STIGMATA AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AND OTHER

PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM.

In honour of Father Herbert H. Thurston, S

A New Horizons Review.

Copyrightt New Horizons Research Foundation March 1987.

INTRODUCTION

Stigmata are "wounds", marks or points of bleeding which simulate the i n j u r i e s of C h r i s t . Stigmatics ( i . e . r e c i p i e n t s of sitgmata) can develop marks corresponding to any or a l l of the p i e r c i n g of hands and feet , the " fer i ta" or lance-wound i n the s ide, the bruise on the shoulder from the weight o f the cross , chafing of wris ts or ankles, weals of scourging and a coronet on the brow (crown of thorns) . A l l i e d to the stigmata i s the "token of espousal" or mystic r i n g , a modi f icat ion of the sk in or f l e sh of the r i n g - f i n g e r of the r i g h t hand (appropriate to a nun's "betrothal", and i f heal ing miracles are omitted, the curious phenomena reported var ious ly of some mystics may be l i s t e d as fo l lows.

P h y s i o l o g i c a l l y expressed phenomena include s t igmat i sat ion , incendium amoria ("flames of love"), incombust ib i l i ty , fragrance, b o d i l y e longation, inedia ( a b i l i t y to survive without food) . Phys io log i ca l p e c u l i a r i t i e s a l leged of the myst ic ' s mortal remains comrpise the a b i l i t y to bleed, i n c o r r u p t i b i l i t y and absence of r i g o r mort i s .

L e v i t a t i o n , i r rad iance , t e l ek ines i s and "miracles of abundance" are c l a s s i f i e d as phys ica l phenomena, but f o r convenience are a lso discussed, though b r i e f l y . Except i n c i d e n t a l l y , we s h a l l not discuss phenomena which appear to be mental occurrences akin to telepathy, c la irvoyance , p r e c o g n i t i o n , or "as tra l project ion" as encountered i n secular parapsychology.

The status of the evidence.

I t i s d i f f i c u l t to r e j e c t a l l the a l leged p h y s i o l o g i c a l and p h y s i c a l phenomena as frauds or f i c t i o u s . Admittedly we can have l i t t l e confidence i n many of the reports, p a r t i c u l a r l y concerning the e lder sa ints where hagiographers have been over-zealous. Saint Vincent F e r r e r (1350-1419) was canonized on the bas is of 873 mirac les , surpassing Moses, E l i j a h , and Jesus combined. Of t h i s saint i t i s said that preaching one day i n the open he stopped a passing funeral procession and temporari ly revived the corpse to bear witness as to the truth of what he was sayingl (Some e c c l e s i a s t i c a l wags said that an even greater miracle was h i s persuading the women of L i g u r i a to abandon t h e i r e s p e c i a l l y ornate head-dresses). The p o s i t i o n has improved of la te as a r e s u l t of modern c r i t i c a l hagiography and the p r i n c i p l e s establ ished by Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758), who stressed that nothing should be ascr ibed to the supernatural i f a na tura l explanation i s poss ib le . Extraordinary phenomena (other than posthumous miracles of healing) are not nowadays required i n proof of hol iness of l i f e , which diminishes the motive f o r a s c r i b i n g wonders to the v ir tuous departed.

The tes ts of evidence i n th i s f i e l d are the same as those i n p s y c h i c a l research or i n h i s t o r i c a l s tudies . As with George Washington's cherry tree , eye witness deposit ions are preferred to hearsay evidence, and should be recorded soon a f t e r the event, with c ircumstant ia l d e t a i l . The value of deposit ions made at processes f o r b e a t i f i c a t i o n or canonization i s sometimes but not usua l ly reduced by the lapse of time between the death o f the candidate and the enquiry. Many of the hearings of the Congregation o f Ri tes concerning the b e a t i f i c a t i o n or canonization of holy persons are extremely de ta i l ed and include a f f i d a v i t s made by very responsible people and have to be treated with considerable respect . The t i t l e Venerable can be conferred^in recognit ion of the c u l t of a departed person which has grown up i n h i s diocese. The t i t l e Beatus or Beata ("The Blessed"), i f approved, w i l l be binding on the whole church, but i s only bestowed by the Pope himself a f t er extensive hearings by the Congregation of R i t e s . Canonization i s the award of the t i t l e Sanctus or Sancta ("Holy"), bestowed s i m i l a r l y . In modern times th i s i s only done a f t e r another longish i n t e r v a l subsequent to the b e a t i f i c a t i o n of the deceased. T y p i c a l i n t e r v a l s a f t e r death are t h i r t y years f o r b e a t i f i c a t i o n and at l eas t f i f t y f o r canonization, though there are exceptions, such as the ear ly canonization of the " l i t t l e Theresa", Saint Theresa of L i s i e u x whose book, published posthumously, gained e a r l y and widespread popular i ty , so that the supporters of her'cause'had both popular support and a good supply of funds (mecessary f o r the work of investogat ion, f ind ing witnesses, and sending them to Rome).

Interpretation and Categor izat ion .

There i s however one d i f f i c u l t y i n the way of r e l i a b l e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , i n c o n t r a d i s t i n c t i o n as to determination of a u t h e n t i c i t y . This i s the shortage of data of a comparative type from other r e l i g i o n s , although i t i s known that there are groups with myst ica l t r a d i t i o n s within Islam, i n Ind ia , and poss ib ly i n the Orthodox C h r i s t i a n churches. Unfortunately l i t t l e i s known o f t h e i r phenomena. Few data ex i s t i n the Protestant world, because Protestants , i t seems, are l e ss given to mysticism. Almost a l l the ava i lab le mater ia l worthy of study occurs i n the Roman Catho l i c sphere. Non-Catholic students ( inc luding the present writers) have to overcome a l o f t y b a r r i e r of i n i t i a l sceptism? p a r t l y s c i e n t i f i c doubt, and p a r t l y a legacy o f the Lutheran react ion against the contemplative l i f e and the c u l t of sa in t s . But i t i s wrong to suppose that i n t e l l i g e n t Catho l i c s (to whom we are indebted for searching f a c t u a l and c r i t i c a l studies) have a l l been g u l l i b l e . Even i n the th ir teenth century, many

e c c l e s i a s t i c a l a u t h o r i t i e s would bear heavi ly on mystics suspected of fraud or love of no tor i e ty . (Generally speaking i t i s eas ier f o r Roman Catho l i c mystics to have t h e i r honesty accepted a f t e r death than while they are l i v i n g . S i m i l a r l y the Vat ican , although f o r some centuries disapproving of p o l i t i c a l democracy, has i n the matter of sanct i ty a tendency to accept the maxim Vox p o p u l i , vox d e i , and to recognise the hol iness of those deceased r e l i g i o u s f o r whom the masses "vote with t h e i r feet", as evidenced by the numbers of p i l gr ims to the shrines i n quest ion. Thus i t must be admitted that poss ib ly a l l hearings before the Congregation of Rites are not of equal r i g o r . None-the-less we f e e l that the majori ty of these'processes' have to be taken ser ious ly i n regard to the truthfulness and o b j e c t i v i t y of the witnesses) .

Returning to the problem of in t erpre ta t ion we should say that we, the authors^operate ourselves within the system of categor izat ion o f strange occurrences sketched i n our companion paper (Miracles and Healing M i r a c l e s ) . We character ize a phenomenon as "probably normal" i f on balance, a f t e r considering the evidence and comparing i t with p a r a l l e l phenomena i n other f i e l d s of enquiry, i t seems that there i s a reasonable prima fac i e case f o r regarding that type of phenomenon as generated by normal causes even i f these and t h e i r modus operandi are not as yet f u l l y known or understood. We use the term paranormal to r e f e r to phenomena which, i f they d id not occur, i n a r e l i g i o u s context would be immediately c l a s s i f i e d as "parapsychological" or as f a l l i n g within the sphere of "psychic research". Such happenings are p o l t e r g e i s t type events such as b e f e l l Padre Pio Forgione i n h i s ear ly years and the Cure' o f Ars during most of h i s l i f e , also the "reading of hearts", i . e . knowledge of people's thoughts and f ee l ings as exhibi ted by both the p r i e s t s we have mentioned, and which i n a secular sphere we would c a l l telepathy or "psychic s e n s i t i v i t y " , " i n the present essay we do not i n fac t have reason to ass ign phenomena to other presumptive categories such as the "supernatural". Of course we do not claim any f i n a l i t y of judgement. Unlike many groups extant today we do not claim our v e r d i c t s to be other than p r o v i s i o n a l , temporary, and unendowed with unfa nihility. (En passant i t i s worth saying that i t i s not only the Papacy that claims i n f a l l i b i l i t y but c e r t a i n s e l f - c a l l e d "humanist" groups, such as PSICOP that are not only more dogmatic than the Vat ican but are more far -reach ing i n t h e i r c la ims) .

We should also say that in terpre ta t ions of r e l i g i o u s phenomena do not cast aspersions on the s i n c e r i t y or genuine r e l i g i o u s dedicat ion of the persons concerned. To a l l o f

them we could say, l i k e K i p l i n g , that, i n cer ta in respects at l ea s t , "You're a bet ter man than I am".

M y s t i c a l prayer.

Many of the problems connected with an i n t e l l e c t u a l acceptance of the object ive r e a l i t y of the phenomena of mysticism may be a l l e v i a t e d by the recognit ion that mysticism involves psycholog ica l and behavioural tendencies which are f a r removed from the world of everyday l i f e i n which most of us "l ive and move and have our being".

In the present context "mysticism" means "mystical prayer" ("contemplation"). I t i s not given to most people to graduate from ordinary prayer to any or a l l o f the three stages o f myst i ca l prayer . At the f i r s t l e v e l the mystic concentrates h i s mind (by conscious e f for t ) on div ine themes. I f the state of " f u l l union" supervenes, the mystic enjoys a sense o f d iv ine presence, but i s s t i l l capable o f voluntary withdrawal, unless the state of "rapture" or "ecstasy" has been a t ta ined . Ecstasy iis, broadly speaking, a kind o f trance i n which the mind i s cut o f f from the environment unless aroused by some dramatic intervent ion such as a blow, or an imperative command. Sometimes when overtaken by ecstasy the mystic continues i n automatic fashion with h i s present occupation, which may be preaching or saying Massl .

The e c s t a t i c has v i s i o n s of d iv ine persons, or instead, may merely experience a sense of b l i s s and uni ty with the D i v i n e . Attempts have been made to equate ecstasy with other forms of trance; h y s t e r i c a l catalepsy, somnambulism, hypnotism, the meduimistic trance, or drug-induced states; but i t i s unsafe to suppose that these condit ions are i d e n t i c a l to one another or to ecstasy. However, as pointed out by St . Theresa of A v i l a (1515-82) who attempted to d i s t ingu i sh between "natural" and mystic ecstas ies , a h y s t e r i c a l trance can be confused with ecstasy. Rel ig ious mystics normally in t erpre t ecstasy i n terms of r e a l contact with God. This i s debatable i n those very numerous cases when they receive demonstrably fa l s e reve lat ions concerning matters of f ac t . But i n other cases the b e l i e f cannot be contradicted, though equal ly i t cannot be l o g i c a l l y proved true . Judgement has therefore to be suspended i n the face of an important empir ica l fac t ; the majority of the a l leged phys i ca l phenomena occur i n persons who engage i n mystic prayer and experience ecs tas ies . This goes some way to explain why, i f the phenomena are not fraudulent or i l l u s o r y , they belong only to r e l i g i o n s where myst ica l prayer i s p r a c t i s e d . The l i n k between ectas ies and phenomena does not, o f course, prejudge the issue as to whether the l a t t e r are supernatural or due to obscure natura l causes.

St. F r a n c i s of A s s i s i

Few s t i g m a t i z a t i o n s , i f any, can be dated p r i o r to 1224 when, i t i s s a i d , St. F r a n c i s o f A s s i s i (1181-1226) re c e i v e d wounds i n hands and f e e t subsequent to a v i s i o n of a seraph r e c e i v e d during ecstasy. H i s stigmata were described as f l e s h y excrescences resembling the curved-over p o i n t of a n a i l on the palm and a n a i l - h e a d on the back of the hand. But examination o f p o r t r a i t s of the S a i n t and evidence from modern cases suggest t h a t the excrescences were merely r a i s e d scar t i s s u e , so that the problem reduces to the o r i g i n of the wounds. As many as 300 subsequent instances of s t i g m a t i z a t i o n have been a l l e g e d but only a few provide data o f value.

Bleeding through the s k i n . Elena A j e l l o (born i n 1901 i n Monalto Uffugo, C a l a b r i a , I t a l y ) was e s p e c i a l l y devoted to St. R i t a o f Cascia (1386-1457), who was s a i d to have had an e v i l - s m e l l i n g s t i g m a t i c wound which remained unhealed i n her forehead. I n 1923 Elena experienced a v i s i o n i n which C h r i s t i n j u r e d her brow with H i s own crown of thorns. Some hours l a t e r a p h y s i c i a n was c a l l e d to her ( s t i l l i n an e c s t a t i c state) because blood was f l o w i n g c o p i o u s l y from her forehead. Dr. Turano wiped away the blood and found t h a t a t i n t e r v a l s she would c o n t r a c t her brow i n a p a i n f u l spasm and blood would then excede from the pores. S i m i l a r l y with the famous s t i g m a t i c Louise Lateau (I85O-I883) of B o i s D'Haine, Belgium, when Dr. Gerald Molloy wiped the blood from the backs and palms of her hands he found o v a l marks of a b r i g h t red hue about one inch long by h a l f an i n c h wide. The blood f o r c e d i t s way through unbroken s k i n i n s u f f i c i e n t q u a n t i t y f o r v i s i t i n g p i l g r i m s to soak i t up i n t h e i r handker­c h i e f s s e v e r a l times i n an hour. Dr. Warioment of the B e l g i a n Medical Academy enclosed Louise's arm i n a s p e c i a l g l a s s apparatus and showed the bleeding was spontaneous and not due to p r i o r i r r i t a t i o n o f the s k i n by Louise. The Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) of Coesfeld, Rhineland, besides other stigmata had the f e r i t a on her r i g h t s i d e , and a Y-shaped cross on her chest, both merely areas from which the blood exuded a t c e r t a i n times.

The v a r i a b i l i t y o f stigmata. Bleeding through the s k i n i s indeed an e x c e p t i o n a l occurrence, but would seem to l i e w i t h i n the l i m i t s of what i s n a t u r a l l y p o s s i b l e . Various f a c t s weaken the case f o r supernatural causation. On the supernatural hypothesis i t i s odd that

twelve centuries elapsed without s t igmatics . This i s so whether or not the "thorn i n the f lesh" of which St . Paul the Apostle wrote re ferred to him being stigmatised as some scholars have speculated. Gases of s t igmat isat ion also f a i l to s a t i s f y a p r i n c i p l e that the present wri ters l i k e to c a l l the "Septuagint test". According to the popular legend King Ptolemy II o f Egypt commissioned seventy-two rabbis to trans late the Torah ( i . e . the Pentatuch or Five Books of Moses) into Greek f o r the benef i t o f the Jewish community i n Alexandria , who had l o s t t h e i r knowledge of Hebrew. They were kept v igorous ly segregrated from each other. Consequently, when t h e i r seventy-two vers ions were discovered to be word f o r word i d e n t i c a l , i t was h a i l e d as a miracle and proof o f d iv ine i n s p i r a t i o n and the l i t e r a l t ruth of the B i b l i c a l n a r r a t i v e . Unfortunately there i s no unanimity i n the evidence y ie lded by stigmata as to the f a c t s of the c r u c i f i x i o n . The study of s t igmatisat ions i s inadequate i n he lp ing us to determine the h i s t o r i c a l features of that event.

Did Jesus carry the cross on h i s r i g h t or l e f t shoulder? Was Jesus pierced i n the l e f t side (Louise Lateau) or the r i g h t (Catherine Emmerich)? The shape of the stigmata vary between st igmatics and from time to time i n the same person; the marks i n the hands of Theresa Neumann (I898-I962) of Konnerareuth, Bavaria , were sometimes square and sometimes round. Elena A j e l l o was devoted to St . R i t a . Catherine Emmerich's Y-shaped cross was unique to her, but resembled the unusual Y-shaped cross i n the church of St . Lambert at Coesfeld where Catherine had spent long hours i n prayer . These odd i t i e s are suggestive of the influence not of the supernatural but of ideas that have become lodged i n the mind of the s i tgmat ic . This seems d e f i n i t e l y to have been the opinion of one of the f ines t scholars ever to consider occu l t phenomena — Father Herbert H . C . Thurston (1856-1939). an Engl i sh J e s u i t and p r o l i f i c wr i t er on paranormal and the a l l eged ly supernatural . A member of the Society for Psych ica l Research, he published the a r t i c l e "The Phenomena of St igmatization" i n the Proceedings, (Vo l . 32. Part 83, 1922), and the important book The Phys ica l Phenomena of Mysticism (Burns, Oates, London, 1951) • He was c o n s u l t e d on various occasions by the Cathol ic e c c l e s i a s t i c a l a u t h o r i t i e s i n cases o f s t igmat i sat ion . In one of these the woman made a happy marriage, and the stigmata ceased forthwith . Father Thurston made an i n t e r e s t i n g general observation to the e f fect that i n respect of the f e r i t a , i . e . the lance wound, i t s l o c a t i o n tends to r e f l e c t that of the p a r t i c u l a r pa int ing or sculpture which the s t igmat is t uses as ch i e f object o f devotion.

The wound tends to be on the opposite side i n the body to that i n the representat ion of the c r u c i f i e d Jesus. I . e . i t i s mirror-imaged, occurring i n the side nearest to the p o s i t i o n o f the wound i n the representat ion. Another c o r r e l a t i o n with C h r i s t i a n a r t which also suggests psychologica l rather than supernatural influences at work i s the invar iab le occurrence of nail-wounds or scars i n the palms of the hands. This cannot be r e a l i s t i c because the weight of the v i c t i m would i n e v i t a b l y tear the hands, i f n a i l s were used and not ropes, which were i n any case much cheaper. However almost a l l depict ions of the c r u c i f i x i o n show the n a i l s through the palms and not the wris ts , where they would need to be i f used. Perhaps we could leave the l a s t word on th i s to the s t igmat i s t Theresa Neumann mentioned above "These marks have only a myst ica l meaning. Jesus must have been f ixed more f i r m l y on the cross". (The Bib le i t s e l f i s not d e c i s i v e . The word che ir means hand or w r i s t ) .

The r e l a t i o n between p ic tures of the c r u c i f i x i o n and st igmatisat ions o f fers an explanation f o r the strange absence of the l a t t e r u n t i l 122k. I t i s a remarkable fact that there were f o r a l l p r a c t i c a l purposes no representations of the c r u c i f i x i o n u n t i l the Middle Ages, except i n a few very obscure places , such as some Syrian Gospels of the s ix th century. (See Andre Grabar, C h r i s t i a n Iconography). This was because of c e r t a i n dogmatic p r i n c i p l e s as to what were f i t t i n g subjects f o r r e l i g i o u s a r t which sought to avoid i d o l a t r y .

In recent years the Shroud of Turin (whose known h i s t o r y commences i n 1357),one of few surviv ing candidates for being Jesus' winding sheet , that survives out of k2 r i v a l s extant i n the fourteenth century, has become very fashionable as an object o f speculation and as an appropriate point d'appui for prac t i ce of the profess ion of which S a i n t Franc i s de S a l e s i s the patron sa int , i . e . journalism. Whether i t s testimony as to the facts o f the C r u c i f i x i o n ever comes to be the f i n a l a r b i t e r of these matters as yet we cannot say. However we may note i n passing that the Shroud does l i t t l e to resolve the discordant testimonies of the s t igmat i s t s . The famous "negative image" discovered i n 1898 shows patches which are interpreted as the marks of the scourgings, a lso wounds i n the wris t s , not the palms, and the use of a s ingle spike through the two fee t . The spear thrust i s deduced to having been on Jesus' r i g h t s ide. Some "sindologists" ( i . e . students of the Shroud) claim that the Crown of Thorns i s absent and argue that i t was a c t u a l l y a su i tab ly ornamented cap on the V i c t i m ' s head. Others deduce the wound i n the forehead from blood flows reg is tered on the Shroud. Other patches or flows are interpreted as i n d i c a t i n g that Jesus

bore the Cross lashed high on h i s back. As he walked or staggered along,stoo ping under i t s unsymmetrically d i s t r i b u t e d weight, both shoulder-blade areas were bruised but the r i g h t one more than the l e f t .

V i s ionary experiences and stigmata.

Before leaving the question o f the v a r i a b i l i t y of the stigmata we might compare the testimony of the wounds with that of the v i s i o n a r y experiences o f the C r u c i f i x i o n which numerous r e l i g i o u s mystics have had. These v i s i o n a r i e s comprise both s t igmat is ts (Catherine Emmerich, Theresa Neumann) and those without the stigmata such as Saint Bridget (1302-1372), the patron saint of Sweden, or Saint Catherine of R i c c i (1522-1590). The l a t t e r , i n t e r e s t i n g l y enough, had some c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s i n common with s t igmatis ts ; she f e l l into a long ecstasy each week i n which she r e l i v e d C h r i s t ' s pass ion. However there have been.many r e l i g i o u s v i s i o n a r i e s unres tr ic ted as to time and subject of t h e i r imagery. Among v i s i o n s of the Passion and death of Jesus, there i s no agreement; i n fac t the v i s i o n a r i e s disagree not only with each other, but with s c r i p t u r e . In her raptures Catherine Emmerich saw three n a i l s used i n the C r u c i f i x i o n , but St . Bridget saw four . Theresa Neumann saw the Passion and death of Jesus re-enacted every Thursday and Fr iday , but i n saying that the Apostles d id not f a l l asleep at Gethsemane she contradicted Matthew, Mark and Luke. Catherine Emmerich was rather c r i t i c a l of the Blessed Maria of Agreda who wrote a L i f e of the V i r g i n , and be l ieved Maria to have taken l i t e r a l l y many v i s i o n s which she should have understood a l l e g o r i c a l l y . I t i s poss ib le that Catherine, h e r s e l f the author of The L i f e o f the Blessed V i r g i n Mary composed on the bas is of her v i s i o n s ( s t i l l a popular book, Tan Books, P .O. Box kZk, Rockford, I l l i n o i s ) , was correct i n p l a c i n g the death of the V i r g i n at 13 years a f t e r the C r u c i f i x i o n , but Saint E l i zabe th of Schonau i n the twelfth century gave 18 months for t h i s i n t e r v a l , Saint Bridget 15 years and Maria o f Agreda 21 years 4 months and 19 days.' However i f Catherine Emmerich was correct i n seeing St . James the Great present at the V i r g i n ' s death, then the chronology of the Acts of the Apostles i s i n e r r o r . As f o r Saint Catherine of R i c c i , we might note i n passing that some embarrassment was f e l t at her b e a t i f i c a t i o n process because i n her v i s i o n s Savonarola, who was executed as a here t i c a t Florence i n 1^98, appeared i n the ro l e of sa int and martyr. However, Pope Benedict XIII cut the Gordian knot by decreeing that the Sa int ' s v i r t u e s had to be considered separately from her v i s i o n s , thus sett ing a precedent of

almost indispensable u t i l i t y . Benedict, who denounced luxurious l i v i n g on the part of the higher c lergy , may have been swayed by antipathy for the memory of Savonaralo's r e l e n t l e s s opponent Pope Alexander VI , Rodrigo Borg ia .

Psychologica l fac tors i n s t igmat isat ion.

Because the forms and locat ions of stigmata appear to be subject i n some degree to suggestion, the phenomena of s t igmat isat ion cannot be regarded as e n t i r e l y due to a purely organic cause i n the same way as haemophiliac bleeding i s . S i m i l a r l y i t i s not the same at a l l as haemathidrosis, i . e . red p e r s p i r a t i o n due to the presence o f the bacterium micrococcus prodigiosus . At t h i s distance i n time we cannot be sure that the "sweat of Gethsemane" of Saint Veronica G u i l i a n i (16?6-1727) was not haemathidrosis but i n view of modem observations of bleeding through the sk in i t seems eminently l i k e l y that th i s s a i n t ' s skin exuded ac tua l b lood. As we have seen, the v a r i a b i l i t y of the stigmata and t h e i r apparent dependence to some extent on suggestion m i l i t a t e s a lso against a supernatural o r i g i n . This encourages the search f o r a wholly n a t u r a l i s t i c explanation of st igmatic phenomena. This cannot be done at the present time because we know too l i t t l e about vascular physiology to be able to give an e f fec t ive theory for the mechanics of the process . None-the-less further evidence can be marshalled i n strong support of the hypothesis that an important f a c t o r i n s t igmat isat ion i s auto-suggestion on the part of the s t igmatics , who perhaps without exception have been given to intense brooding on the suf fer ing of Jesus.

This theory i s wel l supported by the fac t that many, though not a l l , s t igmatics show undoubted signs of having suffered from hys ter ia at some time i n t h e i r l i v e s . "Hysteria" i s employed i n the technica l sense as an i l l n e s s that can take a bewildering v a r i e t y of forms* temporary bl indness , deafness, p a r a l y s i s , losses of s e n s i b i l i t y i n the skin or excessive s e n s i b i l i t y ; comas, f a i n t i n g f i t s , spasms; miscellaneous aches and pains , e tc . Some st igmatics l i k e Elena A j e l l o are described as manifesting h y s t e r i c a l symptoms. Others l i k e Theresa Neumann and Berthe Mrazek (a f r i end of Nurse Edi th C a v e l l , who was shot by the Germans i n 1915), suf fer from mysterious paralyses of sudden onset, r e l i eved by equal ly mysterious cures, which i n f a l l i b l y may be ascribed to h y s t e r i a .

