Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures

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— Looking for a miracle BT97.2 .N53 1993

:

weeping icons,

r

23692

iiiilli Nickel

I,

Joe.

NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF>

BT 97.2 .N53 1993 Nickell, Joe. Looking for a miracle

#16305 DATE DUE

BORROWER'S NAME

#16305

BT

97.2

N53 1993

Nickell y Joe* Looking for a miracle : weeping iconsf relicsy stiginatay visions G healing cures / Joe Nickell* BuffalOf N* Y* : Prometheus Books* 1993* 253 p*9 [16] p. o± plates : ill* ; 24 cm* Includes bibliographical references and index* * • iyl6 305 Gif t :Prometheus Books $ ISBN 0-87975-840-6 (cloth)

—

—

1* Miracles Controversial literature* 2* Parapsychology Controversial literature* 3* Occul ti sm Controversial literature* I* Title

—

18 APE 96

28415846

NEWCxc

93-25322

THE LIBRARY

NEW COU.EO£ OF CALJFORNtA 50 PKLJL 9TWEIT

SAN FRANCISCO, CALrFORNIA 941 OS

DATE DUE

Looking for

a

Miracle Weeping Icons, Relics,

Stigmata, Visions

&

Healing

Cures

Joe Nickell Promedieiis Books 59 John Glenn Drive Amherst, NewYork 14228-2197

Published 1993 by Prometheus Books.

Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions and Healing Cures. Copyright © 1993 by Joe Nickell. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without

prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations

embodied

in critical articles

or reviews. Inquiries should be addressed to

Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, 716-691-0133. FAX: 716-691-0137.

99

98

5

96

97

4

3

New

York 14228-2197,

2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nickell, Joe.

Looking for a miracle : weeping icons, cures

/

relics, stigmata, visions

and healing

Joe Nickell. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-87975-840-6 1.

—Controversial Occultism—Controversial

Miracles

erature. 3.

(cloth)

BT97.2.N53 231.7'3—dc20

literature. 2.

Parapsychology

literature.

I.

—Controversial

lit-

Title.

1993

Printed in the United States of America

9S-25322 CIP on

acid-free paper.

Acknowledgments

Many

people assisted with this book.

am

I

especially grateful to

Robert

A. Baker (Lexington, Kentucky) and Bruce Mazet (Citrus Heights, California) for providing helpful suggestions

and research

grateful to Herbert G. Schapiro (Warren, in providing

resulted in

me

New

materials. I

Jersey),

am

also

whose generosity

with his clipping service for the past several years has

many important

inclusions in this book.

members of the Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, West I

also wish to thank the staff

Liberty, Kentucky, for their assistance; the entire staff of the Conmiittee

for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, includmg

Paul Kurtz (Chairman), Barry Karr (Executive Director), Kendrick Frazier (Editor of the Committee's journal. Skeptical Inquirer), and the

of the executive council; and, as always,

my

members

mother, Ella T. Nickell, for

typing the manuscript. Finally, I extend

my

appreciation to forensic analyst

John

friend

and co-investigator of various "miracle" claims, who

tise in

many ways.

F. Fischer,

lent his exper-

Contents

Acknowledgments

5

1.

Introduction

9

2.

Miraculous Pictures

3.

4.

5.

19

The Edessan Image The Shroud of Turin The Image of Guadalupe

22

Other Miraculous Pictures

34

Magicallcons

19

29

45

Weeping Icons

48

Bleeding Effigies

58

Other Animated Figures

62

Mystical Relics

73

The Blood of St. Januarius

77

Januarius and the Pozzuoli Stone

83

The Incomiptibles

85

Burning Handprints

93

Pentecostal Powers

Speaking in Tongues

101 103

8

6.

Contents

Prophecy

109

Taking up Serpents

1

Other Immunities

121

131

Fahh Healing

How Faith HeaUng "Cures"

133

"Healing," Hoopla, and Hoaxes

137

Lourdes

145

Prophets of Healing

154

7. Ecstatic

Marian Apparitions

169

"Miracles" at Fatima

176

Hoax

Garabandal

181

Zeitoun

185

Medjugoije Mania

187

Other Apparitions

194

Powers

209

8. Sanctified

at

at

Luminosity

209

Levitation

211

Bilocation

216

Stigmata

219

Inedia

225

Exorcism

229

Apport Production

232

Afterword

Index

167

Visions

Mystery

9.

16

239 245

1

Introduction

We

when

and enlightened endeavor have given us wonders heretofore scarcely imaginable ranging from such advancements in health and medicine as the conquering of dread diseases like smallpox and the ability to replace a defective heart, to such technological developments as the capability of instantly viewing important happenings around the world and of traveling to the moon and beyond. Elsewhere in the intellectual arena, we have replaced concepts of demon possession with psychological understanding and primitive authoritarianism live in a time

rational thought

—

with enlightened democracy.

Yet there are those whose beliefs and actions run counter to a rationalist ideal. Often seemingly contemptuous of science, or at best willing only grudgingly to acknowledge

its

benefits, they

view the world

in

terms

back to the "Dark Ages," holding beliefs in myriad phenom^that might generally be de^from apparitions to weeping statues

that hark

—

ena—

scribed as "miraculous.*'

The term miracle has been

variously defined. According to Webster's

Third International Dictionary, a miracle to manifest the supernatural

is

power of God

"an extraordinary event taken fulfilling his

purposes" or "an

event or effect in the physical world deviating from the laws of nature."'

The Anglican

writer C. S.

interference with Nature

Lewis defined a miracle succinctly as "an

by supernatural power."^

Looking for a Miracle

10

A is

term related to miracle, and thus one that

may

cause confusion,

paranormal. This refers to the supposed existence of things beyond the

range of normal experience and nature

phenomena

as flying saucers, Bigfoot

—

typically applied to such diverse

and other monsters, ghosts, spon-

taneous

human

abilities

such as levitation and extrasensory perception (ESP). The

is

typically

combustion, and the

mto

subdivided

(thought transference or

like,

as well as to certain alleged

additional categories,

"mmd

ity

including telepathy

reading"), clairvoyance (or "clear seeing,'*

the alleged psychic ability to perceive things one's senses),

latter

beyond the knowledge of

and psychokinesis (or "mind over matter," the reputed capabil-

of influencing physical objects by mental power alone).

Paranormal phenomena. For if it

does

is

therefore a broad term inclusive of potentially natural

instance, although

it

appears unlikely that Bigfoot

assumed to be a physical creature

it is

Supernatural

is

like

exists,

any other in nature.

a more limited term, referring to a supposed existence

beyond the natural world

—whether appUed to "occult" forces

like witchcraft

or satanism, or to "divine" manifestations, such as angels. The latter cate-

—supernatural phenomena believed to have a divine origin—

gory

is

gen-

erally referred to as miraculous.

The

late

D. Scott Rogo, a prominent researcher of reputedly para-

normal phenomena, was careful to distinguish the broader category from the narrower one, although he did so in a way that skeptics are quick to take issue with.

He

believed (despite powerful evidence to the con-

trary) that the reality of

paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and

psychokinesis had been established in the laboratory.^ That was his basis for stating: "Miracles are therefore events that are qualitatively different

from those we can observe and which seem to of

some supernatural

force into the affairs of

indicate the intervention

human

life."'*

But even

if

we question the "qualitative" aspect of Rogo's definition, we can nevertheless agree with the need to distinguish between types of phenomena. Just such a distinction between the paranormal

has long been

made by

and the miraculous

the Catholic Church. In the 1730s Prospero

Lam-

Pope Benedict XIV) addressed the issue m his De canonizatione, a treatise on miracles that still represents the Church's official view on the subject. Lambertini felt that it was necessary to separate the paranormal from the miraculous in order to determine whether an event was actually attributable to God. Lambertini therefore rejected not only such phenomena as clairvoyance, but he also disallowed most healings. In

bertini (later

contrast, his definition of miraculous allowed the inclusion of certain

non-

1

Introduction

phenomena

traditional healings, as well as such additional levitation,

is

as stigmata,

wondrously appearing images of Christ, appearances of the Virgin

Mary (if seen But

1

simultaneously by multiple witnesses), and the

like.^

there proof of the actual occurrence of miracles?

opher David

Hume thought not.

In his treatise "Of Miracles"

The

philos-

Hume stated:

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact

any argument from experience

as entire as

is

can possibly be imagined ... no testimony

is

sufficient to establish

miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that

be more miraculous than the fact which

on the other hand, answered in the Hume: "It is my hope to show .

thenticating the existence of miracles

falsehood would be, quite

an approach that

is

literally,

is

may

easily

just as a bundle of sticks

.

He

stated,

that the evidence au-

indeed so strong that

Rogo

its

collective

is

foUowing

as the "faggot theory." This "theory"

holds that while one reported mystical occurrence as a single stick

.

affirmative.

miraculous.'*' Here,

known

popularly

falsehood would

endeavors to establish.^

it

Scott Rogo, in response to

its

a

may be

discredited, just

be broken, numerous reports withstand attack,

(i.e.,

a faggot)

The problem with such a notion

resists is

breaking.

readily apparent. If

one case

at

a time can be disproved, or dismissed for lack of evidence (take an Elvis Presley sighting, for example), then the mere quantity of such cases little if

means

anything. (Often a rash of reports turns out to be nothing

more

than an original misperception or hoax, followed by what psychologists call "social

If

contagion" or "mass hysteria.")

Hume,

then,

is

viewed as a priori dismissive,

Rogo

is

to be faulted

for the opposite extreme of being entirely too credulous. C. S. Lewis pessimistic that the situation could ever

our

own

be otherwise. Pointing out that

experiences cannot be conclusive, since our senses are fallible

(a "ghost," for example,

may

turn out to be "an illusion or a trick of

the nerves"), Lewis states:

If

immediate experience cannot prove or disprove the miraculous,

less

was

can history do

so.

Many

still

people think one can decide whether a

miracle occurred in the past by examining the evidence "according to the ordinary rules of historical inquiry." But the ordinary rules cannot

be worked

until

we have decided whether

miracles are possible, and

if

Looking for a Miracle

12

how

so,

probable they are. For

if

no amount

they are impossible, then

of historical evidence will convince us. If they are possible but immensely

improbable, then only mathematically demonstrative evidence will convince us: and since history never provides that degree of evidence for any event, history can never convince us that a miracle occurred.

on the other hand, miracles

If,

are not intrinsically improbable, then

the existing evidence will be sufficient to convince us that quite a

number

of miracles have occurred. The result of our historical enquiries thus

depends on the philosophical views which we have been holding before

we even began therefore come

to look at the evidence.

The

philosophical question must

first.^

But surely Lewis's position is a prescription for bias. in his treatise.

and urges the

The Art of

I.

Scientific Investigation, cautions against bias

who

stated:

"Men who have

their theories or ideas are not only ill-prepared for

make poor

observations."

Warning

may

He

excessive faith in

making

discoveries;

that, "Unless observations

and experiments are carried out with safeguards ensuring results

B. Beveridge,

"intellectual discipline of subordinating ideas to facts."

quotes Claude Bernard,

they also

W.

unconsciously be biased," Beveridge

objectivity, the

cites instances in

which

such bias occurred in science, including the experimental work of Gregor

Mendel whose expectations colored The

his results. Beveridge adds:

best protection against these tendencies

habit of subordinating one's opinions

and a reverence for things as they in

mind

So

let

that the hypothesis

is

is

to cultivate an intellectual

and wishes to

really are,

objective evidence

and to keep constantly

only a supposition.'

us not put the cart before the horse by deciding, antecedent

to inquiry, whether or not miracles exist.

As with

other mysteries,

let

us

agree that they should neither be fostered nor dismissed, but rather that

they should be approached in a rigorous, yet tive

fair,

—an

maimer

investiga-

manner. The tools for such an approach come readily to hand.

The

investigator begins

by adopting a

critical attitude

he encounters. This helps insure that evidence

is

toward the data

neither dismissed out

of hand nor too readily accepted.

The is

investigation continues

by following some accepted

that the burden of proof Ues

the inquirer

on the

asserter of fact,

from the unfair requirement of

precepts.

One

which protects

trying to prove a negative.

(Suppose, for instance, that instead of challenging someone to prove his

Introduction

an angel on the church

13

you attempt to disprove the claim. You go outside and point to the roof and the absence of any angelic form. But the contender may retort: "It flew away!" or or her assertion that there

**I

can see

is

roof,

why cant you?")

it;

Another accepted precept concerns the standard of proof required when one

is

dealing with claims of the supernatural.

It is

that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary level

of proof that

proof

—that

is,

maxim

that the

a particular claim must be com-

requisite to establish

is

expressed by the

mensurate with the claim being made; the more remarkable the assertion, the higher must be the level of proof needed to confirm Still

another valuable precept is the principle

(after the fourteenth-century

it.

known as "Occam's Razor"

philosopher William of Occam), which

is

used

to discriminate between competing hypotheses. Also referred to as "the

maxim

of parsimony," Occam's Razor postulates that the simplest tenable

explanation ly to

—that

is,

the one with the fewest assumptions

be correct and therefore

is

a

case.

can

affect witnesses

These include

tricks of

is

most

like-

to be preferred. '^

In addition, the investigator must be wary of a limitations that

—

and

belie

number of human

a correct determination in

memory, the problems of perception,

faulty

reasoning, and similar factors.

For example, Elizabeth Loftus, Insights Into

Memory in the

in her

book Memory: Surprising New

How We Remember and Why We Forget,

is

imperfect. This

first place.

is

But even

of some experience,

it

because if

we

we

often

do not

explains:

see things accurately

take in a reasonably accurate picture

does not necessarily stay perfectly intact in memory.

Another force is at work. The memory traces can actually undergo distortion.

With the passage of

time, with proper motivation, with the introduction

of special kinds of interfering

facts,

the

memory

traces

seem sometimes

to change or become transformed. These distortions can be quite frightening, for they can cause us to have

Even

As

in the

most

intelligent

memories of things that never happened.

among us

is

memory thus

malleable. •'

Leo Levin and Harold Cramer point out: "Eyewitness testimony is, at best, evidence of what the witness believes to have occurred. It may or may not tell what actually happened." The many problems that can plague accurate perception of people and events "all contribute to making honest testimony something less than to perception, legal experts

completely credible."!^

— Looking for a Miracle

14

As

already mentioned, bias

not only his own, as

For

we have

another problem for the investigator

is

seen, but also that of those offering evidence.

instance, theologian A. E. Garvie said of testimony in favor of saints'

was the character of such miracles "such

miracles that not only

as to lack

probability," but:

Further, these records are imitative. miracles,

assumed that those who

it is

for their sanctity that the wish

would

was often

Faulty reasoning

ample, it

As

is

also

work

Christ and the apostles

in the

miracles;

when one encounters

the assertion that something

discussed earlier), the proper response

doubt

common

fallacy

is

shift the

is

true because

burden of proof, as

to point out the fallacy involved

is

—that of an argument ad ignorantiam Another

little

'^

another frequently encountered problem. For ex-

cannot be proved untrue (an attempt to

ance").

Church were distinguished

and there can be

father to the thought.

worked

(i.e., literally

an appeal "to ignor-

the assumption that a cause-and-effect

relationship has been proven before alternative possibilities have been fully

considered. (For example,

a

it

would be

fallacious to interpret moisture

on

religious statue as evidence of miraculous "weeping," until the possibilities

of condensation and outright hoaxing have been decisively eliminated.''*)

To

illustrate

how

faulty recall, bias,

and other

factors can betray even

the most credible and sincere witness, consider the case of Sir

Hornby, a Shanghai

jurist.

He

related

Edward

how, years before, he had been

awakened one night by a newspaperman who had arrived belatedly to get the customary written

refused to be put off, and

judgment for the next day's

—looking "deadly pale"—

sat

The man

on the bed. Eventually

Judge Hornby gave a verbal summary, which the shorthand in his pocket notebook, whereupon he

edition.

man left.

took down in

The judge then

Lady Hornby. The following day the judge learned that the reporter had died during the night and more importantly that his wife and servants were positive he had not left the house; yet with his body was discovered the notebook, containing a summary explained what had happened to

—

—

of Hornby's judgment! This apparent proof of preternatural occurrences was reported by psychical researchers. However, the tale soon truth

thrown on

it

by an

investigator.

As

it

succumbed to the

and 9:00

of

happened, the reporter did

not die at the time reported (about 1:00 A.M.) but 8:00

light

in the morning; the judge could not

much

have told

—between

later

his wife

about

Introduction

15

the events at the time since he was then between marriages; and, finally,

although the story depends on a certain judgment that was to be delivered the following day,

no such judgment was recorded. '^

Confronted with

evidence of error. Judge

this

Hornby

must have followed the death (some three months

vision

of synchronizing with "If I

had not

was

accurate,

have ever told

it.

.

.

believed, as

and that it

If the lapse

admitted:

"My

earlier) instead

."

Bewildered by what had happened, he added:

I

still

believe, that every

my memory

was to be

word of

relied on, I

[the story]

should not

as a personal experience. "'^

of only a few months or years can so remarkably distort

how much more potential is there for error in records have filtered down from antiquity. For example, consider some of

reported events, that

the miracles related in the Bible. if

any,

correct:

is

earth and forth

its

Which

version of the miracle of creation,

the one in Genesis 1:1-2:3, which relates

is it

how

the

creatures were created over six days, with fish being brought

from the waters, and culminates with the creation of man; or

is it

the version in Genesis 2:4-25, which has creation compressed into a single

day, with

The is

first

man and

disparity

the other creatures being formed out of dust?

comes

as

little

surprise

when we

realize that Genesis

a composite work deriving in part from Babylonian and Persian cre-

ation myths. '^ That

sembles the

much

is

why

Noah and

Mesopotamian myth,

earlier

Epic of Gilgamesh which

punishment for men's

the story of

is

sins;

his ark so closely re-

related in the Babylonian

lore,

from the

ark.

Funk

&

it is

safe

Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folk-

Mythology and Legend, conmienting

tactfully that the earlier flood

tale is "strangely parallel to the Biblical version," observes that

"evidently inspired

as

a giant ark; a mountaintop landing; and birds

sent out successively until one fails to return, thus signaling that

to emerge

God

complete with a great flood sent by

it

was

by the phenomenon of seasonal floods which so frequent-

work havoc in Mesopotamia. "^^ Not surprisingly, such stories entered Hebrew mythology at the end of the Babylonian Exile (about 500 B.C.).''' Similar problems arise when we look at accounts of the miracles of Jesus. For example, here is one commentator's plausible hypothesis for the miraculous calming of the storm (Matt. 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke ly

8:22-25):

The winds coming over the swept

Doves

down onto

hills

west of the Sea of Galilee sometimes

the surface stirring

up sudden storms. The Valley of

acts like a funnel for the violent westerly

winds and causes them

— Looking for a Miracle

16

summer

to swirl over the surface of the shallow water. This happens in

or winter, and

lasts

only a short time. Jesus

watched the calm part of the sea Jesus said something about

was

told

and

retold, Jesus

A this

complete

book (and

still.

be

After [the story]

still."

and turned into

lies

beyond the scope of

to other works already available

on the

subject^i);

are, hopefully, sufficient to indicate the

difficulty in citing ancient stories as

evidence of the miraculous.

intent of this study, rather, to look at recent,

say, "Peace,

look at biblical miracles

however, the foregoing examples

by being more

and

No miracle took place in the story.^o

critical is left

being peaceful and

was made to

to expect

the calm approached the ship,

actions were misunderstood

Perfectly natural

supernatural events.

it

When

knew what

modem

It is

the

"miracles'*—those which,

can more successfully be investigated. The

biblical

or post-biblical background of certain alleged phenomena will occasionally

be considered, but the main focus

will

always be on the question of whether

or not miraculous events are part of the reality of today's world. I

have long been concerned with this question. As a former professional

an

known

stage magician

and private

tective agency, I

have learned the importance of investigating magical claims.

For over twenty years,

I

investigator for

have seen

internationally

how easily illusion can pass for reality

a harmless enough situation when mere entertainment of serious import

when

de-

relating to such

profound

is

involved, but

possibilities as are

represented by miraculous claims.

What

are these claims?

They begin with

2 concerning the Shroud of Turin (that rection), the

it is

assertions treated in

Chapter

tangible proof of Jesus' resur-

Image of Guadalupe (a supposedly miraculous

self-portrait

of the Virgin Mary), and other "miraculous" pictures; they continue in

Chapter 3 with icons that supposedly weep, bleed, and are otherwise animated.

Chapter 4 examines "mystical

relics" like the periodically liquefying

blood of Saint Januarius, the reputedly "incorruptible" bodies of certain other pious figures, and additional relics that offer "evidence" of their efficacious

powers and that supposedly prove the sanctity of saints.

In Chapter

5,

we

investigate certain "charismatic gifts of the spirit."

Supposedly divinely bestowed, these powers include speaking in tongues, prophesying, and being impervious to serpents and other harmful things.

Chapter 6 explores

faith

"miracle" cures at Lourdes

healing

—including

the claims

made

for

—and examines how the "cures" actually work.

Introduction

It

also exposes the

17

hype and even outright hoaxes that many so-called

healers employ, sometimes with tragic results.

—

we take a close look at Marian apparitions the claims Mary has appeared, often to peasant children, at such

In Chapter 7 that the Virgin

remote places as Fatima, Portugal, and Medjugorje, Yugoslavia.

