By Mark Owen - © 2010
Chapter 11 - Wonders real and imaginary
There was a faith-healer of DealThe humble Catholic laity knew little of the appalling activities of their betters such as those I have outlined in the preceding chapter. And even if they experienced from time to time incidents that disturbed them, faith is a stubborn growth once planted. And the Church helped maintain its divine authority among the faithful by producing a few miracles now and then. It still does. After all, Jesus himself was said to have worked miracles; why not his followers?
Who said, 'Although pain isn't real,
If I sit on a pin
And it punctures my skin
I dislike what I fancy I feel.' (Anonymous)
One such wonder took the personable form of a young woman - Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc in common parlance), that obsessed wench in male clothing (was she a lesbian?), who carried on the tradition of miracle-working. I have already alluded briefly to Jeanne, a teenage girl who burst forth into history - and into legend - from the French countryside. The Maid of Orleans (born around 1412) occupies a place in history that few of such humble background have ever attained, and the whole amazing tale occupied a space of just six years. Between the age of 13, when she first heard her 'voices', to her death at the stake at the age of 19, her life was an amazing one indeed. And surrounding the actual facts there grew up an intricate web of pseudo-history and fantasy, of miracle.
Jeanne was undoubtedly impelled by powerful forces. But things are not always as they seem, especially when dealing with miracle-workers, religious or otherwise. She was, like St Bernadette (aged 14 when she had her first glimpse of Mary), an unhealthily religious child, decking church statuary with flowers, praying frequently, and preferring to attend church services rather than go dancing with the other village girls. It is surely significant that her voices began to affect her when she reached the age of 13. Statistically speaking, young girls reaching or passing through puberty are more likely to have mystical religious experiences of one kind or another than any other group in the community.
Someone once described Jeanne as 'a country girl from Lorraine, imbued like many of her neighbours with a pagan faith, with an animistic sense of nature and with powers of clairvoyance . . .' The fictions surrounding the story of the Maid are innumerable. I recount one notable and oft-repeated tale, hailed then and since as sure evidence of the miraculous and a seal of the divine approval for her cause. (The records of her trial, carefully written down at the time, still exist in their original form and contain many useful details of her life and work and the stories surrounding her person.) Upon Jeanne's first visit to the Dauphin (Charles 7th) the young man tried to deceive her, as a sort of test, by disguising himself, hiding among his courtiers. Jeanne entered the room and, according to the story, went straight up to the Dauphin, speaking directly to him. Jeanne was surely using trickery commonly employed by stage magicians and mind-readers to achieve their impressive feats. Such an action was thought to be miraculous and explained only by Jeanne's contact with Jesus (or Mary?) through her voices. It created a sensation among the onlookers, so we are told, and this, in turn, bolstered her image as the one sent by the Christ-god to assist their cause.
Miraculous explanations are hungrily consumed by the credulous when simpler ones might prove to be the real truth. Jeanne didn't, as one sometimes pictures the situation, just march in on the Dauphin's court. She had been kept waiting before she gained an audience with royalty. Not only were the two days prior to this encounter spent close at hand, where there would be ample opportunity to gain information as to the Dauphin's appearance, stature and other features from the townspeople, but Jeanne had spent altogether some eleven days in the company of three men who knew just about anything there was to know about the royal personage. To gain information ahead of time is one of the commonest tricks of the conjurer, as old as street magic itself.
But chiefly, and forever, Jeanne will be remembered for her voices, the messengers from the Other World, by which her every action came to be directed. At least this is what she told us; those around her at the time heard no voices (shades of Saul)! It was these heavenly messages that impelled the teenager on her risky and relentless course towards ultimate destruction. Indeed, she had success, Orleans was saved. Testimony to the rightness of the Maid's cause, and the reality of her voices? Maybe, maybe not. Testimony to the forcefulness of the Maid's personality and leadership? Who knows? But doubtless there were pious believers ranged on either side in this war, as in every other.