A h y s t e r i c a l i l l n e s s has no organic cause, and i s psycholog ica l i n o r i g i n . But the pat ient i s not shamming; he i s r e a l l y i l l , and i s the v i c t i m of a complex and mainly unconscious process of auto-suggestion. When hyster ia i s found i n a st igmatic i t i s a good i n d i c a t i o n of a high degree of

a u t o - s u g g e s t i b i l i t y . The n a t u r a l i s t i c theory of s t igmat i sat ion ascr ibes i t to auto-suggestion a f f ec t ing blood flow and t i s sues i n persons endowed with unusual s u g g e s t i b i l i t y and an obsession with the sufferings of Jesus. This i s not quite the same as a s c r i b i n g s t igmatisat ion d i r e c t l y to h y s t e r i a , which would go beyond the fac t s , as there are st igmatics who cannot be c l a s s i f i e d as h y s t e r i c a l . The l i n k between hyster ia and s t igmat i sat ion i s merely that each i s a poss ible r e s u l t , i n appropriate condit ions , of a temperament p o t e n t i a l l y auto-suggestible i n c e r t a i n ways. F a i l u r e to r e a l i s e that the connection between hyster ia and stigmata i s a subtle and i n d i r e c t one has, o f course, occasioned much polemic even within the ranks of the f a i t h f u l , as wel l as between the l a t t e r and i n f i d e l s .

Advocates of the supernatural o r i g i n of stigmata have stressed the rather minor character of the e f fec ts such as b l i s t e r s , rashes, eczemas, produced on the skin by suggestion under hypnotism. But t h i s does not do f u l l jus t i ce to Dr . Adolph L e c h l e r ' s r e su l t s with "Elizabeth" an.' Austr ian peasant g i r l who was both very devout and under treatment for h y s t e r i a . On Good Fr iday 1932 she was deeply affected by seeing a f i l m of the Passion and death of C h r i s t , and ( s i g n i f i c a n t l y ) complained of pain i n feet and hands. That evening Dr. Lech ler gave her the hypnotic suggestion that wounds would develop a t the s i t e of the pains . Moist wounds appeared during the n ight . Further suggestion deepened them, and resul ted also i n tears of blood, the crown of thorns, and inflammation and sagging of the shoulder. Dr. Lechler substantiated h i s claim with photographs taken p r i o r to re s tor ing normality by counter-suggestion.

The work of Dr. R. Schindler also appears to be quite relevant to the hypothesis of auto-suggestion being an important fac tor i n the aet io logy of s t igmat i sat ion . (Wervensystem und spontane Blutengen. Karger, B e r l i n , 1927). In h i s monograph on spontaneous bleeding, Dr. Schindler described i n d e t a i l three cases of spontaneous skin haemorrhages of unknown o r i g i n i n which he succeeded i n demonstrating a psycholog ica l bas i s . In a l l these cases the most thorough medical inves t igat ions f a i l e d to reveal any abnormalit ies of the blood or the vascular system. Schindler found that i n each case he could, by means of hypnotic suggestion, produce bleeding at chosen times and at designated spots on the body. To prevent cheating,the designated areas were covered with p l a s t e r casts during the time lapse between applying the suggestion and observing the bleeding at the assigned time. A l l three of the pat ients had been re ferred to D r . Schindler on account of t h e i r spontaneous bleeding,

which was a severe handicap and source of misery to them. One woman had been bedridden f o r nearly f ive years because o f t h i s ai lment. A severe fever always accompanied the occurrence of the bleeding, but both disturbances subsided simultaneously as a r e s u l t of psychologica l treatment. The other two cases were also cured by the psychologica l approach.

In the l i g h t of L e c h l e r ' s achievements, as well as Sch ind ler ' s , i t would be daring to assert that stigmata are supernatural , and i n modern canonization processes such as that of St . Gemma Galgani (I878-I903) o f Lucca, the Church abstains from so doing. Contrariwise we cannot assert that stigmata have yet been proved e n t i r e l y n a t u r a l . D i f f i c u l t y may r a t i o n a l l y be f e l t concerning a n a t u r a l i s t i c i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of St . Gemma's stigmata. A b e a u t i f u l I t a l i a n g i r l with a d i s p o s i t i o n of great sweetness, Gemma often had ecstas ies on Thursday evening (a common pattern to which many st igmatics conform), when red marks showed on the backs and palms of the hands. A rent i n the f l e sh opened by degrees, sometimes becoming very deep, the openings on each side almost reaching each other as f a r as could be ascertained without p a i n f u l probing. The c a v i t i e s were f u l l of blood. On the Fr iday the flow would cease, and the wounds close and heal with astonishing r a p i d i t y , l eav ing usua l ly very l i t t l e trace, except sometimes a ra i sed c i c a t r i c e , as may have happened with St . F r a n c i s . St . Gemma's case lends c r e d i b i l i t y to the accounts of deep wounds i n some o f the e lder st igmatics such as St . Mary Frances of the Five Wounds (1715-91). (In any case these claims are v indicated by the deep wounds a c t u a l l y observed i n Padre Pio in th i s century) .

Extraordinary as these deep stigmata are , they do not d e c i s i v e l y contradict the n a t u r a l i s t i c hypothesis . "El izabeth 's wounds deepened under suggestion and we cannot say to what depth they might not have proceeded had Dr. Lechler pers i s ted with suggestion beyond the point that was medical ly e t h i c a l . Of course, i t i s poss ible to argue that L e c h l e r ' s suggestions and counter-suggestions happened to coincide with Divine commands or (as would be said by the la te Montague Summers, who was rather an extremist i n these matters) , that the sequence o f events was contrived by the Father of L i e s to promote atheismj an example of an "Infernal Mirac le" perpetrated by the Adversary. En passant, f o r interested readers we may recommend as an e n t i r e l y f i c t i o n a l but elegant and scho lar ly account of a d i a b o l i c a l parody of the stigmata, the learned and witty novel by Louis Bromfield. E n t i t l e d The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928) the novel introduces the ancient Adversary i n the somewhat Rabelais ian persona of the pagan god Priapus .

At the time of wr i t ing the case for a psychologica l f ac tor i n s t igmat isat ion has received further support from the work of a C a l i f o r n i a n p s y c h i a t r i s t , Dr. Derek Agle, with a twenty year o ld g i r l , R i t a , a member of an evangel ica l or pentecostal group given to an enthus iast ic form of r e l i g i o u s observance, which, of course, i s a Protestant denomination of a fundamentalist k i n d . Since the age-of ten Rita has developed stigmata i n the hands and on the brow every week on Thursdays and Fr idays , accompanied by quite intense pa in . She i s described as a h igh ly conscientious and serious person. S i g n i f i c a n t l y the f i r s t onset of the condit ion occurred just a few days a f t e r reading a novel about Jesus' l a s t week before death on the cross, which gave a heightened account of h i s suf fer ings . Dr . Agle obtained permission to hypnotize her; he gave her the suggestion that she could repress the stigmata at any time by repeating to h e r s e l f a short verbal formula. This appears to have been e f f i c a c i o u s .

The genesis of the mystic r i n g i s akin to that of stigmata. M a r i e - J u l i e Jahenny (1850-1941) a somewhat e x h i b i t i o n i s t i c st igmatic of La Faudrais i n B r i t t a n y , was i n the habi t of announcing the p a r t i c u l a r stigmata she would receive some time before they appeared; a fact strongly i n favour of the auto­suggestion hypothesis . In an ecstasy i n January I874 she predicted that she would p l i g h t her t ro th to her heavenly spouse on 20 February. According to the Abbe David, on the predic ted day i n the presence of 14 witnesses the r i n g - f i n g e r of the r i g h t hand became swollen and red beneath the sk in . Short ly afterwards i t b l e d . Within 30 minutes a r i n g shaped formation appeared. There i s r e l i a b l e evidence that M a r i e - J u l i e retained i t f o r at l eas t twenty years as a r i n g of f leshy t issue resembling a hoop which had sunk into the sk in .

The tears of blood shed by St . Gemma and o t h e r s , inc lud ing Theresa Neumann at the onset o f her s t igmat isat ion on Good Fr iday 1926 and whenever she meditated on C h r i s t ' s su f fer ing , were observed by the French phys ic ian Dr. Parrot t i n the l a s t century i n a pat ient (presumably hys t er i ca l ) who shed them while affected by v i o l e n t g r i e f . She bled also from the breast , hands and knees.

The sex di f ference i n occurrence of stigmata.

I t i s a curious fac t that , apart from St . F r a n c i s , only three or four cases of condit ions akin to s t igmat isat ion have been r e l i a b l y reported as occurring i n men, and these a l l i n the present century. At f i r s t s ight i t might seem to fo l low from the c o r r e l a t i o n between hyster ia and s t igmat isat ion i n view of the o ld b e l i e f i n masculine immunity to h y s t e r i a . But t h i s

comfortable premise was shattered i n the l a s t century. Present estimates d i f f e r , but i t seems that h y s t e r i a , i n one form or another, occurs i n men as frequently as i t does i n women. Retaining the n a t u r a l i s t i c viewpoint there i s no reason however e i t h e r to deny the i n d i r e c t l i n k with hyster ia or to suppose that the male stigmata are not produced by the same auto-suggestive mechanism as operates i n women. The low incidence i n men may be expl icable i n terms of b i o l o g i c a l or hormonal d i f ference between the sexes, or by a l e s ser p r o c l i v i t y to brood on phys i ca l aspects of the c r u c i f i x i o n . (For sex d i f ferences i n the incidence of inedia , see l a t e r ) .

One of the modern male st igmatics , Arthur Moock of Hamburg (born 1902 i n Alsace) i s a Protestant , and i t has consequently been said by Catho l ic wri ters that h i s stigmata lack a r e l i g i o u s meaning! However t h e i r appearance i s heralded by v i s i o n s o f C h r i s t approaching him with consol ing words at times when he suffers from aching and a f e e l i n g of pressure i n the head. The second case i s that of He inr ich Fuehring, a lso of Hamburg (born i n I892) . Though he too was born of Lutheran parents , and i s not a Catho l i c , h i s stigmata began at Easter 1951» very s i g n i f i c a n t l y , i t would seem, while re turning from a v i s i t with Catho l ic companions to Theresa Neumann at Konnerareuth. S i t t i n g on a bench near the a l t a r i n the sanctuary of Waldueren an appar i t ion appeared to him and announced that i n two weeks time he would receive the stigmata o f C h r i s t . Eighteen days l a t e r , a f t e r a v i o l e n t headache, blood flowed from h i s hands and s ide . The photographs appended to th i s paper re la te to a male s t igmat i s t . The photographs were taken i n the l a te 1960's by competent i n v e s t i g a t o r s . The subject 's name was withheld. We have since seen one of these photographs (the Crown of Thorns) publ ished i n a t e l e v i s i o n programme. The subject was said to be Otto Mook of B e r l i n ; whether t h i s i s the same person as Arthur Moock of Hamburg we do not know, as no background information was g iven.

The p o l t e r g e i s t connection.

P o l t e r g e i s t phenomena f igure i n the l i v e s of many s a i n t l y people from Saint Dunstan i n the tenth century down to Saint Jean Vianney and Padre Pio i n modern times. These take the ffffffl o f chaotic happenings, movements of objects , sounds of rapping, scratching and so on. In e a r l i e r periods these were regarded as the f r o l i c s of e lves, gobl ins , or other nature s p i r i t s , or as attacks by the D e v i l or l e s ser demons. The l a t t e r explanation was e spec ia l l y favoured when the phenomena attended holy persons rather than the l a i t y .

The occurrence of such "attacks" was usual ly interpreted as complimentary to the person concerned, an acknowledgement that t h e i r v i r tue had annoyed the great Adversary. However the ac tua l phenomena i n both secular and r e l i g i o u s contexts are i d e n t i c a l , which makes us supect a causation that i s ne i ther d i a b o l i c or ange l i c . In t h i s , fo l lowing many investogators, we are i n harmony also with the Revd. Father Thurston, S . J . Because there i s a n overlap between s t igmat isat ion and p o l t e r g e i s t r y , we seek to ascer ta in features shared by p o l t e r g e i s t subjects and s t igmat i s t s , each taken as a group.

S t r i k i n g l y enough the p o s i t i o n i n regard to overt hyster ia i s exact ly the same with poltergiestry as with stigma t i s a t i o n . Among the more v i o l e n t p o l t e r g e i s t outbreaks which have been descr ibed, a considerable proport ion of the p o l t e r g e i s t subjects , i . e . the person (usual ly a s ingle one) on which the phenomena are centred, have overt and unmistakeable symptoms of hyster ia (see A . R . G . Owen, Can We Explain the P o l t e r g e i s t ? . Garre t t Publ i ca t ions , New York, 1964, He l ix Press , Papl inder D i s t r i b u t i n g CO). Of course there are many cases i n which there are no such symptoms. The s i t u a t i o n i s quite p a r a l l e l to that with s t igmat is ts . Rel ig ious apolog is t s often indignant ly repudiate the suggestion that there i s something i n common between st igmatisat ion and h y s t e r i a , on the ground that not a l l s t igmatis ts are h y s t e r i c a l ; which i s true enough. However, from the point of view of induct ive l o g i c that i s not the po int . The assoc ia t ion between hys ter ia and s t igmat isat ion i s a s t a t i s t i c a l one; what i t t e l l s us, however, i s that we should look for some common factors operative both i n the aet io logy of hyster ia and i n the causes o f stigma t i s a t i o n . Such fac tors , i f ascerta ined, w i l l , o f course, i n the two phenomena ( i . e . hys ter ia and st igmatisat ion) be a l l i e d with poss ib ly t o t a l l y d i s t i n c t causative factors such as profound r e l i g i o u s convict ions of a rather spec ia l i sed nature i n the case of s t igmat isat ion, and psycholog ica l repress ion of emotion i n the case of h y s t e r i a . As these fac tors themselves though e s s e n t i a l l y d i s t i n c t are not mutually exclusive they w i l l occas iona l ly ex is t together, thus producing the observed overlap of the h y s t e r i c a l and the s t igmat ica l condit ions . The fac t t h a £ very r e l i g i o u s persons may contro l t h e i r emotions does not imply tha,t they have nonel

In tere s t ing ly enough the l a t e s t p o s i t i o n i n p o l t e r g e i s t studies mirrors that i n respect of s t igmat i sat ion . While no p o l t e r g e i s t inves t igators suggest that a l l p o l t e r g e i s t subjects are h y s t e r i c a l , thay make the inference that anxiety, which i s an underlying cause of a l l hys ter i c s i s an important p r e c i p i t a t i n g or predisposing fac tor i n p o l t e r g e i s t r y . (See A . R . G . Owen, "Poltergeist Phenomena and Psychokinesis , i n

Handbook of Parapsychology, ed. Mart in Ebon, New American L i b r a r y , New York, 1978.) Recently some parapsychologists have asked the question, "Anxiety i s present i n every home or community; how therefore can one s p e c i a l l y associate i t with po l t erge i s t ry?" (See Alfonso Martinez Taboas, "The Psychopathological Model o f P o l t e r g e i s t Phenomenal some c r i t i c i s m s and suggestions", Parapsychology Review. (1980, 11, 24-26). The question i s p e r f e c t l y v a l i d but has a f a i r l y simple answer drawn from inductive l o g i c . In the f i r s t place the a l leged corre la t i on i s not put forward as a t o t a l explanat ion. No one i n t h e i r senses would suggest that anxiety i s the sole cause of p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena. As we have said on several occasions ( loc . c i t . ) , a genetic or congenital fac tor has to be postulated to account for the comparative r a r i t y of the p o l t e r g e i s t phenomenon. (In parenthesis i t i s worth saying that i t i s only from some points of view that the phenomenon i s rare; on a world scale i t could be regarded as r e l a t i v e l y frequent — hence our use o f the q u a l i f i c a t i o n comparative). An age fac tor , though of l e s s importance, has also to be noted. More importantly we should acknowledge the relevance of arguments based not on mere assoc ia t ion but on a quant i tat ive r e l a t i o n between the fac tors that are being e m p i r i c a l l y assoc iated. In simple terms an assoc ia t ion w i l l only manifest i t s e l f i n a recognizable form when both A and B are q u a n t i t a t i v e l y intense. Contrariwise i f an assoc ia t ion i s manifest when A and B are both quant i ta t i ve ly large i t i s only l o g i c a l to suppose that i t ex i s t s when both features are weaker i n i n t e n s i t y . These p r i n c i p l e s of inductive l og i c are not at a l l d i f f i c u l t ; ordinary people i n every walk of l i f e use them every day. I t i s only recognizing them and putt ing into words that i s d i f f i c u l t . One can be excused for react ing somewhat l i k e M ol i ere ' s bourgeois gentilhomme when he was to ld what "prose" was; "I've been t a l k i n g i t a l l my l i f e without knowing i t ! " . In regard to the question as to the causative influence of anxiety i n p o l t e r g e i s t r y we have to add a fur ther very important cons iderat ion . I t was never suggested, at l eas t by the present wr i t ers , that anxiety, even i n the presence of the genetic fac tor , was adequate alone to t r igger o f f p o l t e r g e i s t a t tacks . I t i s not just the anxiety i t s e l f which i s important but how the anxiety i s handled by the subject . I t seems to be necessary that anxiety be not merely contro l l ed but that i t also fee repressed i n the Freudian sense, i . e . pushed r i g h t out of consciousness. Thus p o l t e r g e i s t persons are to be sought among those who tend to repress emotion, but have the capacity to discharge the repressed emotion i n surrogate phys ica l a c t i v i t y which may also have a symbolic content.

This capacity i s a genetic or c o n s t i t u t i o n a l psychokinet ic a b i l i t y . The point of contact with hyster ia i s just that one of the factors i n hyster ia i s the tendency to repress emotion into the unconscious. In s t igmatis ts however the points of contact with hyster ia are the tendency to auto-suggestion and an unconscious command of bod i ly processes. These two fac tors are the ones that f a c i l i t a t e the generation of h y s t e r i c a l symptoms, paralyses , de f i c i enc ie s of v i s i o n , t i c s , comas, f i t s , and so on.

Another p a r a l l e l i s m between the three condit ions — being a p o l t e r g e i s t centre — being a hys ter i c — and bearing stigmata — consists i n t h e i r shared m a l l e a b i l i t y under suggestion. In p o l t e r g e i s t cases the inves t igators have to take care not to induce new phenomena by mentioning t h e i r p o s s i b i l i t y . Hyster ia i s notor ious ly subject to suggestion and to the phenomenon of "symptom subst i tut ion" — one symptom may be cured but replaced by a d i f f erent one! We have already noted the power of hypnotic suggestion to modify stigmata.

Although p o l t e r g e i s t subjects usual ly seem quite unaware of any connection between themselves and the phenomena, a small proport ion , such as Madame Kulagina, U r i G e l l e r , and Matthew Manning, achieve a degree of conscious contro l , enabling them to engage i n voluntary psychokinesis . There appears to be an i n t e r e s t i n g though rare p a r a l l e l i s m between st igmatists and p o l t e r g e i s t subjects i n th i s respect . We make th i s claim e n t i r e l y on the bas is of a verbal communication made to us i n 1967 by the d is t inguished wri ter , inves t igator , and psychic s ens i t i ve , Mrs. E i l e e n Garre t t , founder and f i r s t President of the Parapsychological Foundation, Inc . Mrs. Garrett spoke of a man she had known of an i n t e l l e c t u a l and r e f l e c t i v e cast of mind. Although apparently not a p r i e s t or monk he was interested i n r e l i g i o u s top ic s . This gentleman to ld her that he could induce stigmata i n himself v o l u n t a r i l y by mental concentration. He proceeded to make h i s words good then and there. In the course of a r e l a t i v e l y short time the sk in i n the centres of h i s palms started to f lake away. As she watched, Mrs. Garret t saw the raw red f l e sh become v i s i b l e as the l e s i o n developedl Thus the subject was able by conscious v o l i t i o n to imitate r e s u l t s of the kind that Lechler obtained by hypnosis. This , of course, makes the case f o r autosuggestion as an e f f i c i e n t cause of s t igmat isat ion a strong one.

Epidemiological p r e d i c t i o n .

I t i s claimed by theor i s t s of the philosophy of science that the test of a s c i e n t i f i c theory i s i t s a b i l i t y to pred ic t

17

new facts that can he tested by fresh experiments or m observations. (As with many other p r i n c i p l e s of s c i e n t i f i c

method popular at the moment, th i s one i s often over-stretched i n a way that p a r a l l e l s other contemporary parrot c r i e s such as the demand that a l l s c i e n t i f i c a l l y acquired facts cannot be accepted as such u n t i l there i s a testable theory to account f o r them! In the face of t h i s h i s t o r i c a l l y and l o g i c a l l y indefens ib le piece of dogmatism i t would be a bold person who would report any observation — which would imply the death o f sc ience) . In the present survey we have claimed that on the basis of the observed facts some of the causes operative i n psychoneuroses such as hyster ia are also operative i n p o l t e r g e i s t cases and i n the paduction o f stigmata. I f we are r i g h t there should be a group of cases, even though rare ones, characterized by the occurrence of a l l three

mi features , p o l t e r g e i s t happenings, stigmata, and over t ly h y s t e r i c a l behavuour. As i t happens, l o g i c a l l y enough these can be found. As i s to be expected by l o g i c t h e i r

igj frequency i s low. Also we do not have any very recent ones; though we bel ieve that i f a very r igorous search were conducted such cases would present themselves. For the moment we w i l l s a t i s f y our cur ious i ty with two instances narrated

• i n Can We Expla in the Po l t erge i s t? ( A . R . G . Owen, 1972), but derived from the indefat igable Father Thurston, S . J . In each of these cases the po l t erge i s t phenomena centred on a

M person of deep r e l i g i o u s f e e l i n g . The e a r l i e r case concerned C h r i s t i n a of Stommeln i n the Rhineland, whose phenomena were observed around the year 1268 by a Dominican father — Peter

gj o f Dacia ( i . e . Scandinavia) when the g i r l was about twenty-f ive years o l d . Her h i s tory i s one of intense r e l i g i o u s devotion. At the age of ten she p l ighted her troth to C h r i s t

> to be h i s spouse f o r ever; at th ir teen she ran away to Cologne * to l i v e a l i f e of extreme a u s t e r i t y , s tarvat ion , and m o r t i f i c a t i o n

with a community of Beguines. She longed to receive some stigmata or token that would keep C h r i s t ' s suffer ings

mi cont inua l ly before her mind. In teres t ing ly enough, devotion a l ternated with losses of f a i t h , and she had numerous v i s ionary experiences — some tending to undermine her f a i t h , while

— others re inforced i t . Thurston says that i t seems impossible to regard these experiences as other than the strange h a l l u c i n a t i o n s of a h y s t e r i c a l subject. The p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena seem to have been on a grand scale but completely

— t y p i c a l o f many p o l t e r g e i s t subjects . The "ppecia l i te de l a maison" was showers of indescribable f i l t h , much of i t "teleported". This may seem odd, but to p o l t e r g e i s t

m connoiseurs reads as the most natura l thing i n the world. These showers, l i k e the r a i n i n the B i b l e , f e l l rather i m p a r t i a l l y , about equal ly on Chr i s t ina and the spectators, inc lud ing

^ Peter himself , between whom and C h r i s t i n a , there seems to have developed a romantic bond. Such a f f i n i t i e s are almost

a commonplace between "possessed" females i n a r e l i g i o u s context and t h e i r confessors and exorc i s t s . Even St. Theresa of A v i l a , a kind of "iron maiden" for robustness of mind among myst ics , was ser ious ly embarrassed i n her youth by her confessor and h e r s e l f f a l l i n g i n love (see her Autobiography); fortunate ly , or unfortunately, according to one's point of view, the poor young man died of an i l l n e s s l In a more l u r i d context Father Sur in , the J e s u i t confessor and exorc i s t o f S i s t e r Jeanne of the Angels i n the seventeenth centurt , was "infected" with the same disease as the nun h e r s e l f and became "possessed"— a r e s u l t doubtless encouraged not only by an absurd ideology but through emotional bonding to h i s suppl iant . I t was i n t h i s per iod that Chr i s t ina received stigmatic wounds i n the presence of Peter and others . Correspondingly, as i s to be expected, she underwent repeated ectas ies and raptures .

Thurston's other case also occurred i n a country near to the so r e l i g i o u s Rhineland; i t concerned Domenica Clara Moes of Luxembourg. Born i n 1833 she was, according to her own memoirs, favoured from her e a r l i e s t years with a v a r i e t y of b e a t i f i c v i s i o n s , inc luding frequent appearances of her guardian angel who would take her miraculously on various journeys — a curious p a r a l l e l to t h e ' f l i g h t s ' of the shamans of the circumpolar and North American regions. She also suffered from a mysterious 'eye disease' which involved intermit tent bl indness f o r short periods . At the age of twelve she was completely b l i n d for s ix weeks but cured "miraculously" by a v i s i t to T r i e r to revere the He i l igen Rock — the "Holy Coat (Tunic or Robe)" which i s reported to be C h r i s t ' s seamless garment, and u n t i l recent times was exhibited i n the cathedral there. In I858, when she was twenty-six she f e l l s ick of another mysterious i l l n e s s and was i n bed f o r two years, thus a n t i c i p a t i n g Theresa Neumann and Berthe Mrasek, who were facu l ta t i ve p a r a l y t i c s i n the same general geographical and c u l t u r a l region of Europe some decades l a t e r . I t was during t h i s : i l l n e s s that, i n March i860, Dominica C l a r a ' s stigmata f i r s t appeared. In 1861 she and a f r i e n d , Anna Engels, founded a new r e l i g i o u s convent i n Luxembourg. For many years l a t e r she had v i s ionary experiences as wel l as st igmatic scars and bleeding. The evidence f o r th i s i s good,just as f o r a v a r i e t y of p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena. Small objects tended to disappear but turned up again i n an equal ly strange way; there was also a var ie ty of inexpl i cab le noises , as well as t e l eporta t ion of water and large stones.

