The author investigates Jewish literature in which angels disclose divine secrets to humans through dreams, visions, and locutions. Only some of these texts envision the catastrophic end of the world. The author uses psychoanalytic insights to answer two questions: were the texts based on visionary experiences? If so, how were the visions produced? He argues that the visions involve the induction of ecstasy through exaggerated mourning. He concludes that the mechanism involved in this altered psychic state is accomplished by manipulation of the "bipolar structure of the superego."