And posed tion

abilities

we examine "sanctified powers," the supand mystics who through allegedly divine sanc-

Chapter

finally, in

of saints

8,

—

—may exhibit luminosity,

ability to

levitation, bilocation, stigmata, inedia (the

go without food), the power to exorcise demons, and the

production of "apports," that In brief,

we

will

is,

objects out of thin

air.

look behind a myriad of claims of the miraculous

(defined earlier as supernatural

phenomena believed to have a divine origin),

ranging from the philosophically challenging to the aspects of faith healing. These are issues that

and they must be approached

literally life-and-death

must matter to

in the serious, critical

manner

all

of us,

that they

deserve.

Select Bibliography Acquistapace, Fred. Miracles that Never Were: Natural Explanations of the Bible's

Supernatural Stories. Santa Rosa,

Calif.:

Eye-Opener Books, 1991.

A critical

look at the more than 200 miracle stories of the Bible, organized by their order of appearance in the Old and

New Testaments.

Baker, Robert A., and Joe Nickell. Missing Pieces:

UFOs, Psychics and Other Mysteries.

A

handbook

How

Buffalo, N.Y.:

to Investigate Ghosts,

Prometheus Books, 1992.

for investigators of the paranormal, explaining

how

to con-

duct investigations, interrogate witnesses, weigh evidence, and perform other tasks necessary to critically evaluate various mysterious anomalies.

Lewis, C. S. Miracles: 1974.

A Preliminary Study.

1947; reprint Glasgow:

Fontana Books,

A classical defense of the reality of miracles by a major Roman Catholic

writer.

Rogo, D.

Scott. Miracles:

New York: Dial Press, phenomena by a

A

Parascientific Inquiry into

1982.

Wondrous Phenomena.

An overly credulous view of allegedly supernatural

partisan researcher in the field of parapsychology.

Looking for a Miracle

18

Notes 1.

Webster's Third International Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: G.

Merriam Co., 2.

A

C. S. Lewis, Miracles:

Preliminary Study (1947; reprint Glasgow:

1974).

D. Scott Rogo, Miracles:

A

Parascientific

A

4.

Rogo, Miracles:

5.

Ibid., pp. 8-9; see also

see C. E.

M.

Parascientific Inquiry, p. 8.

Renee Haynes, Philosopher King: The Humanist

Pope Benedict A'/F (London: Nicolson and Weidenfeld, 1971). 6. Quoted in Rogo, Miracles: A Parascientific Inquiry, retitled the treatise

Wondrous

Inquiry into

Phenomena (New York: Dial Press, 1982), p. 8. For a contrary view, Hansel, ESP: A Scientific Evaluation (New York: Scribner, 1966).

it

C.

1966).

Fontana Books, 3.

&

An Inquiry

Concerning

Human

p. 9.

Hume

later

Understanding when he revised

in 1758.

A Parascientific Inquiry, p. 9. Miracles: A Preliminary Study, pp. 7-8.

7.

Rogo, Miracles:

8.

Lewis,

9.

W.

n.d.), pp. 10.

I.

B. Beveridge,

The Art of Scientific Investigation (New York: Vintage,

67-68.

Ibid., pp.

1

15-1 16; Elie A. Schneour, "Occam's Razor," Skeptical Inquirer

10 (1986): 310-13. 11.

Elizabeth

Loftus,

Remember and Why We 12.

Memory:

Surprising

Forget (1980),

Insights

into

How We

p. 37.

A. Leo Levin and Harold Cramer, Problems and Materials on Trial

Advocacy (Mineola, N.Y.: The Foundation

Press, 1968), p. 269.

13.

A. E. Garvie, "Miracle," Encyclopaedia Britannica, I960 ed.

14.

For a fuller discussion of logical fallacies, consult Ray

for Composition, 5th ed. (New York:

that

New

A

Random

Kytle, Clear Thinking

House, 1987), pp. 124-25.

15.

Hansel,

ESP:

16.

Quoted

in Hansel,

17.

"Genesis," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.; Fred Aquistapace, Miracles

Scientific Evaluation, pp. 186-89.

ESP:

A

Scientific Evaluation, pp. 188-89.

Never Were: Natural Explanations of the

Rosa,

Calif.:

Eye-Opener Books,

Bible's

Supernatural Stories (Santa

1991), pp. 21-29.

Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Mythology, and Legend (Nq^ York: Harper & Row, 1984), pp. 992-93. 18.

Maria Leach,

19.

Acquistapace, Miracles That Never Were, pp. 21, 28.

20.

Ibid., pp. 164-65.

21.

In addition to Acquistapace's

ed..

book (see n.

Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (New York:

Guide to the others.

Bible, in

17),

there are Lloyd

Bell, 1979); Isaac

Folklore,

M. Graham,

Asimov, Asimov's

two volumes (New York: Equinox Books,

1969);

and many

Miraculous Pictures

An

interesting class of reputed miracles consists of icons, divine portraits,

or other images that are supposed to have been supematurally produced.

They include the Edessan Image, a reputed "self portrait" of Christ; the Holy Shroud of Turin, said to bear the miraculous imprint of Christ's crucified body; the

image of Guadalupe, a likeness of the Virgin that many

believe appeared spontaneously

on a

peasant's cloak;

including magical images of Jesus or the Virgin in such unlikely skillet

forms as rust

stains

Mary

and many

others,

that have appeared

on a soybean-oil storage tank and

bums on a New Mexican tortilla.

The Edessan Image As

early as the sixth century there appeared certain images of Jesus that

were reputed to be acheiropoietoi, or "not made with hands." There were different versions of these,

and

as

many

legends to explain their allegedly

miraculous origin.

One such

legend

—concerning the "Image of Edessa"—

is

mid-fourth-century Syriac manuscript

This

tells

how King Abgar

known

as

related in

a

The Doctrine of AddaO

of Edessa (now Urfa, in southcentral Turkey),

being afflicted with leprosy, supposedly wrote a

19

letter

to Jesus.2

The king

Looking for a Miracle

20

sent his "greetings to Jesus the Savior

who

has come to light as a good

physician in the city of Jerusalem,'' and who, he had heard, "can the blind see, the lame walk illnesses,

and

.

God cure me

of

plan to

harm

be

stately

.

.

raise the

my

of the

.

heal those

who

dead." Acknowledging that Jesus must either

Abgar

Jesus,

and wiU be

stated: "I

sufficient for us

Him

to

"come

had heard of the Jews'

have a very small

both to

live in

me and

to

city,

but

it

is

peace."

Abgar instructed his messenger, Ananias, that accompany him to Edessa, he was at least to bring story,

who

portrait. Jesus,

letter

are tortured by chronic

disease." Further observing that he

Jesus refused to

back a

.

or the son of God, Abgar entreated

According to the if

.

make

divined Ananias's mission and the contents

he carried, replied with a missive of his own.

He wrote, "Blessed

you believed in me without having actually seen me." Although Jesus went on to explain that his mission on earth did are you, Abgar, in that

not permit a cure Abgar's

visit,

he promised that he would

illness as well as to "also

defense to keep

all

later

send a disciple to

provide your city with a sufficient

your enemies from taking it." Giving the letter to Ananias,

The Savior then washed his face in water, wiped off the moisture that was left on the towel that was given to him, and in some divine and inexpressible manner had his own likeness impressed on it.^ In this version of the

tale,

Ananias

is

given the towel to present to the

king as "consolation" for his disease.

However, there

is

another version of the story, given in an

account of the Image dating from the tenth version, the

century.'*

official

According to

this

image was supposedly imprinted with Jesus' bloody sweat

during his agony in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44):

They say

that

when

seen to reveal his

Christ

human

was about to go voluntarily to death he was weakness,

to the Evangelist, sweat dropped

feel

anguish, and pray. According

from him

they say he took this piece of cloth which disciples

drops of blood. Then

like

we

and wiped off the drops of sweat on

see it.

now from one

At once the

of the

still-visible

impression of that divine face was produced.^

Jesus gave the cloth to his disciple

Thomas

to be safeguarded until after

Jesus had ascended to heaven, whereupon "the divine portrait of Christ's face"

was

to be taken

by Thaddeus to King Abgar. Reputedly, upon

re-

Miraculous Pictures

and touching

ceiving the magical cloth

it

21

to the afflicted parts of his body,

he was cured of his leprosy.

The

distinguished historian, Sir Steven

As he

versions of the story as apocryphal.

Runciman, denounces both

states,

**It is

show

easy to

that

Abgar and Jesus as we now have it is untrue, that the letters contain phrases copied from the gospels and are framed according to the the story of

dictates of later theology.

"^

In fact, in one revealing fourth-century manuscript of The Doctrine

of Addai, the Edessan Image lous origin. Instead

it

is

not even described as having a miracu-

merely attributed to Ananias,

is

who

painted a portrait of Jesus in choice paints, and brought his lord

it

and

**took

with him to

King Abgar. "^

Yet another strain of the proliferating legend distinguishes the impressed cloth

from the Image of Edessa

"Veronica's

Jerusalem

Veil.**

who

Mandylion), terming

(later called the

of

so pitied Jesus struggling to carry his cross to Golgotha

that she used her veil (or kerchief) to wipe his face.

a portrait of the Messiah imprinted with have Veronica giving the he

woman

According to legend, Veronica was a pious

it

veil to

—

in return for her generosity

his

Thus she obtained

bloody sweat.^ (Variant

tales

Jesus so that he can wipe his brow, and

—miraculously imprints the cloth with

his

holy visage.)^ It

should come as no surprise that there were numerous such portrait

known,

veils,

ever, that the

fittingly

enough, as "Veronicas.*' (Some sources

name may be a

state,

corruption of the words Vera icon, or "true

image.^io In what appears to be a further corruption, dating fifteenth century, the cloth

is

how-

from the

occasionally referred to as "the holy vemicle

Thomas Humber, these "veronicas" were fact, painted."'^ Humber adds:

of Rome."") According to

[sic'\

"supposedly miraculous, but, in

Soon the popular demand

for

more

of Christ was such that selected

copies representing the "true likeness"

artists

were allowed or encouraged to

make duplications. (There was, conveniently, another tradition supporting the copies: the Image could miraculously duplicate

As Jesus, his

itself.) '^

to the belief that the Veronicas represented the "true likeness" of

we should

take note of the fact that there

appearance anywhere in the

New

the Messiah in the Old Testament

form nor comeliness"

(Isa. 53:2),

is

is

not a single clue to

Testament, and

all

that

Isaiah's statement that

is

said of

"He hath no

and the supposedly prophetic passage

Looking for a Miracle

22

in

Psalms (45:2) that "Thou are fairer than the children of men.

.

.

."Because

of that, and no doubt partly due also to the Old Testament prohibition against

we

making graven images,

known

find the earliest

picting

him

it is

not until the mid-third century that

representation of Jesus: a fresco painting de-

and with cropped

as youthful, beardless,

there are varying conceptual portraits of Christ, yet

So it was in the mented, "We do not know of to accuracy. •"*

hair.

From

then on,

none having any claim

early fifth century that St. Augustine lahis external appearance,

nor that of his

mother. "15 Eventually, however, a Semitic representation prevailed as a matter of rigid

convention, and so

artistic

it is

that today people instantly

recognize a portrait of Jesus, although the conceptual likeness

on no more than a collective guess. Therefore, any such depiction of Jesus represent

is

prima facie

suspect.

is

based

as the Veronicas pretend to

Yet today controversy continues over just

such a "self-portrait of Christ": the notorious "Holy Shroud."

The Shroud of Turin Housed

in a reliquary

dral of St.

John the

linen cloth

known

on the high

Royal Chapel of the Cathe-

altar in the

Baptist in Turin, Italy,

as the

a fourteen-foot length of

is

Shroud of Turin. Although some

forty cloths

have been reputed to be the Holy Shroud, the Turin cloth bears the front

and back imprints of an apparently it

is

crucified

the actual burial shroud of Jesus.

man, leading many

At

least,

it

to believe

does tap the same

acheiropoietos tradition as the Edessan Image.

The earliest-known appearance of the "shroud" dates from the middle of the fourteenth century. About 1355, it turned up at a little collegiate church in Lirey, a town in the diocese of Troyes, in northcentral France. Its owner, a soldier of fortune named Geoffroy de Chamey, claimed it was the true Holy Shroud, and it was depicted as such on a pilgrim's medallion of circa 1357. While pilgrims flocked to view the cloth

—which

—a skeptical bishop named Henri de launched an investigation of the As a consequence was hidden away, only to resurface time 1389 to be reinvestigated — was reputed to

effect

miraculous cures

Poitiers

"relic."

in

it

^this

by Bishop Pierre d'Arcis and again with negative consequences

(as

we

shall see presently). '^

Chamey, Margaret, used shroud and took it on tour, where it met

Eventually, the granddaughter of Geoffroy de

a pretext to gain control of the

Miraculous Pictures

various challenges to

its

be excommunicated for

authenticity. Finally, in 1453, although she it,

23

would

Margaret sold the cloth to the Royal House

of Savoy (later the Italian monarchy). (Authenticity advocates like to say

duke and duchess, which

that Margaret "gave" the cloth to the if

is

true

we note that in return they "gave** her the sum of two castles.) The shroud was now reputed to have additional powers. According

to Ian Wilson: "In the earliest days with the family

was

it

carried about

with them on their travels, like a holy charm to safeguard them against the dangers of a journey."'^ In later centuries the shroud

would be reputed

to provide protective powers over whatever city housed

it;

yet in the year

came ample evidence that the shroud could not even protect itself: was nearly destroyed in a chapel fire which resulted in bum marks

1532, It

and water

stains that

relocate the it

Savoy

marred the image. In a shrewd

political

move

to

shroud was taken in 1578 to Turin, where

capital, the

has remained ever since.

The for the

cloth's first

modem

history begins in 1898,

time by Secondo Pia.

when

was photographed

it

As he developed

was astonished to discover that the image's darks and tially reversed.

lights

were essen-

Thus, although the shroud's history had suggested

the handiwork of a medieval

artist,

proponents were

Pia

his glass plates,

now

asking

it

was

how

it

was possible that a mere medieval artist could have painted a negative image centuries before photography was even conceived.

—

One

possible explanation

is

known

as the "contact theory," which sug-

body was covered with oils and spices that naturally transferred to the cloth. The prominences would thus be imprinted while the recesses would remain blank; this would be the opposite of a positive image in which raised areas (such as cheekbones) are in highlight and gests that the

the recessed ones

(e.g.,

the hollows of the eyes) are in shadow. However,

attempts to produce shroudlike images by imprinting from fully three-

dimensional figures

—bodies or statues—resulted in grotesque wraparound

distortions, the results naturally expected It

was

also

soon recognized that not

would have been

due to the laws of geometry. all

in contact with a simple

of the features that imprinted

draped

cloth. Therefore,

shroud

proponent Paul Vignon concluded the imaging process must have acted across a distance

was

bom

—that

is,

it

must somehow have been projected. Thus

the "vaporography" concept

acal vapors

from the fermented urea

the cloth (which

was likened to a

—that body vapors (weak anmionim

sweat) interacted with spices

sensitized photographic plate) to

on

produce

a vapor "photo." Unfortunately, vapors do not travel in perfectly straight

Looking for a Miracle

24

but instead diffuse and convect, and therefore

(vertical) lines

conducted in 1977 —

—as shown

^the result will simply be a blur.^* by experiments I Undaunted, shroud proponents next suggested a miracle, although,

of course, they tried to present

it

Some mem-

in scientific-sounding terms.

bers of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) —^whose leaders

on the executive council of the Roman Catholic Holy Shroud Guild proposed that the image resulted from "flash photolysis." This was de-

served

—

body might the image was

scribed as a "short burst" of "radiant energy" such as Christ's

have produced

at the

moment

of resurrection. In

hypothesized to be a "scorch picture." Yet one

brief,

STURP

admitted, "I incline toward the idea of a scorch, but it

was done." He added, "At

you

this point,

either

scientist later

I can't

think

how

keep looking for the

mechanism or start getting mystical."^^ Reasons for doubting radiation-scorching as a mechanism are numerous. For one thing, real scorches on linen (such as those on the shroud resulting

from the

fire

of 1532) exhibit a strong reddish fluorescence, while

do not fluoresce at all. In addition, examination of the cloth's threads show the image stain to be confined to the topmost fibrils, and there is no known radiation that traveling various distances from body to cloth would act uniformly superficially. Moreover, not only is there no natural source for any such radiation but, even if there were, there is no means by which it could have been focused to produce an the shroud images

—

—

image

like that

on the shroud.^o was produced miraculously are an authentic burial cloth. Take its iconog-

Just as claims that the shroud image

untenable, so are claims that

it is

raphy, for example. {Iconography refers to the study of tion.) It is

artistic representa-

most suspicious that the shroud should turn up

centuries with

its

portrait looking just like

after thirteen

more contemporary artistic repre-

sentations of Jesus. Moreover, the shroud seems the culmination of a lengthy tradition of "not-made-with-hands" portraits:

From

the sixth century

came

images reputedly imprinted by the bloody sweat of the living Christ, and

by the twelfth century there were accounts of Jesus having pressed "the length of his whole body"

upon a

cloth; already (by the eleventh century)

had begun to represent a double-length (but non-imaged) shroud paintings; and by the thirteenth century we find ceremonial shrouds

artists

in

bearing full-length images of Christ's body in death (even with the hands folded over the loins, an

artistic

motif dating from the eleventh century).

Thus, from an iconographic point of view, these various traditions coalesce

Miraculous Pictures

Shroud of Turin and suggest

in the

it

is

the

work of an

artist

25

of the

thirteenth century or later.2'

Ian Wilson attempts to put the proverbial cart before the horse by suggesting the shroud and the ancient Edessan

same! Although the it

was

really the

To

face showed!

latter

bore only a

facial

lists

of

explain

how

both an Edessan Image and a purported

relics,

fact, the

certain twelfth-

and

thirteenth-

Wilson opines that the "other" Edessan cloth was

a copy, made from the genuine In

image, Wilson supposes that

shroud in disguise, folded in such a way that only the

Holy Shroud are mentioned separately on century

Image are one and the

—hypothetically folded—shroud!

shroud's provenance (or historical record)

tells

The New Testament makes no mention of Jesus's shroud being

against

it.

preserved.

(Indeed, John's gospel describes multiple cloths, including a "napkin" over the face is

—a description that

no mention of this

incompatible with the shroud.) In

is

particular "shroud" for

a respected bishop reportedly uncovered an created

reported

The

In a letter of 1389 to

it.

on an case,

some

artist

Pope Clement

fact, there

thirteen centuries; then

who

confessed to having

VII, Bishop Pierre d'Arcis

earlier investigation:

Holy Father, stands

thus.

Some

time since in this diocese of

Troyes the dean of a certain collegiate church, to wit, that of Lirey, falsely

and

deceitfully, being

consumed with the passion of

avarice,

and

not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church

a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever

was depicted the twofold image of one man, that and the

front,

he

falsely declaring

is

and pretending that

sleight

of hand

to say, the back

this

was the actual

shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb, and

upon which

the whole likeness of the Savior had remained thus impressed

wounds which He bore. This story was put about not the kingdom of France but, so to speak, throughout the world, from all parts people came together to view it. And further to

together with the

only in so that

attract the multitude so that

money might cunningly be wrung from them,

pretended miracles were worked, certain themselves as healed at the

moment

men

being hired to represent

of the exhibition of the shroud.

D'Arcis continued, speaking of the earlier bishop

who conducted

investigation:

Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud

and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested

the

— Looking for a Miracle

26

by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed. (Emphasis added.) In response, the shroud's owner, Geoffroy de

or unwilling

—to

how

say

Chamey, was unable

he had acquired the most significant

relic in

Christendom. As a consequence. Pope Clement judged the shroud an

and permitted

**representation''

it

artist's

to be exhibited only as such. (As

have seen, however, de Chamey's granddaughter would

we

in later years ignore

the prohibition, touring with and finally selling the "Holy Shroud" which

she unfailingly misrepresented as genuine.22)

Additional evidence against authenticity

is

found

in the "blood" flows.

While shroud proponents argue that they are amazingly accurate, there are

fundamental problems. For example, they are decidedly "pic-

critical,

turelike," consistent with

an

artist's

rendering. Dr. Michael Baden, a dis-

tinguished pathologist, pointed out that the "blood" had failed to the hair and instead flowed in rivulets

other problem

is

that dried blood, as

ferred to the cloth at

all.

on the outside of the

locks.

on the arms, should not have

Moreover, the

stains are suspiciously

mat An-

trans-

still

red,

unlike real blood that blackens over time.