The future of s t igmat isat ion .

Arging from the presumption of s u g g e s t i b i l i t y and auto­suggestion as important fac tors i n s t igmat i sat ion , we would

— postulate a tendency for the frequency of s t igmatis ts to increase , e s p e c i a l l y i n view of the greater e f f i c i e n c y of communication i n recent times, and the prevalence of inves t iga t ive journalism. This tendency may be expected

m to of fset the reg ional decl ine i n r e l i g i o n even among Catho l i c communities i n the more developed parts of the world. We would also expect a tendency to r e d i s t r i b u t i o n of the

m pat tern of incidence, that i s to say more instances i n the New World, and i n the Third World. Thus i n 1977 i n t eres t was aroused by a stigmatised nun v i s i t i n g Canada. She i s

— S i s t e r Susan K u r i e v i l l a of the Syrian Orthodox Church of South Ind ia , a branch of the Roman Catho l i c church, and she runs a centre for prayer and the care of orphans, widows, and s i ck persons of a l l r e l i g i o u s and Hindu castes i n Kerala s tate . She disc la ims any prac t i ce of brooding on the wounds of C h r i s t . Data on the time spent on prayer, however, i s not a v a i l a b l e . C h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y her stigmata, (scars

m on hands, feet , and forehead, and the " fer i ta" which blee'.d occas iona l ly though s l i g h t l y ) occurred f i r s t on Good F r i d a y , when she was 13 years o ld; they healed a f t er three months

— and returned on Good Friday for the next four years . Thereafter the scars became permanent, bleeding sometimes on F r i d a y s , and during Lent and Passion week.

In the New World among known recent s t igmatis ts are Margaret R e i l l y , who died i n 1937; (we are not aware of her being granted the t i t l e o f Venerable or Blessed as y e t ) . About

mj the mid 1970's the Ontario newspapers reported a female s t igmat i s t i n the O r i l l i a region of the Province. Few d e t a i l s were made known, other than the fact that she was a C a t h o l i c .

J Above we implied that st igmatisaion was r e s t r i c t e d to Catho l i c s 1 (or perhaps some Orthodox Chris t ians ) e s p e c i a l l y those who

engaged i n myst ical prayer. This a s s e r t i o n h a s now to be rev ised i n consequence of the emergence of s t igmat isat ion i n a new m i l i e u — Protestant fundamentalism. I t would be hard to say that these churches or sects encourage anything c lo se ly equivalent to myst ica l prayer. However i t i s poss ib le

^ that the same r e s u l t i s reached by other routes such as procedures with a hypnobic or hypnotic q u a l i t y engaged i n — c o l l e c t i v e l y — repeated handclapping, s inging of phrases

: and choruses, even ones as simple as "Praise the Lord" . These d i f f e r i n m i l i e u from the myst ica l prayers of the i so la t ed r e l i g i o u s person i n the o lder r e l i g i o n s , but l i k e the music of Wagner or the chantings of * Seig H e i l ' and ' H e i l

mi H i t l e r * at Nazi, r a l l i e s can have an auto-hypnotic e f fect that by-passes the conscious mind and roots i t s e l f i n the unconscious. We have already mentioned the case of Rita

mi i n the New Light Bapt i s t Church at Oakland, C a l i f o r n i a .

Another i n t e r e s t i n g st igmatist i s an evangel ica l preacher, Lucy R y a l l , who appears to he the leader of her own fundamentalist Protestant denomination i n New Mexico. (For t h i s information, as with that concerning R i t a , we are grea t ly indebted to an item i n the t e l e v i s i o n ser ies , "Arthur C. C l a r k e ' s World of the Strange" made by Yorkshire T e l e v i s i o n , England, U . K . ) . Miss R y a l l sings evangel ica l hymns through a microphone and her s tyle i s i n some ways reminiscent of a "pop singer". The r e l i g i o u s services at which she pres ides appear to have some of the q u a l i t y of the o ld s ty le r e v i v a l meeting; members of the congregation, besides going into a kind of trance while s inging and dancing, frequently col lapse and r o l l around on the f l o o r , meanwhile v o c a l l y p r a i s i n g the L o r d . As for Miss R y a l l , a Caucasian l i k e the majority of her congregation, a "catty" commentator might say that l i k e many charismatic leaders she i s the v i c t i m of her own propaganda. Annually (at Easter of course) she becomes m i l d l y st igmatised. Blood flows from the centre of the palms and the forehead. According to what i s shown i n the t e l e v i s i o n p i c tures there are no deep wounds or re s idua l scars; i t i s mainly a case of bleeding through the sk in . Of course we do not know what length of time Miss R y a l l devotes to prayer . However her case and that of Rita open up the i n t r i g u i n g p o s s i b i l i t y that the new fundmentalism may, a l b e i t by s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t routes, , open up a new flow of stigma t i s a t i o n cases, as wel l as a new source of heal ing mirac les , on the p r i n c i p l e that one miracle makes many by the simple process of "creating f a i t h " .

Skin phenomena.

Mechanisms operative i n the formation of skin l e s ions may be i n some degree the same or s i m i l a r to those entering into the aet io logy of stigmata. Notoriously psycholog ica l fac tors p lay a prominent ro le i n both the onset and heal ing of a v a r i e t y of epidermal condit ions . Thus rashes, attacks of h ives , i t c h i n g , e tc . are very often signs of anxiety, s tress , or nervous tension. We have ourselves witnessed the outbreak of a savage red rash, taking only a few minutes to form, simultaneously with the person concerned speaking of a p a i n f u l past experience. A few minutes l a t e r , a f t e r the wave of anxiety had subsided, the rash started to fade, and was gone ten minutes l a t e r . Healing of more long l a s t i n g condit ions by suggestion or by hypnosis i s well-known and represented by very s t r i k i n g and well observed instances.

Lesions of the foregoing k i n d are of course not very s p e c i f i c a l l y patterned and tend to he d i s t r i b u t e d over whole regions of the integument, and are thus l e s s i n t e r e s t i n g than those strange cases when the patterns o f s k i n i r r i t a t i o n appear to be not only r e s t r i c t e d but meaningful. The case of a p o l t e r g e i s t g i r l , Eleonore Zugun, which wis of t h i s k i n d , i s an extremely important and s i g n i f i c a n t one. I n 1925, a t the age o f twelve or t h i r t e e n t h i s peasant g i r l i n Rumania became the centre o f large scale and q u i t e v i o l e n t p o l t e r g e i s t a c t i v i t y , i n c l u d i n g bombardment with stones, movement and t e l e p o r t a t i o n o f domestic a r t i c l e s . The events were s u f f i c i e n t l y dramatic f o r the p r i e s t s to be c a l l e d i n with s p e c i a l masses, exorcisms, and v i s i t s to a l o c a l s h r i n e . The phenomena p e r s i s t e d and e v e n t u a l l y the psychic research workers Countess Wassilko-Serecki and P r o f e s s o r T h i r r i n g brought her to Vienna f o r study. Her t e l e p o r t a t i o n phenomena were o f much i n t e r e s t and were a l s o observed l a t e r i n London by Harry P r i c e and other i n v e s t i g a t o r s . I n the present context i t i s Eleanore's s k i n phenomena that we are concerned w i t h . They occurred f r e q u e n t l y and p e r s i s t e n t l y over s e v e r a l months. There were numerous eye-witnesses to the marks, who s a i d they saw them a c t u a l l y forming on the s k i n , and they were of two typesj long weals and oval-shaped "teeth marks", l i k e b i t e s . As one observer s a i d "Soon a f t e r I entered the room a mark was growing on the g i r l ' s arm. As I watched i t grew i n t o a number of c r u e l - l o o k i n g weals which might have been i n f l i c t e d by a whip or t h i n cane w i t h i n a few minutes the marks had disappeared". Of the teeth marks, Harry P r i c e s a i d they "were f i r s t v i s i b l e as red i n d e n t a t i o n s — the white surround g r a d u a l l y becoming red a t the same time as the i n d e n t a t i o n s became white, r i s i n g i n a t h i c k ridge above the l e v e l of the f l e s h . The r i d g e became qu i t e white i n the course o f a few minutes and r a p i d l y disappeared". One may be i n c l i n e d to doubt, or a t l e a s t tend to regard these testimonies as h i g h l y exaggerated, but t h i s would be q u i t e wrong! There e x i s t s a f i f t e e n minute long motion p i c t u r e showing the phenomena, which occur e x a c t l y as the E n g l i s h witnesses described. This movie was made by a p r o f e s s i o n a l f i l m company i n Vienna i n 1925 and shows Countess Wassilko-S e r e c k i and P r o f e s s o r T h i r r i n g with Eleonore. S i l e n t , the f i l m has s u b - t i t l e s i n German. (Copies are i n the possession of the S o c i e t y f o r P s y c h i c a l Research, London, England, and of t h i s Foundation, by courtesy of Mr. John Cutten). The movie shows Eleonore i n a s l e e v e l e s s and c o l l a r l e s s dress. P r o f e s s o r T h i r r i n g draws a b l u n t s t y l u s g e n t l y over the surface of her neck. Immediately a w h i t i s h mark, about f o u r inches

long appears. This suggests that Eleonore has a condition which Charcot and h i s colleagues at the Salpetriere i n the nineteenth century found among t h e i r h y s t e r i c a l patients and c a l l e d autoglyphic skin. The s u b - t i t l e s then explain that Eleonore i s obsessed with the idea that she i s being persecuted by a demon whom she c a l l s Dracur. This i s a name f o r the Devil i n Rumania and Styriet — the "vampire lands" where the romance of Dracula originated. We are then shown a p e n c i l sketch of Dracu previously drawn by Eleonore. Curiously enough, the drawing as much as anything conforms to one's idea of a p r i e s t of the Orthodox Church i n a long robe and endowed with a severe but not p a r t i c u l a r l y s i n i s t e r , f a c i a l expression. (The psychology behind t h i s i s by no means obvious. I t should be noted that from the onset, some months before, of the g i r l ' s p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena, the r e l a t i v e s and neighbours, and perhaps the p r i e s t s and nuns, had blamed "Dracu" f o r the happenings) Eleonore then takes a l i g h t hammer and s t r i k e s at the drawing which i s l a i d f l a t on the table. After each blow she winces and c r i e s out as i f being pinched by the demon. Next the two investigators, the Countess and the Professor,hold the g i r l ' s hands. As we watch long weals r i s e on her cheeks, arms, and shoulders. S i m i l a r l y tooth marks appear i n the course of a few seconds! They clo s e l y resemble " u r t i c a r i a s " swellings and prominences of the skin, which occur during some kinds of a l l e r g i c reaction, e.g. to contact of the skin with various plant species such as some of those belonging to the genus, Primula. (Here we speak from personal experience!). In passing, i t i s worth saying that having been i n t o t a l ignorance p r i o r to 1970 of the existence of t h i s movie, we were most interested to discover how p e r f e c t l y i t confirmed the o r i g i n a l eye-witness testimony. This f a c t should be quite an object lesson to those who f r i v o l o u s l y reject the testimony of witnesses!

The readers are at l i b e r t y , should they so wish, to regard Eleonore Zugun*s phenomena as d i a b o l i c a l miracles. But t h i s interpretation i s no more necessary now than i t has been i n hundreds of p o l t e r g e i s t cases, some of which, according to the time or place i n which they occurred hove been attributed to demons, elves, f a i r i e s , jinn, etc. etc. Indeed the fountain of f o l l y bubbles and burbles perpetually. We may only look at the antecedents of the p r o f i t a b l e and highly publicised motion picture The Exorcist, derived from a book of the same name by William Peter Blatty. The movie was directed by William Friedkin who had then a very great reputation as having directed a movftf about drug dealers, The French Connection. Rather disingenuously t h i s was extensively publicised as being (based) on a true story. This was s l i g h t l y unfair to the public ,who are not scholars able to detect the nuances of meaning separating "based on", "adapted

from",J"being \ancL» after" an o r i g i n a l . Although i t was e s s e n t i a l l y a s t ra ight t rans la t i on of B l a t t y ' s novel , the l a t t e r was an extremely free adaptation o f a r e a l p o l t e r g e i s t case which occurred i n 19^9 i n Mount Ra in ier , Maryland. The case started as a somewhat conventional or run of the m i l l p o l t e r g e i s t outbreak. I t centred on a fourteen-year o ld boy; cont inual scratching noises under the f loorboards of h i s bedroom were heard by everyone i n h i s family . Later an armchair i n the l i v i n g room rose into the a i r ; simultane .ously a vase flew across the room and smashed i t s e l f against the w a l l . The parents , who were Lutherans, consulted t h e i r minis ter , who took the boy to lodge i n h i s household, but as often happens i n these cases, things were worse than ever, and also took place at the boy's school . He was invest igated at Georgetown U n i v e r s i t y H o s p i t a l , but apparently not cured. Perhaps had he stayed there he might have recovered. Unfortunately h i s Lutheran parents had already ca l l ed i n the Catho l i c c lergy , and he was sent to the Alexian Brothers Hosp i ta l at a considerable distance from h i s home, i n fact as f a r as St . Lou i s ; where the treatment f o r h i s i l l n e s s seems to have consisted mainly i n the sayings of Mass or readings of the Roman R i t u a l for Exorcism by thie p r i e s t s . He was, moreover, baptized into the Cathol ic f a i t h and received Holy Communion. The r e s u l t of a l l t h i s h ighly suggestive symbolism on an already h y s t e r i c a l person was exactly as might have been pred ic ted . He had numerous "f i ts"; he spoke i n strange voices and i n languages "recognized" as French and L a t i n , used very bad and abusive words; he barked, and growled, and hurled himself about. A l l that concerns us here, apart from the t o t a l l y inept handling of the matter by the p r i e s t s , i s the occurrence of a st igmatic type of phenomena. As one p r i e s t said "Brandings would appear on h i s body, from which blood would a c t u a l l y flow". These brandings, or "welts" as some witnesses c a l l e d them often took the form of words. "Spite" appeared many times, s i m i l a r l y "he l l" . Towards the end of the case i t i s said that the welts on the body spel led out the words "Satan, Satan, Go. Now, Now, Now". Soon a f t e r , the boy reverted to normal e i t h e r because of, or i n spi te of, the min i s tra t ions of h i s s p i r i t u a l advisers , whom we are sorry to say included members of the Society of Jesus, who should have known bet ter .

As we have noted, the Venerable Catherine Emmerich bore a stigmatic scar peculiar to herself, a Y-shaped cross on her chest. Padre Pio, i n addition to other wounds, had a small inverted cross as a scar on his side near the heart. A contemporary stigraatist, Natuzza Evolo, born i n Calabria, I t a l y i n 1924, besides having stigmata of the "usual" kind also produces stigmatic wounds on her wrists i n the form of a cross, also the Greek l e t t e r s alpha and omega. (See Appendix I ) . Saint Clare of Montefalco i n Umbria, I t a l y , died in 1308 at the age of thirty-three. She had said " I f you seek the cross of Christ, take my heart; there you w i l l f i n d the suffering Lord". The nuns of her convent were more l i t e r a l minded than the executors of Queen Mary of England and they excised her heart, which i s preserved at Montefalco to th i s day. They also dissected the organ ?claiming to fin d i n i t a t i n y formation of tissue resembling a c r u c i f i x of hardened white tissue, with the body of Christ and the lance and a Crown of Thorns. Today th i s formation i s preserved i n a glass case. A recent v i s i t o r says "The cross i s f a i r l y distinguishable, but you had to use great imagination to decipher the rest". (David Sox, Relics and Shrines, George Al l e n and Unwin, London, 1985.) I t i s possible t h a t the nuns were led astray by the eye of f a i t h , and the formation was an e n t i r e l y natural product of which Saint Clare became to some degree aware by the occurrence of some kind of sensation of discomfort. But we cannot be sure that a stigmatisation process may not take place i n t e r n a l l y i n obedience to causes s i m i l a r to those producing external ones.

Fragrances, Because of the opportunity f o r fraud i n darkened seance rooms, i t i s hard to attach much significance to the fragrances (usually of known species: rose, verbena, or sandalwood) common at s p i r i t u a l i s t seance rooms i n the l a s t century. Peculiar smells, often unpleasant, reported i n contemporary p o l t e r g e i s t cases are also d i f f i c u l t to assess. But stories concerning the "odour of sanctity", perfumes manifesting i n the v i c i n i t y of persons of holy l i f e , are numerous. Testimony was very abundant with regard to the fragrance which clung to everything touched by St. Mary Frances of the Five founds, to the scent of vivuole mammole (a species of vi o l e t ) associated with St. Catherine of Ricce (1522-29). These saints were stigmatics, as was S i s t e r Mary of Jesus Crucified who died i n I878, being s i m i l a r l y favoured according to her Carmelite companions at both Bethlehem and Pau (France). S i m i l a r l y the nuns at Reckshill (New York State) claimed that a wonderful fragrance

pers i s t ed i n t h e i r chapel a f t e r a v i s i t by the st igmatic Margaret R e i l l y (died 1937). In the case of St . Veronica G u i l i a n i (I636-I727) i t was d e f i n i t e l y bel ieved that the scent proceeded from her stigmata. The same i s said of Father Pio Forgione, and there appears to be competent medical testimony as to the object ive r e a l i t y of the scent, which i s var ious ly compared to roses, v i o l e t s , or incense. These fragrances do not seem to be i n v a r i a b l y associated with stigmata, but the frequency of reports i s very numerous. Thus when the wound on the forehead of Saint Rita of Cascia i s described as "ev i l - smel l ing" we are i n c l i n e d to accept i t as a true report just because i t i s the opposite of what would be conventional ly assumed i n th i s f i e l d of study.

No chemical ana lys i s of st igmatic blood yet published has claimed to f ind aromatic substances there in . The door i s by no means closed to a n a t u r a l i s t i c explanation. Agreeable odours are occas ional ly reported by physic ians i n connection with various maladies such as acetonomis where there i s a scent of russet apples. I t i s not inconceivable that profoundly r e l i g i o u s temperaments may be corre lated i n some degree with metabolic e f fects i n which both biochemical and psycho-somatic fac tors p a r t i c i p a t e , i s a curious footnote we r e c a l l a statement by the Revd. Dr. Henry More (1614-1687), the Cambridge "Platonist" philosopher, an ordained Angl ican p r i e s t , and Fel low of C h r i s t ' s College, Cambridge. He said that he exuded a very sweet and de l i cate odour which permeated h i s clothes and bed l i n e n . As a Protestant there was no p o s s i b i l i t y of him being canonized, but possessed of a very kind and gentle nature, he could c e r t a i n l y be described as a s a i n t l y person. As one of h i s biographers says "Mystical devotion was the ch ie f feature of h i s character, a cer ta in radiancy of thought which c a r r i e d him beyond the common l i f e without r a i s i n g him to any a r t i f i c i a l l i g h t f o r h i s humi l i ty and char i ty were not l e ss conspicuous than h i s piety".

The question of fragrance i s i n some degree a l l i e d to the problems of i n c o r r u p t i b i l i t y and of dyring "in the odour of sanct i ty". A s u r p r i s i n g l y high proport ion of sa ints have been exhumed a f t e r b e a t i f i c a t i o n and t h e i r bodies then discovered to be i n a remarkably good state of preservat ion . Also the cadavers of many s a i n t l y personages are sometimes a l leged to emit a fragrance which sometimes p e r s i s t s f o r months or even years. I t i s not only of s t igmatis ts that t h i s i s asserted. Another strange claim i s the persistence of warmth i n the corpse long a f t e r l i f e i s ex t inc t . For that reason we consider the phenomenon known as incendium a'moris, the flames of love, i n the l i v i n g . Also , because i t i s re levant we have to mention inedia , that i s , f a i l u r e to eat.

Flames of love.

Some very famous S a i n t s , such as Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) and Mary Magdalen of P a z z i (I566-I607) were reputedly s u f f e r e r s from incendium amoris, a s c r i b e d to the warmth of t h e i r love o f God, so t h a t even i n winter they sought f o r c o o l i n g winds, and co l d compresses. I n the case of the boy s a i n t S t a n i s l a s Kostka (1550-68) who died during h i s n o v i t i a t e we may suspect an a c t u a l i n f e c t i o n . I n other cases we might suppose the ardours to have been s u b j e c t i v e . But C a r d i n a l Crescenzi s a i d o f St. P h l i p N e r i (1515-95) that the touch of h i s hand was as from one i n a raging f e v e r , and the attendants of St. Catherine i n her l a s t i l l n e s s deposed that blood discharged by the S a i n t was e x c e p t i o n a l l y hot, even f o r a p a t i e n t i n fever. Nuns a f f i r m e d a t the b e a t i f i c a t i o n process of Serafino of Dio (died (I699) that i t scorched them i f they touched her. A L i f e o f Mary V i l l a n i (1574-1670) published i n 1974 says that i n the autopsy nine hours a f t e r death the surgeon found the heart too hot to hold.

Of the s a i n t s p r e v i o u s l y mentioned, St. P h i l i p N e r i was n e i t h e r s t i g m a t i s e d nor h y s t e r i c a l , but Mary V i l l a n i and Mary Magdalen were s t i g m a t i c s , which may be r e l e v a n t . In our own day the incendium was one of the phenomena of Father Pio Forgione (1887-1968) of the Capuchin monastery of San Giovanni Rotundo near Foggia. H i s stigmata, received f i r s t i n 1915, were declared i n 1923 by the Holy O f f i c e not to have been proved to be supernatural. Father Pio was something of a l a t t e r - d a y Cure of Ars, because, though very reserved and r e t i r i n g , l i k e St. John Vianney, he was a l s o a great confessor, and the same g i f t of telepathy or "reading of hearts" i s a l l e g e d o f him, as w e l l as other psychic a b i l i t i e s . I t i s s a i d that as a novice a t Benevento he o c c a s i o n a l l y ran a f e v e r with a temperature so high as to break the c l i n i c a l thermometer. S p e c i a l measurements showed a blood heat of 112°F (45°C).

The modern discovery of biofeedback which can be used to r a i s e temperature l o c a l l y i n the body as w e l l as to vary blood c i r c u l a t i o n and pressure may be r e l e v a n t i n t h i s context, as w e l l as recent claims by yogi v i s i t i n g the U.S.A. such as Swami Rama, whose a b i l i t y to modify the f u n c t i o n i n g of h i s v a s c u l a r system was studied by Dr. & Mrs. Elmer Green at the Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas, i n I969-I97O.

Fever of an h y s t e r i c a l r a t h e r than an organic o r i g i n appears to be rare as an i s o l a t e d symptom, but seems to occur o c c a s i o n a l l y i n conjunction with other h y s t e r i c a l symptoms 1

as i n the case of Dr. S c h l i n e r ' s pat ient . In t h i s connection i t may he appropriate to mention Saint Teresa of A v i l a (1515-1582), a c r u c i a l f igure for the in terpre ta t ion of mysticism because of her wri t ings , which give a de ta i l ed descr ip t ion of her s p i r i t u a l l i f e and of a l l her doubts, hes i ta t ions , and suf fer ings , i n her search f o r God. Also she combined the l i f e of r e l i g i o u s contemplation with an intense a c t i v i t y and commonsense e f f i c i e n c y i n p r a c t i c a l a f f a i r s , such as founding new convents of the reformed Carmelite r u l e , and carry ing reform into the Carmelite monastries. A woman of the highest i n t e l l i g e n c e , she had a commanding but h igh ly a t t r a c t i v e p e r s o n a l i t y , frank, a f fec t ionate , gay and wit ty . Yet wi thal she suffered from h y s t e r i c a l i l l n e s s ; c e r t a i n l y i n the f i r s t h a l f of her l i f e , when she was r a r e l y w e l l . Her ailments as she t e l l s us i n her Autobiography, included frequent f a i n t i n g f i t s and comasl "pains i n the heart" (presumably i n the chest and cardiac region) , d i s t r i b u t e d pain everywhere from the head to the feet , and general p a r a l y s i s . I t may be poss ib le that Teresa was a f f l i c t e d with some obscure metabolic or neuro log ica l disease, which i n her time could not be diagnosed. However many physic ians have agreed i n making the retrospect ive diagnosis of h y s t e r i a . The fac t that she cured h e r s e l f rather suddenly by appeal to St . Joseph i s a good confirmation of the hypothesis .

In the present context i t i s i n t e r s t i n g to note that she a l so suffered, as she says, from an intermit tent fever. (En passant, the Church has appointed her the patron saint of suf ferers from headaches). Saint Teresa was not h e r s e l f a s t igmatic , but she had an experience somewhat reminiscent of those of Saint Francis and Saint Catherine of Siena when the l a t t e r received the " i n v i s i b l e stigmata". Teresa had a v i s i o n i n which an angel came with a lance dipped i n f i r e "a spea of divine love" with which he pierced her heart .

