THERESA or TERESA ("Saint," Spanish nun, author of a number of devotional books, a visionary of whom many wonderful miracles are related. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV.), 1515-1582. "_Over my spirit flash and float in divine radiancy the bright and glorious visions of the world to which I go._" The claim of celestial illumination was made by her throughout her entire life and in the hour of death, but just what were her last words is very uncertain. At her death-bed the bystanders beheld her already in glory; to one she appeared in the midst of angels, another saw floating over her head a heavenly light that descended and hovered about her,[48] another discovered spiritual beings clothed in white entering her cell, another saw a white dove fly from her mouth up to heaven, while at the same time a dead tree near the sacred spot suddenly burst into the fullness of bloom.[49] After her death she appeared to a nun and said that she had not died of disease, but of the intolerable fire of divine love. _Salazar: "Anamuesis Sanctorum Hispanorum."_ [48] The luminous faces and bodies of martyrs and saints are common enough in the chronicles of mediaeval miracles. Some modern physicians think there were physiological causes for the strange and, at the time, startling phenomena. Bartholin, in his treatise "De Luce Hominum et Brutorum" (1647), gives an account of an Italian lady whom he designates as "mulier splendens," whose body shone with phosphoric radiations when gently rubbed with dry linen; and Dr. Kane, in his last voyage to the polar regions, witnessed almost as remarkable a case of phosphorescence. A few cases are recorded by Sir H. Marsh, Professor Donovan and other undoubted authorities, in which the human body, shortly before death, has presented a pale, luminous appearance. On the eve of St. Alcuin's death (May 19th, 804), the entire monastery was enveloped in a mysterious light, so that many thought the building was on fire. The soul of the saint was seen to ascend in the form of a dove, and the spectators heard celestial music in the air.--_Early Superstitions._ The soul of St. Engelbert while going up to heaven was so bright that St. Hermann mistook it for the moon. Andrew Jackson Davis (the "Poughkeepsie Seer") records that while in the clairvoyant condition he saw the entire process of the soul's disengagement from the body.--"_The Great Harmonia_," _vol._ I, _p._ 163.