Terms such as paranoia, narcissism, and exhibitionism suggest how powerfully visual experience, both directed and received, can be tied to our psychological processes... Vision has been frequently linked by psychologists to the "normal" emotions of desire, curiosity, hostility, and fear. The remarkable ability of images originally construed as mimetic representations or aesthetic ornaments to be transformed into totemic objects of worship in their own right also bespeaks vision's power to evoke hypnotic fascination...
All excellent example of its (vision) power can be discerned in no less central a human phenomenon than religion. From the primitive importance of the sacred fire to the frequency of sun-worship in more developed religions... and the sophisticated metaphysics of light in the most advanced theologies, the ocular presence in a wide variety of religious practices has been striking...
No less symptomatic of the power of the optical in religion is the tendency of the visionary tradition to posit a higher sight to the seer, who is able to discern a truth denied to normal vision. Here is so-called third eye of the soul is invoked to compensate for the imperfections of the two physical eyes. Often physical blindness is given sacred significance, even if at times as a punishment for transgressions against the gods.
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