present in a very physical way. As  I imagined that experience happening to her, I began hoping  that the man's yearnings might be answered in a similar fashion.  I am sure that my own inability to help my client overcome his problem fueled my hopes.
     Suddenly, I felt "struck" by what felt like a wave of energy coming from my left.  It felt oddly familiar.  I knew from my own earlier Christ encounters that this feeling preceded the coming of white light or Christ himself.  I continued to sit in silence, looking at and listening to my client as usual, not knowing where this was going to go. After a few moments, my client stopped talking in mid-sentence, looked in the direction from which I had felt the wave of energy come, and then asked something like, "What's happening?  Something's happening here." Then a second wave hit and I felt my self almost overwhelmed by it -- like I was becoming very small and surrounded by someone dwarfing me with power and love. I was afraid and simultaneously frustrated by this fear.  I suggested that we close our eyes and be still.  As we did, I saw white light well up in my visual field.  The sense of presence lasted for several minutes. Later on when we talked about the incident, we discovered that we had both felt a palpable sense of  Christ's presence with us.
    As far as I can see, there was no instantaneous healing for my client. But the event  fortified the man in his commitment to overcome his problem.  And his movement toward that end is clearly evident at the time of this writing.  For myself,  it served to convince me that the Christ encounter could be an imminent possibility in my counseling work as well as in the more familiar, private confines of my deep meditations and  dreams -- especially if both parties share an interest and willingness to discuss such experiences as a way to encourage his coming.

    Many of us would doubtless be disappointed  if we set about to experience a Christ encounter.  For reasons unknown to us at the present time, such experiences are still apparently hard to come by. Consequently, we should perhaps be willing to derive whatever meaning we can from the experiences of others, rather than to make such experiences a criterion of spiritual attainment or the basis of our self-worth.  There is ample precedent for this approach.  The history of Christianity reveals a willingness among Christians to study and derive sustenance from the experiences of others, rather than feeling disenfranchised in the face of the apparent good fortune of others.  Indeed, the whole historic foundation of Christianity is based on Jesus's encounters with a relatively small group of followers and critics. Today, modern Christians derive their knowledge of Christ to a large extent from his recorded encounters with other people thousands of years ago.  Each parable, each individual gesture of love and each healing combines to form a cohesive testament to what He was and still is to all people, even though he had direct contact with only a few.
     Similarly, if we can accept the stories of the persons whose experiences with Christ are recounted in the following pages, we have an opportunity to derive hope from what is apparently happening in the lives of at least some individuals today.  The mere fact that these momentous encounters occur at all might go a long way to deepen our commitment to living according to higher ideals, if not to enhance our readiness to have such an encounter ourselves.