Occas ional ly i t seems a r e s t r i c t e d region of the body can have i t s temperature raised by a h y s t e r i c a l or s i m i l a r mechanism. Thus the l e f t arm of a "poltergeist" g i r l , Angelique C o t t i n , invest igated i n P a r i s i n 1846 gave o f f a gentle heat, i t s temperature was elevated above that of her body, and the other l imbs. The arm trembled and underwent frequent contraxtions and quiver ings . She had frequent intense st ingings i n the wris t associated with paroxysms. The diagnosis of hyster ia i s not, o f course, t o t a l l y r e l i a b l e , but i s , at l eas t , consistent with the symptoms.

Resistance to heat.

I t would be unwise to speculate over-much on incombust ib i l i ty or immunity to f i r e , because l i t t l e of t h i s nature has been asserted since the sixteenth century when i t was said that Venerable Domenica de l Paradiso (1473-1553) could carry l i v e charcoal i n her hands, a useful accomplishment p r i o r to the invent ion of matches. Numerous inc idents of t h i s sort were reported of Si. Franc i s of Pacia (1416-1507), such as put t ing h i s hands into b o i l i n g o i l or mending hot l i m e - k l i n s . St . Catherine of Siena (1347-1389) and her clothes are said to have been miraculously preserved from scorching when i n an ecstasy she lay for an appreciable time i n contact with the kitchen f i r e . Father Thurston has attempted to erect some p a r a l l e l s between mystic incombust ib i l i ty and the pract i ce of f i r e - w a l k i n g , as wel l as the feats o f the medium Danial Dunglass Home (I833-I886), but the subject seems at present beyond the reach of c r i t i c a l a n a l y s i s .

Inedia and anorexia.

Inedia , or l i v i n g with very l i t t l e food, var ies from instances l i k e that of the Cure' of Ars , (1786-1859) where great a c t i v i t y i s maintained on a very l i g h t d i e t , t o cases often ha i l ed as miraculous where the i n d i v i d u a l , almost i n v a r i a b l y a woman, apparently survives f or months and years on no food and l i t t l e dr ink . In h i s recent book (Holy Anorexia, Un ivers i ty of Chicago Press) , Rudolph B e l l , a professor of h i s tory at Rutgers Univers i ty , notes that of for ty women i n I t a l y who were canonized i n the 14th century about h a l f were enedics.

Many attempts have been made to prove by observation that fa s t ing i s complete. Occasional ly they end t r a g i c a l l y i n death; which suggests that when unsupervised the hunger-s t r i k e r does i n fac t take a l i t t l e nourishment. Inedics are not always Roman Cathol ics or even p a r t i c u l a r l y r e l i g i o u s . Usual ly there i s evidence of nervous disorder; the inedic i s bedridden with a mysterious i l l n e s s , or i s given to f i t s or trances. Hyster ia inedia or anorexia nervosa i s a very well-known disorder , and can end i n death. Often the anorexic i s l i t e r a l l y incapable of accepting s o l i d food and re jec t s i t by automatic choking or vomiting outside of conscious c o n t r o l . I t i s not f u l l y understood why inedics can survive f or such long periods and i t would be foo l i sh to underestimate r e s i d u a l d i f f i c u l t i e s of n a t u r a l i s t i c explanation. But there i s no obvious feature by which inedia i n the devout d i f f e r s from anorexia i n h y s t e r i c a l persons. Rel ig ious inedics often show other signs of hys ter ia ; female st igmatics are frequently inedics a l s o .

One of the more recent stigmatics mentioned above, namely S i s t e r Susan Ku r a v i l l a , i s also, i t seems, an extreme inedic. Since 1950, she claimed, she had taken no other food than the Communion wafers and minute quantities of honey, grape juice, or ginger concentrates — "not more than two ounces i n a week". Doctors who examined her i n Canada pronounced her quite healthy though p h y s i c a l l y s l i g h t . In t h i s connection i t should be noted that although her height (fiv e feet, s i x t y inches 152 cm) i s not great, her weight i s more than proportionally l i g h t , namely 80 pounds only. This encourages a question. In the course of at least h a l f a century i n try i n g to pursue the anomalous, the strange, the "miraculous" we have learned one lesson at l e a s t . A surprisingly large proportion of questions r e l a t i n g to the unknown reveal what we s t i l l do not know concerning the supposedly known and understood. Thus we do not r e a l l y know the l i m i t s of tolerance of the human frame to under nourishment. U n t i l t h i s i s answered we cannot p o n t i f i c a t e concerning the minimum die t f o r l i f e and a c t i v i t y .

Incorruption.

As we have said, a large number of holy persons have escaped decay of the body a f t e r death to a remarkable degree. Something l i k e a hundred cases are known. In only a few cases i n the Roman Church has b e a t i f i c a t i o n or canonization been authorised on the basis of i n c o r r u p t i b i l i t y , though i n the Eastern Church i n e a r l i e r days at l e a s t i t seems to have been a sine qua non. For centuries i n the west the procedure has been f o r the process or hearings to be concluded and then i f the verdict i s favourable the supporters of the cause e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y and hopefully d i s i n t e r the remains. I f the body i s well preserved t h i s i s taken as yet further confirmation of the saint's heroic virtue and an opportunity f o r further r e j o i c i n g . I f however the remains are mere bones and dust i t i s not taken as r e f l e c t i n g on the sanctity of the deceased. Indeed many of the Church's greatest saints have'-been as corruptible as the next man and include Saint Dominic, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Francis of A s s i s i , and Saint Ignatius Loyala. However some of the most famous and popular saints have been incorrupt. Thus Bernadette of Lourdes (1844-79) was found incorrupt i n 1909 though with the face brown and the eyes sunken. Only bones were revealed when the " l i t t l e Theresa", Saint Therese of Liseux was d i s i n t e r r e d . But things were d i f f e r e n t with the "great Theresa", Saint Teresa of A v i l a . A v i o l e t odour and a fragrant o i l were said to d i s t i l from her tomb, and when i t was opened i n 1583. nine months a f t e r her death, the body was found undecayed.

— Star photo bv EI*I Camte ?

HANDS, F E E T AND FOREHEAD of Sister Susan Kuruvilla show the same The nun, who runs a prayer centre and hostel for the needy in southerns wounds Jesus reportedly suffered on the cross and from the crown of thorns. India, eats virtually nothing. She is visiting relatives in Don Mills.)

Saint Catherine of Genoa's remains were l e f t f o r about eighteen months i n t h e i r f i r s t resting-place. However the spot was believed to be damp so the c o f f i n was taken out and opened. "The holy body was found entire from head to foot without any l e s i o n " . We have mentioned how the body of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order was not preserved. However Saint Francis Xavier.the great missionary to the Far East, and one of Loyola's f i r s t seven followers, provided a very i n t e r e s t i n g example of incorruption. He died of fever in China i n 1552. His body was packed i n quicklime and sent to Goa i n India. When the casket was opened the body was s t i l l fresh. I t has been examined and exhibited many times since; although somewhat darkened and d r y , i t appears to be e s s e n t i a l l y i n t a c t . Among stigmatists who have been incorrupt we must l i s t Rita of Cascia mentioned above.

Unlike stigmatisation the Church did not have to wait f o r a millenium p r i o r to the f i r s t observation of i n c o r r u p t i b i l i t y . Saint Ambrose of Milan (340-397) wrote to Saint Augustine of Hippo (35^-^30) concerning the body of a martyr Nazarius which along with one Celsus had been found buried in a garden outside Milan. Speaking as an eyewitness Saint Ambrose says "we saw the martyr's blood as fresh as i f i t had been shed that same day. Further, h i s head, which the wretches had cut off, was so perfect and free from corruption with a l l the h a i r and the beard, that i t looked to us, at the time we moved i t , as i f i t had been washed and l a i d out f o r inspection there i n the tomb .... Also we were overwhelmed at the same time with so heavy a fragrance that i t surpassed a l l perfumes i n sweetness". Saint C e c i l i a , the patron saint of music was supposed to be a Christian martyr who was k i l l e d i n her house at the spot in the Trastevere d i s t r i c t of Rome where her church now stands. The story goes that i n the ninth century Pope Paschal I, who collected large numbers of r e l i c s f o r the churches of Rome, dreamt that her body was i n the catacomb of Saint C a l l i x t u s , and i t was duly found there, and on disinterment was incorrupt, a f t e r presumably more than six centuries. A f t e r another six hundred years i n 1599 the tomb i n her church was opened and a sculptor instructed to carve a r e p l i c a of exactly what had been seen. This sculpture i s there today together with an i n s c r i p t i o n by the sculptor c e r t i f y i n g i t to be an accurate portrayal of the s t i l l incorrupt body.

The Reformation i n B r i t a i n was completed about four centuries ago, thus readers brought up within the B r i t i s h sphere of culture may be unaware of some interesting English incorruptibles.

These include persons of royal b i r t h , such as Stheldreda, the Abbess of Ely, and daughter of King Anna of East Anglia. Married successively to a Welsh p r i n c e l i n g and then to a son of the King of Northumbria, she eventually was granted rele^ce from her marriage vows. Her asceticism, evidenced by her taking few meals or baths, as well as her success i n intercession on behalf of suppliants desiring healing miracles, made hers e l f and Ely very famous. Sixteen years a f t e r her death i n 679 her remains were found "as free from corruption as i f she had just died and been buried on that very day". At the Reformation Etheldreda's body was destroyed or lost,-except f o r a hand which i s now in St. Etheldreda's Roman Catholic Church, and resembles brown parchment stretched over bones, s h r i v e l l e d f l e s h and muscular tissue.

King Edward the "Confessor" (who died, as every schoolboy knows, i n 1066) was regarded by many as a saint even i n h i s own l i f e t i m e . Buried i n Westminster Abbey i n that year, the body was exhumed i n 1102 and found to be p e r f e c t l y incorrupt. One of England's best loved saints, even to the present day, i s the gentle St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, now called the Holy Island, i n his honour, o f f the coast of Northumberland. He died in 68?. His remains were l a t e r taken to Durham cathedral. His sepulchre was opened i n 1104 and the body discovered to be p e r f e c t l y preserved, f l e x i b l e and exhaling a "heavenly fragrance". This statement was proved i n a curious way not to be merely a pious invention. In 1537 Henry VIII's commissioners arrived i n Durham to gather treasure and put down id o l a t r y . They found Cuthbert "l y i n g whole, incorrupt, with h i s face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's growth" and were s u f f i c i e n t l y moved to allow i t to be reburied. As the commissioners were l i k e l y to be as hardboiled as t h e i r royal master and h i s minister Thomas Cromwell i t i s probable that the story i s true, f o r otherwise i t would not have been the kind of thing to be invented. However i n 1827 the remains were examined again and found to consist only of an enrobed skeleton. I t i s possible therefore that i n c o r r u p t i b i l i t y , even though maintained f o r several centuries }may yet be n u l l i f i e d e i t h e r by passage of time or by transfer of the corpse.

The preservation of the flesh of holy persons appears to involve a degree of caprigiousness. One can sympathize with the words of Montague Summers who said i n his book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, (tfider, London, 1950), written, by the way, on e n t i r e l y Medieval l i n e s , unlike Father Thurston's 7"the Divine Plan i n respect of incorruption has not yet been made clear to human i n t e l l i g e n c e " . However

human in t e l l i g e n c e can take us some way i n the d i r e c t i o n of a normal or n a t u r a l i s t i c explanation. Outside the r e l i g i o u s sphere there are thousands of examples of bodies that have survived f o r centuries or millenia without enbalming. Quite t y p i c a l are the numerous mummies of Peru. Here the operative factor seems to be not heat but dryness. Experience with vaults suggests that cool, dry, moving a i r i s conducive to preservation while heat, moisture, and s t i l l n e s s of the atmosphere have the opposite tendency. Forensic medicine, while tending to confirm the foregoing, also suggests that leanness of body i s a help, as well as absence of r i g o r mortis. Now the majority of holy persons, while not necessarily enedics or anorexics, tend to be ascetic rather than s e l f -indulgent, and therefore on the lean side. (Saint Thomas Aquinus i s almost unique among the Blessed in having been corpulent). Furthermore, r i g o r mortis i s , according to forensic s c i e n t i s t s , very much a function of the tension of the muscles at the time of death. Those who are fortunate enough to pass e a s i l y out of t h i s l i f e i n a relaxed mood of acceptance or even of hopefulness, which i s exactly what i s told of many r e l i g i o u s , tend to manifest l i t t l e or even no rigor; t h e i r corporeal remains stay f l e x i b l e . Thus we could compose a receipe f o r those of our readers who might seek post mortem preservation of t h e i r physical being. Eat sparingly, c u l t i v a t e a calm equanamity of mind i n one's l a s t years, and be interred i n a dry cool vault with some a i r movement! The alternative i s dry sand i n a cool desert as i n Peru and i n China. See "China's Blond Bombshell" i n the Appendix I.

However th i s does not seem to be the whole story. As usual i n any honest enquiry, nothing i s simple, nothing i s easy! The foreging explanation would seem quite adequacy to relate to those holy persons such as Saint Bernadette Soubirous, :and many others whose post-mortem appearances became somewhat mummified. But a number of cases seem to exhibit rather d i f f e r e n t c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s . Thus moisture does not always prove f a t a l to the continued s o l i d i t y and shapeliness of the f l e s h of the deceased. Moisture sometimes produces saponification with the i n t e r n a l tissues converted into a l i n d of ammoniacal soap, c a l l e d adipocere, or gras de cadavre, while' the skin becomes mummy-like. The body of Blessed Marie P e l l e t i e r was found i n t h i s condition when exhumed 35 years a f t e r death. Whether conversion into soap i s destiny that would be welcomed by aspirants to s p i r i t u a l development i s a question we leave to others. Saponification with a mummified integument i s an outcome that quite possibly l i e s within the natural order. Similarly limited exposure to damp followed by incorruption may also be rare but natural,

as with Saint Catherine of Genoa and Saint Teresa of A v i l a . But Saint Charles Borromeo's case seems more d i f f i c u l t ; the moisture i n his vault corroded two successive c o f f i n l i d s but the body stayed i n good condition.

An i n t e r e s t i n g case i s that of Saint Charbel Maklouf, a monk of the Maronite Christian Church, and thus neither Roman Catholic nor Orthodox. His monasiay was i n the mountains of northern Lebanon, and he died on Christmas Eve I898 at the age of seventy. He was l a i d i n a monk',s tomb without c o f f i n or enbalming. He was exhumed a f t e r about seven weeks because the v i l l a g e r s said there was a bright l i g h t around the tomb. Because of heavy rains the body was found f l o a t i n g on mud, but i n perfect condition, as i f i t had been just placed there. I t i s said that subsequently a l i q u i d resembling blood had seeped out through a crack i n the c o f f i n wherein Saint Charbel was placed. I t i s claimed that i n the early days i t was s u f f i c i e n t to soak the body to such a degree that i t s clothing was changed twice a week. The body was l a s t examined i n 1950» and i s said to be t o t a l l y free of any corruption but s t i l l generating the same blood and watery f l u i d . However moisture alone does not provide adequate explanation f o r a number of other strange cases.

When Blessed Anna Maria Taigi (I769-I837) was exhumed i n 1868, the surgeon reported that the corpse resembled that of a person only three days dead. The skin was soft and discharged an inoffensive and somewhat aromatic f l u i d , r e c a l l i n g the balsam or o i l which on other occasions have been reported of the bodies of holy persons, such as Saint Teresa of A v i l a . Another puzzling feature claimed for bodies which preserve a fresh appearance a f t e r death, i s that the blood vessels remain f u l l of l i q u i d blood so that the corpse i s capable of bleeding. Such was the case with Saint Francis Xavier when removed from the quicklime, and, i t i s claimed, some seventy years a f t e r h i s death. Another problem i s why only some organs of certain r e l i g i o u s persons are preserved while the rest decays. Cases i n point are the tongue of Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) foxtnd intact i n 1263, the rest of the body having decomposed. The fac t was attested by Bonaventure, a fellow Franciscan, indeed the head of that Order, who himself was canonized i n 1482. Of Saint Bridget of Sweden, the heart alone was preserved. In summation i t may be f a i r to say that while there i s a strong presumption that the majority of cases of incorruption are natural, there i s yet a deviant group of which i t would be presumptious to assay a verdict.

Very recently, according to the Standard, of London, England, of 2? Feb. 1985, the Vatican has been concerned with the discovery that the body of Cardinal Schuster of Milan shows no sign of corruption a f t e r h i s death, now thirty-two years ago. There i s a movement afoot f o r h i s b e a t i f i c a t i o n . Although incorruption i s not a requirement i t s occurrence cannot f a i l to help advance the cause. Some embarrassment res u l t s however from the fact that the Cardinal i s s t i l l remembered as an open admirer of Fascism, a f r i e n d of Mussolini up to the di c t a t o r ' s death i n 1945, and an enthusiastic supporter of the Abbysinian War. Perhaps when the time comes the then Pope, whoever he may be, w i l l do something of the same kind as Benedict XIII did with Saint Catherine of R i c c i , and declare that the Cardinal's merits have to be considered apart from h i s p o l i t i c s . ( I t i s also said that " i n j e c t i o n marks" have been found on the body, suggesting that the preservation i s a r t i f i c i a l , but that i s a d i f f e r e n t question again). En passant *.?e could say that i f t h e i r p o l i t i c s were a consideration few of the Saints would qualify. The great saints of the Counter-Reformation, Teresas, Loyalas, and the l i k e -- would have regarded r e l i g i o u s toleration, democracy, and the Constitution of the United States as the Devil's workl

Padre Pio Forgione of San Giovanni Rotondo.

Saint Francis of A s s i s i a c t u a l l y was a layman, and i t i s a remarkable fa c t that only one ordained p r i e s t i s known to have been a stigmatic; t h i s was Francesco Forgione, better known as Padre Pio, who died only i n 1962, having become the most famous stigmatic of a l l time. He was born i n 188? into a very poor but respectable peasant family i n the v i l l a g e of P i e t r e l c i n a i n the Appenines of southern I t a l y , near Benevento, roughly halfway between Naples and the Gargano region. As a c h i l d he was i n t e l l i g e n t and healthy taking an inte r e s t i n r e l i g i o n at a very early age. He was also exceptional i n having a very intense f e e l i n g f o r the abundant instances of poverty and i l l n e s s in that very indigent nneighbourhood, and furthermore showing a strong impulsion to asceticism, choosing f o r example, to sleep on the hard f l o o r of an outhouse rather than i n h i s bed. Having done well at the l o c a l school and also come to the attention of the l o c a l archpriest (presumably the Roman equivalent of an Anglican r u r a l dean) Francesco was, i n 1902, allowed to enter the Capuchin monastry at Morcone, near Campobasso, as a novice and a student f o r the priesthood; he adopted Pio as h i s name i n r e l i g i o n . He l a t e r took courses at other monastic seminaries, f i n a l l y becoming ordained as a p r i e s t i n 1910 at the age of twenty-three.

His piety was already so celebrated that a large number of people from P i e t r e l c i n a and other places i n the d i s t r i c t came to hear him perform h i s f i r s t Mass i n the cathedral at Benevento.

At the time he was so emaciated on account of h i s deliberately chosen meagre di e t and the long days of prayer and study that he i n f l i c t e d on himself that the a u t h o r i t i e s suspected him of being tubucular and to be too f r a i l f o r most p r i e s t l y or monastic duties. In t h i s b e l i e f they were encouraged by the f i r s t of the strange physiological phenomena that Padre Pio manifested — i t seems to have been of the same nature as the "Flames of Love"; he ran excessively high temperatures said to break the c l i n i c a l thermometers. But despite t h i s apparent sign of fever he survived h i s rigorous regimen of fasting, penances, and praying night and day. He was therefore sent to P i e t r e l c i n a to a s s i s t h i s old patron the archpriest, i n the hope that h i s duties could, i f necessary, be minimised.

At t h i s stage i t should be mentioned that during the period p r i o r to ordination both i n h i s c e l l at the seminaries where he studied and i n h i s room when v i s i t i n g his family at P i e t r e l c i n a , Pio was subject to what many r e l i g i o u s , both then and now, would describe as attacks by the D e v i l . On occasions Pio saw a large black dog glowing l i k e a f i r e f l y . At other time, p a r t i c u l a r l y i n the evening, screams or thuds would be heard while Pio was alone i n h i s room. On going i n friends or r e l a t i v e s would see the room in t o t a l confusion, — books and ink, furniture and bedding thrown around. Pio, apparently uninjured, would be s i l e n t , o f f e r no explanation, and motion them to withdraw. Before long Pio found h i s own method of i n h i b i t i n g the visions and the occurrences. He would say Viva Gesu! and any i n c i p i e n t disorder would subside f o r the night. Students of p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena w i l l tend to interpret t h i s r a t i o n a l l y as exemplifying paranormal but not supernatural happenings. Po l t e r g e i s t phenomena, visions associated with the Adversary, as well as the a b i l i t y of the person involved to i n h i b i t the phenomena by appropriately chosen r i t u a l s , t a l l y well with the psychological theory of p o l t e r g e i s t a c t i v i t y , and relate i t to the profound stresses which must accompany any i n d i v i d u a l attempt to l i v e a l i f e of t o t a l s e l f denial i n the pursuit of "heroic v i r t u e " . But we have no desire to force t h i s conclusion on the reader. Such happenings are i n f a c t almost a commonplace i n hagiography from St. Anthony and St. Dunstan down to modern times such as the "diabolic Mpersecutions of Saint John Vianney, the Cure" of Ars i n France, who i n some respects resembled Padre Pio, a l b e i t with many differences.

In 1914 the f i r s t world War came. Padre Pio was conscripted? the army medical examiners found him p h y s i c a l l y f i t ; he was put on hospital duties. He became i l l , was sent home on sick leave. On returning to h i s unit he was invalided out, refusing the o f f e r of a pension. In 1917 he became a member of the small Capuchin monastery called Saint Mary of the Grace comprising only six or seven brethren, i n the t i n y v i l l a g e of San Giovanni Rotondo, which was then very isolated. The nearest c i t y was Foggia, but the v i l l a g e was halfway up the massif c a l l e d Monte Gargano ,(a somewhat barren limestone massif, next to the A d r i a t i c sea) and then accessible only on foot. Padre Pio was destined to make t h i s l i t t l e congregation famous throughout at l e a s t the Catholic world, and the goal of an endless stream of pilgrims. He remained there u n t i l h i s death.

P r i o r to h i s a r r i v a l at San Giovanni Rotondo he had been the subject of a strange event which contained the shape of things to come. On September 20th 1915 while at home at P i e t r e l c i n a , about noon, Padre Pio had been praying i n the outhouse previously mentioned. He ran from the hut waving h i s hands with a look of agony on his face and seeking a bucket of water i n which to quench a burning sensation i n h i s hands. Then he stopped and walked slowly back to the hut, where h i s mother and the archpriest l a t e r found him. He reported a burning i n his hands. The archpriest l a t e r interpreted the event to Signore Forgione; Vhe has received the i n v i s i b l e stigmata, the secret of the Lord". The archpriest went on to say that the event was "A message from Jesus Christ to Padre Pio that he has been chosen to suffer l i k e Jesus on the Cross, so that h i s suffering i s offered to humanity. That i s to say, one man suffers f o r others, who are spared suffering. One man c a r r i e s the burden" En passant we should say that t h i s i s a special a p p l i c a tion of a thesis often used i n the Catholic church as a means of comfort to sufferers from tragic ailments, e.g. f a t a l diseases of children; they are declared "victim" persons, "chosen" to a s s i s t Christ i n his sufferings to redeem mankind from the burden of s i n . This i s c l e a r l y well meant, whether or not i t i s f a c t u a l l y true, and may be of some comfort to the victims and t h e i r r e l a t i v e s . A propos of the event i t s e l f , which was objective at least to the degree that Pio's pain was r e a l , irrespective of whether i t was externally caused or, instead, merely generated by completely endogenic processes of a mental or neurophysiological kind, we may note a c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of stigmatic phenomena — t h e i r tending to occur on anniversaries. The t y p i c a l stigmati w i l l commence hi s phenomenon on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, or, i f he or she i s a hebdomadal stigmatic, every

Friday or Thursday. The day of Pio's i n v i s i b l e stigmata was the day that the parish of P i e t r e l l c i n a was celebrating the stigmatisation of St. Francis. We can note also the fact that Pio's parents had given him the baptismal name of Francesco a f t e r the Saint. In the Catholic world among the devout the day of the Saint f o r whom one i s named i s often more important than one's birthday. We may r e c o l l e c t Charcot' patient who was healed of her neurosis on her Saint's day, th i s suggestion having been previously made to her.

We may note en passant that " i n v i s i b l e stigmata" had been claimed before by various r e l i g i o u s including Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)• She said her stigmatic scars could not be seen because she had prayed that they be made i n v i s i b l e to others. A century l a t e r Pope Sixtus IV condemned any mention of St. Catherine's stigmatisation as an offence. The reason i s not f a r to seek; He was himself a Franciscan and favoured that Order, who resented the Dominicans, of whom Catherine had been a Tertiary Sister, acclaiming her stigmatisation as a miracle. The Franciscans wished to monopolize th i s sign of grace f o r t h e i r own founder Saint Francis. Catherine however was, i n a manner of speaking, safely out of the papal reach, having been canonized i n l 4 6 l during the reign of Pope Pius I I . Destined to make further progress i n popular and e c c l e s i a s t i c a l veneration she was eventually named Patron Saint of I t a l y along with Saint Francis himself, and i n 1970, on account of her writings, e s p e c i a l l y the Dialogue, was named a Doctor of the Church. Looking at the matter from the present point of view i t would seem l i k e l y that her stigmatic pains were " r e a l " enough and possibly she "saw" the marks when i n visionary states. Like so many other stigmatics she was no stranger to mystical prayer and experienced numerous raptures and ecstasies.