There is a clue, though. Jeanne may well have been on the wrong side, for her voices failed her at the end. She fell into the hands of her enemies. Now maybe this event could be accommodated within the compass of the divine will and purpose, and undoubtedly many believers will think so. But what happened afterwards could not be so accommodated. Jeanne consulted again with her heavenly visitants, and the voices told her to escape. She obeyed and jumped from her prison tower, only to be injured in the fall and soon recaptured. So much for the miraculous messages from the heavens! The voices had failed her twice. And on the second occasion there can be no excuse that it was the 'divine will' that she fall and be recaptured, unless perhaps her God had set his face against her!
While some praised Jeanne, others thought she was a witch. Her judges and those who bound her to the stake certainly were convinced she was the latter. She was described as a 'menteresse, pernicieuse, divinesse, superstitieuse, blasphemeresse de Dieux, ydolatre, invocateresse de déables, apostate, scismatique et heretique,' that is, a sorceress, diviner, false prophetess, summoner of evil spirits, practiser of magic, and more. Indeed, invective heaped upon invective. Her personal revelations were denounced by the Church as false and as having come from the Devil himself. According to Margaret Murray, in The God of the Witches (1952) never once did Jeanne, known as La pucelle, refer to 'our Lord' or 'Christ' or 'our Saviour'. Professor Murray's view is that Jeanne was an adherent of la vecchia religione, in other words, witchcraft.
How easy it was to believe in witchcraft and demon possession in the superstitious atmosphere encouraged by the Church itself. It continues right into in our own day; witness any Pentecostalist service! Magic and miracle were accepted as part of the divine order of things, inextricably mixed up with more mundane Christian teachings. Not all that strange, as many of Christian doctrines have themselves strong links with the magical world of man's first religious impulses. Religion is, after all, only one step removed from magic, as Sir James Frazer long ago pointed out in The Golden Bough.
Only when Pope Calixtus 3rd (another Pope with an illegitimate child, a son named Francesco Borgia, who became Archbishop of Cosenza) appointed a commission to reopen the case of Jeanne d'Arc 25 years after her death was a witness found who would swear he heard Jeanne call on Jesus at the stake. It was desirable to rehabilitate her so that her family could lay their hands on the fortune amassed in her name. Incidentally, some modern psychiatrists diagnose Jeanne as a victim of repressed sexuality and a schizophrenic suffering hallucinations.
Jeanne's era was prolific in wonders. It was somewhere in the century just before Jeanne's birth that an amazing relic, the Shroud of Turin, appeared on the scene, to dazzle the credulous. For hundreds of years, from around the mid-14th century, this miraculous cloth gripped the minds of many good Christians. Even some Protestants in more recent times were excited by the idea that here before everyone's eyes, like a long-lost photographic image, could be seen the very imprint of the dead Jesus, burnt into earthly cloth (as he rose up on high, leaving behind a vapour trail?). The more rational among us were never deceived; we lacked that necessary will to believe that makes such wonders real. But millions believed, although in a rare outburst of caution the Church of Rome urged folk not to be too hasty. Well, that old Shroud has long since been discarded, at least metaphorically - tossed into the Museum of Lost Causes. Just one more piece of fakery, such as has been common throughout church history. Probably dreamed up somewhere between 1260 CE and 1390 CE, according to Dr Timothy Jull, who is a Catholic scientist (which, I must say, in all honesty, seems something of a contradiction in terms).
Mind you, the actual physical object is still venerated by many, proof positive that faith is a persistent weed. It was nearly lost in a fire at one point. Doubtless had such a fate befallen this sacred object some of the faithful would claim it was divine retribution against the doubters. Or, alternatively, that Satan had done the foul deed. In 2009 Dr. Luigi Garlaschelli of the University of Pavia duplicated the mysterious image on cloth to demonstrate the fact that no supernatural force produced the image.
