Have you ever wondered what it was like to live the life of the medieval nun, writer, and composer Hildegard von Bingen? Psychic medium Gretchen Vogel decided to find out.
Hildegard of Bingen (c. 1098–1179) was a Benedictine Abbess who was also a renowned writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, healer, and one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony. Recently, psychic medium Gretchen Vogel had a channeled conversation with this astonishingly accomplished woman.
Here is what was said.
I asked to speak with Hildegard and immediately find myself in a monastery chapel. The windows are open to let in the summer air and we can hear the sounds of birds chirping outside. The landscape feels dry but the condensation on the walls make it feel damp inside.
Hildegard has arranged for us to sit in the very back of the chapel. She indicates to me that she wants us to face each other, and then places two chairs in the area where the choir goes up to the loft. I feel she composed music in this chapel, upstairs near the organ.
Even if I knew German or French, which I feel she was fluent in, she tells me she spoke a different dialect of these languages during her lifetime than what is spoken today, so she communicates with me not by voice but telepathically. She then says she was also fluent in Latin; quite a brilliant woman.
Life as a Nun
Due to the receptivity of the feminine brain, Hildegard says that in her day, women often received visions.
But she also says that women of her time worked like dogs.
Because of this, the contemplative life was better suited to her. Not that she shunned work, she explains, but she didn’t want to be exhausted by managing children, husband, and a household, which she believed would have prevented her from being fully creative. So despite the stringent requirements of prayer and the lack of sleep, she chose the life of a nun. And it worked; the freedom to pray and meditate each day led to an incredibly fertile mind.
She said, however, that since her visions, writing, and music was more important to her than her religious community, and since she was so self sufficient, she experienced a lot of jealousy and infighting amongst her fellow sisters. But when she was elevated to Abbess she was given her own room, so she was able to isolate herself when she required space.
She told me that she is tremendously impressed that her work is still honored, as so many women geniuses over the centuries to this day remain overlooked. She then said that although women have been dishonored and disrespected throughout history, ironically, such poor treatment often just serves to strengthen a woman's resolve.
I then asked how she received her visions. She said she would ask questions and then would receive answers through music or voices. But sometimes she did not understand the messages and insights she received, especially when it had to do with molecules, the universe, or how things worked on the atomic level.
In fact, sometimes the visions were so bizarre that she would worry she was going crazy. To calm herself she would just try to remain in, as she described, "reverence, awe, and rapture."
For more information about Hildegard's life and visions, click here.
For more information about psychic medium and author Gretchen Vogel, click here.