[f. VISION sb.]
1. One who has, or professes to have, visions; a professed visionary.
1665. J. Spencer, Vulg. Proph., 43. The many gross fallacies put, even upon wise men, by such frequent Visionists.
1666. Bp. S. Parker, Free & Impart. Censure (1667), 66. We are so far from attaining any certain and real knowledge of Incorporeal Beings (of an acquaintance with which these Visionists [sc. Platonists] do boast).
1700. Hickes, Lett. to Pepys, 19 June, P.’s Diary (Chandos), 696. I asked this question, to know … whether these Second-Sight folks were Seers or Visionists.
1727. De Foe, Syst. Magic, iii. Wks. 1840, XII. 312. This Jacob Behemen … was a kind of visionist. He pretended to see things invisible.
1809. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., XXVIII. 188. Joanna Southcott, a fanatical visionist of the present day.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 185. The visionist had deeper thoughts and more concealed feelings than these rhapsodical phantoms.
1877. J. A. Chalmers, Life Tiyo Soga, xviii. (1878), 347. The third class is that of dreamers or visionists, who discover the nature of the disease.
2. One who supports the view that the Biblical account of creation was revealed to the writer in a vision or series of visions.
1888. A. Cave, Inspir. O. Test., iii. 129. A third class, the Visionists, also maintain the literal character of the days mentioned…. In their view the days … refer to … the actual days of the revelation of the creation.