Many religions, perhaps most, embody an element of the miraculous. The first miracle is the very existence of the deity. After all, nobody proffers an explanation as to where the gods come from! Their very existence is, indeed, miraculous. The next miracle is the creation of the universe, followed by life, especially human life. But the miraculous does not end there. The deity must be seen to transcend the order of nature from time to time. Indeed, the very act of prayer, spoken or unspoken, assumes divine intervention in the natural world. And this would indeed be a miracle.
If I am a farmer suffering the blight of a drought and I plead for rain, so that my crops do not fail, then presumably my god has to change the course of natural events to answer my prayers. Sometimes the gods must be faced with awful choices, if gods can be said to have choices. The needs of the farmer seeking rain have to be considered alongside the problems of those who may be inundated by a resultant flood. Hundreds of wars have been waged, with participants on opposing sides each calling upon their particular god for victory. Perhaps it is a case of 'may the best god win!'
The planned invasion of England by the Spaniards with their Armada is a notable historic example of the dilemma that must so often face deity. In this case it was (presumably) the same god worshipped on either side of the Channel, even if worshipped in different ways. On one hand His Catholic (and Very Pious) Majesty, Philip 2nd of Spain, prayed for a good outcome to the Enterprise of England. Across the seas the English Queen and her people sought the aid of the same deity to ward off the Spanish invader. In the event the Christ-god favoured the English side and the revolting Protestants won, with the help of a little breeze or two and some good seamanship, not forgetting the gunners.
Many Christians hail the miracles of Jesus as being certain proof of his divinity. Seems like a sure-fire idea; if indeed miracles were worked by the Nazarene then surely this proved he was True God? Sorry again, not so! Even if we allow that the Gospel accounts are accurate (which in this respect as in all others, is very doubtful), his miracles lack any unique quality that sets them apart from multiplied miracles worked by innumerable gods, prophets, preachers and priests through the ages. In Jesus' own time the working of a few miracles was the sine qua non of a wandering preacher (or nabi ). And it is a curious and noteworthy fact that the very same miracles turn up in numerous religious stories.
SAINT CAN'T FIND HIS OWN JAW!
ROME: The jaw of St Anthony, patron saint of lost objects, has been stolen. Three men held pilgrims at gunpoint in the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua while they stole a gold-plated cup containing the saint's chin. Worshippers gathered next day trying to summon up the saint's traditional power to find lost objects. They sang songs and chanted prayers, hoping that the saint would act to find his own chin again. - newspaper reports, 15/10/91.
But even more noteworthy is the fact that all religions have failed dismally in producing certain miraculous events one might reasonably suppose they should find easily achievable! If we look for anything approaching true miracle it is found in the achievements of modern science; miracles with a basis in logic. High-speed signals conveying vast amounts of data, images in colour, and sounds, along optical fibres; now there is a miracle. Those same images and sounds transmitted around the world via satellites in the sky, bounced from one continent to another in a moment of time. That is a miracle. And we haven't even scratched the surface of wonders - achievements in medicine, penetrating the mysteries of the atom, visiting the moon, understanding and using the knowledge of DNA, developing life from embryonic cells.
But what does the New Testament have to offer? Let's examine the famous incident with the fig tree (Matthew 21: 18-20). Jesus caused a fig tree to wither away under his curse. Zarathustra, a mere prophet with no claim to godhood, managed a somewhat more dramatic miracle of similar kind. He caused a huge tree to spring up spontaneously. Its dimensions were so great that no rope could be found large enough to reach around it. Jesus of Nazareth raised to life two dead people, Lazarus and the son of the widow of Nain. But this feat was matched by Krishna, the Hindu god, who restored two boys to life after they had died from the bites of poisonous serpents. Krishna, incidentally, worked many other miracles. Do we have any greater reason to believe the record of Jesus' miracles than those of Zarathustra or Krishna? Or vice-versa? Even the pagan gods had their miracles aplenty. The historian Pausanias states that the god Esculapius raised several persons from the dead, Hippolytus being one of them, thus outdoing the Christ-god. But, then, St Francis Xavier had fourteen to his credit, at least by one account. Esculapius is also said to have miraculously carved the names of many persons upon the walls of the temple at Serapsis.