A f t e r about a year at the Fr:ary of Santa Marie delle Grazie at San Giovanni Rotondo during which Pio had quie t l y continued, engaging i n prayer and performing h i s duties as a f r i a r , a second great event happened. I t should be explained that the Capuchin Order i s an offshoot of the Franciscans and naturally revere St. Francis of A s s i s i . At Santa Marie delle Grazie the f r i a r s celebrated the Saint's stigma tisation on the 17th of September. When th i s day came round i n 1918 i t f e l l on a Wednesday; the following Friday Padre Pio was i n the choir giving thanks a f t e r Mass. A cry was heard and Pio was found l y i n g on the f l o o r bleeding profusely. I t eventuated that he had "wounds" i n both hands and both feet and i n the right side. These stayed with him the rest of his l i f e . The f e r i t a wound persisted as a shallow

scar i n the shape of a cross. The hand wounds were just below the middle finger and penetrated right through. They were bounded by a brown scar but bled about a cupful a day. A great deal of investigation followed, photography and examination by doctors. Eventually the medicals agreed that no fraud was involved. Outside I t a l y Padre Pio soon became famous and the genuineness of the stigmata ( i n the sense at l e a s t that there was no fraud) was accepted i n many Catholic c i r c l e s . However many Catholics i n I t a l y i t s e l f became h o s t i l e . Although Pope Benedict XV was on his side, f o r some years Pio was ordered to stay i n seclusion, apart even from h i s brother f r i a r s . The r e s t r i c t i o n s became even more severe i n the reign of the next Pope, Pius XI, but were l i f t e d i n consequence of another strange event. For some time people had reported seeing or being v i s i t e d by Padre Pio, apparently i n the f l e s h . However i n view of Pio's r e s t r i c t i o n of movement i t became clear that these appearances could not have been i n the flesh unless the Father had been a c t u a l l y teleported. In 1929 a very s a i n t l y p r i e s t i n the Vatican was praying i n a chapel i n the Vatican when he saw a Capuchin monk, whom he recognized as Padre Pio praying at the tomb of a former Pope. The p r i e s t went to t e l l the then Pope, Pius XI, whoy accepted the fact philosophically and said "What good i s i t to r e s t r i c t h i s movements?".

The remainder of Padre Pio's l i f e , nearly f o r t y more years, was spent i n the same d a i l y routine at San Giovanni Rotondo. As many people as could get i n came to the church, s p e c i a l l y b u i l t and adjoining the F r i a r y , to hear Pio saying Mass d a i l y . He also, l i k e St. John Vianney, spent several hours a day hearing confessions. No r e s t r i c t i o n s were placed on v i s i t o r s entering the F r i a r y and the related buildings. Pio would only hear the confessions of those speaking I t a l i a n or La t i n . G i f t s he received a l l went to the treatment of disease, and a special hospital was b u i l t there, out of donations. The monastery was more or less thrown open to a l l v i s i t o r s , who were allowed to move around f r e e l y and catch a sight of Padre Pio, the other f r i a r s devoting thmselves mainly to keeping reasonable order. Naturally the once tiny hamlet of San Giovanni has grown into a sizable town. Sanctity and the paranormal.

The majority of cases of stigmatisation have stayed within the bounds of what i s conceivably normal, even by the standards of the Roman Catholic Church, which i n respect of many canonized persons, such as Saint Gemma Galgani, has e x p l i c i t l y excluded the stigmata as not being necessarily supernatural or signs of grace. However, both in stigmatists and other

r e l i g i o u s persons we encounter other phenomena. These are more or less what outside the r e l i g i o u s f i e l d we would i n c l i n e to describe as paranormal. That i s to say, they c l o s e l y resemble the kind of happenings that i n psychical research are c a l l e d ESP ( i . e . extrasensory perception), which comprises telepathy, clairvoyance, and perhaps precognition, P.K. ( i . e . psychokinesis) and teleportation; also we ought to l i s t "psychic" photography and the appearance of "messages" on audiotapes. We discuss the paranormal i n the context of the r e l i g i o u s l i f e i n the following sections.

Psycho-kinesis.

Psycho-kinesis i s the name given i n parapsychology to the movement of objects by means unknown to physics. I t occurs i n p o l t e r g e i s t outbreaks and i s alleged to happen i n seance rooms. Catholic writers recognise " d i a b o l i c a l assaults" on the r e l i g i o u s , which bear a considerable resemblance to p o l t e r g e i s t phenomena. Otherwise psycho-kinesis i s r a r e l y alleged of the more recent Saints. Howverthe term t e l e k i n e s i s i s applied to the spontaneous f l i g h t of the Host (the wafer of consecrated bread i n the Mass) to the mouth of a d i v i n e l y favoured -recipient. Aspirants to a reputation for sanctity might fraudulently conceal a wafer in the mouth p r i o r to announcing the miracle, as seems to have been done by V i t t o r i a Bondi i n the time of Benedict XIV. However when the Cure' of Ars said that once the Host detached I t s e l f from his fingers and placed I t s e l f upon the tongue of a communicant we cannot doubt h i s veracity. There remains the p o s s i b i l i t y of a hallucination or a false memory. I t i s also possible that the Cure' produced the "miracle" himself by unconscious psychokinesis having been for many years the centre of p o l t e r g e i s t a c t i v i t y .

Teleportation or apportation, the mysterious conveyance of objects into closed rooms, i s alleged both of p o l t e r g e i s t cases and the mediumistic seance. Phenomena analogous to teleportation met with i n connection with Saints are the alleged miracles of abundance. The heaps of corn i n the granary of t h e " F i l l e s de l a Croix" at La Poye i n Poitou were mysteriously replenished over a continuing period around 1824 a f ^ S a i n t Andrew Fournet (1752-1834) had prayed over them. Of t h i s Saint i t i s said that whatever was needed i n the way of supplies f o r the orphanage, he got as i f he plucked them from thin airJ One i s at a l o s s what comment to make on St. John Bosco's basket containing i n i t i a l l y only a score of r o l l s which i n I860 provided, i t seems, enough bread for h i s 300 students. I n t e r e s t i n g l y

enough no other marvels are narrated of "Don Bosco" (1815-88), not even ecstasies.

We s h a l l return to questions of psychokinesis and teleportation i n connection with Natuzza Evolo.

Le v i t a t i o n .

L e v i t a t i o n i s alleged of comparatively few saints which suggests i t i s not a hagiographic commonplace. However, Professor Leroy's scholarly review l i s t s 50 t r a d i t i o n s as ancient ( p r i o r to 1500), 85 cases as modern (1500-1800) and 20 cases as recent (post 1800). In the ancient t r a d i t i o n s as with Saint Dunstan (918-988) and Saint Francis we encounter the hagiographic d i f f i c u l t y , t h e i r l e v i t a t i o n s being mentioned by t h e i r l a t e r biographers but not t h e i r e a r l i e s t ones. Some modern c r i t i c s have taken the view that l e v i t a t i o n ^ i s purely a subjective feelingc experienced by ec s t a t i c persons, many of whom have ce r t a i n y l spoken of a sense of lightness and of being l i f t e d up. But the case of St. Joseph Mary Desu (1603-63) i s adequate by i t s e l f to prove the occurrence of l e v i t a t i o n as an objective physical happening. Very slow of wit, none the less while at the Conventual Monastery at Copertino in Southern I t a l y , he gained such a fame i n the d i s t r i c t f o r h i s goodwill, piety and holiness that he was examined by the In q u i s i t i o n of Naples, but acquitted of the charge of deceiving the populace by false miracles. Subsequently the authorities, rendered even more suspicious by his l e v i t a t i o n s , transferred him successively to A s s i s i , Urbino, Fossombrone and Osima, but at each place he attracted a pilgrimage.

Joseph's l e v i t a t i o n s occurred during joyous raptures which could e a s i l y be triggered o f f as by music or the sight of a sacred image or beautiful l e a f or twig. Sometimes they were simple suspensions i n the a i r as happened in Rome before Pope Urban VIII, to which the Holy Father t e s t i f i e d . At Copertino alone no less than 70 l e v i t a t i o n s are alleged. Some were comical rather than edifying. The wife of the High Admiral of C a s t i l e fainted when she and her husband saw Joseph f l y a distance of 12 paces over t h e i r heads. Mary, Princess of Savoy, who had an affectionate reverance for Joseph deposed to several remarkable f l i g h t s i n her presence. The Lutheran Duke of Brunswick and his chaplain saw Joseph at Mass transported in the a i r about 5 paces from the a l t a r while s t i l l i n a kneeling posture and return i n similar fashion. They became Catholics.

Joseph's f l i g h t s are exceptional among l e v i t a t o r s . The majority of eye-witness accounts concerning other mystics, (and there are many r e l a t i n g to widely d i f f e r e n t times and places), affirm that the mystic while i n ecstasy i s suspended about six inches above the ground and at length makes a gentle landing. The l e v i t a t i n g mystic may be preaching l i k e Saint Alphonsus Liguori (I696-I787) and Saint Andrew Fournet (1752-1834), or praying l i k e Sa:nt Teresa of Avila (1515-82) and the great theologian Francis Suarez (1548-1617). The evidence i s not conclusive but strongly suggests that l e v i t a t i o n occus only i n ecstasy. In 24 cases out of the 155 l i s t e d by Leroy the face or figure of the l e v i t a t i n g e c s t a t i c have been said to give o f f or be bathed i n a mysterious radiance. Sometimes i t i s said to emanate from a sacred image or c r u c i f i x , but i n other cases there i s no obvious source. Puzzling as t h i s may be, i t does not weaken the evidence f o r levitation which rests on non-irradiated cases l i k e St. Joseph's.levitation (and perhaps radiance) i s one mystic phenomenon requiring us to postulate either supernatural explanation or the existence of natural forces unknown to physics. On a n a t u r a l i s t i c view such forces are possibly the same as those released i n p o l t e r g e i s t outbreaks, but with a d i f f e r e n t 'style' of operation corresponding to a r a d i c a l l y d i f f e r e n t psychological situation. I f following Theresa Neumann we look f o r "mystical significance" i . e . symbolic meaning, i t i s not hard to f i n d . L e v i t a t i o n may be an acted out or r e a l i z e d "symbol of ascension" to use a phrase of Mircea Eliade who wrote a book on such symbolism. Religious l i t e r a t u r e from the Bible through to r e v i v a l i s t hymns i s replete with metaphors f o r elevation of the soul towards the divine.

We are at a loss to suggest any reason psychologically or otherwise for the more " f l i g h t y " type of l e v i t a t i o n s experienced by St. Joseph of Copertino. I t i s true that he was not i n t e l l e c t u a l -- indeed some regarded him as almost simpleminded — and e a s i l y put into raptures by the sight of leaves or flowers, or by p a r t i c i p a t i n g i n the Mass. But St. P h i l i p Neri (1515-1595) whose l e v i t a t i o n s , though l e s s dramatic than Joseph's were however very dramatic, was a man of learning and refined i n t e l l e c t . Similar l e v i t a t i o n s are alleged of two other saints.

Radiance.

Returning to the subject of radiance i t i s curious that radiances, aureoles, or haloes, have ra r e l y been reported except i n conjunction with l e v i t a t i o n . An exception seems to be reports by members of congregations sometimes of

Protestant denominations of seeing a glow or glory around or above the head of the preacher, p a r t i c u l a r l y at times when the l a t t e r seems to be highly inspired or moving. Whether th i s type of observation of which we have ourselves received reports, i s a l l i e d closely or at a l l with the perception of auras (discussed elsewhere, see our review V i s i o n and Perception, Auras and Illusions)we cannot say.

Elongation of the body.

Before returning to a discussion of powers exemplified i n our own time by Padre Pio and Natuzza Svolo, and which set up a p a r a l l e l between r e l i g i o u s phenomena and some of those encountered i n secular psychical research, we wish to mention b r i e f l y one bizarre kind of occurrence.

Allegations of d i s t o r i o n or elongation of the mystic's person would seem a p r i o r i to be too grotesque f o r pious hagiographers to in s e r t them into the record as conventional indications of sanctity. But there are no recent instances. Also, even i f the veracity of the witnesses i s accepted,there i s i n some cases a doubt as to whether the more understandable and better authenticated phenomenon of l e v i t a t i o n has not been mistaken f o r elongation. Thus the fellow nuns of S i s t e r Veronica Capa r e l l i (1537-1620) measured her height with a yard sti c k and found that during her prolonged ecstasies she seemed to be some 10 inches t a l l e r than usual. But on one occasion Mother P l a u t i l l a Semboli put her hand under Veronica's robe and "found she was l i f t e d up above the ground". Other cases are i n p r i n c i p l e susceptible to explanation as hallucinatory l i k e the occasion (about 1700) when a single witness saw S i s t e r Maria Constante Castreca "grow a considerable height from the ground". We may however be puzzled by the a f f i d a v i t signed by 21 e c c l e s i a s t i c s and notables to the e f f e c t that both arms of Blessed Stefana Quinzani (1457-1530) appeared to t h e i r view to be stretched some inches during her Friday ecstasies. There was muscular tensions, swelling of the veins, and blackening of the hands. But a careful reading suggests that the elongation may well have been within the l i m i t s of natural stretching possible i n some individuals. This explanation (as well as standing on tip-toe) has been suggested f o r the v e r t i c a l elongation c f Daniel Home observed at seances. Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre described some remarkable distensions, contractions and d i s t o r t i o n s exhibited by Marie-Julie Jahenny i n 1880. Though he was a Professor of Medicine and believed the contortions to be inexplicable by natural means we are e n t i t l e d to reserve our opinion, p a r t i c u l a r l y i n view of the f a c t that the stigmatic had previously announced that her body would be compressed and her limbs shortened in expiration of the sins of mankind.

Reading of hearts

This charming phrase i s used i n the r e l i g i o u s sphere i n reference to the a b i l i t y of many s a i n t l y persons, such as the Cure' o f Ars , to access knowledge without the use of any normal means. Thus the Cure' (Saint Jean Vianney) would on occasions greet those who came to be confessed by him by t e l l i n g them the very problems that concerned them, and intimate d e t a i l s o f the l i v e s of themselves and t h e i r f a m i l i e s . As the majority o f the confessants had come from a f a r and were t o t a l strangers, th i s a b i l i t y of the Cure n a t u r a l l y was very impressive. Speculation as to the o r i g i n of t h i s knowledge was not carr i ed very f a r , i . e . i t was accepted as an i n d i c a t i o n that the Cure was the r e c i p i e n t o f the d iv ine grace. A l t e r n a t i v e l y i t was hazarded that the Cure', again by the grace o f God, was i n touch with the s p i r i t s o f the dead. This i n t e r p r e t a t i o n was encouraged by the f a c t that the good man often t o l d the confessants the s p i r i t u a l state o f t h e i r dead r e l a t i v e s i n purgatory. By a strange irony t h i s bears a great resemblance to one i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f the powers o f persons that we would now regard as psychic "sensitives when encountered outside of an es tabl i shed church se t t ing . The irony does not r e s u l t from there being anything i n t r i n s i c a l l y unreasonable i n the idea that paranormally acquired information comes from the dead, but from the fac t that the Catho l i c Church r igorous ly anathematized S p i r i t u a l i s m and any attempt to consult the dead as energe t i ca l l y as d id King Saul o f o l d . Even persons as responsible as Father Thurston S . J . were forbidden to attend seances. When looked at i n the l i g h t of p s y c h i c a l research the "reading of hearts" as exhibi ted by St . John Vianney and others does not seem so very d i f f e r e n t from the powers manifested by "psychic sens i t ives". In the parapsychological f i e l d there are , of course, several theories as to how these powers operate. On one view they are an amalgam of the three f a c u l t i e s o f telepathy, c la irvoyance , and (possibly) precogni t ion . As i t i s not always easy to d i f f e r e n t i a t e between these three a b i l i t i e s , the blanket term GESP (general extrasensory perception) i s sometimes used. Others, as we have sa id , regard the knowledge as obtained from the s p i r i t s of the dead. Yet others again regard i t as derived from some kind of un iversa l mind or consciousness i n which a l l f ac t s r e s i d e .

Padre P i o ' s g i f t o f knowing things that by normal means he shouldn't i s at tested to by numerous witnesses. The same i s said o f Natuzza Evolo (see Appendix I) who also i s good at "psychic diagnosis", i . e . medical diagnosis performed by

intuition. This phenomenon i s also known among some psychic sensitives outside the Catholic Church and i s interpreted either as a form of ESP, or knowledge from some kind ©f universal mind or derived from the sp i r i t s of the dead. Signora Evolo ascribes the information used in her medical diagnoses as furnished by guardian angels and s p i r i t s of the dead. Her interpretations are entirely within the framework ©f the thinking of the Roman Catholic Church of which she i s a devoted and devout member. As she i s a married lady with five children and a husband she i s not a nun. Had she been male and celibate she would doubtless have become a priest and a famous confessor. As i t is,she i s sought out for council and advice on spiritual and medical problems by large numbers of people daily. Before leaving the question of paranormal knowledge we should mention that the earlier stigmatic, the Venerable Catherine Emmerich in her Life of The Blessed Virgin Mary displayed a remarkable knowledge of ancient place names in the Holy Land. In the opinion of Father Herbert Thurston these facts were so totally obscure as to be out of reach of the scholars of her own time and a f o r t i o r i herself, and a paranormal source for the information has to be postulated.

Bilocation. Bilocation i s a term used only by students of Roman Catholic mysticism and relates to phenomena that to some degree resemble those which in psychical research are called apparitions, though they seem also to partake of the nature of what i s called "travelling clairvoyance" or "astral projection". In psychical research i t i s recognized that many apparitions are of a relatively uninteresting kind, having only the status of hallucinations occasioned by some kind of brain malfunction, similarly visionary experiences which are widespread, especially in the religious f i e l d f a l l into yet another category. As regards apparitions proper, parapsychologists would, broadly speaking, accept G.N.M. Tyrell's grouping into four main classes. (See Apparitions, Collier Books, 196°» and earlier editions). Two of these classes do not concern us here; post-mortem appearances some time (days, weeks, months, or years) after the death of a person, and the "ghosts" which are sometimes alleged to haunt certain places. The remaining classes of apparition are however important and relevant to discussion of bilocation. The f i r s t i s the extremely well-known one of crisis-apparitions; a recognized apparition i s seen, heard, or f e l t at a time

when the person represented by the apparition i s undergoing some c r i s i s — death, illness, accident, or some stressful situation. So far from being an extremely rare occurrence, the crisis—apparition i s a relatively common phenomenon. A very large number of such happenings go unrecorded, but also many written statements from serious witnesses are available, so that a great deal can be said about the characteristics of such apparitions. Great variability, i s of course, encountered. Some apparitions are fleeting and " l i f e l e s s " , but other simulate real solid l i v i n g people of normal appearance and behaviour to an amazing degree. The apparition totally f i t s into the background and relates properly to i t s surroundings, and may move and speak. These "perfect" apparitions constitute only a small minority of c r i s i s figures but there are sufficient accounts available to command respect. An interesting feature of c r i s i s apparitions i s that in a quite surprising number of instances the apparition i s seen by more than one of the persons present. Tyrrell as long ago as 19^2 had gathered together as many as 13© instances of collectively perceived apparitions. The occurrence of very r e a l i s t i c collectively perceived apparitions hag, in the opinion of the present authors to be accepted as an empirical fact irrespective of theories as to their mechanism.

The other class of apparitions recognized in psychical research i s that which Tyrrell calls "experimental cases" An experimental case i s one in which a person deliberately tries to make his apparition visible to a selected percipient. In recent years several writers have claimed the a b i l i t y to "astrally travel" and thus to " v i s i t " places at a distance and inspect them and "return" with information concerning objects and people at these locations. Others, such as Mrs. Eileen Garrett, a psychic sensitive with the capacity for analytic study of the whole f i e l d , as well as the a b i l i t y of literary expression, have described their experiences of a parallel kind as "travelling clairvoyance". "Astral projection" and "travelling clairvoyance", whether or not distinct from one another, do not necessarily entail the apparition of the traveller being visible to persons who may be present at the "site" which i s visited. However a diligent search would doubtless furnish some cases of this latter kind. Tyrell's collection certainly appears to comprise cases where the persons who attempt to "project" themselves are seen at the desired terminus. We do not have any account by Padre Pio of his subjective experiences on the occasions when his apparition was seen and heard at distant-places, but numerous accounts are available

from the percipients. The striking feature i s the "perfection" of his apparition. I t i s this that has led to the use of the term bilocation presumably because commentators such as Revd. Charles M. Carty (Padre Pio, The Stigmatist. Tan Books, Inc, Roekford, P.O. Box 424. I l l i n o i s , 1971) have interpreted the happening as an actual teleportation or as a physical duplication of the animate body of the Padre, and also related the phenomenon to that of levitation, the latter being considered as a kind of premier pas en route to teleportation, which latter i s regarded as more in the nature of an actual f l i g h t . In fact the question i s rather d i f f i c u l t in respect of Padre Pio because there are a number of narratives available which could be inferred to imply either bodily teleportation or "invisible passage" as claimed for Jesus of Nazareth according to some interpretations of Saint Luke's Gospel (chapter 4, verses 29 and 30); "At these words the whole congregation were infuriated. They leapt up, threw him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the h i l l on which i t was built, meaning to hurl him over the edge. But he walked straight through them a l l , and went away". I n v i s i b i l i t y i s claimed by a small number of saints such as Francis of Paola (1436-1507) and Vincent Ferre* (1350-1419). Similarly teleportation of the body has rarely been claimed. Even then i t has been confused with f l i g h t , e.g. Saint Peter of Alcantara (also famed for "flighty" levitations, like Joseph of Copertino and Philip Neri). Prior to Padre Pio and Natuzza Evola in the present century, bilocation has rarely been asserted even of the most holy; almost the only alleged instances have been those of Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) and Saint Alphonsus Liguori (I696-I787) the founder of the Redemp torists, who on 24 September 1772*, while i n Naples was said to havebeen seen at the funeral of Pope Clement XIV in Rome. I t i s said that for many hours he was in a coma, but on awakening announced a fact, not known i n Naples, that the Pope was dead and that he had been present at that event. £We forget whether i t was one of these saints or some other whom Pope Pius XII named as the patron saint of television).

Testimonies of Padre Pio's bilocations are numerous and go back to 1917 when he i s supposed to have appeared to General Cadorno when the latt e r was in a suicidal state after the devastating Italian defeat at the battle of Caporetto. In a typical case the person concerned, who i s in some kind of anxious state suddenly sees a monk, whom they may recognise as Padre Pio. The apparition appears perfectly solid and real and i t may speak, perhaps giving a comforting message. Sometimes the experience includes a fragrance like that of Pio's stigmata. Usually the appearance and the words spoken

are relevant to the situation. Sometimes the apparition consists of words only in Padre Pio's voice. Although Padre Pio's bilocations are almost unique, similar phenomena have been reported almost contemporaneously of another stigmatist in southern Italy, namely Signora Evolo whom we have mentioned already. Born and bred at Paravati near Catanzero in the "toe" of Italy, Natuzza Evolo was extremely devout from an early age. She was only ten years old when she sweated blood from forehead, shoulders, and eyes, and shortly after developed stigmata on right shoulder, l e f t side, and wrists and feet. Like many stigmatists she goes into trances* also the stigmata exhibit the anniversary effect and are most pronounced in Lent and at Easter. There are very many testimonies to her bilocations, numerous witnesses having attested to her presence in their homes at time when there i s documented evidence that she was in her house at Paravati. The realism of her apparition i f often reinforced by the scent of roses. It i s claimed that objective physical traces are l e f t , such as bloodstains; also, i t i s said, she has moved physical objects during her v i s i t s . Often i t i s said that Natuzza remains invisible during her v i s i t s whose real i t y i s then inferred in other ways. This kind of bilocation therefore tends to resemble "travelling clairvoyance". Not being herself a cleri c and for that reason, unlike Padre Pio, escaping an ecclesiastical ban on describing her phenomena as looked at from her own point of view, Signora Evolo, at the instance of Professor Marinelli of the University of Calabria, has recorded her sensations when bilocating. "The bilocations never happen by my spontaneous w i l l . One or more spi r i t s of the dead, or one or more angels, present themselves to me and accompany me to the places where my presence i s necessary. Here I can see the place where I am so that I can describe i t and I can speak and be heard by the people present. I can open and close doorse move objects and produce actions. My vision i s not a distant one, like watching television, or a film, but I am plunged into the surroundings visited by me. I remain on the spot for only the time necessary to f u l f i l l my mission, which varies from a few seconds to a few minutes, and then I return to ray normal state. I am aware that my physical body i s at my home in Paravati." Further commentary by Natuzza w i l l be found i n Scott Rogo's arti c l e which constitutes Appendix I.

