1장
When Sight Fades, Life Transforms
Imagine waking up one day to discover that your visual world is slowly fading away, like a photograph gradually losing its colors and definition until only darkness remains. This was the reality for John M. Hull, a professor of religious education who documented his journey into blindness with extraordinary precision and philosophical depth. "Touching the Rock" isn't just another inspirational tale of overcoming adversity-it's a profound meditation on consciousness itself, exploring how the loss of sight fundamentally transforms one's relationship with reality, identity, and even spirituality. The book has become required reading in psychology and disability studies programs worldwide, with Oliver Sacks calling it "the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness" he had ever read. Hull's work has influenced artists, musicians, and filmmakers, including the award-winning documentary "Notes on Blindness" (2016). What makes this account so powerful is that Hull wasn't born blind but lost his sight gradually in his forties, allowing him to document the psychological transition from being "a sighted person who could not see" to becoming "a blind person" with remarkable self-awareness.
2장
The Descent into Darkness
The summer of 1983 marked Hull's complete descent into blindness, when the final traces of light perception faded entirely. After three years as a registered blind person, he could no longer distinguish day from night or perceive even the faintest flicker of sunshine. This transition created profound disorientation in every aspect of his life.
His dreams remained vividly pictorial despite his blindness, creating a strange cognitive dissonance. Six months earlier, he'd dreamed his sight improved enough to see his son Thomas-a cheerful two-and-a-half-year-old whose birth coincided with Hull's final eye operation. This timing created a poignant connection, as Thomas's age served as a constant reminder of how long Hull had been blind.
The loss of visual cues transformed Hull's relationship with weather. For sighted people, a "nice day" means clear blue skies and sunshine. For Hull, wind replaced the sun as the primary weather indicator-a mild breeze brought his environment to life through sound. The rustling leaves, paper blowing along pavements, and wind against buildings created a sensory landscape completely different from visual perception. Even thunder became exciting by giving a sense of space and distance, placing a "roof" over his head where before there was nothing.
Perhaps most distressing was the gradual fading of facial memories. During his first years of blindness, people fell into two groups: those with faces and those without. People he knew before losing sight had faces; those he'd met since didn't. Strangely, he retained clearer images of people he hadn't seen in years than those he met daily. With daily contacts, evolving relationships had partly covered the portrait, making visual memory less important. He was distressed to realize he was forgetting what his wife Marilyn and daughter Imogen looked like, having sworn to defy blindness by keeping their faces in his heart. For his younger children, he had visual memories of Imogen, vague impressions of Thomas from his first months, and no images at all of Elizabeth.
This loss extended to his own appearance. Looking in a mirror one day, he realized with shock that he could not remember what he looked like. He wondered if losing the image of his face connected to losing the image of his self, explaining why he often felt like a mere spirit, a ghost, a memory. Other people had become disembodied voices speaking from nowhere, and perhaps he'd become the same-having lost his body.
3장
Navigating a New Reality
Blindness forced Hull to develop entirely new ways of experiencing and navigating the world. One of the most remarkable adaptations was what blind people call "facial vision"-the ability to detect objects without touching them. Hull noticed that while walking home across campus, he could sense obstacles-particularly tree trunks-from two to five feet away. By waving his cane to verify, he realized he was developing a strange perception that increased over months. Eventually, he could detect thinner objects like lampposts and sense obstacles from six to eight feet away.
The experience was extraordinary-like physical pressure making him want to protect himself. It felt like awareness of stillness where there should be openness, a vague solidity centered in his head but extending to shoulders and arms. Though apparently acoustic, based on echoes, Hull wasn't conscious of listening-the pressure felt on his facial skin, explaining the older term "facial vision."
Rain became a source of extraordinary beauty and orientation. "Rain brings out the contours of everything," Hull observed, "throwing a colored blanket over previously invisible things." Instead of an intermittent, fragmented world, steady rainfall created continuous acoustic experience. He could hear it pattering on the roof, dripping down walls, splashing from the drainpipe, falling softly on leafy shrubs, drumming deeper on lawns. Through these sounds, he could make out the lawn's contours rising in a little hill from the changing sound. Each surface created distinct acoustics-concrete path, drumming lawn, sodden bush-presenting the fullness of an entire situation all at once.
"If only rain could fall inside rooms," Hull lamented, "it would help me understand where things are, giving a sense of being in the space instead of just sitting on a chair." This experience was one of great beauty for him. The world, normally veiled until touched, suddenly disclosed itself through sound. "The rain is gracious," he wrote, "granting me the gift of the world."
