In less extreme types, perpetual dwelling on this subject, together with that eager emotional desire to be united with the sufferings of the Redeemer which mediaeval religion encouraged, frequently modified the whole life of the contemplative; shaping the plastic mind, and often the body too, to its own mould.

A good historic example of this law of religious suggestibility is the case of Julian of Norwich.

As a young girl, Julian prayed that she might have an illness at thirty years of age, and also a closer knowledge of Christ's pains.

She forgot the prayer: but it worked below the threshold as forgotten suggestions often do, and when she was thirty the illness came.

Its psychic origin can still be recognized in her own candid account of it; and with the illness the other half of that dynamic prayer received fulfilment, in those well-known visions of the Passion to which we owe the "Revelations of Divine Love."[99] This is simply a striking instance of a process which is always taking place in every one of us, for good or evil.