Anatomical

the imprint of one leg shows the knee as that

is

another category of flaws. For instance,

details represent it

to be outstretched rather than bent at

would have to have been to produce the bloody footprint

it

also depicted. In addition, the hair hangs

down on

either side of

the figure were standing rather than reclining. Further, the

the face as

if

physique

so unnaturally elongated (resembling the figures in gothic art)

is

that one pro-shroud pathologist concluded that Jesus

from the

rare disease

known

by an excessive length of the

Among medieval

realistic details

artist

as Marfan's

must have suffered

Syndrome (which

is

characterized

extremities).

supposed to be beyond the knowledge of a

were flagellation marks on the body image (but medieval

paintings depict contemporary flagellations), nail wounds in the wrists rather

wound shows and it seems clearly palm), and "Roman coins" over the eyes

than the hands (but only one such to be located in the base of the

(the result of wishful imagining, say skeptics). "Pollen fossils"—which the late

Max

Frei claimed he found

on tape samples he

and which supposedly proved the cloth had been appear on another

set

of tapes taken by

STURP

lifted

from the shroud

in Palestine scientists,

—

failed to

thus raising

suspicions about Frei's work.23 Instead,

what the

STURP

tapes did

show were

traces of paint pig-

Miraculous Pictures

27

ments. After the pieces of special sticky tape were pressed to the shroud

remove

to

and other surface materials, they were then stuck to

fibers

microscope

and given to Walter C. McCrone, a world-famous

slides

microanalyst

who

on the

served

STURP

team.

McCrone conducted a

"blind" study which separated the thirty-two tapes microscopically into

two groups: one consisting of tapes with red pigment on the of tapes without pigment.

on image

("body**

non-image

He

McCrone tests)

the

other

pigment as red ocher.

also

He

discovered that the red pigment appeared

proving the pigment was a component of the image.

found

same red ocher,

vermilion.

another

and "Wood") areas only, not on control tapes (from

areas), thus

identified the

He

fibers,

in the

"blood" (which had

as well as small

failed earlier forensic

amounts of another red pigment,

determined the "blood" was actually tempera paint.

Two

STURP scientists, John Heller and Alan Adler, challenged McCrone's

findings, but their claims

were rebutted by forensic analyst John F. Fischer.

At the 1983 conference of the

how

Fischer explained

International Association for Identification,

results similar to theirs

could be obtained with

tempera paint, and he demonstrated why spectral data were inconsistent with their claims.^* serologist or

As

it

happens, neither Heller nor Adler

is

a forensic

a pigment expert, thus raising the question why they were

chosen for such important work. Heller admitted that McCrone "had over

two decades of experience with reputation. Adler

and

I,

this

kind of problem and a worldwide

on the other hand, had never before tackled any-

thing remotely like an artistic forgery. "^5

McCrone's work answered

crucial questions but raised others.

For

example, he concluded that the image on the shroud was a painting, without

why

explaining

the "body" image areas did not penetrate into the threads

as the blood (which soaked through to the

McCrone is

also discovered that another

back of the cloth) had done.

component of the shroud image

a straw-colored stain which he attributed to a tempera binder, but the

samples were taken from him before he had completed his analyses.

(McCrone tists

alleges that

he was "drummed out" of STURP.) Several scien-

—both proponents and skeptics—^thought the yellow stain might merely

be the

result of cellulose

degradation caused by the presence of foreign

substances.

As an alternative to the painting hypothesis, some two years before McCrone published his findings, I reported the results of my own successful experiments in creating shroudlike "negative" images. The technique involved wet-molding cloth to a bas-relief (used instead of a fully

Looking for a Miracle

28

three-dimensional statue to minimize distortion), allowing

rubbing on powdered pigment using a dauber

it

—much as one would make

a rubbing from a gravestone. This technique automatically tive**

images (or rather, just

like the

to dry, then

yields "nega-

shroud, qt4asi-negaXi\e images, since

the hair and beard are the opposite of

what would be expected).

also

It

produces numerous other shroudlike features, including minimal depth of penetration into the threads, encoded "S-D" information, similarities,

some of which

technique.26 (See Figure

specifically

pointed to

and other

some form of imprinting

1.)

medieval times was reported on October

from the

first

century but from

13, 1988, after

samples from the

Final proof that the shroud dated not

cloth were carbon-dated. Postage-stamp-size samples were snipped

one end and transferred to laboratories

at

from

Oxford, England; Zurich,

Switzerland; and the University of Arizona in the United States. Using accelerator

mass spectrometry, the labs obtained dates

in close agreement:

The shroud dated from about 1260-1390, and the time span was given enhanced credibility by correct dates obtained from a variety of control swatches taken from ancient cloths of known date.27 But would shroud defenders accept such results? Of course not: they rushed to challenge the carbon- 14

They argued

tests.

that the three labs

had been given

pieces of cloth taken

from a much handled, much contaminated comer of the Shroud. Since only threads were needed, different parts of the Shroud could and should

have been included, such as the "pristine" material next to the charred areas under the patches. Another major objection

was that

had agreed to use the same newly developed and cleansing solvent. Since the contamination is

so

three labs

relatively untested

centuries of handling

the most important obstacle to an accurate C-14 date, this procedure

seemed to

Or

from

all

it

critics

to be extremely careless.^*

"seemed" to shroud devotees. Actually,

of the carbon dating are

little

their

more than sour

numerous

criticisms

grapes, given the close

proximity of the C-14 dates, the accuracy in dating the control swatches, the fact that the samples were thoroughly cleansed before testing,

other reasons

—as

I

and

pointed out in an article commissioned by the prestigious

science magazine. Science et Vie.^

Not

surprisingly,

some shroud adherents

are again invoking the mi-

raculous to rationalize the devastating results of the carbon-dating

tests.

29

Miraculous Pictures

They suggest

that the unagined burst of radiant energy at the

moment

of resurrection altered the carbon ratio! Will wonders never cease? say this response

I

is

not surprising because shroudologists have con-

begun with the desired answer and worked backward to the

sistently

evi-

dence. Lacking any viable hypothesis for the image formation, they offered

one explanation for the lack of provenance (the cloth might have been hidden away), another for the forger's confession (the reporting bishop could have been mistaken),

still

another for the pigments (an

some

the image could have splashed

on),

and so

artist

copying

forth.^^

In contrast, investigators allowed the preponderance oi prima facie

The "shroud" never

evidence to lead them to the following conclusion: held a body, and

its

image

is

the handiwork of a clever medieval artisan.

The evidence is appropriately corroborative as well. For example, the confession

supported by the lack of prior record, the red "blood** and presence

is

of pigments are consistent with

artistry,

and the carbon dating

con-

is

with the time frame indicated by the iconographic evidence. In-

sistent

deed, skeptics had predicted the results of the carbon dating virtually to

—a measure of the accuracy both of the

the year

and

collective evidence

of the technique of radiocarbon testing.

The Image of Guadalupe Another supposedly miraculous

portrait

is

Mexico's Image of Guadalupe,

a sixteenth-century depiction of the Virgin Mary which legend

—miraculously

—according to pious

appeared as a "sign" to a skeptical bishop as an

inducement for him to build a shrine to

her. "Yearly," according to

Brant Smith's The Image of Guadalupe, "an estimated ten million

down

before the mysterious Virgin,

most popular shrine

in the

Roman

This image of the Virgin

You .

.

.

is

Jody

bow

making the Mexico City church the

Catholic world next to the Vatican.'*^*

so popular that:

every ima^nable representation of her in the churches.

will find

You may

find her outlined in

tacular, chalked into

a

hillside,

neon as part of a downtown spec-

on a throwaway

advertising a

mouth-

wash, pricked out in flowers in public parks; clowns and hucksters

will

distribute

booklets about her as a preliminary to hawking patent

medicines.

.

she

is

.

.

Bullfighters

have her image woven into

their

parade capes;

a popular tattoo subject; almost everyone wears her medal.^^

Looking for a Miracle

30

Because the cloth was accompanied by a supposedly contemporary

was amenable to testing), John F. Fischer

account of the "miracle," and because the image analysis

and

I

(if

not

made

available for full scientific

conducted a two-pronged investigation, as reported in

"The Image of Guadalupe: First

Nican

itself

we looked

Mopohua

our

A Folkloristic and Sonographic Investigation. "33

at the legend itself. It

is

related in the sixteenth-century

("an account"), written in the native Aztec language and

sometimes called the "gospel of Guadalupe." According to in early

full in

December of 1531 (some ten

this account,

years after Cortez's defeat of the

named Juan Diego supposedly another. As he passed the foot of a

Aztec Empire), a recent Christian convert

Mass

left

his village to attend

hill

named Tepeyac, he heard

hill,

and heard a voice

in

birds singing,

saw a

bright light atop the

calling "Juanito."

The peasant climbed to the top of Tepeyac, where he encountered a young girl, radiant in golden mist, who identified herself as "the evervirgin Holy Mary, mother of the True God." She said: "I wish that a temple be created here quickly, so love, er.

I

may

therein exhibit

compassion, help, and protection, because

I

am

and give

all

my

your merciful moth-

..." She instructed Juan Diego to hasten to Father Juan de Zumar-

raga, bishop of Mexico,

and

tell

him of her

plans.

The peasant complied,

hastening to the bishop's palace and pleading to his servants for an audi-

on bended knee, Juan Diego conveyed the message to the

ence. Finally,

skeptical prelate

and was then dismissed.

After reporting to the Virgin at Tepeyac, Juan Diego was again sent to the bishop,

he had been

who now

told. After

asked for a "sign" so that he might believe what

a brief delay, caused by the

illness

of an uncle

whom the Virgin then "cured," Juan Diego was instructed to gather flowers. Although

it

was not the season for them, they were blooming miraculously,

and Juan Diego gathered them

He

in his cloak to carry to the

doubting bishop.

then unfolded his white cloth, where he had the flowers, and

they had scattered on the floor, Costilla,

the different varieties of rosas de

suddenly there appeared the drawing of the precious Image of

the ever-virgin

today kept the bishop

Convinced

all

when

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

in the

temple at Tepeyac, which

saw the image, he and

at last.

all

is

who were

in the

manner

as she

is

named Guadalupe. When present

fell

to their knees.

Bishop Zumarraga placed the miraculous portrait

his private chapel "until the

in

temple dedicated to the Queen of Tepeyac

was erected where Juan Diego had seen

her."^^ (See Figures 2

and

3.)

Miraculous Pictures

The

alert reader will

from the Old and

New

have noted in the legend a number of motifs

Testament, including a divine

command

for the

building of a place of worship (Exod. 25:8), miraculous blooms 17:8, Isa. 35:1),

and an apparition's ultimate

with tangible "signs'* (John 20:25-30).

And when

be disturbed," she echoes Christ's words to

the Virgin

herself as "the ever-virgin his

(Num.

convince a doubter

the Virgin

his disciples in

tells

Juan

not your heart

John

14:1.

dogma have been put in when in the Nican Mopohua she describes Holy Mary." As Marcello Craveri explains in

Moreover, statements of

mouth of

ability to

his sick uncle, saying, "Let

Diego to cease worrying about

the

31

specific religious

—

—

The Life of Jesus: About

the end of the fourth century,

John Chrysostom proposed the

definition of Mary's "perpetual virginity"; since her physical intactness

had not been impaired by the

birth of Jesus

her virginity to the end of her

life,

partum,

in partu,

she was to be called a virgin ante

post partum [before giving

after giving birth]. This

and she had maintained birth, while giving birth,

formula was to become

dogma

at the

Lateran

Council of 649 and was to be confirmed by the Tolentino Council of 675, because not everyone

The legend

had

freely accepted \i?^

—the

also incorporates hyperdulia

the special veneration given to the Virgin Mary. it

was

is

all-seeing

the temple

Craveri points out,

and Mary eventually "assumed the functions of divinity. "^^ And

so, in the legend

who

As

term for

Council of Ephesus (in 431) that a cult of the Virgin

after the

originated,

ecclesiastical

is

it is

the Virgin

who

appears to Juan Diego, the Virgin

and able to work miraculous mentioned.

Indeed, the Guadalupan legend

itself

appears to have been borrowed.

The very name Guadalupe (which had been given 1556, the date of the report of suspicion.

As

similar to

an

historian Jacques earlier

to the Tepeyac site

a formal investigation of the

La Faye

observes, the

Mexican

tale is quite

Spanish legend in which the Virgin appeared to a

known

as

Guadalupe

suggestmg that the Mexican

Then

there

is

by

cloth) arouses

shepherd and led him to discover a statue of her. The Spanish

even on a river

whom

whose image appears for venera-

to be built, and the Virgin

tion. Christ is scarcely

cures, the Virgin to

tale

(that

is,

site

was

"hidden channel"), strongly

was derived from the Spanish one.

the "not-made-with-hands" tradition of the miraculous

—a tradition of pious frauds. Even separated from the legend, the

portrait

— Looking for a Miracle

32

Virgin of Guadalupe sentations of

Mary.

linked to another tradition of "miraculous" repre-

is

of the "dark-colored, ancient Greek Madonnas,**

It is

which, says A. B. Jameson, "had lous.'*^^

And Smith

all

along the credit of being miracu-

—

alupan Image "La Morena"

i.e.,

these disturbing elements in the legend

suspiciously similar story

woman"

"the dark-complexioned

because of the brownish flesh tones.^s

To

dubbed the Guad-

points out that the Mexicans have

—

familiar motifs; the

^the

and the transposed name, Guadalupe, together

with the scandalous, "not-made-with-hands" portrait tradition and the blatant elements of religious

dogma

—we must add

one further element

smacks of deliberate legend manufacture. As Smith

states:

"The Shrine

which held the Image of Guadalupe had been erected on a

hill directly

that

where there had been an important temple dedicated

in front of the spot

to the Aztec Virgin goddess Tonantzin, 'Little Mother' of the Earth

Com. "39 Thus

the Christian tradition

and

became grafted onto the Indian one

(a process folklorists call syncretism).

now from folkloristics

Turning

we

to iconography,

again discover con-

Even without knowing anything of the pious legend, sight recognize the image as a portrait of the Virgin

siderable borrowing.

one would

at first

Mary. That recognition factor since

—as

St.

know what

not without considerable significance,

is

Augustine observed in the

the Virgin actually looked

fifth

like.

century

We

picture because the likeness has been established

—

by

artistic is

convention.

a devotional

(as

The golden rays and crescent moon in motifs taken from Revelation 12:1, which

portrait.

the picture (see Figure 2) are

many

impossible to

recognize her in a given

In iconographic terms, the Image of Guadalupe

opposed to a narrative)

it is

believe refer to the Virgin.

Other standard

artistic

motifs that appear

Image of Guadalupe are the mantle's forty-six stars, signifying the number of years required for building the temple of Jerusalem; gold fleur-

in the

de-lis designs that are

Lady's

a

feet;

a decorative

distinctive

In

(now

fact,

in the

symbolic of the Virgin Mother; an angel at the tassel;

and

others, including

a possible Aztec motif:

lower fold of the robe.

a Spanish painting, a Virgin of Mercy by Bonanat Zaortiza

Museo de Arte de Cataluna

in Barcelona),

is

said to be "of

the exact form as the Virgin of Guadalupe" and even has "a similar brooch at the throat," according to Philip

imitative of the Virgin of

picture

Sema

Guadalupe"^

Callahan,

who

—although

it

terms

it

"strikingly

preceded the

latter

the motifs

men-

by nearly a century!

Defenders of the image's authenticity hold that

all

Miraculous Pictures

33

tioned thus far are later additions, produced, as Callahan admits, "by hu-

man hands" and which

"impart a Spanish Gothic motif to the painting. "^i

Suggestions that these were

years after

(except for

fact that

a copy

original**

is

some "more

done"

skillfully

convincing proof that the original.

as late as the seventeenth century are

—dating from probably fewer than forty the original appeared — actually "identical with the

by the

belied

made

elements).'*^ In fact, there

tell-tale artistic

The overlapping of paint that

is

is

no

motifs were absent from the

observed

may merely be indicative

of stages in the painting process, not of later "additions."

By excluding the obvious artistic elements, pro-authenticity writers such as Callahan have suggested the "original" portions are therefore "inexplicable"

and even "miraculous,"

as Callahan terms the "original figure,

including the rose robe, blue mantle, hands and face."^^ Yet while those areas are less thickly painted, evidence that they are painted

For example, (outlined,

show that the hands have been modified

infrared photographs

and some

abundant.

is

fingers shortened). Also, close-up

photography shows

that pigment has been applied to the highlight areas of the face sufficiently

heavily so as to obscure the texture of the cloth. Moreover, there

cracking and flaking of the Guadalupan Image

all

also

anomalous

background

out the figure in the usual

way

Figure

and robe

(as

There are

4.)

photographs reveal in the robe's fold

lines that infrared

shadows that appear to be sketch

areas). (See

obvious

along a vertical seam

that passes through the "original" areas of mantle, neck, well as the nonmiraculous

is

lines,

suggesting that an artist roughed

before painting

it.

Additional evidence of artistry in the "original," supposedly miraculous, areas

was observed by Glenn Taylor, a professional

years' experience in

artist

with

many

an impressive variety of portraiture techniques. Study-

ing detailed photographs, Taylor pointed out that the part in the Virgin's hair

is

often

off-center; that her eyes, including the irises,

do

in paintings, but not in nature,

to have been

and that these

done with a brush; and that the

ness, contrapposto stance,

To

outlines, as they

outlines appear

Virgin's traditional like-

and other elements are

paintings of the Renaissance era.

have

indicative of

European

him, "The detailing of the features

exhibits the characteristic fluidity of painting." Taylor describes the

as obviously "maimered" (in the artistic sense)

and suggests

it

work

was prob-

ably copied by an inexpert copyist from an expertly done original.^

In

fact,

evidence that the image

as early as 1556,

when a formal

Alonzo de Santiago

is

indeed merely a painting dates from

investigation of the cloth

testified that

the image

was

was "painted

held. Father

yesteryear

by

Looking for a Miracle

34

an Indian," and another Franciscan

more

specific information, testifying that

the Indian painter

known

as

Marcos had

Marcos Cipac

Juan de Maseques, supplied the image "was a painting that

priest,

done.** Indeed, there

active in

Mexico

was an Aztec painter

at the time the

Image of Gua-

dalupe appeared.^5 In any event, the

artist

paintings of the Virgin

was obviously familiar with one or more Spanish

Mary, a

fact that suggests that

commissioned to produce the pious fraud. "the propagation of Christianity

It is

may have been well known that

he

certainly

was one of the main purposes of Spanish

imperialism, and church and state were closely connected.*''*^

No

doubt

as expected, the "miracle" played a "major role" in hastening the conversion

of the conquered Indians. Countless thousands

came

to view the

image

and, "In just seven years, from 1532 to 1538, eight million Indians were

converted to Christianity."^^ In recent years, one of the siUiest examples of "scientific research"

conducted on the Guadalupan Image

—has

"a computer expert"

taken the acheiropoietos tradition from the

macroscopic to the microscopic reflected

image of a man's head

describes

it),

—by "several ophthalmologists" and

level. It

concerns "what seems to be the

in the right eye of the Virgin" (as

what was once thought to be Juan Diego's own

in magical miniature, until

clean-shaven; thereupon,

it

someone was

Smith

portrait

realized that Aztecs of the time

were

reinterpreted as "a bearded Spaniard."

Now

with the aid of photo-enhancement techniques (akin to those applied to the Turin "shroud" in hopes of identifying wished-for

the eyes),

still

more

"Roman

tiny figures are being "discovered"

coins" over

and assigned to

various sixteenth-century Mexican personages, such as Bishop Zumarraga.

Meanwhile, the point in his

own

the proliferating

specific

methodology

is

being questioned.^

discussion of the endeavor. Smith does

wee people represent anything more

And

at

one

wonder whether

"substantial than the

human shapes as we see in the clouds, the result of what Father Harold J. Rahn once termed a 'pious imagination.' "^^ As we shall see presently, such imaginings are widespread.

Other Miraculous Pictures

Of a

Rahn described, in random shapes.

the images of the "pious imagination" that Father

common form is the religious picture that is perceived

The tendency

to see such pictures

is

ancient.

According to D. Scott Rogo:

Miraculous Pictures

"Ever since the third century A.D.,

stories

35

have been recorded of miraculous

images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, or other religious figures or emblems, that have suddenly appeared

on church

One such image appeared

Two

in Wales.

weeks

after the

walls,

windows, or

altar cloths, "^o

on a wall of Llandaff Cathedral death of the dean, John Vaughan, a "damp in 1897

spot" appeared on the stone west wall of the cathedral and gradually formed into a facial image. Parishioners thought they recognized this as a portrait

of the late dean and also the letters D.

The

stain

V.,

made

out, as

an

integral part of the picture,

which were interpreted as standing for Dean Vaughan.

—which,

it is

now

thought,

—eventually dried, and church

fungi"

may have been

officials

"caused by minute

covered the spot with a notice

board.5'

More saw a

recently, in 1982, religious spectators at

profile of Jesus in the foliage of

was reportedly beer.

first

a vine-covered

experienced by one of three youths

The

"vision"

who were

drinking

tree.

According to a Charleston Gazette columnist, "They said

him up so

that he quit drinking

the paper also quoted a sensible "I wouldn't

to

Holden, West Virginia,

come

in

know about any

no

shook

it

and joined the church." For balance, (if

signs,

ungrammatical) sheriffs lieutenant:

but in

my

opinion Jesus

ain't

going

tree."^^

Yet another tree was the source for a televised news report that began:

"Some people think they're seeing a religious sign in Los Angeles." There, in a splotch on a tree in a neighborhood back yard, some religious enthusiasts perceived a portrait of the Virgin Mary. They seemed undaunted when a

tree expert explained that the effect

was simply due to a fungus.^^

December of 1990, a Progresso, Texas, auto parts store claimed the attention of more than a thousand people a day who came to see a reputed image of the Virgin Mary. Making their way past the For a while

in

spark plugs and fan

belts,

the pilgrims were treated to a foot-wide gray

spot in the concrete floor of the shower her,

stall,

'Why on the floor? Why the bathroom?'

a 45-year-old

Roman

Catholic.

