Why Physical Phenomena?
Why, then, doesn’t God give all His messages at night in prophetic dreams, in the privacy of the prophet’s bedchamber? Why does He sometimes give His messages in daylight hours? Ellen White occasionally received visions before an audience of many, in an “open vision of the day,” with dramatic, spectacular physical phenomena.GVEGW 34.2
Arthur L. White, secretary of the White Estate for nearly half a century (1938-1978) and grandson of the prophetess, pondered this anomaly. He suggests why physical phenomena predominate in the early experience of a prophet:GVEGW 34.3
“Such phenomenal exhibitions in connection with the early visions had a definite place in establishing the confidence of the believers in their divine origin before there was opportunity for the development of fruit by which the claims of the Lord’s messenger might be judged.” 47Arthur L. White, Messenger to the Remnant, p. 26.GVEGW 34.4
This correlates with Joel 2:28-32, where we read of young men seeing visions and old men dreaming prophetic dreams. Whether by coincidence or not, this was the way it was in Ellen White’s own experience: in her earlier years the messages came by daytime visions; in the later years they came through prophetic dreams at night.GVEGW 34.5
During the early years the church members, unacquainted with her experience, needed an abundance of immediate, visual (and often visceral!) evidence to alert them to the fact that God was here at work. In her earliest writings one finds frequent reference to “I was shown,” “the angel said,” etc. In the later years, when her prophethood was largely established within the church, the public visions—and the direct references to the supernatural source of their content—became less and less a part of her ministry.GVEGW 34.6
Physical phenomena certainly is impressive. For many in Ellen White’s day it put the capsheaf to individual conviction that her message was truly from God. Daniel T. Bourdeau’s experience is a case in point.GVEGW 34.7
Bourdeau, at 22, was a new believer in the Advent message but not a believer in its prophetess. On June 21, 1857, however, he witnessed Ellen White in vision, and became a true believer! Of this experience he wrote:GVEGW 35.1
“I was an unbeliever in the visions; but one circumstance among others that I might mention convinced me that her visions were of God.GVEGW 35.2
“To satisfy my mind as to whether she breathed or not, I first put my hand on her chest sufficiently long to know that there was no more heaving of the lungs than there would have been had she been a corpse. I then took my hand and placed it over her mouth, pinching her nostrils between my thumb and forefinger, so that it was impossible for her to exhale or inhale air, even if she had desired to do so. I held her thus with my hand about ten minutes, long enough for her to suffocate under ordinary circumstances; she was not in the least affected by this ordeal.GVEGW 35.3
“Since witnessing this wonderful phenomenon, I have not once been inclined to doubt the divine origin of her visions.” 48Cited in RPSDA 97. Arthur White corrects Bourdeau’s inadvertent misstatement of date in 1Bio 357.GVEGW 35.4
But a word of caution is necessary here. Satan, too, is a supernatural being—“the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). Satan can—and does—counterfeit all of the physical phenomena associated with a prophet in a vision! This is why the Seventh-day Adventist Church, from earliest times, has taken the position that physical phenomena are a legitimate evidence that something supernatural is going on, but they are not proof that what is happening is emanating from the Lord!GVEGW 35.5
Physical phenomena do not authenticate the validity of a prophet. Other biblically based tests can and must be applied, according to Mrs. White herself. 49See Roger W. Coon, Heralds of New Light: Another Prophet to the Remnant? (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1987), pp. 13-21.GVEGW 35.6
But two things are certain: (a) Ellen White did not breathe for four hours one Sabbath afternoon in Randolph, Massachusetts, in the winter of 1845-1846, and (b) she did hold a large, heavy Bible in an unsupported outstretched hand during that vision for a considerable length of time. Nor was this the only time she held a large Bible in vision: at least three other instances appear to be historically documented during which this miracle took place, 50Incident 1: Winter 1844-1845, Portland, Maine, Ellen G. White’s third vision, cited in GSAM 236, 237. Incident 2: Winter 1844-1845, Topsham, Maine, cited in GSAM 237, 238. Incident 3: Randolph vision, cited above. Incident 4: August 1848, Hannibal, New York, cited in Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 110-112. Cf. Ron Graybill, “Ellen G. White and the Big Bible,” Insight, Feb. 2, 1985, pp. 8-10. between the winter of 1844-1845 and August 1848.GVEGW 35.7
Some have been troubled that Arthur G. Daniells should have appeared to express doubt about such Bible-holding incidents in 1919. Daniells served the General Conference for the longest period as president (1901-1922); he was an original trustee and the first chairman of the board of the White Estate, and worked closely with Mrs. White from 1878 until her death in 1915. He wrote:GVEGW 36.1
“I do not know whether that [holding a heavy Bible on outstretched arm] was ever done or not. I am not sure. I did not see it, and I do not know that I ever talked with anybody that did see it.... Just how much of that is genuine, and how much has crawled into the story? I do not know.” 51Cited in Spectrum 10 No. 1 (May 1979): 28.GVEGW 36.2
But the last of the four documented Bible-holding incidents took place in 1848, exactly 10 years before Daniells was born. So it is quite understandable why he never witnessed it himself!GVEGW 36.3
But that is not the point: if you read the internal context of Daniells’ entire statement, you quickly discover that his remarks were obviously intended to downplay the use of such miracle stories as proof of a prophet’s authenticity or legitimacy. Evidence that something supernatural is happening? Yes! But proof of authenticity? No! Other tests must be applied. Basically, Daniells was protesting the wrong use of such miracle stories.GVEGW 36.4