One day in 1425 CE in Domremy, France a 13 year old girl claimed to have visions of Saint Catherine, Saint Michael, and Saint Margaret while in her Father’s garden that instructed her to drive the English from France and see that the dauphin (eldest son) was crowned King at Rheims.
At age 17 she appeared at the Royal Court in Chinon to explain her position. They laughed her away at first, but Joan was able to tell of a French defeat related to the siege of Orleans before anyone could have known, demonstrating she had divine abilities.
Eventually she succeeded in leading the army and turning around the French defeats in several battles, breaking the seven month siege of Orleans in only 7 days. After succeeding in crowning Charles VII as King, he ordered her to Burgundy rather than Paris where she wanted to press forward. She was captured and charged with 70 counts, including witchcraft, heresy and dressing like a man and burned at the stake. Afraid of her growing power, Charles VII made no attempt to negotiate her release.
There are numerous stories throughout history and religions referring to visions, prophesies and rationally unexplainable phenomena having a great influence over governments, wars and important decisions.
Though our current society values only the material and what can be seen and touched with the senses, with greater instability and change we will be moving more and more into a greater reverence for the value of magic, premonition, psychic innerstanding and the ethereal.
In Tibetan Tantra, a Tertön is a revealer of spiritual treasures (terma) hidden by Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal for the benefit of future generations. Many tertöns are considered incarnations of the 25 main disciples of Padmasambhava.