Sometimes the miracles of Jesus were worked by others long before his followers attached them to their own Leader. The god Bacchus turned water into wine (very appropriately one might say!) some six hundred years before Jesus so thoughtfully did likewise for the caterers of the wedding in Cana. Jesus restored the sight of a blind man. The son of god, Acides, restored the sight of two blind men. In fact, most, if not all, Jesus' miracles have been worked by others to convince the crowds. Strabo reported that the ancient temples were full of tablets describing miraculous cures performed by the virgin-born gods of those times.
Devout Christians will be quick on their feet, proclaiming loudly that Jesus' miracles are the only genuine ones. All others are mere fabrications, worse, frauds and deceits of the Devil to counterfeit the workings of the One True God. But this, of course, all depends on one's viewpoint. Thus there has come down to us an amusing account from the pen of a Christian missionary of the behind-the-scenes machinations of an Indian fakir, or holy man, in the working of miracles. Writing early last century in his book, Indian Recollection, the Reverend J Stratham told how he could look from the upper windows of his compound at a hut in which lived the fakir. Nearby was a very large peepul (pipal) tree, such as the Buddha once sat under, and esteemed sacred by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Boat-loads of pilgrims would arrive from Calcutta at all times of the day or night to worship before the tree. Mostly these devout people would leave offerings under its branches - clarified butter, sweetmeats, rice and other foodstuffs. Conveniently (for the working of the miraculous) the pilgrims would then repair to the nearby river to perform their ritual ablutions. Lo and behold, upon returning to the tree, the food would be gone, the fakir solemnly assuring the devotees that the spirits had accepted their offerings and were well pleased. The missionary was able, from his high vantage point, to observe the fakir himself removing the offerings to his hut. When the good reverend remonstrated with the fellow he boldly claimed the spirits did indeed eat the offerings and, what is more, he conversed with these same spirits every night!
The reverend gentleman may have revealed the real truth behind an Eastern miracle but the Christian Church itself has a very long and voluminous history of fakery. In his book, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology (London, Macmillan, 1896) Andrew Dickson White relates how he visited Naples once and observed the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius in the Cathedral. Dr White was present in 1856 at a service in the chapel of the saint within the Cathedral. Here, in his own words, is the account of his observations:
The chapel was filled with devout worshippers . . . The reliquary of silver-gilt, shaped like a large human head, and supposed to contain the skull of the saint, was first placed upon the altar; next, two vials containing a dark substance said to be his blood, having been taken from the wall, were also placed on the altar near the head.
As the priests said masses, they turned the vials from time to time, and the liquefaction being somewhat delayed, the great crowd of people burst out into more and more impassioned expostulations and petitions to the saint.
Just in front of the altar were lazzaroni who claimed to be descendants of the saint's family, and these were especially importunate: at such times they beg, they scold, they even threaten; they have been known to abuse the saint roundly, and tell him that, if he did not care to show his favour to the city by liquefying his blood, St Cosmo and St Damian were just as good saints as he, and would no doubt be very glad to have the city devote itself to them.
At last the priest, turning to the vials suddenly, announced the saint had performed the miracle, and instantly priests, people, choir and organ burst forth into a great Te Deum; bells rang, and cannon roared; a procession was formed, and the shrine containing the saint's relics was carried through the streets, the people prostrating themselves on both sides of the way and throwing showers of rose leaves upon the shrine and upon the path before it.