Haemography. Natuzza Evolo exhibits one of the strangest phenomena encountered among stigmatists. At times her stigmata blood flows freely; when deposited on a cloth such as a handkerchief i t may flow in such a way as to form words,

or outline sketches. Thus, according to the testimony of Signo Giovanni de Chiara, a schoolmaster, "After she gave me back the handkerchief, I opened i t and saw some bloodstains. I put i t on the table and we a l l waited for the formation of the design. Slowly the blood started to move to one side of the handkerchief and vertically spelled out the name St. Valeriano Martire. The bloodstain that was l e f t started then to move as well and formed the figure of a saint whom we assumed to be St. Valeriano. When we read his name Natuzza exclaimed "Who i s this saint? Does he exist?" When I gave the handkerchief to i t s owner, I found out that he was devoted to that saint". (In paraenthesis we might note that Saint Valeriano, though genuinely a martyr, i s indeed relatively obscure. His remains are buried in the catacomb of Saint Praetextus at Rome. He i s supposed, on no good evidence, or any kind of evidence, to have been the husband of Saint Cecilia). The strangeness of this kind of happening i s often emphasized by commentators by stressing that Natuzza i s i l l i t e r a t e and cannot spell the words used. The point that i s being made would seem to be that the haemography i s beyond her mental a b i l i t i e s even i f she herself were doing i t by consciously or unconsciously regulated P.K. However this does not effectively rule out psycho-kinesis. In the f i r s t place i t i s easy to exaggerate the " i l l i t e r a c y " of people in humble walks of l i f e . They are often very intelligent, with quick perceptions, l i v e l y minds, »nd fir s t - c l a s s memories, and often have far more knowledge of even a quite academic kind than their diffidence (often totally genuine and sincere) would lead them to claim. Further we cannot a prio r i limit the knowledge to which psychic persons may have access. In addition, there i s a considerable body of poltergeist cases, which although they do not indicate the operation of diabolical influences, equally convey no intimations of the presence of the divine; these involve writing in one sense or other. Things have been reported quite as remarkable as Natuzza's blood forming i t s e l f into letters and words. Thus in the Dagg case, in Canada in 1889, a pencil was seen to write of i t s e l f , forming i n t e l l i g i b l e words and sentences. One of the most recent cases in which pencils wrote on the wall without human aid, i s that of Matthew Manning at Cambridge, England, in the 1960's. Comparison with parapsychological phenomena. We have underlined the parallels between some of the phenomena of mysticism and those encountered in the secular pursuit of psychical research. Thus i t i s rational enough for many serious scholars to suggest that those saints

with remarkable powers are of the same i l k as "great psychics" encountered in contexts that are not specifically religious. Once this postulate i s made, there are few barriers to accepting the hypothesis that the great founders of religions, Jesus, Mohammed, and the Buddha, have been eminent "psychics", a claim that has been made often in the present eentury. This i s due to the rise of psychic research i t s e l f , the development of comparative religion, and the realization in the West that morality and the characteristics of monothefetical religion are not reserved exclusively to the offshoots of Judaism but, in different language, constitute the core of Hindu, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Sufisra, the religion of the Parsis and many others. We do not make this claim here, but note i t as a point of view deserving of serious respect.

Other religions, Islam has i t s saints and i t s miracles. I t i s said that some Islamic mystics develop stigmata that imitate the wounds of the Prophet Mohammed. Many marvels are narrated of the Buddha and of his present-day followers. Similarly for Hindu Brahmanic religion and i t s many branches. In tke Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship, 3880, San Rafael Ave, Los Angeles, California, 90065, ed. 1969) the yogi Pararaahansa Yogonanda (I893-I952) mentions many phenomena strongly reminiscent of the ones described in the foregoing pages. Thus the spiritual teacher Lahiri Mahasays appears and speaks as i f through bilocation to Yogananda's mother while he i s in Benares and she i s in Gorakpur some hundreds of miles away. On another occasion this master, who was said to be averse to having his picture taken, was photographed with a group of disciples, but when developed the print showed a l l the subjects except Lahiri himself. Another mystic and teacher, Swami Pranabanda, seemed, like Padre Pio, to know a l l of Yogananda*s thoughts and problems. The yogi Gandha Baba created the sensation of delicate f l o r a l perfumes to order and was reputed, somewhat as.was claimed for Saint Andrew Fournet to be able to apport any kind of f r u i t or food to himself as required, to feed the orphans whose pastor and guardian he was. Other parellels are levitation and the austere regimens of many of these masters. As in the Roman Catholic sphere some are inedics, such as the lady yogi, G i r i Bala. Also almost without exception the masters graduate to their spiritual eminence by years of practice in meditation often commencing in childhood and maintained for many hours a day. The equivalents of ecstasies and raptures take place?

the adepts experience v i s i o n s and apparent communion with the supreme s p i r i t u a l power i n the Universe. A f i n a l p a r a l l e l i s incorrupt ion of the body, which was claimed f o r Yogananda himself by h i s fo l lowers a f t e r h i s death on 7 March 1952 i n Los Angeles, C a l i f o r n i a , where he had founded a re treat and teaching centre . The d i r e c t o r of the Mortuary at Forest Lawn Memorial Park c e r t i f i e d that on the 27th of March "Our astonishment increased as day followed day without there being any v i s i b l e change i n the body under observation . . . the ease of Paramahansa Yogananda i s unique i n our experience".

I t would seem prima fac ie that the p a r a l l e l s between western and eastern mysticism are considerable . Of course i t would be unprofess ional on our par t to accept the Indian phenomena as being as wel l at tested as those of Europe. I t i s poss ib le that adequate documentation does ex i s t , but even i f i t does, i t may be d i f f i c u l t to access. Thus acceptance o f eastern phenomena has to be at best p r o v i s i o n a l . However i f we are prepared to proceed h e u r i s t i c a l l y such evidence as we have tends to show that broadly speaking s i m i l a r regimens, meditation and a u s t e r i t y — prayer and fas t ing — can produce s i m i l a r e f fec t s — endowment with paranormal powers. I f th i s i s true i t seems to be independent of the p a r t i c u l a r r e l i g i o u s content. This f i n d i n g , i f v a l i d , should encourage us i n r e l i g i o u s t o l e r a t i o n as, to t h e i r c r e d i t , i s stressed by the yogis and swamis. However a r e l i g i o u s or i en ta t ion and genuine desire f o r se l f -abnegation i s a lso stressed, even i f the r e l i g i o n can be of a very general ized and non-dogmatic k ind . Many legends and anecdotes are d irected to e s tab l i sh ing that i t i s not enough to be a mere sadhu, i . e . one who hopes f o r merit through ascetism alone. Thus i n the Vedic epic Ramayana, the demons Ravana and Mahishasura each "coerce" the gods into g iv ing them s iddhis (miraculous powers) by the long prac t i ce of a u s t e r i t i e s . The gods r e l u c t a n t l y agree, knowing that they w i l l have to f i n d some way of outsmarting these v i l l a i n s , which i n the end they do. Legend also says that to a t t a i n the highest l e v e l s of s p i r i t u a l mastery one must avoid the s i n of p r i d e , even i n i t s subt lest forms such as cer ta in kinds o f d e s i r i n g to do good. (This ought to be appreciated by Anglicans and Episcopal ians i f they know t h e i r Thir tynine A r t i c l e s of _„ R e l i g i o n , e s p e c i a l l y A r t i c l e s XIII and XIV.) Thus a story i n the Ramayana concerns a king VisttoSnitra who was converted to the s p i r i t u a l l i f e by the saint Vas i shta . A f t e r thousands of years of meditation and a u s t e r i t y Brahma, the king of the gods, appeared before him and conferred the t i t l e o f R i s h i . Vishwamitra ves s t i l l s u f f i c i e n t of a snob to say "Of what rank?" and i s disconcerted when Brahma says "Raja R i s h i , k i n g l y sage". Viswamitra was incensed, he wished to be a Brahma R i s h i or "i l lumined sage of the highest class", and la- to about

him to prove through exercise o f h i s s iddhis that he had at ta ined the summit of aigehood or s a i n t l i n e s s . A f t e r many attempts he r e a l i z e d that by motivation o f pr ide he had f o r f e i t e d h i s s p i r i t u a l meri t . A f t e r a thousand years of fur ther f a s t i n g and meditation he became t r u l y s e l f f o r g e t f u l and rose to the rank of Brahma R i s h i .

As a parable the s tory of Viswamitre shows that despite what may be s u p e r f i c i a l d i f ferences between eastern and western mysticism, they each involve a philosophy which stresses se l f l e s sness . S i m i l a r l y attainment to c e r t a i n kinds of sainthood involves myst ica l prayer and i t would seem some degree o f asce t ic i sm. One di f ference emerges from the claims of some o r i e n t a l wr i ters such as Yogananda. This i s the ins i s tence on a p a r t i c u l a r p h y s i c a l t r a i n i n g as d i s t i n c t from the prac t i ce o f a u s t e r i t i e s , i . e . yoga. Phys ica l yoga apart from mental aspects would seem to embrace a group of muscular and breathing exerc ises . Yogis appear to disagree among themselves as to the theory and p r a c t i c e . In reaching any dec i s ion as to the r e l a t i v e importance of the diverse fac tors that enter into the development o f the s iddh i s . a great deal o f comparative study would be necessary. This would be a kind o f epidemiology of sainthood. This would seem, a p r i o r i to be an unpromising subject f o r i n v e s t i g a t i o n . For instance, there seems to be a consistent a t t i tude among yogis , swamis, r i s h i s , with whom we have had personal contact (or have known those who have known them) that the s iddhis are i n c i d e n t a l to s p i r i t u a l i t y and that the true Brahma r i s h i s i f asked to demonstrate t h e i r powers w i l l be "above that sort o f thing". As those who respect the s p i r i t u a l and the pr ivacy o f the s p i r i t , we can sympathize with these adepts. At the same time, as inves t igators , we can f e e l some degree of i r r i t a t i © n i

Envoi .

We have l ed the reader through what may seem to have been a maze o f cur ious ly entwined f a c t s . We have t r i e d , using t r a d i t i o n a l ru le s f o r the evaluat ion o f evidence and testimony, and p r i n c i p l e s of inductive l o g i c , to separate fac t from f i c t i o n , and also to derive some conclusions. In our opinion, i t i s c l e a r that some of the phenomena of mysticism can be success fu l ly ass imi lated to known physiology and psychology and therefore, i n high p r o b a b i l i t y , can be regarded as "normal". Others, despite some di f ferences of "style" have a considerable resemblance to those occurr ing i n parapsychology, where the persons concerned though not i n any p o s i t i v e sense " i r r e l i g i o u s " do not come under the umbrella of any one s p e c i f i c r e l i g i o n . I t i s poss ib le therefore that a l l myst ica l phenomena, o ld and new, eastern or western, should be subsumed

under a s ingle heading. Whether th i s should jus t be c a l l e d the "paranormal" i s not at a l l obvious. For even to do t h i s ascr ibes remarkable powers to the human psyche. Some of the phenomena of psych ica l research suggest that the i n d i v i d u a l psyche e i t h e r has immense powers of i t s own, or can draw on a "universal mind" both f o r knowledge and power. A l t e r n a t i v e l y we could accept the Brahmanic point o f view that "atman" the core o f the i n d i v i d u a l human psyche, i s i d e n t i c a l with Brahman the "soul", motive force and being of the Universe.

For most of us i t i s just too la te to emulate the sa ints , yogis and f i s h i s when we consider the tender years at which so many o f them commenced t h e i r devotions. Perhaps however we can be comforted by the not ion that heroic v i r t u e i s not wi th in the i n d i v i d u a l compass o f the vast majori ty of human beings. When one considers the ear ly onset of the p r o c l i v i t y to suf fer ing and a u s t e r i t y exhibited by so many r e l i g i o u s east and west, one i s led to postulate an inborn or congenital f ac tor i n devotion of that intense k ind . Perhaps some are predestined to be sa ints! Leaving that p o s s i b i l i t y as ide , we can s t i l l quote one o f the Western world's most famous gurus, Saint Thomas Aquinas, to the e f f ec t that "Grace does not destroy nature but perfects i t " . Each person, according to the "Angelic Doctor" i s unique; some are be t ter or worse disposed f o r the per fec t ion of v i r t u e by reason of temperament. He, and a lso Saint Teresa of A v i l a , indicated a c o r r e l a t i o n between persona l i ty and the type o f charism bestowed by the Holy S p i r i t upon the r e l i g i o u s person. Thus the cho ler i c or melancholic p e r s o n a l i t i e s are more receptive to eostasy, raptures , v i s i o n s , and the hearing of voices , while the sanguine persona l i ty i s more receptive to f ee l ings , " i n t e r i o r touches" and "caresses" I t was a lso claimed that women were more prone to s p i r i t u a l i t y then men. (This i s probably not a cu l ture - f ree f i n d i n g l ) .

We have t r i e d consc ient ious ly to use reason as our guide. As G.K, Chesterton's character , Father Brown, remarks i n the s tory The Blue Cross, "You shouldn't attack reason, i t ' s bad theology". Thus where poss ib le we have to ass imi la te phenomena to the "normal", or , f a i l i n g that , to the "paranormal" We say once again that aiy conclusions are p r o v i s i o n a l only . Without being prepared to grovel i n the face o f mystery, we can yet do we l l to quote Miguel de Montaigne's essay On Measuring Truth and E r r o r . The good Mayor of Bordeaux, wr i t ing i n the s ixteenth century, s a i d , "We must b r i n g more reverence and a greater recogni t ion o f our ignorance and weaknesses to our judgement of nature's i n f i n i t e power. How many improbable

things there are , vouched f o r by trustworthy people, about which we should at l eas t preserve an open mind, even i f they do not convince usl For us to condemn them as impossible i s rash ly and presumptuously to pretend to a knowledge of the bounds of p o s s i b i l i t y " .

Appendices.

I . "Natuzza Evolo Works Mirac les" . D. Scott Rogo, Fate Magazine.

I I . "The Cure o f Ars" A . R . G . Owen, Man, Myth and Magic.

I I I . "Can Prayer or Meditat ion Invoke Benef i ts o f Psi?" Ry Redd. Journal o f Re l ig ion and Psych ica l Research. 10, 1-12. Jan. 1987.

i | I I | i

NATUZZA EVOLO WORKS MIRACLES Science cannot explain the powers of this Italian

housewife who can appear in two places at once, diagnose

illnesses and communicate with the dead.

By D. Scott Rogo

PARAVATI is a small town in the Calabrian district of Italy. The

place would be little known if not for the fact that a modern miracle worker lives there.

Her name is Natuzza Evolo and the miracles attributed to her intervention include her ability to see and talk with spirits of the dead, produce the stigma­ta, appear in two places at one time and diagnose the ills of persons who come to her (for which she never ac­cepts fees). Although Natuzza shies from publicity, she is well known in It­aly. For the past several years Prof. Valerio Marinelli of the University of Calabria Engineering Department has been documenting her miracles.

Natuzza was born in 1924 in Paravati in the province of Catanzaro. She still lives there today with her hus­band and their five children. For the last 35 years her home has been open to whoever wishes to visit her; some­times she receives as many as 50 to 100 persons a day. In recent years, however, she has confined her "open house" to Monday through Thursday. On Friday she loses her powers, so she devotes the weekend to answering her

voluminous mail, dictating responses to her friends and neighbors who read the letters to her and transcribe her answers.

Natuzza, a devout Catholic, believes her powers are gifts from God; guardi­an angels and spirits of the dead com­municate with her and provide her with the information used in her psychic medical diagnoses. Natuzza has been in contact with these spirits since she was a young girl. Her two most astounding phenomena are her haemographs and her bilocations.

Haemography is a phenomenon in which blood, wiped from her stigmatic wounds, patterns itself into words or symbols. Ever since she was an adoles­cent Natuzza has borne the wounds of the stigmata. At first she "sweated" blood from her forehead, shoulders, eyes and other parts of her body. But when she was 10 the full stigmata ap­peared. Wounds opened on her right shoulder, wrists and feet and near her heart—the same places where accord­ing to tradition Jesus was wounded during the Crucifixion. The wounds appear on Natuzza's body in a partial­ly healed condition but sometimes they bleed. They usually open fully during Lent and bleed most during Easter Week. They often appear during her

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The stigmatic wounds appearing on Natuzza Evolo's hands seem to form the Greek letters for alpha and omega, symbolizing Christ, the beginning and end of all things.

trances, in which she relives the Passion.

One eyewitness report to Natuzza's stigmata and visions comes from Dr. Mario Cortese, a surgeon from Catan­zaro, who studied her stigmata several years ago and whose account appears in Professor Marinelli's booklet on the case, A Study of the Bilocative Phe­nomena of Natuzza Evolo:

I arrived at Paravati al about 9:30 A . M . and found Natuzza on her bed, in a clear state of agitation and suffering. On her forehead and head there were evident wedge-shaped wounds, with the point turned inwards, and bleeding. They looked like Jesus' crown of thorns. Natuzza alter­nated periods of silence full of pain and

shouts of pain. At about 10 o'clock, or may­be earlier, she started to shake and got up as if she had been hit violently. The phe­nomenon recalled to the memory the whip­ping of Jesus.

Next she started to reenact the Passion.

I was particularly impressed by the diffi­culty of Natuzza's breathing, especially from midday until 2:30 P.M., the period that corresponds with the [time of the] Cru­cifixion of Jesus. The exhaling lasted a long time as if she had difficulty in expelling ox­ygen from her lungs. Her inhalation was nearly normal. Even I could not imitate that way of breathing, which must have been impossible for Natuzza to do as she suffers from a mitral-valve cardiopathy. Re­flecting about that unusual breathing, I re-

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alizcd that it must have been [like] the breathing of those who had been crucified, dying by asphyxia because they were unable to exchange the air in their lungs. As a mat­ter of fact, because of the traction caused by the weight of the body on the nailed arms, they had great difficulty in arching their diaphragms to expel the air in their lungs. Every mouthful of air was won with great pain as they had to push on their nailed feet to lift their bodies to expel the air. At about 2:30 P.M. Natuzza relaxed and remained in an abandoned state for a few minutes. Only then did she turn toward me and the other people in the room to say hello, as if she had seen us for the first time.

It is at this point that Natuzza pro­duces her haemographs. Dozens of people have witnessed their production. Giovanna de Chiara, a schoolteacher who has known Natuzza for several years, reports:

It was Hoiy Monday three years ago. Natuzza was at Catanzaro at my house, and besides her and me, there were my sis­ters Nella and Rosetta. All of a sudden we noticed that the wound on Natuzza's wrist was bleeding; so we asked her to produce a haemograph for a young man who I knew wanted an example. Natuzza held a white handkerchief that I had given her on her wrist for about 10-15 minutes. It had the name of the owner written on it. After that she gave me back the handkerchief. I opened it and saw some bloodstains. I put it on the table and we all waited for the for­mation of the design. Slowly the blood started to move to one side of the handker­chief and vertically spell out the name S. Valcriano Martire. The bloodstain that was left started then to move as well and formed the figure of a saint whom we assumed to be S. Valcriano. When we read his name Natuzza exclaimed. "Who is this saint? Does he exist?" When I gave the handker­chief to the owner. I found out that he was devoted to that saint.

Oddly enough, even Natuzza has lit­tle idea of what produces these curious

FATE

Blood wiped from stigmatic wounds pat­terns itself into words or symbols. Mes­sage on this dress proclaims in French, I am the Immaculate Conception.

formations although it appears certain that some intelligent power directs the blood and guides it as it patterns into words and figures. But what power? Perhaps Natuzza possesses strong psy-chokinetic powers which she uncon­sciously uses to direct the blood. But this theory cannot account for those cases in which the blood spells out words. Natuzza is illiterate and the haemograph often molds itself into for­eign words and phrases she cannot un­derstand, much less write. It seems the miracle must be produced by some in­telligence outside Natuzza's own mind.

* * » ALTHOUGH these haemographs represent a first-class mystery,

Natuzza probably is best known for her bilocations. Hundreds of persons have seen her or felt her presence in their homes or on the street at times when there is documented evidence that she was at home in Paravati.

t i tv t 1 I 1 1 1

NATUZZA EVOLO WORKS MIRACLES Natuzza has even been known to leave objective traces of her visitations at the sites of her bilocations. She has left traces of blood, moved physical objects during her visits and even transported physical objects.

These phenomena suggest that her bilocations are in some sense real, that some aspect of Natuzza's self physical­ly visits the area of her bilocation. Marinelli has collected no fewer than 52 accounts of these phenomena. Some are miraculous indeed.

For instance, Signora Jole Gualtieri, a college professor, and her husband Leonardo Romano, an engineer, told Marinelli the following story about their experience with Natuzza:

In August 1975 Professor Gualtieri was in Sicily, at Castellamare del Gol-fo in the district of Trapani. When she woke up one morning, she found blood­stains on the sheet and on the cushion

Haemographs. involving the paranormal production of religious messages in blood from the stigmata, are among Natuzza Evolo's most amazing phenomena.

43

of her bed. She had not been bleeding. Because she knew that Natuzza had the power to leave bloodstains, she phoned her husband who was at Vibo Valentia in Calabria and said simply, "Go to Natuzza, at Paravati, and ask her to narrate something to you."

When Leonardo arrived at Paravati, Natuzza met him at the door. "I knew you would come," she remarked. "I have been waiting since this morning. Last night I visited your wife in Sicily and left some bloodstains on the bed and some fingerprints with which I touched the sheet." As soon as Roma­no got home he telephoned his wife who was amazed to find the bloody fingerprints, a detail she had missed before that. Natuzza told Gualtieri that she had visited her with a de­ceased person whom Gualtieri identi­fied as her father.

Another case reported to Marinelli concerns Vincenzo Lacquaniti, an ac­quaintance of Natuzza's from Rosarno, a city some 10 miles from her home. One night in 1955 he was waked from sleep by loud knockings on the balcony of his home. Thinking a bur­glar had broken in, he fetched his gun, roused his wife and climbed upstairs to see who was making the ruckus. His wife, now fully awake, also heard the knockings. She decided to flee to an­other room on the ground floor of the house but as she left the bedroom she was confronted by three apparitions. One was the form of Natuzza, who smiled at her, while the others, stand­ing on either side of her, were the figures of her deceased father and un­cle. The figures vanished and Lac­quaniti returned from his fruitless search upstairs.

ft . fc I I. I t I • :

44 Some months later when the couple

met with Natuzza they said nothing about their apparitional experience. Nonetheless Natuzza spontaneously mentioned her visit and joked about Lacquaniti's gun. "Who did you want to shoot that night? Birds?" she quipped.

An even wilder story is told by An­gela Laureani who has known Natuzza for 30 years.

The incident took place toward the end of 1977. Laureani was in bed read­ing a magazine article about the life of Padre Pio, the great Italian stigmatist. She dozed off, only to be jolted awake when the magazine fell to the floor. To her astonishment she found one of her eyes bandaged with cotton and gauze. Although she applied this dressing ev­ery night for an ailing eye, she was positive she had not done it before doz­ing off.

Later, in the course of a conversa­tion with Natuzza, she alluded to the incident in a careful way so as not to reveal any concrete information about it. "Natuzza," she asked, "what hap­pened to me the other night?"

Natuzza replied that she had bilo-cated to her home with the woman's own deceased brother-in-law who had applied the bandage. "I sat on the armchair," she said, "and I saw your brother-in-law approach you and put a cloth on your forehead. I did not see, though, exactly what he did to you be­cause he had his back to me. Then your magazine fell onto the floor and you woke up."

Cases in which Natuzza reportedly has transported a physical object dur­ing bilocation are rare but some spec­tacular incidents have been recorded.

FATE

One such incident occurred one Au­gust day in the late 1960's. Natuzza had gone to Catanzaro to visit her mother who was ill and in a hospital. First, however, she went to church and then called on her friend Italia Giampa. She placed her foulard, with which she had covered her head in church, on a chest of drawers in the dining room. She then went to see her mother.

After her visit she had lunch at the Giampa home. The Giampas were celebrating the confirmation of a young friend. Mrs. Giampa and her husband Libero were present along with Mrs. Giampa's three sisters. Natuzza left at four o'clock that after­noon. Shortly afterwards the Giampas decided to visit a friend in Bari and as they were about to leave their home, they noticed Natuzza's foulard still on the chest. Apparently she had forgot­ten it. Mrs. Giampa was sorry about this because she thought Natuzza might need it.

A few days later Mrs. Giampa re­turned home. To her surprise Natuz­za's foulard had disappeared from the chest of drawers although it had been locked in the house when she and her husband had left for Bari.

Mrs. Giampa saw Natuzza in Paravati the next day. While she was apologizing for the unaccountable loss of the foulard, Natuzza interrupted her and explained that she had bilocat-ed to the house and had taken it. "Mrs. Giampa, do not worry about the foulard," she said. "I came to get it. I need it to go to church and so I came to get it." She fetched the foulard which Mrs. Giampa recognized as the one that had been left in her house.

NATUZZA EVOLO WORKS MIRACLES 45

Even Professor Marinelli, who has so diligently investigated the Evolo case, has witnessed one of her biloca­tion visits. The incident occurred while he was investigating the Giampa case. Marinelli had gone to Professor Giampa's house on April 13, 1979, and while talking with him, Mrs. Giampa suddenly became excited. She said she could smell roses in the room and thought that Natuzza was present. Several other persons were there but none could smell the roses. Half an hour later the telephone rang. It was Natuzza who was calling to tell Mrs. Giampa that -she had just visited her and had sat in an empty chair in the room. The chair she designated had in fact been unoccupied during Marinel-li's visit.

This case is typical in one respect. Although Natuzza often remains invis­ible while bilocating, she still can make her presence known. This same phe­nomenon occurs in the following case:

One day in 1972 Prof. Maria Mantelli, a college teacher in Catanza­ro, asked her husband to go to Parava­ti, fetch Natuzza and bring her back to Catanzaro for a medical examination. The husband demurred, explaining that he didn't know if this was a good idea, but promised that he would de­cide the next day. When he woke up the next morning, he found a blood­stain in the shape of a heart on his cushion. Deeply impressed, he went to Paravati. When Natuzza arrived at the Mantelli home, she—with no prompt­ing—mentioned the bloodstain which she claimed she had left during a bilo­cation experience. It was her way of expressing her thanks since she knew that he would indeed come for her.