He

adjacent to a

" said

toilet. "I

asked

owner Reynaldo Trevina,

explained that his heart told

him

to

spread the message that the Virgin's appearance on the floor symbolized

how many neglect their Christian faith. "So I started telling every customer who came in," said Trevino. "Before I sold them a part, I took them back." But he asked that no one leave money or other offerings. "I dont want

this to

be commercialized or anything," he

said.

comment on the image, themselves. The interpretations

Officials of the local archdiocese declined to

leaving

it

to individuals to interpret for

Looking for a Miracle

36

varied:

One middle-aged woman

"We

pain.

said that viewing the

now," she

are in a very troubled world right

year-old girl exclaimed, with tears streaming beautiful, so beautiful."

was

Yet

down

image caused her

stated.

A fourteen-

her face, "She's so

an Associated Press reporter could say

all

that "what could be interpreted as facial features are vaguely dis-

Mr. Trevino discouraged reporters and others

cernible in the markings."

from taking photos,

them

in their hearts.

saying, "I

want them to take the image home with

"^4

Observers in Fostoria, Ohio, in August 1986 were divided over an

image that appeared on a 40-foot-high soybean

USA

oil

tank. According to

some tourists have claimed, Elvis, depends on the viewer." However, there was no doubt in the mind of the woman who first witnessed the image. "It just jumps out at me," said Rita Ratchen, a 54-year-old drapery maker and selfdescribed good Catholic. She claimed to have witnessed an illuminated figure of Jesus, dressed in a white robe, with his hand on the shoulder of a young boy. Among the nonbelievers was Carl Hunnell, managing Today, "Whether

editor of Fostoria's

it

represents Christ, or nothing, or as

The Review Times, who termed the

to the site "a combination church revival "I

cant take

it

seriously.

YouVe

resulting pilgrimage

and block party." He added:

some people thumping

got

Bibles

and

some people swilling beer." As city officials became concerned about traffic jams, resulting from the hundreds of motorists who lined up to witness the phenomenon, a spokesman for the tank's owner, the Archer Daniel Midland Company, explained the image as "a combination of lighting, rust spots, fog, and people's imaginations." Undeterred, the pilgrims continued their often

bumper-to-bumper caravan for a month, the

traffic, obliterated

Among

until

a drunken man,

motorists reported in in the spaghetti set eyes, beard,

of

the rust stain with paint-filled balloons.^s

the least likely places for a sacred image

a forkful of spaghetti

tired

illustrated

May

on a

would seem to be

billboard. Yet that

is

what countless

1991 in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Shrouded

and sauce was the face of Jesus, complete with deep-

and other

features. It

was dubbed "the Pasta Jesus" by

one skeptical commentator, who gave the following description:

face.

The space between

sauce, noodles

and oregano form

In the middle of the forkful of spaghetti, the strands forms hollow eyes.

The

is

a

a blood-drenched mane of hair with a thorny crown, depending on from

how far back one views it.

Similar to an impressionist painting, the further

Miraculous Pictures

back one views see the face,

it,

the

more one

you cannot not

see

sees.

Like optical illusion

37

once you

art,

it.^^

came from Rocky Mountain News columnist Lewis Grizzard: "In the first place who knows what Jesus really looks like? Until he shows up on 'Donahue' or 'Oprah,' we wont have a clue to his actual appearance." Grizzard added: "I saw the spaghetti billboard on television.

More

I

skepticism

looked at

it,

but

I

didn't see Jesus, unless Jesus looks a lot like

Bjom

come back appear on a picture

Borg. In the second place," he continued, "if Jesus decided to for a

little visit, I

just can't see

Can you?"^^ One who had already

God

dispatching

him

to

of spaghetti.

had been debating whether to continue singing she was leaving a gas station she

was the

billboard,

"And

saw

I

woman who

answered, in the affirmative, was a

felt

in her

church choir. As

compelled to look up, and there

one of about twenty such Pizza Hut signs

woman

Christ's face," the

said,

in the area.

adding that she decided to

stay in the choir.^s

Rivaling the pasta picture for foolishness

1978 that

becoming a

is

of Lake Arthur, tern of skillet

pious

home

an image reported

in

of the genre. While Mrs. Maria Rubio

Mexico, was making burritos, she noticed the pat-

bums on one

woman, and

a reluctant her

New

classic

is

tortilla. "It is

Jesus Christ!" exclaimed the

members agreed. Mrs. Rubio persuaded tortilla, whereupon she built a shrine in

other family

priest to bless the

for the supposedly sacred object. Although a writer for the

Albuquerque Journal stated to me," the story

flocked from

all

cynically, "It looks

more

like

Leon Spinks

was carried by newspapers nationwide, and thousands parts of the United States to witness the miracle, fre-

quently to pray for divine assistance in curing ailments. (Mrs. Rubio's tortilla

reminds

me

of the potato chip collection of Myrtle Young, an

inspector at a potato chip plant in

who

has found the crispy

an impressive array of secular shapes: camel, swan,

slices

fashioned

butterfly

—even

a portrait of Bob Hope.)^^ Simple

illusions

can prompt the devout to see religious images

most anywhere. In 1987

Italian police scientists

were asked to investigate

the supposedly miraculous appearance of Christ the village of Supino, south of

al-

Rome. Crowds of

on a window pane

in

pilgrims flocked there

in April of that year. Subsequently a forensic report explained that the

phenomenon was simply an optical illusion caused by a grimy window. One newspaper said the local Catholic leaders were pleased with the tests,

Looking for a Miracle

38

yet believers continued to visit the village even after the dirty

pane had

been taken away for examination.^

Another example of an

and reported

Springs, California,

ary 17, 1981. that a

Christ

Homeowners

shadow seen on

—a

optical illusion

at

Santa Fe

Los Angeles Times for Janu-

in the

Graziela and Rafael Tascon had concluded

their garage

distinct silhouette of

a cross about three

was provided

feet tall.

a

As

door

man crowned it

resembled Jesus

in the evenings

with thorns surmounting

turned out, the cross was the shadow

of a real estate sign stuck in the Tascons' front lawn; the shadow of the head and thorns resulted that cast the

from a nearby bush; and the

shadowy combination was a

light

source

pair of street lamps opposite

the house.6'

Another widely reported

illusion

was an "apparition" that appeared

on the wall of a suburban Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, house in mid- 1987. An Associated Press photo showed what looked like a luminous figure wearing a long robe and surrounded by a halo-like glow. Hundreds nightly

turned out to see what

A

many

insisted

was an image of the Virgin Mary.

sensible patrolman, however, realized that the

a

reflection of

street light

and demonstrated the try to it's

fact

image was simply a

bouncing off a nearby curved-glass window,

by obstructing the beam with

show them, but they won't

believe

it,"

he

said.

hand.

his

"They

"You

just believe

a miracle or something." Finally, the image ceremoniously disappeared

when,

at the police chiefs request, the offending

Similarly, images in the shape of crosses

a bathroom window

in

window was opened.^^ appeared on the glass of

a Los Angeles area home, but police and

Catholic priests insisted the

phenomenon was simply

Roman

the result of light

by the explanation, the

refracted through the textured glass. Undeterred

up by the hundreds to file through the small home. "I think something from God. A warning," stated a three-time visitor who

faithful lined is

it

had brought her

Many

children.^^

additional examples of such wishful thinking are in

my

files:

in Glendale, California, another cross sighting (also a refraction of light

through frosted

an

Estill

porch

a

Springs, Tennessee, freezer (and went

light

glass of

glass) ;^ the face of Christ that

was

relocated) ;^5 images of Jesus

an African-American church

reflection of street

in

appeared

away

after

and Mary

Newark,

New

after

dusk on

a neighbor's

in the stained

Jersey (traced to

lamps and floodlights that cast shadows from the

branches of trees in an adjacent parking lot);^ a shimmering, multicolored apparition of the Virgin that appeared on the wall of a Catholic

Miraculous Pictures

church

in Colfax, California (attributed to light

dow bouncing

from a

off a newly repaired light fixture) ;6^

39

stained-glass win-

and so on.

Not surprisingly, similar phenomena are occasionally deliberately faked. That was apparently the case with some mysterious faces that appeared on the floor of a peasant woman's house in the town of Belmez de la Moraleda

Faces appeared and disappeared, occasionally to

in Spain.

re-

appear or to change expressions. By Easter 1972, hundreds of pilgrims

had come to

see the

phantom

from a single photograph is

indistinguishable

Scott

Rogo

dispel

portraits. Insofar as

—depicting the

first

one

is

able to judge

visage materializing

from the work of a very amateurish

—the face

artist.

In fact,

says that photographs

any idea that the faces were merely chance configurations or etchings produced on the floor and walls of the house. While a few

artificially

are only vague sketches formed out of patterns in the concrete floor,

many are genuinely artistic in a rather surrealistic or caricaturistic manner. (Rogo

nevertheless

felt

these were

due to some type of paranormnal phe-

nomena! )68 In any event, local newspapers soon charged that the peasant

was perpetrating a hoax for personal and

ecclesiastical authorities

A

had forbidden any

among

North Carolina,

sinister

before long the secular

tourist trade at the site.^^

that everyone

is

in the spring of 1990. Naturally,

familiar with.

But

figure,

arms

dark clouds," was circulated in Gas-

and photograph, "pictures" in clouds

see,

And

photograph depicting what was described as "a robed

outstretched, floating tonia.

gain.

woman

—a product of

this picture

it is

possible to

random shapes was different. One photheir

tographer observed that the clouds did not look natural. "That's a hoot,**

he exclaimed. analysis that

When

the photograph

measured

its

density, the

was subjected

to a computerized

image was shown to lack the three-

dimensional properties of genuine photographic images. The person

who

took the photo was not immediately known.^o

Whether such "sacred" images are "real" or faked, they obviously depend

on

the eye

—and the emotions—of the beholder. Roman Catholic

state that reports of

miraculous visions and apparitions seem to be

creasing worldwide. According to Bishop Francis

Catholic Diocese:

officials

in-

Quinn of the Sacramento

— 40

Looking for a Miracle There

is

such a hunger and yearning for people to hold onto some-

thing ... to see there

world. There

is

hope and that God

a sort of desperation in

is

Paul Kurtz

calls

present in the

become so complex,

feel they're losing control.^!

the attraction to experience the divine, that philosopher

is

'*the

it

somehow

society. It's

and maybe some are overwhelmed. They

So powerful

is

transcendental temptation":

There

is

the temptation

to believe," Kurtz says, "so everyone believes."^^ Barry Karr, Executive Direc-

Committee for the

tor of the

normal (CSICOP),

agrees:

Scientific Investigation of

"Once a story

not surprising these things pop up.

It

Claims of the Para-

gets out, hits the news,

creates

a

bit

of a snowball

Although not a single apparition or vision reported

in the

has ever been authenticated by the Catholic Church^'*

been exposed as outright hoaxes to attract.

It is

effect.

really

"^^

United States

—and

many have

—the "transcendental temptation" continues

only a matter of time until another vague pattern in yet

another unlikely place moves into

it's

first

one and then thousands of the devout

a perception of the next "miraculous" image.

perpetrator of a pious fraud

may even

A

cynical hoaxer or

help to foster the temptation.

Select Bibliography Callahan, Philip Sema. The Tilma under Infra-red Radiation. Washington, D.C.:

Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 1981.

A collection of infrared

photographs of the Guadalupan Image and a discussion of how they supposedly support the claim the image was not painted.

MacDougall, Curtis D. Superstition and the Books, 1983.

A

critical

look at

how

such as those of miraculous images Nickell, Joe. Inquest

Press. Buffalo, N.Y.:

the press presents supernatural claims

—without questioning

on the Shroud of

Prometheus

Turin.

Updated

their validity.

ed. Buffalo, N.Y.:

Pro-

metheus Books, 1987. Written with a panel of experts, a skeptical analysis of claims that the "shroud"

is

the burial cloth of Jesus and that

its

image

might have been produced miraculously. Nickell, Joe, with

John

F. Fischer. "Celestial Painting: Miraculous

Image of

Guadalupe." Chapter 8 of Secrets of the Supernatural. Buffalo, N.Y.: Pro-

metheus Books, 1988. The

folkloristic

and iconographic investigation debunks

claims that the image was not wrought by

human

hands.

Smith, Jody Brant. The Image of Guadalupe. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983.

A

popular book-length treatment, exaggerating aspects of the claim

for a miraculous origin of the image.

Miraculous Pictures

41

Wilson, Ian. The Shroud of Turin. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1979.

An

apologetic for the notorious "shroud" which attempts to give

a provenance prior to the fourteenth century by equating

it

it

with the Image

of Edessa.

Notes 1.

Thomas Humber, The Sacred Shroud (Htw York: Pocket Books,

1978),

The Doctrine of Addai, quoted in trans, in Ian Wilson, The Shroud of Turin, rev. ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1979). (The manuscript is preserved

p. 84;

in Leningrad.) 2.

This

"official history" is

Vw

Shroud of

in the

Cambridge

given in translation in Wilson,

Turin, pp. 272-90. 3.

Ibid.

4.

Ibid.

5.

Ibid.

6.

Sir Steven

Runciman,

Historical Journal, quoted in

Books, 1978),

in

an

article

David Sox,

File

7.

Wilson, The Shroud of Turin, p. 130.

8.

Ibid., pp. 106ff.

9.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960

10.

Ibid.

11.

From

New

Ibid., 92.

14.

Sox, File on the Shroud,

15.

St.

Shroud (London: Coronet

ed.,

23:90A,

s.v.

14:

"Veronica, Saint." For

625.

Juliana of Norwich's Revelations, quoted in Wilson, The

13.

is

the

Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967,

of Turin, p. 108. 12. Humber, The Sacred Shroud,

fresco

on

p. 52.

other versions, see

The

on the Edessan Image

in the ancient

Augustine,

De

Shroud

p. 85.

p. 51;

Wilson, The Shroud of Turin,

p.

100.

Syrian town of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates River. Trinitate 8: 4, 5,

quoted

in

Wilson, 77i^ Shroud of

Turin, p. 101. 16.

Joe Nickell, "in collaboration with a panel of

experts," Inquest

on

the

Shroud of Turin, updated

scientific

and technical

ed. (Buffalo, N.Y.:

Prometheus

Books, 1987), pp. 11-13. Except as noted, information on the Shroud of Turin is

taken from this source. 17.

Wilson, The Shroud of Turin, p. 216.

18.

Nickell, Inquest, pp. 77-84.

19.

Ibid., pp.

85-88.

20.

Ibid., pp.

91-94.

— Looking for a Miracle

42

21.

Ibid., pp. 11-21.

22.

Ibid., pp.

23.

For a fuller discussion, see chapter 6, "Post-mortem

4M8,

142-43.

For a discussion

Inquest, pp. 57-75.

—and defense—of

at Calvary," in Nickell,

Frei's claims, see

Daniel

C. Scavone, The Shroud of Turin, Great Mysteries series (San Diego,

Calif.:

Greenhaven

See also John F. Fischer,

24.

on

Press, 1989), pp. 30-33,

44^6.

"A Summary

Critique of Analyses of the 'Blood'

the Turin 'Shroud,' " in Nickell, Inquest, pp. 157-60.

John

25.

Heller,

Report on the Shroud of Turin (New York: Houghton Mifflin,

1983), p. 168.

STURP

Nickell, Inquest, pp. 95-106.

26.

my

tion of

images

which depends on

is

has claimed the

unsuccessful, but has failed to explain

subtleties of

tone

—

is

given that

fair,

it

''3-D'' reconstruc-

how

their "test"

involved comparing

an age-softened shroud image with a contrastingly new one. For a discussion, see Nickell, Inquest, pp. 88-91, 104-105. See also

Joe Nickell, "Unshrouding a

Mystery: Science, Pseudoscience, and the Cloth of Turin," The Skeptical Inquirer 13 (Spring 1989): 297-98. 27. Nickell,

"Unshrouding a Mystery,"

p. 296.

28.

Scavone, The Shroud of Turin, pp. 104-105.

29.

Joe Nickell, "Les preuves scientifiques que

moyen

le

Linceul de Turin date

du

age," Science et Vie (France), July 1991, pp. 6-17.

Wilson, The Shroud of Turin,

30.

p.

136;

Kenneth E. Stevenson and Gary

R. Habermas, Verdict on the Shroud (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Books, 1981), p. 104; Heller,

Report on the Shroud of Turin,

p. 212.

Jody Brant Smith, The Image of Guadalupe (Garden

31.

City, N.Y.:

Dou-

bleday, 1983), p. 4.

Donald Demarest and Coley Taylor, eds., The Dark

32.

Guild Press, 1956),

p.:

Academy

p. 2.

A

Folk-

and Iconographic Investigation," The Skeptical Inquirer 8.4 (Spring

1985):

Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer, "The Image of Guadalupe:

33. loristic

Virgin (N.

243-55; reprinted in Joe Nickell with John F. Fischer, Secrets of the Supernatural (Buffalo, N.Y.:

mation for

ment of 34.

Prometheus Books,

this section

is

1988), pp.

taken from the

103-117. Except as noted, infor-

latter source,

and indeed

is

an abridge-

it.

Cleofas Callero, trans., Nican

Mopohua,

in

Smith, The Image of Gua-

dalupe, pp. 121-25. 35.

Marcello Craveri, The Life of Jesus, trans. Charles

Lam Markmann (New

York: Grove Press, 1967), pp. 27-28. 36.

Ibid.

37.

Anna Brownell Jameson, Legends of

the

Madonna

the Fine Arts (London: Longman's, Green, 1902), p. xxxiv.

as Represented in

43

Miraculous Pictures

38.

Smith, The Image of Guadalupe,

p. 61.

39. Ibid., p. 20.

40.

Philip

Sema Callahan, The

Tilma under Infra-red Radiation (Washington,

D.C.: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 1981), p. 41.

10.

Ibid., p. 18.

The Image of Guadalupe, pp.

42. Smith,

12,

68-69.

The Tilma under Infra-red Radiation, pp. 18, 20. 44. Glenn Taylor, personal communication, Lexington, Kentucky, October 43. Callahan,

4, 1983.

For a

fuller discussion

in Nickell with Fischer, Secrets

of the evidence for

artistry, see

the original report

of the Supernatural, pp. 108-115.

The Image of Guadalupe, pp. 20-21. "Mexico," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1973 ed.

45. Smith,

46.

49.

The Image of Guadalupe, pp. 10-11. Patrick Tiemey, "The Arts," Omni, September 1983, pp. Smith, The Image of Guadalupe, pp. 79-83, 1 1 Iff.

50.

D. Scott Rogo, Miracles:

47. Smith, 48.

nomena (New York:

A

174, 190.

Parascientific Inquiry into

Wondrous Phe-

Dial Press, 1982), p. 113.

51.

Ibid., p. 125.

52.

Curtis D. MacDougall, Superstition

and the

Press (Buffalo, N.Y.:

Prome-

theus Books, 1983), p. 512, citing a report of Christian Gazette columnist

Marsh, September headlined the

10, 1982.

AP

The previous day,

the Charleston

Don

Mail "Streamer-

story" (according to MacDougall), and accompanied

it

with

a photograph.

WTVQ-TV,

53.

Late evening news,

54.

"Report of Virgin's Image

News, December 55.

Lexington, Ky.,

at Store

March

Draws Crowds,"

27, 1992.

(Progresso) Courier-

19, 1990.

Ken Meyers,

"Faithful Flock to Fostoria,"

USA

Today, August 27, 1986;

"Image of Christ on Oil Tank Causes Traffic Jams," The Cedar Rapids Gazette, August 22, 1986;

"Man

Pleads Guilty to Defacing 'Christ Image' on Soy Oil

Tank," Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), October 56.

Lawrence

Viele,

"The Pasta Jesus," The Georgia Skeptic (newsletter of

the Georgia Skeptics) 5.2 (March/ April 1992): 57.

Lewis Grizzard,

10, 1986.

"A Man

1, 5.

of Vision,"

Rocky Mountain News. June

8,

1991. 58. "Christ 59.

on a Billboard?" Courier-News,

MacDougall, Superstition and the

of Evidence," Harper's,

November

"Image of Jesus

September 61.

in

1991.

Press, p. 512: Cullen

1991, p. 44. (Cf. "Potato

Spud-tacular Fame," Courier-Journal, 60.

May 22,

Window

November

Murphy, "Shreds

Chip Collector Finds

5, 1987.)

Called Optical Illusion," The Detroit News,

9, 1987.

MacDougall, Superstition and the

Press, pp. 51 1-12.

Looking for a Miracle

44

The Courier-News, June

62. "Reflected Glory,"

Tracy Wilkinson, "Despite Skepticism, Faithful Line

63.

Images

4, 1987.

in

Window," Los Angeles Times, August

to

View Cross

17, 1990.

Crowd Views Image

64. Terry Spencer, "Glendale

Up

of Cross," Daily

News

(Glendale, Calif.), August 23, 1990. 65. Unidentified clipping,

Religious 66.

Glass of 67.

News

May

Vanish with Shift in Lights,"

Service, n.d.

Michael A. Watkis, "Faithful Report Seeing Sacred Image in Stained

Newark Church, Newark

May 29, 1991. Helps Many 'Keep

Star- Ledger,

Maria Goodavage, "Apparition

Today, December 68.