Learning to "see" through his white cane became another crucial adaptation, though one that sighted people struggled to understand. People naturally assumed his head was what he used to see with, failing to grasp the implications that he was "seeing" through the cane. Sometimes when being led, people would lift his arm so his cane didn't touch the ground. More commonly, they'd grab the cane itself, pointing and tapping with it saying "There." Hull would gently explain that unless he was holding the cane himself, he couldn't receive the information he needed.
Most regarded the white cane as a walking stick for support, not immediately recognizing it as an instrument of sense perception-his way of gathering information about the world.
4장
The Psychological Journey
Hull's journey into blindness wasn't merely physical but profoundly psychological. His dreams revealed much about his inner struggle, often featuring imagery of sinking, drowning, or being trapped. In one particularly haunting dream, he found himself on a sinking ship, clinging to the upper part while another vessel receded into the distance. There was a terrible feeling of the enormous weight of the waterlogged vessel going down into deep-green murky depths, getting darker, colder, and more silent.
"My mind was consumed with knowledge of that irresistible weight dragging everything down," Hull wrote, "while the freedom, light and speed of the other ship receded." He interpreted this dream as representing his separation from the sighted world-his family and he were stranded, increasingly cut off. They were immobile, waterlogged, being dragged down into something unimaginable from which there would be no return.
Hull's first experience of blindness-related panic came in December 1981 while preparing to travel to Cambridge. Walking alone in bitter cold, he became intensely aware of moving through nothingness, feeling he was entering an endless tunnel of cold from which he couldn't return. Overwhelmed by fear, he retreated home. Later, he experienced similar panic during prescribed oil baths for his skin-feeling enclosed, nothing but a body floating in space, desperately counting minutes until he could escape.
A persistent image returned: being trapped in a coal-truck moving deeper into a mountain, watching the circle of daylight at the tunnel entrance shrink until completely entombed in darkness, unable to escape or orient himself, trapped in an intolerable hiding place.
The question of whether to accept blindness became a spiritual crisis. "To accept blindness feels like death," Hull wrote, "as if my will to resist would be broken, while refusing to accept a fact seems futile." His solution was finding contentment in little answers-carefully planning each day into compartments, breaking hours into particular skills and routines that allowed small accomplishments. Otherwise, he'd be overwhelmed by pointless desolation, that subconscious weight of being dragged deeper into darkness.
He fought this by minute steps-not trying to get home but reaching the next block, not recovering encyclopedic knowledge but finding one word's meaning, not reading a whole book but finishing just one page. A Catholic priest's wisdom resonated with him: at day's end, kneeling at his cluttered desk, the priest would pray, "Lord, if there has been anything in this day's work which is of lasting worth, it is Yours."
5장
Beyond Light and Darkness
As Hull's journey continued, he began to discover profound spiritual insights through his blindness. The biblical passage "Darkness and light are both alike to thee" (Psalm 139:12) took on new meaning. When his son Thomas asked for the light to be turned on in a room where they were playing, explaining "Thomas needs the light. Daddy doesn't need the light," Hull reflected that there was a strange sense in which he had become like God-transcending the distinction between darkness and light.
This insight developed into a deeper spiritual understanding. "Psalm 139 is a meditation about knowledge," Hull wrote. "God knows my posture without touching me-'Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up.' This is like the strange power sighted people have of knowing things at a distance." God's knowledge transcends the distinction between blindness and sight.
As a blind person, Hull had to be spoken to or touched to be acknowledged, unlike the sighted who exchange glances. He developed the habit of shaking hands using both his hands, extending acknowledgment to compensate for his inability to receive smiles. The divine presence makes every place alike, for all places are known to God. There are no degrees of divine presence because there are no degrees of divine knowledge.
"Because I am never in the light, I am equally never in the darkness," Hull realized. "I have no fear of darkness because I know nothing else. Nobody can turn the lights out on me. So it is with God-indifferent alike to both light and darkness."
Hull found that the transforming power came not through mere acceptance but through praise. "I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful." As a blind person sitting on the beach, he'd poured sand through his fingers, feeling the various textures-some coarse and sharp, some smooth and silky. He knew that with sight he could see the sweep of the beach for miles around the bay. This beach was just one of thousands, and there were probably thousands of people doing exactly what he was doing. "So are the divine thoughts-countless as grains of sand. My body holds them one by one, while I myself am held like a grain upon God's hand."