THE GREAT saints and mystics of the Catholic Church have always

been reluctant to discuss the nature of bilocation. The late Padre Pio of San Giovanni Rotundo in Foggia, Ita­ly—perhaps the most famous bilocat­ing mystic of our time—positively re­fused to discuss it at all. But Marinelli has been fortunate enough to procure from Natuzza a detailed report on the inner sensations of bilocation. This ma­terial, which Marinelli published along with his report on Natuzza's biloca­tions, contains some of the most fasci­nating autobiographical notes available on the nature of this phenomenon.

"The bilocations never happen by my spontaneous will," Natuzza ex­plains. "One or more spirits of the dead or one or more angels [or a com­bination of angels and spirits] present themselves to me and accompany me to the places where my presence is nec­essary. Here I can see the place where I am so that I can describe it and I can speak and be heard by the people present. I can open and close doors, move objects and produce actions. My vision is not a distant one, like watch­ing a film or the television, but I am plunged into the surroundings visited by me. I remain on the spot only for the time necessary to fulfill my mis­sion, which varies from a few seconds to a few minutes, and then I return to my normal state. I am aware that my physical body is at my home in Paravati."

The phenomena occur during the day when she is awake and at night when she is asleep. Usually she will find herself in her new location and her "angel" or a spirit will tell her where she is and what her mission is to be.

1 t I I

46

"The journey doesn't seem to last any time at all," she went on. "I in­stantly find myself in some place, inde­pendently from the distance. When I go to a house, I find myself directly in the room, or more often in a room ad­jacent to the one where I have to see the person [to whom she is bilocating]. Sometimes I have been able to convey material objects between the place vis­ited in bilocation and my house where my physical body was. I don't know how this happens but it has happened."

Neither do Natuzza's bilocations seem like conventional out-of-body ex­periences. She doesn't feel ill or tired afterwards nor does she ever have the sensation of journeying to the distant location or of traveling through a tun­nel or void. She has never experienced the typical "floating above the body" and claims never to have seen anything like an "astral cord" extending from her double.

FATE There certainly seems to be a large

body of evidence documenting Natuz­za Evolo's role as a modern-day mira­cle worker. Of course one might argue that all the witnesses are lying, but this explanation is hard to take seriously. Many of those who have witnessed Natuzza's miracles have been deeply affected and seem to be leading model lives—with a new respect for charity and humility—because of the renewed religious faith Natuzza has instilled in them. They have come forward to re­veal their most private experiences with Natuzza, out of gratitude to her, and they seem sincerely .convinced of the existence of a spiritual world by the miracles she has wrought.

Of course we have yet to learn the whys and wherefores of Natuzza's gifts. Perhaps one day science will un­derstand them. Or perhaps the powers possessed by this peasant woman are beyond anything science can explain.

CHINAS BLOND BOMBSHELL liv Gardiner James

I N M A R C H 1981 word came out via the Chinese People's Daily that

a mummified body of a female with shoulder-length blond hair was recent­ly uncovered by archaeologists in the ancient forgotten city of Loulan in the Xinjiang Desert in northwest China. The city, buried for centuries by dev­astating desert sandstorms, is located about 40 mites from the dry lake bed of l.op Nur. the present-day atomic testing site.

Wang I.uii. the archaeologist who found the mummy, told reporters: "The shape other body was extremely beautiful and she was tall. She had long blond hair that flowed to her shoulders. On her comely face was a pair of big eyes: you could still count her long eyelashes. Beneath her high

nose were her tiny, thin lips. She was wearing a small hat and leather boots and was wrapped up in blankets and animal skins. Her flesh still has elas­ticity ."

Carbon-dating techniques verify her antiquity; she lived 6471 years ago. She was buried in a sand grave ly­ing in a supine position. The Pennies Daily commented. "If the 5000-year-old mummies of Kgypt were acclaimed as the world's oldest, thou the l.oulan woman should count as even older."

Chinese scientists attribute her miraculous preservation to the ex­treme dryness of the desert and the sand grave. They view the discovery as very important in their continuing exploration of the lost civilization of the ancient city of Loulan.

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ilidile'dtvjlre ameur

CURE OF ARS THE LIFE OF St Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, is of great interest from the viewpoints both of mystical theology and psychical research.

Born in 1786, the second son of a small farmer in the village of Dardilly, near Lyons, he proved exceptionally responsive to his mother's religious teaching. A sensitive and nervous child, he was also robust, lively and vivacious but occupied his mind with religious topics while assisting in the fields. The French Revolution entailed persecution of those Catholics who repudiated the state

organized church. Vianney therefore had little schooling and attended secret Masses.

Jean-Marie's sense of religious vocation, the desire to 'win many souls to God', crystallized about 1798 when he was sent to work on his uncle's farm at Ecully, about four miles south of Dardilly. Ecully sheltered several priests including Abbe Charles Bellay who prepared Jean-Marie for his first Communion, administered secretly. In 1805, when religion was restored, his father let him return to Ecully to study at Abbe Bellay's presbytery school. He found Latin agonizingly difficult and only a 60-mile pilgrimage on foot to the tomb of St John Francis Regis at Lalouvesc in the mountains

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Editions du Chalet

of Ardeche saved him from despair. As an intending priest registered under the Arch­bishop of Lyons (Napoleon's uncle), he was exempt from military service, but in 1809 was called up in error.

Falling ill of a 'slow fever', he was sent on to rejoin his regiment. Exhausted he was picked up on the road by a military defaulter who conveyed him to Les Noes in the shelter of the Bois Noirs hills. The Mayor, a confirmed anti-Bonapartist, advised him to stay in hiding.

In consequence of an amnesty he returned to Ecully in 1811 and from 1812 to 1814 he studied at seminaries in Verrieres and Lyons. He failed the examinations (con­ducted in Latin) but was allowed to take them in French. He was ordained priest (deacon) at the age of 29.

In 1818 Vianney was appointed to the tiny parish of Ars, across the Saone about 16 miles from Lyons. One small church of primitive design and four large taverns ministered to the needs of the 230 inhabi­tants who tended to be indifferent to religion. But the Abbe could not reconcile himself to a single soul eluding Heaven.

The Conversion of Ars By calling at mealtimes, though himself refusing refreshment, he came to know every family. He spoke to them as peasant to peasant, but never failed gently to insist on the claims of religion. Soon the villagers learned of his fasting and prayers for sinners late into the night and before dawn. In the pulpit he declared innkeepers to be the source of sin and poverty, incapable of salvation. As the church filled the taverns emptied. The innkeepers went out of business, the last one being bought out by the Cure.

An able strategist, Vianney first con­verted the women, who prevailed on their menfolk to attend church and not work on Sundays. In the confessional the little Abbe ruthlessly withheld absolution until convinced that contrition was genuine and sin renounced. The most prolonged of his struggles was against communal dancing, rustic drunken revelries tending to promis­cuity. But by 1824 he had effectively won his battles.

His parishioners soon discovered his remarkable talent as a confessor. He had a wonderful ability to penetrate their secret thoughts, it seemed. His words were few but always perfectly aimed. In time the faithful flocked to confession from Ars, Dardilly, Ecully and Les Noes, and eventu­ally from all France.

His was an incredibly exhausting regime. He became so thin that he seemed but a flame glowing through skin and bone. His

A visionary and mystic, the Cure of Ars was also a penetrating and intuitive psychologist; in addition various testimonies suggest that he was capable of reading thoughts Previous page Portrait of the Cure: the scenes surrounding

% his picture illustrate events in his life, including | miracles that he is believed to have performed * Left Statue, in wood, of the Cure of Ars: | canonized in 1925, he is the patron saint of S parish priests

large bright eyes, radiant in a shrunken and wraithlike face, gave him the semblance of a saint on earth, and it was not surprising that broadsheets extolled him as if he were already enthroned in glory.

His sermons were as famous as his confessional. He depicted the horror of damnation; but it was not mere 'hell-fire' preaching or 'bible-punching'. Sponta­neously he shed tears, as did his congre­gation, at the plight of souls separated from God and spoke with moving simplicity of the joy of those who perpetually saw God face to face. Bishops and dignitaries came from all France to hear him, as well as writing to him for advice on dealing with moral and pastoral problems.

In later years the Cure was constantly exposed to the temptation to retreat from Ars to a monastic and contemplative existence. He tried to leave the village three times but always returned. At his last attempt, in 1852, he was apprehended by his parishioners. He died in Ars after a brief illness, in 1859 at the age of 73.

The Making of a Saint In his last years he reluctantly accepted the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. By this time 100,000 pilgrims, it is estimated, visited Ars annually. Consequently the first papal Process for inquiry into Vianney's merits began as soon as 1862. He was declared Venerable in 1872, Blessed in 1905 and canonized as a Saint in 1925, on the basis of two cures effected at his tomb.

The Cure's remains were exhumed in 1904 preparatory to his beatification. The flesh was dried and darkened but intact except for the face which, though recog­nizable, had suffered damage.

For many of the pilgrims Ars and its Cure' had a mystic lustre, and many came in the hope of physical cure as well as spiritual healing. As in all pilgrimages a proportion of the suppliants were cured of bodily ailments. Few of the accounts extant are sufficiently detailed medically for us to decide whether they were natural or supernatural. Since such cures can and do occur outside of a religious setting, we cannot affirm them to be patently super­natural. But, whatever the cause, Ars was as productive of faith-cures as any of the world's famous shrines.

Vianney was a fine intuitive psychologist. His remarks, often humorous and always gentle though firm, revealed a penetrat­ing simplicity. Some of the qualities of G. K. Chesterton's character Father Brown were inspired by the Cure. Numerous testimonies suggest that he had an insight superior to the normal, as if he was literally capable of reading thoughts. In modern terms, we should describe him as a'sensitive' with a marked capacity for telepathy. From a crowd of pilgrims Vianney would pick out a total stranger and tell him the problem that had brought him to Ars and intimate facts of his life. These stories are based on written testimonies with circumstantial detail. It is possible that the Abbe' was also clairvoyant and precognitive.

We are in no position to decide whether he had these powers by nature or by God's

60

grace as a token of sanctity. Such abilities are not manifested by all saints. Modern sensitives tell us that response to human

mi need is a factor very conducive to the operation of paranormal powers, a sugges­tion supported by other evidence from psychical research. Also the Cure's aus-

lMg terities rivalled those of any oriental yogi, though whether paranormal powers can in fact be reinforced by asceticism is not yet certainly known.

Ecstasies and Visions Those who lead lives of spiritual intensity are often visionaries. The Cure would some-times pass into the state of calm and joyful contemplation, known technically as 'ecstasy'. In ecstasy numerous mystics have believed themselves to be in direct spiritual union with God. The Cure was most guarded about his experiences, but phrases he let slip suggest that at times he felt the close presence of John the Baptist, the Blessed Virgin and St Philomena. as well as Christ himself.

Some witnesses testify that they them­selves had visions in the Abbe's presence. In 1840 a Mile Durie heard a gentle voice

* • talking to the Cure. Entering the room she saw a lady of ordinary stature, in a robe of dazzling white bearing golden roses and with a wreath of stars about her head.

mi Addressing the lady as Mother, Mile Durie, who believed herself to have cancer, asked to be taken to Heaven. 'Later', said the lady who then vanished. Mile Durie aroused the

Cure from what appeared to be an ecstasy, 'his countenance radiant and his gaze fixed'. When Mile Durie referred to the presence of 'our Lady', the Cure told her she was not mistaken but must never speak of it again. It appears that Mile Durie was cured of her presumed cancer after a lapse of three and a half months.

Attacks of the Devil The Cure's life corresponded to saintly prototypes in a further respect. From 1824 to 1858 he suffered sporadically what he believed to be persecutions by the Devil. At night he heard noises as of rats gnawing or scratching, or of blows on the doors of the presbytery, or of hammering or drum­ming. Sometimes the Cure would hear the sound of footsteps and a coarse rough voice mocking him as 'a potato eater' and growling abuse and obscenities. A picture of the Annunciation was found smeared with filth. The Cure's bed was shaken and pulled across the room while he lay on it. The testimony of contemporaries suggests that on some occasions only the Cure heard the diabolical speech and noises, and it is natural to suppose that sometimes they were only hallucinatory. The act of vandalism could, in theory at least, be attributed to the Abbe himself in a condition akin to sleep-walking, as with Father John of Castille, of whom it was said that the Devil compelled him to use his own hands to deface pictures of the Blessed Virgin. But there was also testimony from Ars which

suggests that some of the happenings, including the voice, were actual objective physical events. And there is no evidence positively to support the sleep-walkingtheory.

The haunting of the Cure bears a strong resemblance to poltergeist outbreaks, many of which are objective phenomena. Many features common to poltergeist disturbances suggest that a goodly proportion of them are due to obscure natural causes and related to emotional tension in the person on whom they centre. We know that the Cure's heroic virtue in his pastoral office was maintained in the face of a longing for solitude and contemplation, and it is arguable that the internal struggle was externalized in the drama of the Satanic persecution.

The mysterious happenings attendant on the Abbe cannot be surely interpreted as either natural or supernatural by considering his life in isolation from the data of psychical research on the one hand, or the phenomena of the mystics on the other. As a person at first he repels as a reactionary puritan, but in the end the most agnostic of readers is liable to be vanquished by Vianney's strange and improbable charm.

A. R. G. OWEN

FURTHER READING: The following biog­raphies were all published by Burns and Oates — Rene' Fourrey, The Cure D'Ars (1959); L. C. Sheppard, Portrait of a Parish Priest (1958); Francis Trochu, The Cure D'Ars (1936); see also Margaret Trouncer. Miser of Souls (Hutchinson, 1959).

I i t i t I k

VU ACADDli OF RELIGION AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

OFFICERS

D r . M-»ry Caraan Roee Pres ident D r . C . Alan Anderaon V i c e - P r e s i d e n t M r . Boyce Batey E x e c u t i v e - S e c r e t a r y M r . Prank C . T r i b b e General Counsel and Treasurer

Board of Trustees

Rev. Lawrence V. Althouae Dr. C. Alan Anderson Mr. Boyce Batey Dr. L . Richard Bttsler Dr. Arthur S. Bergex Dr. Valter Houston Clark Mz. John R. Crowley Dr. C. Douglas Dsan Rav. Elisabeth Fenske Rev. Paul B. Fenske Rev. George V. Plsk Dr. Bernard R. Grad Dr. El lerr B. Haakell

Paul Laabourne Hlgglns (1989 Kenneth T. Hurst (1988/ Stanley Kzlppner (1987 Elisabeth E . McAdaaa (1987 Xarlls Osis (1967

William V. Rsuscher (1988/ Ka'ry Caraan Rosa (1987J Steven N. Rosen 11987 1

John Ressner (1989 1 Frank C. Tribbe (1989 Jaaes Ulneea (1989 ' Edgar Vlzt 11987! 1 Nancy Zlngrone (1988,1

The Journal of RslUlon and Psychical Research Is published quar­ter ly in January, A p r i l , July, and October of each year by the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research; an academic aff i l iate of Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship with lta national headquarters located at 10819 Winner Rd., Independence, Missouri 6W62. (ISSN 1731-21<»8)

The Journal baa bean established as a vehicle and forua for d ia ­logue and exchange of ideas asong Academy aeabers and others pertaining to the area in which religion and psychical research interface. It pub­lishes articles , research proposals, abstracts of research completed and underway, book reviews, reports of conferences, nana, and corre­spondence. Opinions expressed in the Journal are those of the authors and the publication of those opinions herein is not to be construed aa indicative of approval or concurrence by tha Academy of Religion and Psychical Research or its Board of Trustees. A l l righta are reserved. Articles appearing in tha Journal may be reproduced or translated with the written permission of the Editor.

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Copyrlght (5)1986 by the Academy of Sellglon and Paychlcal Research. Third-class poelege paid at tha Bloomfleld, CT. Poet Office.

I L i I 1 1 I I

Journal of Religion and Psychical Research Volume 10, Number 1 January, 1987

Can Prayer or Meditation Invoke Benefits of Psi?

Ry Redd

The author develops a theory of the r o l e s of synergy in s p i r i t u a l h e aling and p s i phenomena among groups of persons who come together f o r prayer and meditation. To support h i s hypothesis, he draws on data from C h r i s t i a n i t y , Judaism, and Indian s p i r i t u a l i t y . He al s o provides S c r i p t u r a l support f o r the hypothesis.

Introduction

Psi research and the history of religions converge to support an affirmative answer to the question, "Can Prayer or Meditation Invoke Benefits of Psi?" Reports of para­normal or miraculous experiences i n the history of Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity from New Testament times to the twentieth century consistently confirm a direct causal connection between psychic phenomena, prayer and meditation. Evidence from parapsychology ranges from Dr. Karlis Osis' successful enhancement of psi in group meditation experi­ments to results reported by other researchers in controlled group prayer healing experiments. Several investigators even see prayer i t s e l f as a form of ESP.

This essay w i l l explore the ps i - r e l i g i o n interface for insights into the principles by means of which psi benefits are invoked through prayer and meditation. The key role played by the principle of synergy in the invocation of psi benefits in group prayer-meditation and spiritual healing w i l l be described. The synergy principle's potential as a bridge between psi and religion w i l l be emphasized.

Saintly Psi

Once two brothers were on their way to Saint Antony, and when a l l their water was gone, one died and the other was near to dying. Having no strength to go on, he lay on the ground and awaited death. Meanwhile Saint Antony, seated on a mountain, called the monks who happened to be with him and told them: 'Take a jar of water and run along the road to Egypt. There are two men who are coming here; one of them i s already dead, and the other too w i l l die unless you hurry. This I saw when I was at prayer.*

1

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The J o u r n a l of R e l i g i o n and P s y c h i c a l Research

A f t e r a day's walk, the monks came to the spot Saint Antony had seen c l a i r v o y a n t l y i n p r a y e r . They indeed found one man dead — whom they b u r i e d -- and another n e a r l y dead of t h i r s t . They r e v i v e d him with the water and brought him to S a i n t Antony. Western h i s t o r i e s of the s a i n t s i n c l u d e many s t o r i e s of prayer and m e d i t a t i o n being accompanied by p s y c h i c e x p e r i e n c e s . T h i s one i s somewhat unique i n the manner i n which the p s i b e n e f i t s — s a v i n g the dying monk's l i f e — i s much more c e n t r a l to the s t o r y than the c l a i r ­voyant p s i experience i t s e l f .

The p i o n e e r i n g p s y c h o l o g i s t W i l l i a m James records i n h i s c l a s s i c V a r i e t i e s of R e l i g i o u s Experience s e v e r a l cases of i n t e n s e l y s e n s i t i v e and immensely s p i r i t u a l l y devoted i n d i v i d u a l s whose p s i experiences i n prayer and meditation were so frequent that they were v i r t u a l l y commonplace o c c u r r e n c e s . 2 R.M. Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness p r o v i d e s a d d i t i o n a l i n s t a n c e s from the l i v e s of s a i n t s and mystics i n which e x t r a s e n s o r y p e r c e p t i o n (ESP) o f t e n accompanied s p i r i t u a l d i s c i p l i n e s such as p r a y e r , m e d i t a t i o n and y o g a . 3

Some of these s a i n t s and mystics have been reported as l e v i t a t i n g w h i l e p r a y i n g . Two well-documented I t a l i a n s a i n t s are c l a s s i c examples: S a i n t F r a n c i s of A s s i s i and S a i n t Joseph of Copertino.

Legends abound i n the C h r i s t i a n c l a s s i c L i t t l e Flowers of S a i n t F r a n c i s . The famous t h i r t e e n t h century founder of the F r a n c i s c a n Order was s a i d to have been seen

many times ... r a p t i n God and suspended above the e a r t h , sometimes at the height of three f e e t above the ground, sometimes f o u r , sometimes r a i s e d as high as the top of the beech t r e e s and sometimes e x a l t e d so h i g h i n the a i r and surrounded with so d a z z l i n g a g l o r y , t h a t Brother Leo [ h i s s e c r e t a r y -c o n f e s s o r and constant companion) could scarce endure to look upon him. 4

The seventeenth century F r a n c i s c a n , S a i n t Joseph of Copertino, an extreme a s c e t i c , l e v i t a t e d while p r a y i n g s e v e r a l times i n the s i g h t of many witnesses. Said t o have c l a i r v o y a n c e , t e l e p a t h i c powers and the a b i l i t y to see i n t o the f u t u r e , he even l e v i t a t e d i n the presence of Pope Urban V I I I . S a i n t Joseph's prayer l e v i t a t i o n s were so frequent and e x t r a o r d i n a r y that he l i f t e d o t h e r s up with him, c o u l d " f l y " f o r a short d i s t a n c e and c o u l d s t a y a l o f t f o r a c o n s i d e r a b l e p e r i o d of time.

Today's growing c o n s e r v a t i v e c h r i s t i a n c h a r i s m a t i c and P e n t e c o s t a l movement focuses on many E S P - l i k e phenomena such as spontaneous prayer h e a l i n g s , c l a i r v o y a n t "words of know­ledge" and prophecy. A l s o popular i s c l a i r v o y a n t c o u n s e l i n g given i n an a l t e r e d s t a t e a f t e r p r a y e r f u l hypnosis-type

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suggestions are g i v e n . (The " S l e e p i n g Prophet", Edgar Cayce, 1877-1945, i s the best documented case of t h i s . ) An important but l i t t l e known h i s t o r i c a l precedent f o r these c h a r i s m a t i c a c t i v i t i e s as w e l l as the g i v i n g of p s y c h i c "readings" can be found i n c h r i s t i a n and Jewish m y s t i c a l prayer p r a c t i c e s which were widespread i n t w e l f t h - t h i r t e e n t h century Europe. These amply documented experiences of d i r e c t r e v e l a t i o n were used as a means of guidance and judgment on c o n t r o v e r s i a l r e l i g i o u s and e t h i c a l q u e s t i o n s . Part c l a i r v o y a n t (remote sensing) and p a r t c h a r i s m a t i c , these methods of s p i r i t u a l q u e s t i o n i n g were c a l l e d "myster­i e s of prayer" because they were based on a mysterious r e p e t i t i o n of h o l y names. A f t e r pronouncing i n prayer or p r a y e r f u l l y c o n c e n t r a t i n g s i l e n t l y on these s p e c i a l words, as d e s c r i b e d by one medieval observer, the mystic's "body sinks to the ground. The b a r r i e r i n f r o n t of h i s s o u l f a l l s , he h i m s e l f steps i n t o the centre and gazes i n t o the faraway." A f t e r a w h i l e the e f f e c t of the s e l f - s u g g e s t i o n recedes. "Then when he becomes a l i t t l e conscious of h i m s e l f , he t e l l s them what he has s e e n . " 5 H a s i d i c t r a d i ­t i o n i n c l u d e s an e n t i r e c o l l e c t i o n of these "Responses from Heaven", as they were then c a l l e d . They were revealed t o a r a b b i as answers t o "dream qu e s t i o n s " about the B i b l e and Jewish law. They were put to him while he was i n t h i s meta-psy c h i c , s l e e p - l i k e s t a t e induced through prayer r e p e t i t i o n of holy names.

The asking of dream questions was an extremely wide­spread magical p r a c t i c e f o r which s c h o l a r s have hundreds of r e c i p e s . The German C h r i s t i a n s who were the m y s t i c a l f o r e ­runners of today's c h a r i s m a t i c a l s o engaged i n these same m y s t i c a l prayer p r a c t i c e s . Many of the l a t t e r , who see p s y c h i c readings, r e i n c a r n a t i o n and parapsychology as l i t t l e more than heresy, are o f t e n " s l a i n i n the S p i r i t " , speak i n tongues and p s y c h i c a l l y experience "words of knowledge" and prophecy. I r o n i c a l l y c o n s i d e r e d h e r e t i c s l i k e the Hebrew Hasidim who l i v e d among them, these medieval c h r i s t i a n prayer mystics "attached the very g r e a t e s t importance to such d i r e c t c o n t a c t with the p s y c h i c world."

While m y s t i c a l prayer p r a c t i c e s invoking ESP are p r e v a l e n t i n the West, s p i r i t u a l s a i n t s of the East r e l y on deep m e d i t a t i o n t o invoke s i m i l a r p s i b e n e f i t s , o f t e n Indian r e l i g i o u s teachers or "gurus" use p s y c h i c phenomena as t o o l s t o d i r e c t t h e i r students and d i s c i p l e s towards deeper s p i r i t u a l e xperiences. The great Hindu guru, Ramakrishna, f o r i n s t a n c e , w h i l e i n the m y s t i c a l m e d i t a t i v e s t a t e known as "samadhi" saw i n d i v i d u a l s who were to become h i s most important d i s c i p l e s or devotees before meeting them p h y s i c a l l y . Reports Ramakrishna,

God r e v e a l s the nature of the devotees to me before they a r r i v e . I saw chaitanya's p a r t y

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s i n g i n g and dancing near the Panchavati, between the banyan t r e e s and the Bakus t r e e . I n o t i c e d Balaram there ... [ p o i n t i n g to M., h i s main d i s c i p l e ] and I saw him t o o . 6

Another great Indian s p i r i t u a l master, Ramana Maharshi ( a l s o c a l l e d S r i Bhagavan), used h i s deep s t a t e of s i l e n t m e d i t a t i o n to i n i t i a t e h i s d i s c i p l e s p s y c h i c a l l y . Des­c r i b i n g h i s p s y c h i c samadhi mode of communication as the "utmost eloquence," S r i Bhagavan s a i d , "The Highest Form of Grace i s S i l e n c e . I t i s a l s o the h i g h e s t way of i n s t r u c t i o n or i n i t i a t i o n . " ' T h i s Hindu s a i n t ' s i n i t i a t i o n - t e a c h i n g of h i s d i s c i p l e s d u r i n g i n t e n s e m e d i t a t i v e s i l e n c e "entered i n t o those who turned to S r i Bhagavan i n t h e i r h e a r t s without being able to go [ t o him] b o d i l y . " 8

While i n m e d i t a t i o n , I had a p a r a l l e l personal e x p e r i ­ence, perhaps the most profound and b e n e f i c i a l of my l i f e . I was s i m i l a r l y and s i l e n t l y " i n s t r u c t e d " by the g r e a t Indian s p i r i t u a l master, Sant (meaning " s a i n t " ) K i r p a l Singh. At the time, I knew v i r t u a l l y nothing about him, except t h a t one of h i s devoted d i s c i p l e s was meditating with me. One of s e v e r a l r a t h e r e x t r a o r d i n a r y things about my i n t e n s e l y r e a l , l i f e - c h a n g i n g v i s i o n of Sant K i r p a l Singh was that he had been dead f o r ten years!

