Role of Contextual Mediation in Direct versus Reconstructed Angelic Encounters

Abstract

A sample of 89 instances of angelic encounters found on Internet web sites were analyzed using the classification scheme for contextual variables proposed by Lange, Houran, Harte, and Havens (1996). Consistent with previous research, the contents of the contextual variables operating during these angelic encounters were consistent with the content of percipients' experiences. In addition, contextual variables were related to the modalities of the experiences as well as to the percipients' apparent arousal. The proposed existence of two different types of encounters was supported. Percipients' experiences in “direct” encounters strongly resembled those found in other hallucinatory experiences such as poltergeist-like episodes, death-bed visions, and shamanic trances. By contrast, there is strong evidence that “reconstructed” encounters are often the result of accidental or puzzling (but otherwise normal) encounters with actual human beings.