6장
Redefining Time and Space
Blindness fundamentally altered Hull's perception of time and space. For the blind person, time becomes the medium of activities rather than something to fight against. He moved at a measured pace-it took exactly twenty-two minutes to walk from his door to his office, and he couldn't rush this journey without risking disorientation. When he had sight, he would work feverishly to correct forty footnotes in a morning; after losing vision, he was content with ten, thinking, "Good, that's ten done" rather than lamenting his slower pace.
"All severe disabilities seem to lead to decreased space but increased time," Hull observed, comparing his experience to a friend with multiple sclerosis who took 45 minutes to tie his shoelaces without impatience. When you have abundant time, you experience time-inflation-each hour costs more because tasks take longer, yet paradoxically becomes less valuable.
The world of sound created a rich, varied panorama of movement and information that differed fundamentally from the tangible world. While touch restricted him to exploring one thing at a time with his body, sound placed him within a complete environment. Sitting in a park, he absorbed a symphony of activity-footsteps of different people walking at various paces, newspaper rustling, car doors slamming, wild fowl on the lake, children playing, the wind in trees.
Yet this acoustic world existed only through action-where nothing happened, there was silence and that part of the world disappeared. It wasn't a world of being but of becoming. Things sprang suddenly into existence rather than gradually approaching. He remained passive while the world had to actively announce itself to him. Unlike the visual world that changes as you turn your head, the acoustic world remained largely the same regardless of his position, creating an environment that surrounded him completely but which he couldn't control or explore at will.
For the blind person, position is measured by time, not by objects passed. This temporal experience extended to how Hull perceived people too. While sighted people experience others as having constant presence in space, for him, people existed only when they spoke. They appeared and disappeared without warning-a voice suddenly addressed him, a hand unexpectedly grabbed him. He could not anticipate or prepare for these encounters. Unlike sighted people who could choose whom to approach, he was passive, being visited by others who "came out of nothing" and then vanished.
7장
The Social Dimension of Blindness
Hull's blindness profoundly affected his social interactions and relationships. At conferences, he noticed that sighted people often didn't know the names of others in the room despite recognizing their faces. For sighted people, a person's visual image forms the core around which all other information clusters. For Hull, however, knowing someone hung entirely upon knowing their name, just as he had to know street names to navigate.
To regain initiative in social situations, he developed techniques. When wanting to change conversation partners, he would ask the person he was with to look around and take him to someone else. Rather than requesting a specific person who might not be present, he would ask, "Can you see anybody you know?" This allowed him to meet many people during a brief coffee break, though the effectiveness varied greatly depending on his helper's social intuition.
Hull also documented the infantilizing treatment blind people often receive. Someone once offered him mints, then mentioned they'd planned to give them to "the next child" they met. At a formal dinner, a woman cut up his chicken, comparing it to helping "a handicapped child." Even his rail ticket, purchased with a disabled person's concession, was labeled "Child" while his eleven-year-old daughter's read "Flat Rate Fare."
The "does he take sugar?" approach-speaking about a disabled person in the third person-was particularly humiliating. At church, a verger asked Hull's wife if it was "John's wish" to go forward for communion while he stood right there. When friends discussed where to "put" him in a car as if he weren't present, he loudly protested, "John is not put anywhere! John is asked if he has preferences!"
Being blind created a paradoxical dynamic. Hull was either marginalized or dominated social situations without intending to. People fussed around him, preparing for his arrival, making agreements about him. He became an object of curiosity with all eyes fixed on him when entering a room. Finding a middle ground-being treated normally when he wasn't "normal"-seemed impossible. The irony was that his very powerlessness gave him power over others. He flustered people, reduced them to confusion, covered them with uncertainty and embarrassment.
8장
Fatherhood in Darkness
Perhaps the most poignant aspect of Hull's account is his struggle to be a father without sight. His son Thomas, just three years old when Hull completely lost vision, had to learn special ways to interact with his blind father. Since Thomas was tiny, Hull had trained him in "Show Daddy"-not meaning "surrender it" but "put what you've got into my hand and you'll get it straight back." With books, he'd ask "Is there a car?" and if Thomas said yes, Hull would say "Show Daddy," and Thomas would place his finger on the picture.
Thomas understood that his father "saw" with his fingers. He knew what braille was and which books were his father's. Once pointing to his book, he remarked "Daddy can't read this" and then to a braille label, "Thomas can't read that." He once asked if his father "came in like that" while jabbing his finger in the air, mimicking his white cane movements.
As Thomas grew older, he continued checking what blindness meant for their relationship. While sitting on Hull's knee coloring a dinosaur book, he asked if his father would like to color too. When Hull explained he couldn't see the edges, Thomas observed, "But I can colour because I can see the edges, because I'm not blind." After coloring silently for a moment, he turned and asked, "Can you only talk?"