The contents of these precious vials are an interesting relic indeed, for they represent to us vividly that period when men who were willing to go to the stake for their religious opinions thought it not wrong to save the souls of their fellowmen by pious mendacity and consecrated fraud. To the scientific eye this miracle is very simple: the vials contain, no doubt, one of those mixtures fusing at low temperature, which, while kept in its place within the cold stone walls of the church, remains solid, but upon being brought out into the hot, crowded, chapel, and fondled by the warm hands of the priests, gradually softens and becomes liquid.
I have given this rather lengthy account for two good reasons. Firstly, it highlights vividly the superstitious component of Catholic religious worship. Secondly, it demonstrates how easily the conjurer's art is employed to fool the masses (as has been done in our own time by numerous spoon-benders and psychic healers). All manner of trickery has been employed through the centuries to work religious miracles. Chemistry, sleight-of-hand, misdirection, drugs, lighting, natural formations, the list is very long. But Dr White noted that even the high functionaries regarded the whole episode with awe. People who earnestly wish to believe are easily fooled. One of those present assured him that the only thing that could have caused the miracle was the direct exercise of the saint's power.
Country areas seem to be a special breeding-ground for miracle. Perhaps the innate superstition of the people contributes a suitable measure of credulity or maybe it is the tedium of rural life, enlivened by an occasional visitation from the Beyond. An amusing case comes from 18th century rural France. Many miraculous cures were being reported, dumb people speaking, cripples walking and all the standard fare. (The old faithfuls are still paraded forth by today's Pentecostalists, as if intelligent people have no knowledge of the history of charlatanism; but they who have no knowledge of history are likely to relive its grievous errors.) There was a woman who was in the habit of travelling the countryside, calling at various chapels which were renowned for the holiness of their patron saints, to be miraculously healed of whatever malady she happened to be suffering from at that time. The worshippers at each shrine bestowed alms upon the happy woman, who then moved on to the next stop, and the next outpouring of alms.
Convenient miraculous events continued into the 20th century. In 1917, for example, there occurred the famous 'miracle of Fatima' to which I have already referred. The three great streams of Christianity - Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox - all have their miracles. Stories abound of weeping statues, even statues that perambulate around and about; of visions in the sky, of images on trees and walls - or a piece of toast; these from the Catholic and Orthodox side. From a 1986 newspaper report:
Thousands are flocking to a small community near Montreal to see a statue of the Virgin Mary whose eyes are alleged to drip a mixture of blood and rose-scented oil. A number of people, including a police officer, say they have witnessed the miracle. The statue's owner said it started bleeding on the same night he received it as a gift. A crime laboratory scientist has tested samples of the blood alleged to have been taken from the statue and confirmed it was from a human.
Nice to observe the note of scepticism; all this is alleged. I wonder what blood group the goddess Mary had? Might have helped to know. 1986 was a good year for Mary. Statues in her likeness in Ireland were said to be moving about, rather than weeping real blood. Too much whisky being drunk by the onlookers? These reports prompted the Women's Community Press of Dublin to produce a comic postcard featuring a large choir of Madonna figures, waving from their pedestals and singing: 'We shall not be moved . . .' Someone in religion-soaked Ireland still has a sense of humour; and a touch of rationality. In a Texas (USA) town people reported seeing an image of the Christ-god, or the Virgin - apparently they were not sure which! - on a tabletop in an elderly man's backyard. I would quite definitely vote for the Virgin; it is almost always she who turns up in these mystical appearances. Who knows why? Naturally we cannot expect to see the Ghost, but it would be reasonable to expect a viewing of the Christ-god or Yahweh now and then.
But then there is this in August 1997 . . .
Agence France Presse has reported that an Elvis Presley bust has been shedding tears since going on tour last week. Its Elvis look-alike owner, Toon Nieuwenhuisen, said the bust, which has attracted large crowds, will accompany him this weekend to Amsterdam, where he is performing to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Elvis.
