Everyone is guided by the voices of people in our lives--grandparents, parents, teachers, pastors, friends. Their words are woven into our life's fabric and influence how we live and the choices we make. As Christians, we are blessed also to hear the amazing voices of those who lived centuries ago--the voices found in Scripture. Author James W. Moore says, "When faced with choices and decisions, when trying to sort out priorities, when my heart is sad or glad, when challenges and problems thrust themselves into my life, when I need a word of assurance, or when faced with a new opportunity, I hear the voice of Jesus, I hear the voice of Mary, I hear the voices of Abraham and Micah and Esther and the apostle Paul and many other biblical voices whispering (or shouting!) to me powerful words that shape and direct my life." I Hear Voices...and That's a Good Thing! celebrates the voices of the Bible who continue, every day, to strengthen and encourage us when we not only hear but listen to them.

Everyone is guided by the voices of people in our lives--grandparents, parents, teachers, pastors, friends. Their words are woven into our life's fabric and influence how we live and the choices we make. As Christians, we are blessed also to hear the amazing voices of those who lived centuries ago--the voices found in Scripture. Author James W. Moore says, "When faced with choices and decisions, when trying to sort out priorities, when my heart is sad or glad, when challenges and problems thrust themselves into my life, when I need a word of assurance, or when faced with a new opportunity, I hear the voice of Jesus, I hear the voice of Mary, I hear the voices of Abraham and Micah and Esther and the apostle Paul and many other biblical voices whispering (or shouting!) to me powerful words that shape and direct my life." I Hear Voices...and That's a Good Thing! celebrates the voices of the Bible who continue, every day, to strengthen and encourage us when we not only hear but listen to them.

Provides the evidence to show it's possible to overcome problems with hearing voices and take back control of one's life.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781472453983, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Experiences of hearing the voice of God (or angels, demons, or other spiritual beings) have generally been understood either as religious experiences or else as a feature of mental illness. Some critics of traditional religious faith have dismissed the visions and voices attributed to biblical characters and saints as evidence of mental disorder. However, it is now known that many ordinary people, with no other evidence of mental disorder, also hear voices and that these voices not infrequently include spiritual or religious content. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of "hearing voices" than ever before. The present work considers biblical, historical, and scientific accounts of spiritual and mystical experiences of voice hearing in the Christian tradition in order to explore how some voices may be understood theologically as revelatory. It is proposed that in the incarnation, Christian faith finds both an understanding of what it is to be fully human (a theological anthropology), and God’s perfect self-disclosure (revelation). Within such an understanding, revelatory voices represent a key point of interpersonal encounter between human beings and God.

The experience of 'hearing voices', once associated with lofty prophetic communications, has fallen low. Today, the experience is typically portrayed as an unambiguous harbinger of madness caused by a broken brain, an unbalanced mind, biology gone wild. Yet an alternative account, forged predominantly by people who hear voices themselves, argues that hearing voices is an understandable response to traumatic life-events. There is an urgent need to overcome the tensions between these two ways of understanding 'voice hearing'. Simon McCarthy-Jones considers neuroscience, genetics, religion, history, politics and not least the experiences of many voice hearers themselves. This enables him to challenge established and seemingly contradictory understandings and to create a joined-up explanation of voice hearing that is based on evidence rather than ideology.

Did You Hear That? Help for Children Who Hear Voices is about five very different children who share one thing in common — hearing voices and seeing things that are not there.Susie is a 9-year-old who keeps her challenges with auditory and visual hallucinations a secret until a teacher alerts her parents of her difficulties at school. With compassion, empathy, love and understanding, Susie's parents encourage her to see a counselor. Susie builds trust and rapport with her counselor, which finally allows her to share her well-guarded secret. After divulging what has been troubling her for years, with her counselor's help, she discovers that she is not the only one in the world who struggles with voices.Susie then introduces readers to four other children of different ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, talents and interests who also hear voices. All of the children share with readers their challenges with voices and personal life circumstances that contributed to them hearing voices. Then they go on to speak about their personal choices regarding what role they want voices to have in their lives and how counselors helped them achieve their individual goals.Did You Hear That? is a beautifully illustrated practical therapeutic storybook for psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health practitioners treating children with auditory and visual hallucinations. While it normalizes the experience and assists children in seeking professional help, it is also an easy to understand and user-friendly guide for concerned parents, teachers, pediatricians and allied health professionals.