"Images of Jesus

the Faith,' "

USA

10, 1990.

Rogo, Miracles,

p. 129.

69. Ibid., p. 128. 70. "Experts Call

'Hugo

Christ'

Photo Fake," The Evening Post (Charles-

ton, D.C.), April 12, 1990. 71.

Quoted

'Miracles,' "

in Marjie

Lundstrom, "Catholic Church Wrestles with

The Sacramento Bee, April

Jump

in

7, 1991.

Ben Winton, "Controversy over Apparition Sightings Continues," The Phoenix Gazette, November 10, 1990. See also Paul Kurtz, The Transcenden72.

tal

Temptation (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991). 73.

Quoted

74.

Lundstrom, "Catholic Church Wrestles with

in

Winton.

Jump

in 'Miracles.'

"

Magical Icons

In addition to those pictures whose very existence

is

said to represent

a miracle, other incredible icons are those that seem to be animated (that is,

to exhibit behavior as

An Kamak. ogy

example

is

if

imbued with

The concept

ancient.

is

an Egyptian statue that stands across the Nile from

Called the statue of

Memnon was

life).

Memnon by

the Greeks (in

the son of the goddess of the dawn),

whose mythol-

it is

actually

one

Amenhotep III (Pharaoh of Egypt circa 1141became famous for emitting a strange cry or a sound

of two 50-foot-tall colossi of

1375 like

B.C.).

The

statue

a mournful voice, supposed to be that of

the greeting of his mother, Eos.

Memnon

The sound was reported

in response to

occasionally

(first

by Pliny and Juvenal) but always in the morning, perhaps as often as several times a year. Even after the upper part was

by Strabo

in

20

B.C., later

toppled, the cry continued (until the statue authorities attribute the curious

Since the statue

is

phenomenon

in A.D. 170).

to a simple fact of physics:

fissures in the granite, thus

—once

at

producing

phenomenon, although a freak occurrence,

means the only example: Napoleon's expedition heard sunrise

Today,

hollow, air heated in the interior by the early morning

sun escapes through one or more the noise. (Such a

was restored

a quarry and once in a temple

45

at

is

by no

similar sounds at

Kamak.)'

— Looking for a Miracle

46

Of course, miraculous

effects

could be deliberately contrived. At Alex-

andria, for instance,

The

great statue of Serapis, which

having perhaps marble

feet,

had been made under the Ptolemies,

but for the rest built of wood, clothed with

drapery and glittering with gold and

silver,

stood in one of the covered

chambers, which had a small window so contrived as to rays kiss the lips of the statue

one of the tricks employed

by the sudden blaze of

on the appointed

let

the sun's

occasions. This

worshipper

in the sacred mysteries, to dazzle the

which on the proper occasions was

light

was

let

into

the dark room.^

Hero of Alexandria, who

ingenious idol supposedly used by the ancient Egyptians. in his treatise

on an Altar Produced by

a heavy pedestal upon which stood the

When

a

fire

was

seemingly miraculously that under the fire as

it

It is

featured

The Pneumatics (which describes various mechanical con-

trivances) as "Libations

a vase.

an

lived in the first century A.D., describes

built

upon

Fire."

idol, the statue

altar

was

of a goddess holding

the altar, presently the figure

would

—pour out the customary Ubations. Hero explained

bowl was an

airtight

chamber, the

air

was heated. This forced the wine from a hidden

inside the figure

The

and out the

of which expanded

reservoir

up a tube

vase; as the wine extinguished the

fire,

the

flow stopped.3

Hero also described various remarkable automata, for example, "an Automaton which will drink any quantity that may be presented to it." Yet the secret behind the Babylonian idol of Bel (or Baal)

—which

not

only drank huge quantities of wine but also devoured vast amounts of

food as well

—was a simple one. The story

is

told in the fourteenth chapter

of Daniel (found in Catholic but not Protestant Bibles), "Bel and the

Dragon":

Now

the Babylonians

on

twelve bushels of fine flour and forty sheep and

it

had an

idol called Bel,

and every day they spent fifty

gallons of

wine. (Dan. \A\2)Y

By

this

seeming miracle the

ship of the idol. in

many

Now

Daniel,

priests

won

who was

over King Cyrus to the wor-

very wise and

matters, refused to worship the deity.

an explanation, Daniel replied that he believed

When

in

a

who

advised Cyrus

demanded God. Responded

the king

living

Magical Icons Cyrus: *'Do you not think that Bel

much he

living

God? Do you not

and drinks every day?" But Daniel laughed and

eats

not be deceived,

and

a

is

O

King; for this

of Bel and proposed a

said:

summoned

the priests

between Daniel and the group of seventy

test

how "Do

but clay inside and brass outside,

is

never ate or drank anything." Angry, Cyrus

it

see

47

priests,

with punishment of death to the loser. Cyrus arranged to have the food

and wine

but to seal the door to the temple so that

set forth as usual,

no one could enter without revealing the fact. The following morning, the seals were unbroken, yet the food and wine were gone. However, Daniel had set a trap that revealed the priests'

He had

trickery. fully

instructed his servants to cover the temple floor care-

with sifted ashes. The footsteps of men,

women, and

children were

thus revealed.

Then and

the king

children;

was enraged, and he

seized the priests

and they showed him the

secret

its

table.

(Dan. 14:21)

and Daniel was allowed to destroy the

idol

and

temple.

Whether or not

this story is true

intended to motivate Jews to distinction

resist idolatry),

vehicle of the

Idolatry

god and fraught with divine

is

An

image fashioned

stock or stone, that

god

sacred,

it is

as his

and

ing the ercing

its

does

likely

only a parable

illustrate the

important

is

it

represents)

and idolatry

regarded as the "tenement or

influence"). ^

thus the result of animism (derived from anima, "breath"),

the belief that objects have

ful

it

most

between veneration (paying reverence through an image, which

(or image worship, in which the image

it

is

(it

void of value or power, for that which

is itself

In

their wives

doors through which they

were accustomed to enter and devour what was on the

All were put to death,

and

is

home and

like it

life

or indwelling souls.

a god and having

declares itself

believed to attract

and

this

advantage over a mere

reveals at

and influence the god to choose

tenement. Religious ceremonial

efficacious for

a worshipper

god he worships

in visible

a glance to what

who

is

much more hope-

thus has means of approach-

and tangible form, and even of co-

it.6

modem

expression, animism

certain miraculous

phenomena

is

often seen in the

form of

attributed to religious images

belief in

—especially

Looking for a Miracle

48

pictures

and

statues of Jesus

movement, or the

and the Virgin Mary that weep, bleed, exhibit

like.

Weeping Icons With the spread of Christianity have come reports of animated icons. (Broadly speaking, an icon is an image or portrait figure, although the term

specially applies to flat or bas-relief representations of sacred per-

sonages rendered in the accepted Byzantine fashion.) According to D. Scott

Rogo: Cases of religious statues, paintings, icons, and other

suddenly

effigies that

begin to bleed or weep have been documented throughout history. Before

Rome was a

local

sacked in 1527, for instance, a statue of Christ housed in

monastery wept for several days.

Sicily lay

When

the city of Syracuse in

under Spanish siege in 1719, a marble statue of

St.

Lucy

in

the city cried continually.'

Similar manifestations have been increasingly reported in

Indeed, an entire epidemic swept in the

home

lived in

Roman

Catholic Italy in 1953.

a poor

when

statue

It

began

of a young couple, Angelo and Antoinetta Janusso, district

of Syracuse in the island region of

couple had received a plaster statue of the Virgin gift

modem times.

Mary

Sicily.

as a

who The

wedding

they married in March. Then, on August 29, the eighteen-inch

began to weep in the presence of Mrs. Janusso. This was the

cul-

mination of several weeks of upheaval in the Janussos' household. Antoinetta Janusso was pregnant, and for several weeks she had been suffering "seizures," fainting spells,

and attacks of blindness. Local doctors

were unable to diagnose her condition, but she seems to have been fering

from

hysteria

—

or, alternatively, to

have been feigning the same,

although such a protracted bout of malingering would of mental

suf-

itself

be indicative

distress.

mind in light of the fact that church authorities assessed the weeping phenomenon as genuine and that tests of the liqiud reportedly showed it to be consistent with tears.^ There was a climate of belief in weeping statues in the city stemming from the previously mentioned case of the weeping statue of St. Lucy, and in any It is

well to keep this in

Magical Icons

49

event questions as to the scientific competency and impartiality of the investigators present themselves. Also, if the analyses of the putative tears

— which, for example, red ocher tempera paint was "identified" as blood —then the were

like those

conducted on samples from the Shroud of Turin

would be quite

situation

Scott

Rogo

different

in

than claimed by proponents.

when he pointed out that "Antoinetta was certainly much more important than

stated the obvious

Janusso*s role in the miracle

any of the original investigators cared to admit."

And

he

may have been

mark than first appears when he suggested the woman's mental state triggered what "may in fact have been a limited form of poltergeist attack" if we understand poltergeist phenomena correctly. A brief discloser to the

—

cussion should prove helpful.

The term

poltergeist

of allegedly paranormal furniture

is

—German for "noisy

spirit"

—applies

to a class

phenomena characterized by physical disturbances:

moved, smaller objects are sent

sailing

through the

air,

and

similar disturbances take place, including outbreaks of tapping sounds or

of water streaming unaccountably from fully intact walls.^

Both believers and skeptics agree that such cases typically revolve around

—usually

a disturbed individual

an adolescent who

is

thought to be an

"agent" of the destructive force. There the agreement ends, however, because

proponents of the paranormal suggest the person unconscious psychokinetic (mind-over-matter) suspect that deliberate,

if surreptitious,

theory has numerous solved cases in

For example, the mystery behind

its

behavior

may merely be exercising activity, is

while skeptics

responsible.

The

latter

favor.

several "poltergeist" fires that plagued

an Alabama house was solved by the confession of the family's nine-yearold son.

He had had a

the city from which they

simple motive, wishing his family to return to

had recently moved. In another case in a Louisville,

Kentucky, home, bottle caps, boxes, and other objects were hurled about. Eventually an eleven-year-old trouble; since her

ily

admitted she was responsible for the

mother was in the

pay more attention to Yet another

girl

series

hospital, the girl

wanted people to

her.'o

of disturbances plagued the C. A. Wilkinson fam-

of Tulsa. Mr. Wilkinson suspected "wild electricity" of being the caus-

ative agent,

Even

but as magician

Milboume Christopher

objects that were not operated

states:

by electricity took on sudden motion.

Chairs and tables seemed to vibrate. Pots leaped into the

air.

One

night

Looking for a Miracle

50

commotion was so

the

great that Wilkinson, his wife,

year-old adopted daughter bedded

As

and

his twelve-

down outside in the family automobile.

usual the disruptions drew curiosity seekers, reporters, and in-

vestigators.

A trap was

laid for

a possible

human

culprit.

A light coating

of powder was dusted over potential flying objects. The Tulsa Tribune

duly noted that after the disturbance that followed

found on the

girl's

telltale

marks were

hands. She confessed that she was the cause of hitherto

mysterious turmoil."

In

March

1984, the

Columbus, Ohio, home of John and Joan Resch

was reportedly attacked by a

poltergeist. Furniture

was overturned, picture

frames smashed, glass objects broken, and a telephone handset thrown

from

its

cradle.

The

family's fourteen-year-old adopted daughter, Tina,

described as "hyperactive and emotionally disturbed," was suspected of

when witnesses were looking away from the girl. Although family members, some reporters, and two parapsychologists were apparently duped at least for a time some photothe shenanigans, which typically occurred

—

graphs and television news tapes caught the

lamp, for example with her foot. tigator

As

—and a TV technician saw her

James Randi

move a

table

stress

and had

media exposure: she wanted to

trace her

"She was admittedly under

states:

attract

true parents, against the wishes of the Resches. fight with her

secretly

to motive, the noted magician and paranormal inves-

good reason to want to a

girl

— red-handed —toppling a

and broke off

phenomena began.

And her 'best friend'

their relationship

.

.

.

had

two days before the

"12

Proponents of the poltergeist hypothesis seem undaunted by such evidence of trickery. After

all,

was discovered because not petent experts. Also, there

there will always be cases in which

all

is

no

cases are adequately investigated

trickery

by com-

the tendency of believers to rationalize any

contrary evidence. For example, as one says of a case investigated by

Hans Bender: The

incidents centered

around

in other poltergeist cases

Brigitte,

a thirteen-year-old daughter. As

which seemed to include genuine

these began to wane, the focal person, Brigitte,

Bender found the poltergeist

girl's

fingerprints

effects,

was discovered to

when cheat.

on a dish which she claimed the

had thrown out the window.'^

Magical Icons

51

Note the unwillingness to draw the obvious conclusion from the evidence.

Such

rationalizing

back on

fall

is

simple:

whenever cheating

is

clearly proved,

which no trickery was detected. This

earlier instances in

approach contrasts with that of skeptical investigators instance of deceit

enough to

To return to who was the sole (she claimed

discredit

an

when

who

consider one

entire case.

the Sicilian weeping-statue case,

person present

one can

it

was Mrs. Janusso

phenomenon

the

allegedly

began

was upon suddenly recovering from one of her bouts of

it

who was invariably present whenever the phenomenon occurred''* and who claimed to be cured as a result of it. (If she had sought a way out of the predicament she had gotten herself

"blindness"). It

was

into, the "miracle"

also she

would have served to

attention elsewhere.) Then, as suddenly as

phenomenon ceased

the

earlier,

a "cure" while diverting

effect it

had begun only three days

—immediately

after

samples had been

collected for testing.

As mentioned Italy.

though, an epidemic of imitative miracles swept

earlier,

A housewife in Calabria reported on December 15 that some postcard-

size pictures

woman

of the

Madonna wept bloody

tears; the following April 3

Mezzalombardo claimed that an illustration of Mary clipped from a magazine had begun to weep; and additional reports soon followed, a

in

May

in

1954 and

Cometa

March

1955. Finally, in

March

1957, a family in Ricca

reported that a papier-mache statue of the Virgin shed tears for

several days. All of these occurrences involved

weeping madonnas; none

had to do with a weeping or bleeding image of Jesus. One must agree with

Rogo

that they were "no doubt

spawned by wide press coverage

of the Syracuse miracle. "'^

A pair of New York cases is also instructive. The first began on March 16, 1960,

when a framed

to "weep" in

lithograph of the Blessed Virgin that had begun

an Island Park woman's home attracted four thousand

visitors

within a week, after which a priest at a nearby Greek Orthodox church blessed the house

and the

tears ceased.

(The Greek Orthodox Church

one of a family of Eastern Orthodox churches that 1054, but

which

The second to light

still

case

share

from

Rome

in

many customs including the veneration of icons.)

was reported

Ocean Park as soon as the first came Park woman! She informed the priest

in

—by the aunt of the Island

and also

split

is

invited representatives of the press, allowing the latter to take

samples of the

tears. Alas, tests

ever, this did not stop the icon

showed they were not genuine

tears;

how-

from being publicly displayed and even-

Looking for a Miracle

52

making its way to Los Angeles in 1964. At that time, a local investigator was permitted to take scrapings of the congealed "tears" to find that they were "composed of a solidified sugar solution. "^^ xhis proved that the second case had been a clever hoax, although some of the credulous tually

—apparently because

continued to believe in the genuineness of the

no

tests

had been conducted

first

in that case.

In 1981 in Thornton, California, a ceramic figurine of the Virgin Mary,

lodged in the Mater Ecclesiae Mission Church, purportedly began to weep

move and exhibit other phenomena (to be discussed later in this chapter). Soon the church had to be kept open seven days a week to accommodate the hordes of pilgrims who flocked to the site. According to one magazine article, "money poured in, enabling the parish to buy a new roof, air conditioning and such frills as a wrought-iron fence to as well as to

protect the statue." In addition to

nomena

clerics

cautiously

and

priest

incredible phe-

an investigation by the Stockton Diocese.

also attracted

The four

money, however, the

commissioned to look into the phenomena advanced

their investigation

was shrouded

on the team. Father Robert

—although one

in secrecy

Pereira, admitted that

a "highly

Bay Area" was helping to analyze the purported "miracles." Pereira himself was skeptical. He pointed out that many of the events at Thornton do not properly conform to specialized scientific laboratory in the

historical cases of

miraculous. Like

weeping

many

statues, cases that definitely

Catholic priests and theologians, Father Pereira

also worried that the events at

the masses

from the

proved to be

Thornton might

divert the attention of

basic teachings of the church.'^

As a consequence of their investigation, the diocese labeled the phenomena a deception. The commission found that human agency was responsible for the statue's seeming to come to life i.e., that it was a hoax.'^ Similarly, in Chicago in May 1984, a 39-inch wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, enshrined in the Roman Catholic St. John of God Church, supposedly began weeping only two weeks after it arrived at the

—

church.

On

Tuesday,

together with

some

May

29, the priest, the Rev.

parishioners, claimed to witness the

Thursday thousands were hastening to the seekers, others looking for cures or solace.

the opportunity to

Raymond

hawk photos of

surprising, violent turn

the

site

J. Jasinski,

phenomenon. By

—some as mere curiosity

Soon street vendors had seized Madonna. Events later took a

when, on July 25, a

man entered the church, pulled

Magical Icons out a

pistol,

and

fired three shots at the statue,

lodging in the figure's shin.

The

leaving behind several shocked

unidentified

one

hitting

gunman

women who had

its

53

then fled the scene,

been kneeling before the

Madonna. (He turned out to be a 24-year-old vagrant, who was tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity.)'' Finally, after

reported

its

a year-long

fmdmgs.

investigation,

On Tuesday,

September

nounced that no miracle was involved it

left

and

target

later

an archdiocesan committee 17, 1985, the

committee an-

in the reported weeping, although

unanswered whether the phenomenon was a deliberate hoax.20

on December 6, 1986, the feast of St. Nicholas, another Chicago effigy reportedly succumbed to the contagious weeping. At St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church, a three-by-five-foot canvason-wood icon, depicting Mary with the infant Jesus in hues of gold and Just over a year

scarlet,

later,

began to produce moisture. Tears streamed from the Virgin's eyes

and moisture also reportedly oozed from her hands. To accommodate the crowds of thousands attacted to the small church, volunteers worked in twelve-hour shifts.

The

when Bishop

suspicions of skeptics were further aroused

Isaiah,

Orthodox Diocese who had arrived and officially recognized the phenomenon, said that no scientific testing of the fluid

chancellor of the Greek

would be conducted nor would any other

Orthodox Church, we don't

investigation be

made.

investigate these matters," he said,

**In

the

making

emphatic the stonewalling that came from an "Official Statement" released

by

his office.2' It stated in part:

Icons have always occupied a prominent place in the

life

of the Ortho-

dox Christian Church. It can be said that the first one, which was not made by human hands, was the Holy Mandilion which covered the face of Christ at His burial and which had imprinted on tenance.

.

.

it

the

Holy Coun-

.

The weeping icon of the Lord's mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is situated on the iconostasion of the Church of St. Nicholas in Chicago, is not a rare occurrence. The phenomenon is rationally unexplainable. It needs no explanation, whether scientific or natural. The believers do not ask the how, but the why. The why is clear to all. The Lord's mother beckons to the believers and to the unbelievers to

from the

sleep of materialism

other words she all

who

is

inviting to

thirst for Christ

and to nourish themselves a

spiritual

awaken

spiritually.

In

reawakening and to penitence

and His compassion and mercy.

Looking for a Miracle

54

The weeping

icon of the Holy Theotokos [Mother of

God]

is

a vivid

testimony that even in our highly developed age of science, technology,

and rampant knowledge, there still remains spirituality and devotion. There still is

year

that

when

awe or mystery about all

creation especially at this time of the

coming of God

Christians anticipate the

Skeptics were quick to point out that the

tionaUy unexplainable"; tigation

was to be

it

into the world.22

phenomenon was

scarcely

**ra-

only remained unexplained because no inves-

The archbishop "did not even respond

allowed.^^

to

our request to discuss the possibility of scientific tests, "said Michael Crowley, president of the

Midwest Committee for Rational Inquiry, a Chicago-based

The

organization that investigates paranormal claims. suggests, could be interpreted as selves

refusal,

an indication that church

have doubts concerning the authenticity of the

Crowley

officials

them-

icon.^^

Another Greek Orthodox icon seems to have caught the weeping con-

on loan to the Chicago Greek Orthodox Church of

dition while

Athanasios and John the Baptist. This began on October

17, 1990,

St.

when

the icon of St. Irene Chrisovalantou, patron saint of the sick and of peace,

supposedly began to cry immediately after a service for peace in the Persian Gulf. Returned to in Astoria,

its

Queens,

home

(the church of a

breakaway Orthodox

New York, on October 23, the icon attracted

thousands of pilgrims over the following days as weeping.25 However, the tears dried

Figure

up

additional

was reputed to continue

after the

Gulf war ended. (See

5.)