But Protestants and other non-Catholics have their miracles too. They have their exorcisms, their faith healings and such antics as those engaged in by Pentecostalists and similar groups as proof of the Ghost's indwelling. Mostly it is the Pentecostalists who are the miracle-workers, the others having gone to sleep on the job somewhat in recent times. So we have the miracle of Tongues - speaking in unintelligible gibberish, supposedly indicating the indwelling of the Ghost in the believer's life. Please don't spoilt their fun by telling them that this psychological phenomenon is not unique to Christianity but is well-known in numerous cultures. Then there are the miracles of physical healing brought about by faith. We have already seen, in connection with Lourdes, that cures, when they do occur, are only cures of certain kinds of maladies. But more, a number of investigators have shown conclusively that in the case of some of the high-profile healers in the USA and elsewhere, actual fraud has taken place on a massive scale. Many such spiritual showmen have been found out, making use of planted stooges and various kinds of stage-magician trickery to work their 'miracles'. Their exposure has seen the rapid demise of much of this activity, although, regrettably, not all.
Do people actually see statues weep tears of blood, or move on their pedestals? Do divine images really appear on tree-trunks or tabletops? Do signs appear in the skies? Do lame people (with genuine illnesses) actually leap from their wheelchairs? Or blind people see? Or deaf hear? In our day? In any day? Are devils driven out of people? Were there ever devils within to be driven out? It is exceedingly difficult to treat these questions at all seriously! They seem to reflect the superstitious beliefs of an earlier age. They breathe the atmosphere of a dark irrational world of fear, the world of primitive man, just lifting up his head and beginning to contemplate his own life and the life around him.
That people who view in their own living-rooms the sights and sounds of far-off countries, in living colour, and of long-dead actors; who withdraw money from bank teller-machines, operated by amazing devices called computers, who talk instantly to friends on the other side of the earth, who step aboard incredible flying machines that lift their heavy frames effortlessly into the air and wing their way thousands of miles across land and sea; that such people believe the stories of bleeding images and moving statues, is hard indeed for me to fathom. Do such credulous folk, believe the following story?
A mystical tree has become an object of worship because of supposedly healing water that drips from its leaves. The pine tree, in the village of Xinfu, had attracted more than 40,000 people, and the water was claimed to have enabled a paralysed woman to walk after she drank it. Yet other people claim to have seen thirty-two Buddhas in the branches of the tree.
Do I detect a doubt? Do these people not believe this story? But if not, why not? It seems every bit as believable as those others, except that it is not happening in a Christian country, but in China. Government analysts found that the water was in fact the urine from millions of insects and lacked any healing properties whatever.
To round out this brief tour of the world of magic and miracle I take my readers back a little in time, to the ancient French city of Nancy. The year is 1920. We are in a building located on an avenue called, very appropriately, rue Jeanne d'Arc. Here we behold an interesting series of events. And it would not be at all difficult to imagine oneself watching a procession of unwell people in the tent of an evangelist-healer. Miracles are being worked in Nancy on this day. A healer is at work. Ulcers are cured, stammerers are made to speak normally, neuralgia is disposed of, the lame are made to walk, headaches are banished, nervous people regain their composure.
The man working these miracles is not, however, calling upon the name of the Lord. He is no religious healer but is a chemist. Emile Coué understood the awesome power of the human imagination. He perceived that the human mind could bring on much illness and that the same human mind could banish it. Many might laugh today at Coué's simple ways and his famous formula, 'Day by day in every respect I am getting better and better,' but Coué was among the pioneers of what we now call psychosomatic medicine. There were some failures, but innumerable people were cured, positively and permanently. Coué, and those who have followed him, were every bit as successful as the faith healers but with this important difference: he did not have the effrontery to attribute his powers to divine intervention. Coué was no hypocrite. Coué was no deceiver.
It never has and never will require the co-operation of a deity to work such miracles. Whether we are dealing with lame people made to walk, or statues made to weep, or turning water into wine, human agencies alone, given the will and determination, produce such wonders. The powerful operation of the imagination of man is alone responsible for all that passes for the miraculous in our world.