Hull laughed and replied, "I can talk and I can listen."
"Yes!" Thomas said brightly.
"And I can tickle."
He agreed.
"And I can shout, listen." Hull gave an enormous bellow that delighted him.
Eventually, Thomas suggested, "Look, Daddy. You can colour like this." He placed a crayon in his father's fingers and guided his hand. Hull suggested he hold his wrist to move him around, and he made rapid circular motions to shade the dinosaur. This pleased them both tremendously.
Hull's younger daughter Lizzie also had profound insights about her father's condition. When Hull told her that nothing would restore his sight, she exclaimed passionately that blindness is "not very nice." Despite his assurances that worse things exist, she burst out: "It's like going down and down and down to the bottom of a very very deep well where you can never get out, like in the castle." She was referring to a deep well that had frightened her at Ludlow Castle. Her insight into the blind condition was remarkable-the horror of receding light, going deeper down, the revulsion at irretrievable loss and feeling trapped forever.
9장
The Gift of Darkness
In the final stages of Hull's journey, he began to contemplate whether blindness might be understood as a kind of gift-a thought he initially resisted. "If blindness is a gift," he wrote, "I would have to accept it-something I've refused to do." Yet he wondered if blindness could be a dark, paradoxical gift offering a purified way of life. If blindness was a gift, it wasn't one he would wish on anybody, nor one he wanted to receive-but one he could not help accepting.
The turning point came during Mass in Montreal's Notre Dame Cathedral. As the famous organ filled the space with powerful music, Hull found himself saying, "I accept the gift." He felt in God's presence, sensing He had drawn near to inspect His handiwork, almost hesitantly. "I felt He had thrown His cloak of darkness around me and now sought reassurance that everything was alright. 'It's all right,' I was saying, 'you can go now.'"
When he received communion, he thought how the wafer is also a strange gift-broken, and breaking those who eat it. "As long as I have His bread within me and His cloak around me, I will live in Him, and He in me."
By the fifth anniversary of his final eye operation, Hull could trace his journey through distinct stages. First came hope, lasting about eighteen months until summer 1981, with occasional flickers persisting through 1982 while he could still see some lights and shapes. Second was a period of practical problem-solving from summer 1981 to 1984, creating workable systems when blindness was primarily a challenge to overcome. The third stage began late 1983-a year of despair with terrible dreams and the feeling of being carried deeper into blindness.
Since autumn 1984, he'd entered a fourth stage. His brain no longer constantly hurt with the pain of blindness. Denied external stimuli, it had turned inward to find resources. He felt clearer, more intellectually excited and adventurous than ever before-connecting more, remembering more, making links between things he'd learned.
Hull concluded that blindness is a paradoxical world-both independent and dependent. He no longer thought of himself as lacking something, but as a "whole-body-seer" where sight had devolved upon his entire body rather than specializing in one organ. This was an authentic human condition, like being young or old, male or female. Yet blindness was also dependent-somewhere, there is always someone with eyes.
His way of resolving this tension was religious-he believed God is a trans-world reality, Lord of every state, of both light and darkness. "If in God's light we see light," Hull wrote, "then in God's darkness we see darkness. This is why I journey not through darkness, but into it."
10장
When Words Become Worlds
Hull's remarkable ability to articulate his experience transformed our understanding of blindness. Rather than a simple absence of sight, he revealed blindness as an entirely different mode of being-with its own rules, challenges, and unexpected beauties. Through his meticulous observations, Hull showed how the loss of one sense reshapes not just perception but consciousness itself.
For the newly blind, rain creates a world of sound that reveals the contours of everything. Wind brings landscapes to life in ways the sighted rarely notice. Touch becomes not just functional but beautiful-the texture of wood, the weight of stone, the warmth of a child's hand all take on new significance. Time expands while space contracts, creating a fundamentally different relationship with reality.
Most profoundly, Hull demonstrated how disability can become a pathway to spiritual insight. His journey "into darkness" rather than through it revealed parallels between blindness and religious experience-both requiring surrender, both teaching lessons about what truly matters, both revealing how much of what we consider essential is actually peripheral.
Through Hull's eyes that no longer saw, we gain a clearer vision of what it means to be human. His testimony stands as a profound exploration of consciousness itself-how we know, how we connect, how we find meaning when the familiar world disappears. In touching the rock of his blindness, Hull discovered not just limitations but new possibilities, not just loss but transformation.