Although an investigation was refused I

it

faction)

was able

to

examine the

with members of the ultraviolet-light

icon,

at the time,

on

May

under rather limited conditions,

in

II, 1991,

company

New York Area Skeptics (NYASk). A previous NYASk

examination had revealed only some streaks and markings

Our examination included stereoto show traces of any tearstains.^^

that were clearly not the result of weeping.

microscopic viewing which also failed

Subsequently, forensic analyst John F. Fischer and

of the

earlier,

as too

October 1990, phenomenon. At

ambiguous to

assess,

first

I

obtained a videotape

we regarded

the evidence

but further study indicated that there were

wet-looking streaks that seemed to have been on the painted panel rather

than the clear plexiglas cover. flowed

down

It

appeared to us that the two "rivulets"

the face just to the outside of the eyes and that the scale

of the "tears" was greatly disproportionate to the diminutive size of Irene's face.

These observations suggested to us a rather crude hoax.^^

St.

— Magical Icons

A

curious sequel to the story of the St. Irene icon

On December

Christmas 1991.

into the church, forced

from

pried the icon

two

priests

case,

its

23, three

and

came

just before

armed men and a woman burst

and four others to

lie

on the

front altar,

Whether they sought the icon for

fled.

alleged powers, or for the estimated $800,000 value of

its

55

its

gold frame

encrusted with jewels,^^ could only be speculated upon. Said Bishop Vikentios:

Only we need the icon back, we don't care for the gold or the It is

a holy icon,

it is

a miracle icon. She

We don't know why the Lord

is

the patron saint of peace.

allowed this to happen.29

Within a few days, however, the icon was returned the frame

A

and most of its jewels

jewels.

—although

missing

—anonymously through the mail. came when representatives of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North

episode in the icon saga

final (?)

mainstream church

—the traditional

and South America (mentioned Chicago weeping-icon case)

earlier in the stonewalling

—suggested

owns the icon might have staged the about the tears and so on," added the

that the

theft as

of the 1986

breakaway faction that

a hoax.

"We

have doubts

archdiocese's press officer.

To what

appeared as a case of the pot calling the kettle black, members of the

breakaway Greek Orthodox Christians of North and South America, responded that the other church was simply envious of the icon.^o I will

around a

mention only one other case single priest

—or rather several cases that centered

—that captured national press attention

statues at his St. Elizabeth

Ann

in 1992

Seton Church in Lake Ridge, Virginia,

and elsewhere, began to weep copiously. The

priest is the

Rev. James

Bruse who, before being ordained, was enrolled in the Guinness

of World Records According to

in 1978 for riding

USA

Virgin "seem to

when

a

Book

roller coaster for five straight days.

Today, tears from a three-foot fiberglas statue of the

fall

only in the presence of Bruse" and "even statues at

other churches have cried in Bruse's presence." Bruse has also claimed to have the stigmata

wounds

.

.

later chapter.)^'

on

his wrists

and bleeding

feet

According to the Washington City Paper,

with the exception of the one in the sanctuary,

at St. Elizabeth's that

private office."

and

this case, welts

that ostensibly imitate those of the crucified Christ. (Stigmata will

be discussed in a ".

—in

all

of the statues

have purportedly wept ... are located in Bruse's

The paper added, "But most

his refusal to allow the statue to

suspicious

be examined."^^

is

Bruse's silence

Looking for a Miracle

56

I

day,

followed the story closely

The Washington

Post,

discuss the matter at length. in the pages of the

—being aided by reporters from USA learning the facts,

Washington City Paper, to permit the statue of the

along with a copy of the newspaper

Jq

the challenge.33

How

have received no

date, I

made

are statues

possibility

"Pilgrim Statue of Fatima" purportedly wept while

New

is

—

when the glass-eyed on a ten-day display

sorts of possible causes. This

all

a very humid climate

is

one could go back through the centuries to the very

statue,

condensation

Orleans in July 1972, a skeptical archdiocesan spokesman stated:

"There are If

him a whch I made

later sent

reply.

One

to weep?

I

article in

moisture collecting on a cool surface. For example,

in

to

challenged Bruse,

I

Virgin to be examined under controlled conditions. certified letter

me

and other newspapers, who phoned

Upon

To-

it

might well have been due simply to the

However, few statues are

like that at

effect

here.''34

first *'weeping*'

of condensation.

Fatima (carved of wood with

separate glass eyes) which might favor condensation in the proper region

The usual

to produce "weeping."

would be an

figurine, for instance,

calized streaming of "tears.

A second

effect

possibility

of condensation, on a porcelain

overall fogging of the surface, not lo-

'^

deliberate hoaxing.

is

Although elsewhere

I

have

considered such elaborate hypothetical scenarios as hollow statues with tubes attached to pinhole-sized "tear ducts" and the use of chemical preparations (such as calcium chloride, a crystalline

from the

and eventually

air

are used rarely

if

at

liquefies),^^ I

all. It is

with water (or better

still

powder

that draws moisture

expect that such contrivances

a simple matter to use an eyedropper fiUed

a briny solution, or even

real tears!), applying

when no one is around. Or a small, concealed sponge could work wonders when one pretends to wipe nonexistent tears from an icon and then returns it

the

damp

handkerchief to

its

awestruck owner.

A

novelty squirt ring

is

another possibility ,^6 although early in this century a French abb6 merely sprinkled

on a

picture water

one was looking.^^ Other

James Randi Placed on the

possibilities will

describes

a fake "weeping" stained

window

from a nearby vase when he thought no occur to the inventive.

how Mazola

glass

window

at

oil

a

was the

New

secret ingredient for

Orleans church in 1989.

early in the morning, the oil suspends

As

on the

glass,

blending with

its

glimmer, as

the glass had begun to weep. Then, as the glass becomes

warm, the

if

hues.

oil starts

the sun rises during Mass, the oil begins to

to trickle

down

the window. Explained a reporter.

Magical Icons

SI

**windows are also safer to rig than statues or icons, because often they are set out of arm's reach

A

third explanation for

girl said, after all

and

can't be

weeping icons

some

confessing to

admired

effigies.

As one

imagination.

"poltergeist" disturbances, "I didn't

those things. People just imagined

be true of weeping

is

closely, "^s

some of

them.''^^

little

throw

The same can

Explains Barry Karr, Executive Director of

CSICOP: There are a

lot

of people

who

really

want miracles because they want

to be part of something miraculous, and people will claim to see things

and experience

things, not necessarily fraudulently, but based

on a high

of expectation. They got there expecting to see something, and

level

anything can turn into a

Something of the

sort

miracle.'*®

may have

taken place at churches visited by the

Father Bruse, where statues and a stained-glass window supposedly

catalytic

wept. Stated a reporter:

"Maybe

Or maybe people first saw weep."*' (We shall see more

they did cry.

Bruse and then thought they saw the objects

of the role imagination plays in animating statues later in this chapter). Finally, related to the previous possibility, imagination, there effect

of

illusion.

For instance a "weeping"

portrait of

Orthodox Shrine of St. Michael in Tarpon Springs,

Mary

at the

is

the

Greek

Florida, in 1989, proved

Gary Posner, founder of Tampa Bay Skeptics, discovered that the "icon" was nothing more than a photograph of the notorious "Guiding Mother of God Weeping Icon" from the St. Nicholas

to be completely dry. Dr.

Albanian Orthodox Church in Chicago (discussed I

witnessed a different illusion

in Queens,

when

I

earlier).*^

examined the

St. Irene

icon

New York. The glistening varnish and certain surface irregularities

created a play of light that produced the appearance of weeping.

A religious

supplicant predisposed to see tears (the legend of St. Irene held that "tears

were always to be found in her

eyes"'*^)

could, especially

if

candle, see in the resultant glimmering in the tiny eyes, aided

carrying

by

a

vertical

cracks and other streaks, the effect of tears.^ Aided in part by the sad

expression of St. Irene, welling

up

we

easily experienced the illusion of seeing tears

in the saint's eyes, although

showed us the

true state of

affairs.'*^

a low-power stereo microscope

Looking for a Miracle

58

Bleeding

An

Effigies

astonishing series of apparently miraculous events occurred in 1985

—the

on December 8

statue of the Virgin

Mary

in the

home

When

attracted the predictable assortment of the pious

Beauregard's landlord asked

two-foot

of a Montreal, Quebec, railroad

worker named Jean-Guy Beauregard began weeping.

enon

A

Feast of the Inmiaculate Conception.

the

phenom-

and the curious,

him to move the statue. He took it to a lakeside

town on Montreal's northwestern outskirts, Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, to the home of friends, Maurice and Claudette Girouard. Soon, the Blessed Virgin's tears began to turn bloody, and the "contagion"

we noted

also started

earlier infected

nearby icons, statues, and cnicifixes which

weeping and bleeding. Thousands of pilgrims waited in the

brutal winter cold to view "the Miracle of Sainte-Marthe," as

12,000 in one week.

The

many

as

church authorities were cautious, even skeptical.

Still,

Jerome Diocese,

local bishop, the Rev. Charies Valois of St.

sensibly

labeled the affair "an exaggeration of the marvelous," adding:

God seldom

speaks by extraordinary means but rather through the Bible

and the teachings of the church. [weeping statues] that

we

It is

not through such means as these

are going to find out

what the Lord wants

to say to us.^

And

then, as

soon as

it

had begun, the Associated Press reported

that the "bubble burst"; the "miracle" clever hoax."

Newsmen from

was

a hoax

"all

—not even a very

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

been permitted to borrow a "miraculous" icon and had taken to a scientific laboratory. There, examination

showed

mixed with a coating of pork and beef fat so that slightly

—the substance would liquefy and run

paper reported that the owner of the

own blood

to produce the

that blood

directly

had been

—when the room warmed

like tears.

effigies

it

had

A Montreal news-

confessed he had used his

effects.'*^

The Miracle of Sainte-Marthe is only one example of an alleged phenomenon that has occurred since antiquity. One documented case from the last century featured Rose Tamisier, a French stigmatic who claimed to receive visits from The Virgin Mary and who caused a picture of Christ to emit actual blood. According to Brewer's

A

Tamisier was educated at a convent "where she

Dictionary of Miracles,

made

herself notorious,"

i

|

Magical Icons

59

claiming to be visited constantly by the Virgin Mary. Leaving the convent, she returned to her native village

where she became known as a

miracle worker. She allegedly grew a miraculous cabbage sufficient to feed

—except consecrated

the entire village for weeks, while she herself ate nothing

wafers brought to her by angels.

As

Tamisier's

fame spread, her body

became marked with unusual stigmata, and she "now entered on her great

—her

achievement," causing a picture of Christ "to emit real blood" exhibition taking place

on November

1850.

10,

first

Although the "miracle"

was examined and pronounced genuine, the following year Tamisier was tried at

Nimes on a charge of imposture, and

—

^"after

—was found guilty and sentenced to

investigation"

ment, in addition to being fined 500 francs and

Another French case began

in 1913

remarkable phenomena occurring at the

a long and patient months' imprison-

six

costs.'*^

when rumors

home

of the

circulated about

Abbe Vachere

at

Mirebeau-en-Poitou. Supposedly, a picture of Christ bled, wafers conse-

and a statue of Christ

crated by the abbe dripped blood,

The

grotto produced a bloody sweat.

reports intrigued psychical inves-

devout Catholic,

tigator Everard Feilding, a

a nearby

in

who

traveled to

Mirebeau

company of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The abbe, a charming sixty-year-old gentleman, explained how he had acquired two oleographs of Christ in 1906. (An oleograph is a type of in the

color print imitative of an

oil painting.)

five years later, while saying

Mass

He

claimed that one morning,

in the private chapel of his

home, he

observed dark stains on the forehead of one of the images that hung over the altar. Later that day, the stains

had condensed into a

liquid resembling

blood, and two days after that stains had formed themselves into a "crown

of thorns" configuration. Soon, the picture bled daily and, by the following

month, began to weep as well. The abbe also began to hear voices bemoaning the decline in religion.

The following

year, 1912, brought

added miracles,

including wafers unaccountably breaking open and issuing blood.

But by 1914 the abbe's superiors ordered him to turn over the bleeding picture,

whereupon

his

second oleograph, which had been kept at a

cottage he owned, also began to arrived

Back

weep and

bleed!

At

this point Feilding

and was permitted to take samples of the bloodlike substance.

in England, Feilding

had these analyzed by London's

Lister Institute

human blood

—although the

which determined that the substance was not

exact composition of the substance could not be determined. ever, contain

It

a microorganism typically found in stagnant water.

did,

how-

— Looking for a Miracle

60

When Feilding returned to Mirebeau on Easter 1915, Vachfere explained that

—as a

about the miracles on the part

result of increasing skepticism

of the bishop

— Rome had excommunicated him.

he spent at Mirebeau, Feilding paid several

During the three days

visits to

home

the abbe's

always finding the oleograph wet but never seeing the bleeding actually

He would

begin. Finally, the investigator proposed a test:

then seal access to

in the chapel to see if

it

After

it.

initial resistance

it

dry the picture,

produced blood when no one had

the abbe acquiesced, but allowed Feilding

only to lock rather than seal the chapel door. However, the investigator secretly placed if

a piece of paper in the hinge in such a way as to

fall

the door were opened.

Upon

returning to the chapel

that the picture

fact,

later,

that the slip of paper

was wet but

Informed of the

some hours

Feilding discovered

had been dislodged.

Vach^re became enraged, then suggested that

door a shake upon finding

sacristan might have given the

it

locked and

thus dislodged the paper. Feilding thought this tenable. Nine years Feilding and his wife paid a last

of

still

new

visit

miracles: a statue of the

to the

his

now elderly abbe upon

later,

learning

mfant Jesus, for example, had begun

was to take new samples of the blood from

to bleed. Just before Feilding

the oleograph, his wife believed she

saw Vachere

surreptitiously sprinkle

water on the picture from a nearby vase. (This probably would have been to remoisten the blood that presumably picture.) This time, tests of the liquid

Feilding guilty of affair.

was

had

showed

it

earlier

been placed on the

was indeed human blood.

reluctant to believe that the kindly old

man

could be

such deceit, and he had trouble making up his mind about the

Scott Rogo, however, has postulated that the abbe's "unstable mental

disposition, his devotion,

corresponded with a

and

German

his fascination with the stigmata" (he

had

stigmatist) resulted in "a poltergeist attack

mimicked the appearance of a religious miracle. "'^ Failing to appreciate pious hoaxing virtually every clue that points to the obvious answer that

—

Rogo

asserts:

"This theory

religious figures

is

further supported by the fact that sometimes

would bleed

in

homes

that the abbe merely visited l''^^

(Exclamation point, indeed!)

Turning from France to northern England, on March class housewife

claimed that a crucifix in her

17, 1920,

a middle-

home had begun

to drip

blood. But there are ample reasons to doubt the authenticity of the phe-

nomenon, not the least of which is had earlier laid claim to a miraculous

that the

woman, a

Catholic convert,

healing, divine visions, spirit sightings.

Magical Icons

61

bum

marks on her arm which she claimed resulted from being touched by a soul from purgatory! And the bleeding crucifix? This was reported the very day after the local newspaper carried an account of Abbe Vach^re and the "miracles" at Mirebeau! ^J The poor woman seemed determined to mimic every such phepsychic

abilities,

nomenon

An

and the stigmata, as well as

she read about.

interesting variant

on

the bleeding-icon

phenomenon occurred

in

France in 1954, at the time the weeping-statue rage was sweeping neighbor-

An

ing Italy.

Anne

effigy

(the legendary

owner

responded to injury

—

in this case,

a statue of Saint

mother of Mary52). The statue belonged to a hotel

Entrevaux named Jean Salate. Salate claimed that he broke a

in

on the statue in a fit of anger and that the statue responded miracuby emitting thirty drops of blood during the day and again the

finger

lously

following morning. While throngs of the pious gathered to witness the miracle,

and chemical analysis proved that the blood was genuine, rumor

soon spread that Salate had himself faked the phenomenon.53

wound

In contrast to the preceding case, no

or blemish was neces-

sary to cause a plastic-encased portrait of Jesus to exude blood.

The

affair

May 24, 1979, when Mrs. Kathy Malott visited her grandmother, Willie Mae Seymore, at the latter's RosweU, New Mexico, home.

began on Mrs. It

was reportedly Mr. Malott who

under the right eye of the wallet-sized the spot into the just as

and pooled

at the

frame of a larger

if I

had cut

first

noticed a "tear" of blood just

picture.

bottom of the

picture.

Soon, a

picture,

trickle

where

it

flowed from

was

inserted

"The blood was running from the picture

my finger," said

Mrs. Seymore.^^

The family phoned a priest who seems to have been skeptical of the phenomenon. He not only declined an offer to visit the residence to view the picture, but he labeled the matter "ticklish" and said that any participation

by the

Roman

Catholic Church would have to be approved by the arch-

bishop. But rather than pursue that avenue, the family then telephoned the local newspaper, which in turn arranged to have a medical technician

from a fide

to

local hospital test the red substance.

blood" but did not confirm whether

it

He

it

was "bona

not.

According

reported that

was human or

one (unverified) source, "An even more bizarre note was added when

the blood

was discovered to be

still

uncongealed after 24 hours. "^^ Actually,

the newspaper that "broke the story"^^ described the blood as ""coagulating at the base of the

A

frame" and again as a ""dried substance" (emphasis added).

1971 Italian case supposedly indicates that blood can not only flow

— Looking for a Miracle

62

spontaneously from holy images but also be supematurally manipulated into pictorial images.

A

lawyer living in Maropati said he awoke on the

morning of January 3 to find blood (subsequently confirmed dripping from a painting of the

Madonna

phenomenon was repeated on subsequent

that

hung over

as such)

his bed.

The

occasions, but soon the flows

began to disobey gravity and run horizontally

in rivulets so as to

produce

bloody crosses on the white wall immediately beneath the painting! Or rather

we

are asked to believe that they did.

colorf'ully related

by Rogo^^

National Enquirer. ^^

An

—come

The

"facts" in the case

from the supermarket

accompanying photograph shows that while the

blood on the painting did have the appearance of

were composed of thicker markings; the crossbars,

swabbed strokes more than actual

was

titled

Rogo makes no mention

And

fallen

rivulets, the crosses

especially,

resembled

while the Enquirer article

Weeps Human Blood,"

of the alleged investigation's conclusions

somewhere between the "dubious" and "fake"

More remarkable than that

flows.

"Vatican Investigates Claim that Painting

must have

tabloid, the

—which

ranges.

simple crosses was the bloody portrait of Jesus

formed on a bedroom wall

in Cosenza, Calabria (Italy),

who

between 1955 and 1961. Sister Elena Aiello,

sometime

reputedly suffered bleed-

on her hands, claimed that one day the blood splashed onto the wall next to her bed, and the blood formed an image of Jesus' face. ing stigmata

It is difficult

to imagine, however,

an image resembling a at the sight.

we

child's

how anyone who glanced

drawing^^

at the picture

—could keep from laughing aloud

But just when we think we are

at the limits of

human credulity,

sadly witness a further extreme.

Other Animated Figures Not only do

sacred images

weep and bleed but they

and exhibit other movement

—even,

in

one

case, the ability to stroll

the church in the middle of the night. Believe Earlier in the chapter

by the

ancients.

we

also close their eyes

it,

about

or not!

discussed fake idols and automata employed

Such devices may

also have been used in churches even

as late as the Renaissance. According to a question posed to the religious

magazine This Rock:

Magical Icons

I

heard that during the Reformation there were

many

miraculous statues

exposed as frauds. These statues were said to be able to speak, but

down

they were torn

it

was shown

63

after

that they were actually mechanical

dummies.

Responded the magazine: Every age

is

confronted with the problem of bad taste in

liturgical art.

(Our own

is

no

and

Renaissance

exception.) During the late Middle Ages

artists strove for

arts of painting

and

sculpture.

into the

naturalism in the production of the visual

At the same time

the study of engineering

and mechanics was progressing. These two began to come together. Mechanical clocks were invented,

and aside from delight

their use as timekeepers, they

and entertainment. Today

in

Northern European countries you clocks combined with

but perform

little

moving

became items of

visual

Germany, Switzerland, and other

still

can see examples of mechanical not only keep time,

figures; the clocks

mechanical plays. The cuckoo clock

is

a descendant

of this art form.

Churches and shrines undoubtedly sported statues articulated with mechanical

lips.

With

movements they would be considered

their

enter-

Anyone could see such devices at work outside towers of town halls and guild halls. In erecting such

taining but not miraculous.

the church

on the

statues the

churchmen of those days might

bad

taste,

justly

have been accused of

but not of fraud.^

Be that as

it

may,

ly religious'* sisters in

in 1866, at

a small house owned by two "devout-

Ban,

a figure of the infant Jesus began to

Italy,

waxen image began to phials. They turned one room

exhibit remarkable powers. First, the foot-high

sweat blood, which the

home

of their case. it

into a shrine for the figure,

Not only did

also

sisters collected in

which they exhibited

the figure continue to exude blood for

began to exhibit movement. Allegedly,

would be discovered seated

occasion,

it

reclining;

and

The

its

affair

in

its

a glass

years, but

eyes shifted angle;

on

an upright position instead of

arms would even be found outstretched !^i

was reportedly

investigated with favorable results, but

does not appear that the "blood" was ever analyzed off

two

in

"an odd cinnamon

odor''^^)^

suspiciously gave

phenomena occurred under actually witnessed the move-

or that the

controlled conditions, or that anyone ever

(it

it

Looking for a Miracle

64

ments as they occurred. In

fact,

not even clear that there were witnesses

it is

to the changed poses of the figure,

i.e.,

that they were supported

more

credible than the allegations of the sisters.

figure

was of wax

a material

A

—which

easily softened

is

But one notes that the

and manipulated

—instead of

like porcelain.

more

modem

Ballinspittle,

County Cork,

phenomenon

movement of a statue has Virgin Mary in a grotto at

case involving the alleged

a figure of the

interesting features. In 1985,

alleged

by anything

first

Ireland, reportedly

began to sway

gently, the

having been reported by a teenage

girl.

