For six years did Sakyamuni wander in the forest, practising the mortifications of the flesh and combatting the temptations of the devil,before[TN-8] the final night when, after overcoming the crowning enticements of beauty, power and wealth, at a certain moment he became the “awakened,” and knew himself in all his previous births, and with that knowledge soared above the “divine illusion” of existence. In the cave of Hari, Mohammed fasted and prayed until “the night of the divine decisions;” then he saw the angel Gabriel approach and inspire him: “A revelation was revealed to him: One terrible in power taught it him, Endowed with wisdom. With firm step stood he, There, where the horizon is highest, Then came he near and nearer, A matter of two bowshots or closer, And he revealed to his servant a revelation; He has falsified not what he saw.”[147-1] With not dissimilar preparation did George Fox seek the “openings” which revealed to him the hollowness of the Christianity of his day, in contrast to the truth he found. In his _Journal_ he records that for months he “fasted much, walked around in solitary places, and sate in hollow trees and lonesome places, and frequently in the night walked mournfully about.” When the word of truth came to him it was of a sudden, “through the immediate opening of the invisible spirit.” Then a new life commenced for him: “Now was I come up in Spirit through the flaming sword into the Paradise of God. All things were new: all the creation gave another smell unto me than before.” The healing virtues of all herbs were straightway made known to him, and the needful truths about the kingdom of God.[147-2] These are portraitures of the condition of _entheasm_. Its lineaments are the same, find it where we may. How is this similarity to be explained? Is it that this alleged inspiration is always but the dream of a half-crazed brain? The deep and real truths it has now and then revealed, the noble results it has occasionally achieved, do not allow this view. A more worthy explanation is at hand. These preliminaries of inspiration are in fact but a parody, sometimes a caricature, of the most intense intellectual action as shown in the efforts of creative thought. The physiological characteristics of such mental episodes indicate a lowering of the animal life, the respiration is faint and slow, the pulse loses in force and frequency, the nerves of special sense are almost inhibited, the eye is fixed and records no impression, the ear registers no sound, necessary motions are performed unconsciously, the condition approaches that of trance. There is also an alarming similarity at times between the action of genius and of madness, as is well known to alienists.