Besides c o n f i r m i n g f o r me with c e r t a i n t y t h a t we a c t u a l l y do s u r v i v e the death of our p h y s i c a l bodies, t h i s experience has brought me great b e n e f i t s . I soon f r e e d myself from the l o n g - l a s t i n g g r i p of s e v e r a l v i c e s and d r a s t i c a l l y improved my d i e t . Most important, my c l e a r y e t wordless experience of love i n t h i s v i s i o n - a p p a r i t i o n answered r e l i g i o u s questions of supreme importance to me w h i l e r e a s s u r i n g me of my genuine r e l a t i o n to the s p i r i t u a l world. In a subsequent v i s i o n , I was f u r t h e r " i n s t r u c t e d " about the cosmic i n s i g n i f i c a n c e of the body and the supreme s i g n i f i c a n c e of l o v e . P r o p e l l e d by these v i s i o n s , a book I had been r e s e a r c h i n g f o r s e v e r a l years on the p l a n e t a r y heavens experienced between death and r e b i r t h was soon pu b l i s h e d .

T h i s b r i n g s us at once to a r e c o g n i t i o n of the o f t e n overlooked importance of e v a l u a t i n g an e s s e n t i a l l y subjec­t i v e , p s y c h i c , prayer-meditation experience i n terms of i t s o b j e c t i v e b e n e f i t s . In other words, i s the experience--l i k e S a i n t Antony's c l a i r v o y a n c e which saved someone's l i f e or my v i s i o n s of Sant K i r p a l Singh which changed mine f o r the b e t t e r — c l e a r l y c o n s t r u c t i v e , t r u l y b e n e f i c i a l ?

Dr. K a r l i s O s i s , former r e s e a r c h d i r e c t o r f o r the American S o c i e t y f o r P s y c h i c a l Research, put the q u e s t i o n s i m i l a r l y :

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Do i n t e n s e r e l i g i o u s p r a c t i c e s such as mediation and prayer loosen some of the l i m i t i n g boundaries and made us more open, more able to reach out to those around us?^

Noting the obvious o v e r l a p between s p i r i t u a l experience and ESP, Dr. O s i s adds t h a t they are apparently f a r from i d e n t i c a l . The d i s t i n g u i s h e d parapsychology pioneer asks, "Does r e l i g i o u s s e n s i t i v i t y a l s o open up extrasensory s e n s i t i v i t y and v i c e versa?" The evidence appears to support an a f f i r m a t i v e answer to both these questions.

Yet i n t h i s o v e r l a p between r e l i g i o u s and extrasensory experiences, the d i s t i n c t i o n between them appears to l i e i n whether they are i n t e n t i o n a l l y c o n s t r u c t i v e or measurably b e n e f i c i a l i n outcome. T h i s suggests t h a t i f the s p i r i t u a l experience was without c o n s t r u c t i v e i n t e n t or produces no c l e a r b e n e f i t s , then perhaps i t should be l a b e l e d " r e l i ­g i o u s " . I t would simply be g e n e r i c p s i ; t h a t i s , a higher mental r a t h e r than s p i r i t u a l phenomenon. I f so, then, i t would seem t h a t perhaps the prayer or m e d i t a t i o n had somehow d i r e c t l y invoked g e n e r i c p s i , f o r example, by ind u c i n g v i a auto-hypnosis an a l t e r e d b r a i n wave p a t t e r n conducive t o ESP.

However, i f f u l f i l l i n g a c o n s t r u c t i v e purpose or accompanied by o b j e c t i v e b e n e f i t s , the p s i may be the r e s u l t of what S r i Bhagavan might c a l l grace, or a s p i r i t u a l g i f t as S a i n t Paul and C h r i s t i a n c h a r i s m a t i c s would say ("charismata" i s Greek f o r s p i r i t u a l g i f t s ) . Rather than being a c t i v e causes, these p r a c t i c e s may p a s s i v e l y invoke p s i b e n e f i t s by enhancing such grace f a c t o r s as spontaneity, s e n s i t i v i t y and r e c e p t i v i t y to ESP and s p i r i t u a l f o r c e s o p e r a t i n g on our b e h a l f but otherwise unseen. In h i s s c h o l a r l y book, Dr. Richard Drummond p o i n t s out that s p i r i t u a l g i f t s "came t o be a s s o c i a t e d with the work of the Holy S p i r i t by some of the g r e a t e s t p h i l o s o p h e r - t h e o l o g i a n s of the Middle Ages." Dr. Drummond, a m i s s i o n a r y - t h e o l o g i a n s e r i o u s l y committed to r e s e a r c h i n g the p s i - r e l i g i o n i n t e r ­f a c e , adds t h a t t h i s t r a d i t i o n " c o n s t i t u t e s a very proper context f o r the d i s c u s s i o n of what are now c a l l e d p s y c h i c phenomena, f o r i t was c l e a r l y i n the mainstream of f a i t h -understanding i n the C h r i s t i a n C h u r c h . " 1 0

Before d i r e c t l y addressing t h i s a l l - i m p o r t a n t r e l a t i o n ­s h i p between God, Jesus and the Holy S p i r i t on one hand and p s i p r o d u c t i o n or s p i r i t u a l g i f t s on the other, we s h a l l f i r s t c o n s i d e r evidence f o r p s i b e n e f i t s invoked through group m e d i t a t i o n and prayer.

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One of the f e a t u r e s common t o the cases which have been c i t e d c o n c e r n i n g s a i n t l y p s i i s the involvement of more than one person. In a d d i t i o n to having an e s s e n t i a l l y b e n e f i c i a l or c o n s t r u c t i v e nature, p s i invoked through prayer or m e d i t a t i o n seems to be c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y group-oriented. At the American S o c i e t y f o r P s y c h i c a l Research, K a r l i s O s i s e x p e r i m e n t a l l y v e r i f i e d the c l o s e l i n k between r e l i g i o u s experience and ESP. He t e s t e d s m a l l groups of meditators who p r e v i o u s l y had spontaneous intense s p i r i t u a l e x p e r i ­ences. Each i n d i v i d u a l ' s mood p r i o r to m e d i t a t i o n was c a r e f u l l y measured. While m e d i t a t i n g together on a weekly b a s i s , they were encouraged to a l t e r t h e i r consciousness i n an e f f o r t to r e - l i v e t h e i r former "peak" r e l i g i o u s e x p e r i ­ence. Then the ESP between group members was t e s t e d and q u a n t i t a t i v e l y e v a l u a t e d i n l i g h t of t h e i r m e d i t a t i o n experiences, which were scored on p s y c h o l o g i c a l s c a l e s .

F i v e major f a c t o r s were found to c h a r a c t e r i z e t h e i r m e d i t a t i o n s : non-defensive openness and oneness, a l e r t s t i l l n e s s , a buoyant mood, a f e e l i n g of meaningfulness, and i n t e n s i f i c a t i o n of l o v e . Of these, the f i r s t experience, which c o u l d be c a l l e d i n r e l i g i o u s terms the " f e e l i n g of oneness," and the l a s t one, " i n t e n s i f i c a t i o n of l o v e " c o r r e l a t e d d i r e c t l y w i th ESP s c o r e s . Group members were o f t e n i n t e l e p a t h i c communication with each other and f r e q u e n t l y shared the same v i s i o n s and meditation e x p e r i ­ences .

Dr. O s i s t e n t a t i v e l y concludes:

Experience of oneness with the other group members and with ' e v e r y t h i n g t h a t e x i s t s ' improves ESP scores ... there i s an i n c r e a s e d flow of informa­t i o n on a non-sensory l e v e l between the group members when the m e d i t a t i o n has gone w e l l . 1 1

He added t h a t many i n s t a n c e s of p s i occurred w i t h no connection with anything r e l i g i o u s or s p i r i t u a l ; n e i t h e r d i d r e l i g i o u s experience always produce ESP. Hence, while "some o v e r l a p seems to be observable" between p s i and r e l i g i o u s experience, they should not be c o n s i d e r e d as i d e n t i c a l .

As a prime example of how "parapsychology has invaded the domain of r e l i g i o n , " J.B. Rhine p o i n t e d out e a r l y i n the h i s t o r y of p s i r e s e a r c h how i n v e s t i g a t o r s both i n and out of the f i e l d of r e l i g i o n were i n q u i r i n g i n t o the r o l e of the e x t r a s e n s o r y mind i n prayer. In the 1940's Gerald Heard was one of the f i r s t to a s s i g n a major r o l e to ESP a c t i v i t y i n p r a y e r . 1 2 Around the same time Frank Laubach's b r i e f study o f f e r e d added support f o r a s i g n i f i c a n t r e l a t i o n s h i p between ESP and p r a y e r . ^ The C h a p l a i n of Duke u n i v e r s i t y , where Rhine's p i o n e e r i n g ESP experiments were conducted, expressed i n simple terms that

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e x t r a sensory communication takes p l a c e between God and man. In r e l i g i o u s jargon, t h i s c a l l e d prayer. S t a t e d i n terms of parapsychology, t h i s i s t e l e p a t h y . 1 4

P r e s b y t e r i a n m i n i s t e r Richard N e f f , i n h i s Psychic Phenomena and R e l i g i o n , e x p l o r e s the s u b j e c t of p s i and prayer i n depth. Neff sees the group process i n prayer f o r h e a l i n g as the key to our understanding of ESP and prayer.

In t h i s c o n c e p t i o n of prayer as an extrasensory phenomenon, there i s a c t i o n beyond the l i m i t s of one person's mind; there i s some i n t e r a c t i o n between the minds of two or more p e r s o n s . 1 5

The r o l e of group dynamics i n prayer was f i r s t r e p orted i n a s e r i e s of prayer experiments designed to t e s t , among other t h i n g s , to what extent the group process - - a s opposed to p r i v a t e , i n d i v i d u a l prayer — might i n t e n s i f y the h e a l i n g of people t r o u b l e d w i t h a n x i e t y . Of three research s e c t i o n s t e s t e d f o r comparison, the f i r s t went i n t o group psycho­therapy, while another engaged i n "random" non-group i s o l a t e d prayer. Meanwhile a t h i r d group used a form of c o o p e r a t i v e prayer therapy. T h i s was a s p e c i f i c a l l y group process i n which people r e g u l a r l y prayed together f o r h e a l i n g themselves and other members of the g r o u p . 1 6

The r e s u l t of t h i s r e s e a r c h was t h a t the i n d i v i d u a l , p r i v a t e use of prayer was r e l a t i v e l y i n e f f e c t i v e . The other two c o n t r o l groups, having the group process as the essen­t i a l , shared f e a t u r e , showed c o n s i d e r a b l e improvement i n r e l i e f of t h e i r a n x i e t y . The prayer-therapy group showed a seventy-two percent r a t e of implement based on p e r s o n a l i t y inve n t o r y q u e s t i o n n a i r e s f i l l e d out before and a f t e r the experiments.

Perhaps i t i s indeed the group process i t s e l f with i t s whole-system, c o o p e r a t i v e dynamic which i s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r i n t e n s i f y i n g i nner and outer h e a l i n g through prayer and m e d i t a t i o n . In our asking i n prayer and our seeking i n m e d i t a t i o n our e n e r g i e s are i n t e n s i f i e d i n cooperative group thought, i n t e n t and purpose and the b e n e f i t s of p s y c h i c and s p i r i t u a l f o r c e s are invoked f o r each i n d i v i d u a l a c c o r d i n g to t h e i r unique needs. Without such a wholehearted group oneness of mind and purpose, r e g a r d l e s s of i n d i v i d u a l p o s i t i o n s and r e l a t i o n s h i p s w ith each other, the d e s i r e d r e s u l t s and b e n e f i t s should not be expected. In l i g h t of the group prayer and m e d i t a t i o n experiments j u s t reviewed, we can perhaps b e t t e r understand why i n the New Testament Jesus d e f i n e s prayer as a mutually agreeable group phenom­enon, a p l u r a l working together or synergy of s p i r i t u a l f o r c e s i n the p h y s i c a l plane. As a means of making o n e s e l f

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more attuned t o these energies which may manifest i n t h i s world, prayer as d e f i n e d here i s an e s s e n t i a l l y c o o p e r a t i v e experience of two or more i n d i v i d u a l s .

I f two of you s h a l l agree on e a r t h touching anything t h a t they s h a l l ask, i t s h a l l be done f o r them by my Father which i s i n heaven. Where two or three are gathered together i n my name, there w i l l I be i n the midst of them (Matthew 18:18-20).

P s i and Synergy

Synergy i s a group or aggregate phenomenon i n which p a r t s of a system, or a whole, work together so t h a t the t o t a l e f f e c t surpasses the sum of the e f f e c t s of each separate p a r t . B i o l o g i c a l l y , the p r i n c i p l e of synergy i s i l l u s t r a t e d i n the systematic y e t i n v o l u n t a r y co-working of the muscles i n the body: the t o t a l s t r e n g t h of the whole muscular system f a r exceeds the strengths of the i n d i v i d u a l muscles c o n s i d e r e d s e p a r a t e l y . In metallurgy, synergy i s demonstrated i n the co o p e r a t i v e a c t i o n of s e v e r a l d i f f e r e n t metals when mixed i n t o a s i n g l e a l l o y . T h e i r s t r e s s l o a d — t o t a l t e n s i l e s t r e n g t h when combined i n the a l l o y

g r e a t l y surpasses the sum of t h e i r i n d i v i d u a l t e n s i l e s t r e n g t h s when not p a r t of the a l l o y .

The words "synergy" and " s y n e r g e t i c " are d i r e c t d e r i v a ­t i v e of synerqea, the Greek word f o r co-working. S a i n t Paul o f t e n uses t h i s term i n h i s l e t t e r s . H i s emphasis on the p r i o r i t y of the synergy p r i n c i p l e becomes even more obvious when the o r i g i n a l Greek root i s used. For in s t a n c e . S a i n t Paul assured the Roman C h r i s t i a n s : "And we know a l l t h i n g s s y n e r g i z e f o r good t o them that l o v e God" (Romans 8:28). In d e s c r i b i n g the C o r i n t h i a n s as C h r i s t ' s ambassadors t o whom God has committed the message of r e c o n c i l i a t i o n . S a i n t Paul spoke of t h e i r " s y n e r g i z i n g with Him" (II C o r i n t h i a n s 5:20, 6:1).

T h i s s y n e r g e t i c excess or i n c r e a s e i s apparently what Sa i n t Paul was r e f e r r i n g to when encouraging the group of Greek C h r i s t i a n s i n Ephesus:

Even C h r i s t ; from whom the whole body f i t l y j o i n e d together [ s y n e r g i z e d ] and compacted [ i n t e n s i f i e d ] by t h a t which every j o i n t s u p p l i e t h , according t o the e f f e c t u a l working i n the measure of every p a r t , maketh i n c r e a s e of the body unto the e d i f y i n g o f i t s e l f i n love (Ephesians 4:16).

The transcendent " i n c r e a s e " of the group due to the a c t i o n of synergy among the i n d i v i d u a l p a r t s or j o i n t s i s c l e a r l y s t a t e d here. Reminiscent of the i n t e n s i f i c a t i o n - l o v e and

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u n i t y which O s i s found to c h a r a c t e r i z e h i s ESP m e d i t a t i o n experiments, synergy was again emphasized by Sa i n t Paul when he assured the C o r i n t h i a n C h r i s t i a n s . They had been q u a r r e l i n g about the p r o p r i e t y of the Greek A p o l l o s t e a c h i n g alongside Paul.

N e i t h e r i s he th a t p l a n t e t h any t h i n g , n e i t h e r he that watereth; f o r God g i v e t h the i n c r e a s e . Now he that p l a n t e t h and he th a t watereth are one ... For we are l a b o r e r s together [ s y n e r g i s t s ] with God. (I C o r i n t h i a n s 3:9).

Moses had long before taught t h i s m u l t i p l i c a t i o n f a c t o r of synergy t o the outnumbered I s r a e l i t e s . Unless God abandoned them a l t o g e t h e r i n t h e i r b a t t l e s , he asks, "How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to f l i g h t ? " (Deuteronomy 32:30) S p i r i t u a l synergy does not cause a mere doubling or t r i p l i n g of power; the m u l t i p l i c a t i o n explodes.

The synergy phenomenon i s a d i s t i n c t f e a t u r e of whole systems which are s t u d i e d i n p h y s i c s under the heading o f f i e l d theory. P s y c h o l o g i s t and p s i researcher Gardner Murphy has seen the whole s y s t e m / f i e l d theory concept as v i t a l to an e x p l a n a t i o n of phenomena l i k e t e l e p a t h y , p r e c o g n i t i o n and prayer h e a l i n g . Kenneth Walker, a w e l l -known w r i t e r on ESP agrees with Murphy. D i s c u s s i n g precog­n i t i o n i n terms of h o l i s t i c p a t t e r s of events and u n i f i e d f i e l d s he c a l l s upon the synergy model to e x p l a i n p s i phenomena i n h i s c o n c l u s i o n that " s t r u c t u r a l wholes of t h i s k i n d may be more than the sum of t h e i r p a r t s . " 1 '

Paraphysics i s the branch of parapsychology which s t u d i e s a p h y s i c a l phenomena such as l e v i t a t i o n and psycho­k i n e s i s (bending or movement of o b j e c t s through mind power a l o n e ) . W r i t i n g on the t h e o r e t i c a l foundations of para­p h y s i c s i n Edgar M i t c h e l l ' s P s y c h i c E x p l o r a t i o n s , Brendan 0'Regan a l s o c o n s i d e r s synergy e s s e n t i a l t o p s i , which he says might be regarded as "high s y n e r g y . " 1 * O'Regan was once r e s e a r c h c o n s u l t a n t t o astronaut-turned-consciousness researcher M i t c h e l l as w e l l as to a r c h i t e c t - p h i l o s o p h e r R. Buckminster F u l l e r , who o f t e n s t a t e d that he understood God i n terms of synergy. J.B. Rhine, c o i n e r of the term "para­psychology", which, he f i r m l y b e l i e v e d , touched "great i s s u e s or r e l i g i o n " , a l s o e n v i s i o n e d the d e i t y i n terms of synergy. Reminiscent of C a r l Jung's theory of the " c o l l e c ­t i v e unconscious" i s h i s i d e a that i f our minds are indeed n o n - p h y s i c a l , then we can hypothesize a whole non-physical system which i n c l u d e s a l l our minds. A d i v i n i t y student before becoming a p s y c h o l o g i s t , Dr. Rhine spec u l a t e d t h a t h i s s p e c i a l mind-world would be "a kind of p s y c h i c a l over-s o u l , or r e s e r v o i r , or continuum" with i t s own system of laws, p r o p e r t i e s and p o t e n t i a l s . "One can conceive of t h i s great t o t a l p a t t e r n as having a transcendent uniqueness over

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and above the nature of i t s parts that some might c a l l i t s d i v i n i t y . " 1 9

Following Rhine's hypothesis, the Holy S p i r i t might be better understood functionally as a corporate psi f i e l d phenomenon; in effect, a group synergy f i e l d of soul-minds emersed in and attuned to the same frequency (the Christ or God). Given these clues, perhaps the Holy S p i r i t - -considered in this functional, synergetic fashion -- is indeed the source of psi benefits and s p i r i t u a l g i f t s tapped in group prayer and meditation.

The principle of synergy helps to explain how such psi benefits are successfully invoked in some instances and f a i l to be invoked in others. Let us look at a few of Jesus' healings as recorded in Saint Mark's Gospel for c l a r i f i c a ­tion. F i r s t we find the Christ in his hometown of Nazareth, faced with an openly hostile crowd: "And they were offended at him," ostensibly because he was a local carpenter's son claiming great wisdom and miracle working a b i l i t i e s . At this point, Jesus says to his highly skeptical audience that a prophet has honor except "among his own kin, and in his own house." Because of their antagonistic attitude, Jesus "could there do no mighty work ... and he marveled because of their unbelief." Even so, he was not angry with them and " l a i d his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them" (Mark 6:1-6).

Jesus was apparently well aware of the need for synergy and of the inhibiting role of what can be called "contra-suggestion" i n the invocation of psi benefits. In another healing, Jesus takes a deaf stammerer aside from the skeptical multitude and ordered the few allowed to witness the healing that "they should t e l l no man" (Mark 7:36). Note that Jesus took the patient out of the range of the contra-suggestion of skeptics. In another case, to avoid having the psychic healing benefits aborted by contra-suggestion, a man once blind i s charged, "nor t e l l i t to any in the town" (Mark 8:26).

It is a popular paradox of parapsychology that the skeptical or unbelieving attitude of those present during psi demonstrations often adversely affect the outcome of what Saint Mark would c a l l a "mighty work." Christian prayer healers Ambrose and Olga Worrall have f l a t l y conclu­ded, "Any attempt to show that s p i r i t u a l healing can be accomplished in the presence of a c r i t i c a l audience, or a group of unbelievers, i s almost certain to f a i l . " 1 9

Conclusion

Examples from the history of religion — from Jesus, 10

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Catholic Saints, Jewish and Protestant mystics in medieval Germany to contemporary Indian s p i r i t u a l teachers--demonstrate that a wide variety of psi benefits can be invoked through prayer and meditation. We have reviewed meditation and prayer experiments which indicate that the benefits of p s i , whether simply experienced as increased ESP or as healing, are greater when group dynamics are involved. The principle of synergy helps to explain both the positive and negative roles which group dynamics can play in the invocation of psi, which has been defined as "high synergy". Examples from Jesus' healing ministry have shown how low synergy may result in the lack of p s i .

If a kind of group energy f i e l d forms the mental environment for attempts to invoke psi through prayer and meditation, then psi would be manifested when this energy f i e l d — perhaps p r i n c i p a l l y supplied by those present--was positive and cooperative. Conversely, the psi attempt would tend to f a i l when conditions of this hypothetical f i e l d became antagonistic and uncooperative or were a l ­together absent. The multiplication factor, or synergy, of this group force f i e l d illumines not only our search for p s i invocation through prayer and meditation. The action of synergy i s also a good model for better understanding what we mean by God and the Holy S p i r i t . The synergy principle i s therefore an excellent bridge between religion and psychical research and could be a valuable conceptual aid i n future studies involving the p s i - r e l i g i o n interface.

NOTES 1E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer, Writing from the "Philokalia" on Prayer of the Heart, translated from the Russian text, Dobrotolubiye (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1962). 2William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: New American Library, Mentor Books, 1959).

3R. M. Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness (New York: New York University Books, 1961).

^Raphael Brown, translator, The L i t t l e Flowers of Saint Francis (New York:Doubleday, Image Books, 1958). 5Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1941, 1946). 6Suami Nikhilananda, The Gospel of Sri Ramarkrishna. translated from Negali with an Introduction by Nikhilananda (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekanada Center, 1952). 7Munagal S. Venkataramiah (Swami Ramananda Saraswati), translator.

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Talks With Sri Ratnana Haharshi (India: Sri Ramamasramam, 1963). 8Authur Osborne, Ramana Haharshi and the Path of Self KnowledRC (London: Rider, 1963).

'H. Richard Drummond, Unto the Churches: Jesus Christ, Christianity and the Edgar Cayce Readings (Viriginia Beach: A.R.E. Press, 1973).

l°Karlis Osis, "Informal Methods of Research in Psychic Phenomena for Religious Believers", Pastoral Psychology, September, 1970.

"Gerald Heard, A Preface to Prayer (New York: Harper and Row, 1944). l 2Frank Laubach, Prayer (New York: Revell, 1946).

^Howard C. Wilkinson., "Parapsychology and Religion", in J. B. Rhine and Robert Brier, editors, Parapsychology Today (New York: Citadel Press, 1966). 1 4Richard Neff, Psychic Phenomena and Religion: ESP, Prayer, Healing, Survival (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1971). 1 5Willaim Parker, Prayer Can Change Your Life (Englewood C l i f f s , N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1957).

^Kenneth Walker, The Extra-Sensory Hind (New York: Emerson Books, 1961).

^Brendan O'Regan, "The Emergence of ParaphysicsL Theoretical Founda­tions", in Edgar Mitchell, Psychic Exporlations: A Challenge for Science, edited by John White (New York: G. P. Putnam's 1974). 1 8 J . B. Rhine, The Reach of the Mind (New York: Sloane Associates, 1947).

^Ambrose and Olga Worrall, The Gift of Healing: A Personal Story of Spiritual Therapy (New York: Harper and Row, 1965).

For this essay, Ry Redd won the JRPR 1986 competition for the Robert M. Ashby Memorial Award.

Ry Redd is involved in work on the thought of Edgar Cayce and is af f i l i a t e d with A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, VA. His address is 2204 Mediterrean Ave., Virginia Beach, VA. 23451

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