"The

was swaying back and forth and then forward," said the girl's mother. "At one point we thought the top would crack off.** Subsequently, thousands statue

of visitors flocked to the village of 200 to view the statue, which with a halo of blue

lights.

Nevertheless, although

ish

adorned

Dozens of people, including several news reporters,

also claimed to have witnessed the Virgin's

"want to dampen

is

movements.

was reported

it

piety," they

that church officials did not

were unhappy about the

affair.

One

par-

attempted to dissuade his congregation from reporting the

priest

phenomenon, and the bishop of Cork, Michael Murphy, prohibited the

Mass for the Feast of the Assumption at the grotto. It remained for a group of scientists from University College, Cork, to discover the truth about the statue. They too, saw the figure sway, yet a motion-picture camera revealed no such movement had occurred I^^ They soon determined that the effect was an illusion. According to the science magazine Discover: holding of a

It is

induced when people rock gently back and forth while looking at

the statue.

At dusk, when the sky

the eye has

no point of reference except the halo of blue

say the

scientists, the

eye

is

is

grey and landmarks are obscured, lights.

unable to detect the fact that one's head

and body are unconsciously moving. The viewer who sways get the impression that not he but the statue

The

scientists

Therefore,

added: "None of us

is

out to

is

likely to

is

moving.

belittle

anybody's

we believe there's a physical explanation."^ some religious observers who were undeterred by

beliefs. It's

simply that Later,

the rational

explanation began to claim that they had also seen the statue's hands

and

feet

effects

move. Needless to

say,

no proof was

offered of this,

and the

were doubtless due to the power of suggestion combined with the

illusory effect of

prolonged staring. In any case reports of the phenomenon

Magical Icons ceased abruptly

on October

worshipers watched terestingly, their

As

31.

three

Roman

65

Catholic nuns and thirty

—horror-stricken—three men smashed the

statue. In-

motives do not appear to have been impious ones.

The

Associated Press reported: "Police had to restrain a crowd gathered outside the courthouse as the three accused

Less than two years

men walked

later, similar

inside holding Bibles. "^'S

phenomena were being reported

in

Lanka. In July 1987, a sixteen-year-old schoolboy claimed he saw a

Sri

plaster statue of the Virgin

make a

slight

sideways motion of her clasped

The following night, a 70-year-old retired merchant said he witnessed the statue's left eye move. Soon hundreds were gathering nightly before the white-and-blue statue that stood in a grotto outside St. James Church. The parish priest encouraged the reports, saying: "I think it is some sort of sign to us that Our Lady is heeding to our prayers, that she is ready to help us at any moment." He promised a scientific analysis of the phenomenon as soon as the crowds diminished, but apparently no proof of the "miracle** was forthcoming and the matter soon passed into obscurity.^^ Clearer results were reported in Pennsylvania in 1989. The case began on Good Friday at the Holy Trinity Church in Ambridge, a quiet Ohio River mill town fifteen miles northwest of Pittsburgh. During the hands.

service its

a luminous,

eyes.

ing,

At

first,

life-sized crucifixion figure

of Christ reportedly closed

no one claimed to have seen the

eyelids actually

only that the eyes had been about one-third open

was relocated

in January,

and that during the

when

mov-

the statue

special three-hour prayer

meeting the eyes were observed to be shut. However, the pastor of the church. Rev. Vincent Cvitkovic, was soon reporting additional claims: "At times the eyes seem to be opening and a

little

later

seem to

close again.**

—from vivid tones on

In addition, he said that the statue changed color

Good

Friday to dull ones after

perspiration. felt

**67

—and

gave off "a glistening sheen,

Other worshipers claimed

—^"cleansed" and "calmer**—

affair

or no miracle, they

after gazing at the crucifix.^^

better

The

that, miracle

like

drew contrasting

at Catholic University in

reactions, however.

A

pastoral counselor

Washington, D.C., Rev. Richard

Delillio,

did

not feel the events were very positive. "People have a basic need for meaning

and happiness

in their lives,**

he

said, explaining that

the attraction of sensational claims. it*s

the

way of

easy surrender. ''^^

religion at Catholic University,

many cannot

resist

"When something like this comes along, And Dr. William Dinges, who teaches

took a "cautious, guarded** view,

"The human capacity for self-deception

is

incredible. *'7o

stating,

Looking for a Miracle

66

—which depicted a eyes and mouth — originally hung at eye "The

still-living

crucifix

Christ with partially open

a comer of the church.

level in

In January, after undergoing restoration, the crucifix was raised fifteen feet

above the

An

artist

altar, to

who

a position in front of a stained glass window.

helped with the restoration, and

who

"touched up" the

eyes with acrylic paint, said that the eyes were open at the time the crucifix

was hung. Rev. Cvitkovic reportedly had videotape showing the eyes both open and closed. An investigation was soon launched by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Bishop Donald W. Wuerl appointed a commission to examine the evidence and report on the astonishing phenomena. Alas, after careful study of the before-and-after videotapes, the commission found "no convincing evidence" that the statue closed

When

service.

its

close-up views of the face

eyes during the

Good

Friday

from each videotape showed the

eyes in a similar, partially open position, the commission rejected claims

had occurred. Commission members stated that they felt the witnesses were sincere but could have been deceived by the church's lighting and by the angles of viewing.^' These elements, coupled with pious

that a miracle

imagination, were apparently also responsible for the other reported phe-

nomena: the

perspiration-like sheen

and the brightening and dulling of

the colors.

In the

wake of

the commission's report, Rev. Cvitkovic

from celebrating Mass, and he responded by

resigning.

was barred

Having once

said

to disbelievers in the alleged miracle, "I'm not that smart to even think

of a hoax,"^2 the priest was never apparently suspected of deliberate deception.

A clue to

the actions of diocesan officials

may be

that the church

had been a center from which Catholic pilgrims departed for the shrine a "miraculous" shrine drawing official church at Medjugoije, Yugoslavia

—

disapproval.73 Also, as the priest's brother explained: "I think there were

complaints about people not going to church where they belong because they were coming and enjoying

Mass

at

Holy

Trinity."^'*

Undeterred by such skepticism, the Rev. Frank O'Grady and several parishioners of

New

erson, 1992.

Our Lady of Pompeii Roman

Jersey, claimed to

The 30-inch

figure of

Catholic Church in Pat-

have witnessed a color-changing statue in

Mary— a

replica of the life-size International

Our Lady of Fatima (one of several Fatima statues stands to the exhibit miraculous phenomena such as weeping''^) the altar. One witness saw the base of the statue turn a "dark.

Pilgrim Statue of said to left

of

—

Magical Icons

67

dark pink," while another said the figure once "turned the brightest blue"; other colors were also reported. In fact, the statue

is

actually "white with

blue and pink tones," and the color-changing effect appears to correlate

with the motive force of the viewers. For example, according to a signed

"One woman present began to cry and we all began to sing to the Virgin Mary and the colors became bolder and more vivid as we sang."^^ Not surprisingly, therefore, many people were unable to witness the alleged color change and went away disappointed.^^ Perhaps the most incredible of the animated statues was the one we

testimonial,

discussed earlier that allegedly wept in a Thornton, California, church in 1981.

The

four-foot, sixty-pound statue of

Our Lady of Fatima was a

factory-made product shipped from the Fatima, Portugal, manufacturer

San Francisco Bay area in 1968. A Portuguese- American grain farmer purchased the statue from a church supply store, donating it to the Mater Ecclesiae Mission Church in memory of a son-in-law who had died in an accident. For some thirteen years, the statue was immobile. Then, on March 13, 1981, according to the statue's unofficial careto the

taker,

a

retired asparagus

grower named Albert Amaro:

[the statue] in front of the altar with her rosary

about 25 statue

her

wrapped around the crucifix

from where she had been standing the night before." The

feet

was

"We found

replaced, but ten days later

morning of April 13 we found her

was back

at the altar.

Even bolting the

statue in place did not deter

did not cease until

it

was relocated near the

its

the

Amaro. "She

at the altar again," said

was moving every 13th of each month and once or twice

"On

in between. "^8

nighttime

strolls,

which

altar.

Although the wandering ceased, new manifestations began to be reported:

The

Virgin's eyes

changed angle from time to time; she

her chin; and her hands, pressed together in prayer, sition

moved from a po-

near her heart to one at her chin. These changed positions were

documented

in photographs,

and some photo backgrounds revealed images

of Jesus that had appeared mysteriously. There were also the tears

beginning to flow the

first

phenomena

—allegedly

time the statue was moved.

But there were problems as the

tilted

as they occurred,

found the liquid "oily and sticky"

well:

No

one actually witnessed any of

and one who touched the

statue's tears

—indicating that the tears were not genuine.

Bishop Roger Maloney of the Stockton Diocese began an investigation of the

affair,

dence.

The

appointing four clerics as a commission to examine the evi-

result

was

that the statue's "weeping"

and nighttime

visits

to

— Looking for a Miracle

68

The movements of the Madonna's supposedly shown in photographs were appar-

the altar were branded a probable hoax.

and hands as

eyes, chin,

more than the result of variations in photographic angles. Two photos which showed the image of Christ in the background were ently nothing

examined by a forensic scientist and revealed as the handiwork of a hoaxer.^

For

their efforts, the investigating clerics

of devils" by some

Bishop and

who

his cronies

were denounced as "a bunch

refused to accept their findings.

One

stated,

"The

won't recognize [the miracles] because they're afraid

of the tens of thousands of people

who

will

come

here.''8o

The reactions were similar to those in Quebec when the bleeding-statue hoax was exposed. According to The Wall Street Journal, many worshipers never mind the evidence sent the local bishop hate mail, complaining that

—

he

still

should have pronounced the event miraculous! s' This end-justifies-

the-means attitude of the defenders of such "miracles" mirrors that of the hoaxers

who

obviously believe that a good motive

—bringing revenues to

the parish, renewing the faith of believers, or attempting to confound the skeptics

—

is

justification for perpetrating a

hoax

in the guise of

a miracle.

The consequences can, however, be a mixed blessing. The St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church's crying icon drew as many as 5,000 visitors a day, and the revenues from such throngs can be impressive as the

—

Thornton, California, parish learned. But there the occurrences. Police have acts of violence.

many

And

is

often a

side to

had to respond to unruly gawkers and even

as one priest states: "I think

it is

a shame that so

people need this kind of thing ... to lead them to prayer and to

be closer to God.''^^ indeed, the belief in animated statues idolatry of those

who came under the

These matters

aside, there

icons and effigies exist subtracted.

there are.

hand:

down

—

The answer

A

influence of the priest of Bel.

the question of whether any miraculous

after the cases of hysteria

and hoaxes have been

no

credible evidence that

is

that there simply

is

near-laboratory test for icons and statues has long been at

museums and

the religious faithful ported. That

is still

recalls the ancient

is

galleries.

—yet the

Those

attract throngs of people

animated-statue

phenomena

—including

are never re-

because the images are in a controlled environment where

hoaxing would be more

difficult

—and

less

remunerative.

— Magical Icons

69

Select Bibliography Hebert, Albert

Why Do You

Mary,

J.

Cry? Photos of Her Images

Paulina, La.: Privately printed, 1985. pictorial presentation of the

An

Tears.

in

astonishingly credulous, mostly

weeping-Madonna phenomenon, together with

that of bleeding statues.

Kosova, Weston.

in general

Rogo, D.

A

Is

This

Woman

Crying?" Washington City Paper. April

A thorough, critical analysis

24, 1992.

enon

"Why

and the Lake Ridge,

Scott. "Bleeding Statues

of the weeping/ bleeding-effigy

phenom-

Virginia, weeping-statues case in particular.

and Weeping Madonnas." Chapter 7 of Miracles:

Wondrous Phenomena. New York: Dial Press, the animated-effigy phenomenon, less from the

Parascientific Inquiry into

1982.

A

credulous look at

point of view of a religious defense than as a

pamormal

—

e.g., "poltergeist"

manifestation.

Notes Rupert T. Gould, Enigmas (New York: Paperback Library, 1969), pp. 32-46; Walter B. Gibson, Secrets of Magic Ancient and Modem (New York: Grosset 1.

& Dunlap, 2.

S.

"Memnon," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed. Rapoport, History of Egypt, vol. XI (New York: Grolier Society, 1967), pp. 14-15;

1904),

pp. 231-32. 3.

Gibson, Secrets of Magic Ancient

and Modem,

pp. 21-22; see also

of Alexandria, The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, a facsimile of the 1851 craft edition, introduced 4.

The

text

is

by Marie Boas Hall (New York: American

from The Revised Standard Version

Hero

Wood-

Elsevier, 1971).

Common

Bible

(New

York: William CoUins, 1973). 5.

"Idolatry," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.

6.

Ibid.

7.

D. Scott Rogo, Miracles:

nomena (New York: Dial

A

Parascientific Inquiry into

Wondrous Phe-

Press, 1982), p. 161.

8.

Ibid., pp. 173-78.

9.

D. Scott Rogo, The Poltergeist Experience (New York: Penguin, Milborune Christopher, ESP, Seers

10.

CroweU,

&

Psychics

1979).

(New York: Thomas Y.

1970), pp. 149-63.

11.

Ibid., p. 146.

12.

James Randi, "The Columbus

Poltergeist Case,"

The Skeptical Inquirer

9.3 (Spring 1985): 221-35. 13.

Rogo

(Miracles, p. 175) states that the statue "continued to

weep even

Looking for a Miracle

70

was inspected before

while being transported to police headquarters, where

it

being returned to Angelo later that night." But this could

mean simply

surreptitiously placed

on the icon before

that water,

was taken away, had not dried when

it

a policeman thought to look at the statue en route.

Rogo makes no mention

of the statue producing a fresh flow of tears at the police station.

W. G.

14.

Roll, "Poltergeist," in Richard Cavendish, ed.. Encyclopedia

the Unexplained (London: Routledge

&

Kegan

one of the two parapsychologists mentioned

in the

of

Paul, 1974), p. 198. Roll was

Resch

case,

15.

Rogo, Miracles,

16.

Ibid., pp. 178-79.

17.

Stephen Magagnini, "When the

18.

Marjie Lundstrom, "Catholic Church Wrestles with

p. lis.

The Sacramento Bee, April

7,

Madonna Wept," Fate, March

1991; Curtis

1984, pp. 42-46.

Jump

in Miracles,"

D. MacDougall, Superstition and

the Press (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 521.

Jerome Clark, "Chicago's Virgin Weeps,"

19.

86;

Fate,

December

1984, pp. 84-

Jonathan Dahl, "Icons Shedding Tears Are a Mixed Blessing to Congre-

gations," Wall Street Journal, January 30, 1987.

"Church Says 'Weeping' of Statue Not a Miracle," The Courier-Journal

20.

(Louisville, Ky.),

21. "Virgin 12, 1986;

Tribune,

September

Mary

Painting 'Weeps' in Illinois Church,"

USA

Today, December

Tasia Kawadias, "Icon's 'Miraculous Sign' Draws Multitude," Chicago

December

22. "Official St.

19, 1985.

15, 1986.

Statement on the weeping Icon of the ever Virgin

Mary

at the

Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL," issued by the Office

of the Chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America,

December

the Midwest

1986,

12,

Committee

and reproduced

in

M.C.R.I.

News

(the newsletter of

for Rational Inquiry), February 1987, p. 3.

23. Ibid.

"Shawn and Madonna," Fre^ Inquiry 8.1 (Winter 1987/88): 19. 25. Mireya Navarro, "Saint's Weeping Portrait Draws Curious and Faithful," New York Times. November 5, 1990. 24.

See Joe Nickell, "Weeping Icon Revisited— Still Dry-Eyed," The

26.

Skeptic (Newsletter of the

Examination of

27.

Nickell and

John

New York Area Skeptics), Summer

St. Irene videotape,

F. Fischer,

August

New

the

York

1991, pp. 6-7.

conducted at Gotha, Florida, by Joe

6, 1991.

"Congregation Prays for Return of Stolen Icon," Newark Star-Ledger,

28.

December

25, 1991.

29.

"Gunmen

Times,

December

30.

January

Steal

'Weeping Icon' from a Church

in

Queens,"

New

York

24, 1991.

"Greek Factions Duel over Theft of the Icon," Newark Star-Ledger, 2, 1992.

Magical Icons

31.

Carol

Castaneda, "Statue Attracts the Faithful,"

J.

23, 1992. See also

Weston Kosova, "Why

This

Is

Woman

USA

Today.

71

March

Crying?" Washington

City Paper, April 24, 1992, pp. 24-33. 32.

"Why Is This Woman Crying?" p. 26. in Kosova, "Why Is This Woman Crying?"

Kosova,

33. Nickell certified letter to

34. "Priest

Rev. James Bnise,

Says

Star, July 21, 1972.

May 29,

He Photographed

For a

series

p. 28;

Joe Nickell,

1991.

Statue of

Madonna Weeping," The Toronto

of photographs of the weeping, see Albert

J.

Why Do You Cry.^ (Pauline, La.: Privately printed, 1985), pp. 4-12. 35. Kosova, "Why Is This Woman Crying?" p. 28. See also "The

Hebert,

Mary,

Who Makes Icons Weep," Newsweek,

October 26, 1987,

p.

Scientist

79 (describing physicist

Shawn Carlson's use of salt crystals to cause a copy of the "Mona Lisa" to "weep"). 36. A "Squirt cigarette lighter" is also advertised in the catalog Things You Never Knew Existed, 1990, Johnson Smith Company, Bradenton, Florida. 37.

Rogo, Miracles,

38.

Woman Crying?" p. 28. Christopher, ESP, Seers & Psychics, p. 149. Kosova, "Why Is This Woman Crying?" p. 28.

39.

40.

Kosova,

"Why

p.

Is

168 (footnote).

This

41. Ibid., p. 30. 42.

14

Gary

(Summer

P. Posner,

"Tampa

Bay's

Weeping Icon Fiasco," Skeptical Inquirer

1990): 349-50.

43. Nickell,

"Weeping Icon Revisited,"

p. 7.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid. 46. "Bleeding,

January

Crying Statue of Virgm

Mary a Hoax," The Tampa

Tribune,

18, 1986.

47. Ibid. 48. E.

Cobham

Brewer,

A

Dictionary of Miracles (Philadelphia: Lippincott,

1884), pp. 184-85. 49.

Rogo, Miracles, pp. 164-71.

50. Ibid., p. 170. 51.

Ibid., pp. 172-73.

known only from apocryphal writings. See John Coulson, The Saints (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1958), p. 32. 52.

She

53.

"Blood and Tears," in The Unexplained: Mysteries of Mind, Space and

Time, vol. 6

(New York: Marshall Cavendish,

55.

Rogo, Miracles, pp. 184-85. "Blood and Tears," p. 824.

56.

The Santa Monica,

54.

in

is

California,

1984), p. 824.

Evening Outlook,

Rogo, Miracles, 184-85. 57.

ed.,

Rogo, Miracles, pp. 158-60; photo following

p. 64.

May

29, 1979,

quoted

Looking for a Miracle

72

Lloyd Mallan, "Vatican Investigates Claim that Painting Weeps

58.

Blood," National Enquirer, September 59. Janet

5, 1971.

Rogo

cites

no other

Human

source.

and Colin Bord, Unexplained Mysteries ofthe 20th Century (Chicago:

Contemporary Books,

1989), p. 265.

"Quick Questions: Did the Churches Use Talking Statues?" This Rock,

60.

January 1992.

Rogo, Miracles,

61.

p. 183.

62. Ibid.

"Those

63.

p. 19; "Is

Who Sway

Anybody There?" a program on paranormal phenomena

Discovery Channel,

Quoted

64.

65. "3

Together Pray Together," Discover, October 1985,

in

May

13, 1991, at 1:00

"Those

aired

on the

A.M.

Who Sway Together," p.

19.

Accused of Smashing Statue of Virgin Mary," The Herald-Leader

November 2, 1985. "Church Crowds Strain to See

(Lexington, Ky.), 66.

(apparently from the

New York

Unexplained Mysteries, 67. Carol

Today, April

if

Statue Moves," unattributed clipping

Times, August 1987); Janet and Colin Bord,

p. 353.

Memmott,

" 'Miracles'

Many, but Proof Hard

to

Come

By,"

USA

12, 1989.

68.

"Devout Flocking to Crucifix," Courier-News, April

69.

Quoted

in

Memmott,

" 'Miracles'

2, 1989.

Many."

70. Ibid. 71.

July

8,

"No Proof of a Miracle Found at Pittsburgh Church," Washington Post, 1989. The photographs were shown side by side on an episode of the "Unsolved

Mysteries"

TV program,

September 27, 1989, and again on January

Memmott,

10, 1990.

Many."

72.

Quoted

73.

"Diocesan Investigators Dismiss 'Miracle,' " Free Inquiry 5.2 (December

in

" 'Miracles'

1989):2. 74. "Priest Resigns over Crucifix Mystery," 75.

Hebert, Mary,

76.

A January

Why Do You

The Express, August

Cry.? pp. 1-9.

17, 1992, testimonial

signed by eight persons, quoted in Ivette

Mendez, "Religious Phenomenon: Parishioners Stunned by Fatima Changes," The Newark Star-Ledger,

May 20,

77.

Mendez, "Religious Phenomenon."

78.

Memmott,

79.

Magagnini,

" 'Miracles'

"When

the

15, 1989.

Statue's

Color

1992.

Many."

Madonna Wept," pp.

44-46.

80. Ibid., p. 46.

81. Dahl, "Icons

Shedding Tears Are a Mixed Blessing to Congregations,"

p. 11.

82.

Quoted

in

Magagnini, " 'Miracles' Many,"

p. 45.

—

Mystical Relics

The veneration of

relics

taken place since the

— objects associated with a saint or martyr—has

first

century A.D.

It is

based on a concept of "beneficent

contagion":

Its basis is

the idea that a man's virtue, or holiness, or protective healing

powers, do not die with him; they continue to reside in his body and

can be tapped by any believer

who

in

some way makes contact with

Mere proximity is enough: the medieval if he could but gaze on the tomb of his cult-object.

his corporeal shrine.

was

satisfied

pilgrim

Moreover:

If the is

body

is

touched while

The same thing

power within

belief goes on, the

not diminished; on the contrary, each part

as the whole.

is

dismembered, so the

be as

will

full

it

of potency

applies to anything that the cult-object

alive or, indeed, to

anything that touches him after he

dead. All these inanimate containers of a supposedly animate force

whole bodies, bones, hair and

teeth, clothes,

of martyrdom, winding-sheets, coffins and ashes that are

left

—are

dignified

books, furniture, instruments (if

the

body

by the name of

with the grace that once resided in their owners.'

73

is

cremated) the

"relics"

and credited

— 74

Looking for a Miracle

Even something that has touched the its

power, as

is

relic

can be imbued with some of

reputedly the case with the Shroud of Turin discussed

As another example, when Constantina, the empress of Byzantium, wrote to Pope Gregory and asked for the head of St. Paul,

in

Chapter

2.

the latter softened the effect of his refusal by sending a cloth that re-

When

putedly had touched the saint's head.

supposedly flowed from

The response

the cloth

a

blood

relics,

including

and of protection, was profound:

Before long, every Christian priest aimed to have a

not,

cut,

it.^

to such alleged miraculous powers of

the powers of healing

under

was

his church's altar,

and

belief in relics

relic

of some sort

and with good reason. Whether he in their alleged

liked

it

or

power to work miracles formed

the core of religion as experienced by the majority of his congregation

many

of whom

in their blood.

and

carried

memories of pagan temples and sacred groves

Holy bones and the

this

like

were venerated in every town

a wholesale business in fakes arose to

village and, unsurprisingly,

meet

So

still

explosion of demand.^

prevalent

had

relic

veneration

become in

Augustine's time (about

St.

A.D. 400) that he deplored "hypocrites in the garb of

monks" for hawking

the bones of martyrs, adding with due skepticism, "if indeed of martyrs."'*

By

the Middle Ages,

The

living bodies of likely future saints

mongers; when [in 1274], his

Thomas Aquinas

visit

of his bones

About

fell ill

body was decapitated and

greedy for his bones.

during a

were covetously watched by

It is

fled

was

at

a French monastery

his flesh boiled

said that Saint

to France that he

—he

and died

relic

away by monks

Romuald of Ravenna heard

in mortal peril because of the value

homeward, pretending

to be mad.^

condemned the veneration of relics as being nothing more than a form of idolatry, but St. Jerome defended the cult of relics on the basis of the miracles that God reputedly worked through them.^ According to a recent writer: 403, Vigilantius of Talouse

—

So widespread and

insistent

was the demand for

relics that in

century a specialized corporation was formed in

and transport holy

relics

to

all

parts of Europe.

.

the ninth

Rome to discover, sell Roman catacombs .

.

were ransacked for old bones, which were duly identified with suitable

— Mystical Relics

saints.

Some became

hydra-headed

—a number

75

of churches claimed to

have the head of John the Baptists

Sometimes "proofs" were offered that the

relics

instance, those of St. Briocus of Great Britain

a vertebra

—were placed

for joy at the

action

is

determined.^

by pushing

retained as a relic

And

itself

known

was

St.

his

tomb

coffin; so the

relics as

own

tears.

hand was severed and

the fingers of St. Paul, St.

An-

—even one of the Holy Ghost!

St.

Peter was supposedly discovered

and then there was the

after his death;

although some believed

St. Paul,

of the monsters of the deep." For St. Peter there his

William

Apollonia (reputedly effective in curing toothaches)

—600 years

gargantuan tooth of

St.

as the "Angelic Hand.*^

were beyond counting; a tooth of

on

this re-

have repeatedly refused

said to

drew, John the Baptist, the doubting Thomas

Teeth attributed to

and

evidence of a staged miracle

is

then there was the hand of

through the

Here and there were such

resting

ribs,

honor conferred upon them." Of course, whether

of Oulx, a one-armed peasant, which burial

arm, two

a church at Angers, whereupon "they jumped

in

merely the stuff of pious legend or

now be

cannot

—an

were authentic. For

toenails, his chains, "filings"

There was even a

vial

from the

came from "one were also parings from it

chains,

and

vials

of his

of sweat from St. Michael from the time

he had contended with Satan. The Vatican still preserves relics of St. Andrew, along with an ornate reliquary for

St.

three churches preserved the corpse of

Matthew's arm.

No

Mary Magdalene;

fewer than

another, alas,

possessed only her foot.

An relics

entire cemetery

of

St.

Ursula and her legendary 11,000 virgin martyrs. (The legend

depended on a

Due

was despoiled to provide one monastery with the

scant, fifth-century reference to

to ignorance of Latin epigraphy, the

was mistaken for

11,000.

As

a tomb of virgin martyrs.

Roman

numeral for

11 (XI)

the cemetery surrounding the church of the

name Ursula was appropriated from the tombstone of an eight-year-old girl. Names for numerous other female martyrs were provided by "revelations" despite the fact that many of Virgins

was excavated for

relics,

the

—

the bones recovered were those of men. That fact, however, "did not affect their curative value."'^

Astonishingly prolific were "relics" associated with Jesus, whose foreskin

was preserved

in

no fewer than

six churches. Miraculously preserved

as well were Jesus' swaddling clothes,

baby

hair, his

pap-spoon and

hay from the manger, some of

dish, his

milk

teeth, gifts

his

from the Wise

Looking for a Miracle

76

Men, and Later

the cloak with which Joseph covered the infant at Bethlehem.

included a preserved tear that Jesus shed at Lazarus's tomb,

relics

his **seamless coat,"

to wine, the

one of the

which he had changed water

vessels in

of the ass upon which he had ridden into Jerusalem,

tail

and so on.

The

crucifixion

was

The

especially well-represented.

in Paris possessed the entire

crown of thorns

—although

Sainte Chapelle this

was not the

only one, and individual thorns turned up at other churches. Several nails

had been used to

that

affix Jesus to the cross also

of the True Cross were so to build a ship.

a crucifix by

who

sent

it

that Christ

One

was kept

—supposedly a

from

from Heaven. He

had

gift

in

a compartment of

John the

St.

in addition to various

a gold ring as proof

also sent St. Colette

relics

of Joseph, such as his staff and hammer,

plows fashioned in

worked on by the young

shop that were

his carpentry

Jesus. Relics of

Mary were more numerous,

however: some of her hair was preserved, together with her of her breast milk.

At

fallen,

Evangelist,

selected her as his virgin bride.

There remained a few

milk had

were enough

prolific, critics say, that there

piece of the cross

St. Colette

turned up. Fragments

So were

chips of rock

at the time of the Annunciation;

and

vials

on which a few drops of Mary's

turning the rock white and imbuing

it

with curativie powers.

Holy House

Loretto, in Italy, pilgrims visited the

shirt

in

which Mary

lived

had supposedly been miraculously

it

transported there from Palestine."

And, of course, the were

of the angel's candle which

bits

which

burial of Christ

body was

his

and other

laid,

burial clothes

was

lit

his

also well represented.

There

tomb, the marble slab on

the "napkin" {sudarium) that covered his face,

—some

still

fragrant with

myrrh

—including the

forty "true" shrouds mentioned in Chapter 2. In the seventh century, a

French bishop named Arculph reported seeing a shroud of Christ on the island of this

lona

(off the coast of Scotland).

Arculph related a

shroud had been stolen by a converted Jew,

hands of

infidel

Jews, and claimed by Christians

it

rose in the

deposited

it

in

air,

unscathed, and

fell

of

how

passed into the

later

—with

judging the dispute. The ruler placed the shroud in a

tale

an Arab

fire

ruler

from which

at the feet of the Christians,

who

a church. '2

Among the macabre relics that are still preserved today and that remain the subject of considerable controversy are the "blood" of St. Januarius,

a

vial

on

of a congealed substance that mysteriously reddens and liquefies

certain occasions; the Pozzuoli stone,

which exudes Januarius's blood;

77

Mystical Relics

numerous

the •'incorruptible" bodies of

saints,

which

resist

the natural

tendency to decay, and some curious "relics" imprinted with the scorched handprints of souls from purgatory. Let us look at each in turn.

The Blood of Sf. Jonuorius According to legend, San Gennaro

—

St.

Januarius

—was bom

at

Naples

near the close of the third century A.D. and was bishop of Benevento

when he was martyred during tian. The story goes that after

the persecution of Christians by Dioclelions refused to

companions, they were cast into a Finally, they

fiery furnace

were beheaded at Pozzuoli, and two

were (according to

his

but remained uninjured. vials

of Januarius*s blood

taken with his remains to the Neapolitan

later legend)

catacombs. Januarius's reputed

harm Januarius and

relics

were disinterred in the

fifth

century,

housed in various locales over the next several centuries, and permanently enshrined in a Naples cathedral in the latter thirteenth century, i^

According to the testimony of eyewitnesses dating back to at the fourteenth century, what

least

represented as the martyred saint's con-

is

gealed blood periodically liquefies, reddens, and froths

—

in apparent con-

travention of natural laws. Religious zealots call this a miracle, yet a writer for

New

Scientist notes

of Saints terms states, "It

may

it

it is

a flawed miracle, and The Oxford Dictionary

an "alleged"

A spokesman for the Catholic Church

one.^^

not be a miracle, but whatever

it is, it

somehow

functions

outside the realm of ordinary laws.^i^

The "blood"

now

vial is

half

essentially

fills

a pear-shaped ampule, but a narrow, adjacent

empty

contents supposedly dispensed to wealthy

(its

families in the eighteenth century). silver

The

vials are

mounted

in

a

cylindrical

case which has clear glass faces for viewing, as well as a handle by

which

it

can be held or

The Januarian day preceding the into Naples)

on the death)

an ornate monstrance. (See Figure

ritual takes place several times annually: first

Sunday

in

May (commemorating

on

the

6.)

the Satur-

relics'

entry

and the following eight days, as well as the octave beginning

saint's feast

—a

fitted into

day (September

total of seventeen days.

19, the anniversary

The "miracle" has

"at the time of the visits of distinguished persons, or

are exhibited to fend off calamities."'^

During the

of his legendary

also been

when

ritual,

a

mvoked

other

priest

relics

exposes

the congealed blood before another reliquary supposed to contain the

martyr's skull (but which apparently contains only small

bone fragments).

Looking for a Miracle

78

"Give us our miracle! "beseech members of the congregation. "St. Januarius, delight us!" After a time, the liquefaction usually occurs, greeted

enthusiastic response,

and the reliquary may be taken on a procession

through the cathedral or even beyond. tradition holds that disaster

phenomenon

If the

ism," which his flock interpreted to

case

mean the "rise of Italian communism."'^)

eyewitness report was given by a Naples physician, Dr.

was held up and slowly

just in front of

my

He

described

rotated; then, Giorgi states:

After about four minutes, certainly no longer, nose, at a distance of

was disconcerted to

I

little

over three

blood had suddenly changed from the solid

clot of

to occur,

named "neopagan-

Giorgio Giorgi, in a 1970 Italian parapsychology journal.

how the

fails

imminent. (After one such failure the arch-

is

bishop of Naples, when pressed to identify the threat,

One modem

by an

feet, that

state into that

see

the

of

The transformation from solid into liquid happened suddenly and unexpectedly. The liquid itself had become much brighter, more a

liquid.

shining; so call

What

many

gaseous bubbles appeared inside the liquid (shall

blood?) that

it

it

seemed to be in a

state

of ebullition.

we

'*

Giorgi qualifies as seemingly ebullient, however, others characterize

by saying that the blood "melts, bubbles up, and flows down the of the vials" or even that using

less

"bubbles and boils."

it

Still

sides

others, however,

emotionally charged wording, merely say that the substance

is

seen to "froth."

Additional features of the Januarian

phenomenon

are reported. In

answer to skeptics who have suggested the liquefaction results from increased temperature (attributed to nearby candles and heat from those in the chapel, even to

electric lights,

warmth from

or to body

the priest's hands),

proponents of paranormal hypotheses counter that the phenomenon acts independently of temperature and sometimes occurs more readily in

May. blood would be

September than Actually, applied,

and

in

tests

accelerated in

its

coagulation

supposedly show the substance

is

again more recently, researchers were permitted to as to pass a

wall of the

beam

vial.

if

heat were

blood. In 1902 and tilt

the reliquary so

of light through the film that remained on the inner

They claimed

their resulting spectroscopic analysis

proved

the presence of genuine blood. It is

also maintained that, after

variations in

its

liquefaction, the substance exhibits

volume and weight. The normal

level in the vial

can either

79

Mystical Relics

or

rise

fall;

vice versa.

sometimes the weight decreases as the volume

Such data are reputed to be beyond

all

physical laws

to be a miracle, one incapable of even being duplicated

Catholic writer held that the various aspects of the the existence of

To and

phenomenon proved its

survival

and ultimately the "divine

at death, the legitimacy of "the cult of saints,"

no such

—indeed,

by a hoaxer. One

God, the existence of the human soul and

mission** of the Catholic Church. ^^

and

increases,

(The Church

itself,

however, makes

claims.)

assess the Januarian

I initiated

phenomenon,

John F. Fischer years and consisted

forensic analyst

an investigation that spanned several

of three major phases: (1) researching the provenance of the their legendary source; (2) studying the

vials,

including

observed phenomena; and

conducting relevant laboratory experiments. As

we

(3)

shall see, the "miracle**

does not fare well under such scrutiny.

The blood

relics'

provenance, for example,

to-suspicious range. First of aU, the

the existence of

San Gennaro

the undocumented-

Church has never been able

an actual

as

falls in

historic personage:

temporary reference to him has been discovered, nor does in

no

any of the early

Roman

martyrologies. Moreover, there

historical record for the saint's

unknown tion).

his

blood

to verify

No

con-

name appear is

absolutely

1389 (when an

relics prior to

traveler reported his astonishment at witnessing the liquefac-

And the legend of their acquisition —that Januarius's nurse was present

at his

beheading and obtained some of his blood in two

then placed in his funeral urn

—

is

as improbable as

legend dates from the sixteenth century,

it

vials that

is

were

modem. The

some two hundred

years after

the vials appeared in Naples.

The

suspicions that naturally follow

from

this

dubious provenance

when another fact is considered: There are additional saints' bloods liquefy some twenty in all and virtually every one of them is found

increase

—

that

in the

—

Naples area. Such proliferation, which a skeptical Father Herbert

Thurston termed "a rather useless manifestation of the divine omnipotence'*2o

—seems

less suggestive

of the miraculous than indicative of

some

regional secret.

Turning to the phenomenon that has garnered such attention, about

which more reports have supposedly been written than on any other miracle

of Catholicism,^'

it

is

important to note that no sustained

scientific

scrutiny of the blood relics has ever been permitted. Also, descriptions

of the liquefaction vary, and

it is

not always easy to separate what

may

be permutations in the phenomenon's occurrence from differences

at-

Looking for a Miracle

80

tributable to individual perceptions. ble with the miraculous

is

(Whether inconsistency

a question perhaps best

Assertions that the substance in the vials

is

left

compati-

is

to theologians.)

genuine blood are based

on spectroscopic analyses that employed antiquated equipment and were done under such poor conditions as to cast grave doubts on

solely

that

the results. Moreover, even

if

the assertions were accepted at face value,

the possibility of other substances being present

would have to be acknowl-

edged, and the researchers themselves admitted that certain dyes could

even be mistaken for hemoglobin. Indeed, the liquefied "blood" is altogether

more

viscous than genuine blood, which would, of course, remain dark

and coagulated. To

call that

which

blood" is at best to employ faulty

is

inconsistent with blood "miraculous

logic.

There are also serious problems with the weighings of the

vial that

are supposed to prove that the substance therein changes weight.

The

reported measurements were at best somewhat crude, and a recent authority reports, "Tests performed during the last five years

by using

electric

balances failed to confirm any weight variation. "22

As

to the alleged changes in volume,

variations, too, is

it

should be noted that those

"seem to be no longer reported. "23 in any event, there

a ready hypothesis to explain the alleged occurrence, based on the ob-

servation that the substance in the vial can apparently recongeal as quickly as

it

frequently seems to liquefy. Indeed, "the blood often solidifies during

the procession, despite the jarring of the swirled about

when

the material began to congeal,

the reliquary it

could even give the appearance that the vial was

—

was being

in

a tMckened

vial to

any height;

could

—coat the upper portion of the

and thus opaque film it

vial. "24 If

full.

According to

no means of telling whether the mass is solid throughout, or whether empty space is enclosed within a solid crust thus one authority, "there

is

accounting for the apparent variation in volume.25

Other claims associated with the "miracle" also tiny.

One

is

fail

to withstand scru-

the claim that the substance supposedly "boils." According

to one authority, the expression boiling, simply

is

"inexact." In fact, "There

And

no

actual

may appear on

the surface

as to the substance changing color

"from dark

a formation of foam"26

of almost any liquid.

—as

is

red to bright red,"^^ that appears to correlate exactly with the liquefaction. Therefore, is

it

may

simply be due to the fact that

congealed no light passes through

light;

however, when

dle) is held

it

it

and

it is

when

the substance

viewed only in reflected

has liquefied, and a flashlight (formerly a can-

behind the case,

light is transmitted

through the

vial.

Thus

Mystical Relics

seem

the "blood" can indeed

"much

(as described earlier)

81

brighter,

more

shining." Finally, there

festation that has

is

the liquefaction

been the subject of

have long suspected that

this is

occurs in

—

May and

—whatever the

substance in the vials

denied by the miraculists

nomenon sometimes perature is warmer

it is

is

—

is

it

warmed.

sufficiently

May, when the temdoes take place more often in

December but not

also true that

is

—who point out that the phe-

it

in

September. In addition, as a skeptical Father Thurston pointed

out concerning the other liquefying blood feast

of debate. Skeptics

literally centuries

melting whenever the reliquary

susceptible to

Although

the essential Januarian mani-

itself,

days of

all

the saints involved

fall in

relics in

the

Actually, the subject of temperature

is

the Naples area, the

warm season.28 much more complex

implied by a discussion of the time of year involved. significance than the

outdoor temperature

is

than

is

Of more obvious

the indoor one. While

it is

true that the miraculists publish tables presumably demonstrating lack of

constant relationship between church temperature and the time for liquefaction to occur, they completely ignore

it

been

its

at that

takes

multiplicity of addi-

For example, what was the temperature of the

tionally relevant factors.

reliquary in

a

it

niche (or, in recent years,

its

vault),

and how long had

temperature before being brought to the proximity of electric

lights, candles,

people, and other thermally radiating sources?

Other factors to be considered are the humidity, the thermal conducof the surface the reliquary rests on in

tivity

its

vault, the heat of the

hands holding the reliquary (a source of heat apparently not applied to the thermometer used Suffice

it

by Neapolitan

researchers),

and many other

factors.

to say that despite the scientific appearance fostered by publishing

multi-colunm tables,

scientific rigor

has scarcely

made

its

acquaintance

with the Januarian phenomenon.

What can be

said,

by way of approximation,

seems to occur at about the 27°

C

room temperature

(or about 66.2-80.6° F),

and

is

that the liquefaction

of the chapel, about 19-

after the lapse of varying times de-

pending on certain physical factors. Rationalist scholar Pierre Saintyves insisted the liquefaction

never takes place

17° C. Indeed, the ritual

was formerly

when

also

the temperature

due to the colder temperature

—and

16,

—appar-

those observances have been

discontinued.

Saintyves theorized that the substance

below

performed on December

but the liquefaction occurred relatively rarely on those occasions ently

is

was blood, to which

—

^to

pre-

Looking for a Miracle

82

vent decomposition

—some

preservative such as "essence of balsam or

aromatic resin" had been added.

A

mixture of blood and

wax

has also

been suggested, as have additional concoctions: blood and chalk; an aqueous suspension of chocolate powder, casein, and other ingredients; a mixture of tallow, ether, and carmine; and so on.

Not

surprisingly, there

were problems

—of homogeneity

ture stratified into three layers), of effect (for example, vial

mix-

one experimental

has to be heated in a candle flame), of history (neither chocolate nor

was

ether nor carmine

available in Italy in the fourteenth century),

of the probable effects of age

John Fischer and

(resins, for

example, might harden over

have offered our

I

own

problem. As a "thought experiment" consider a drying

To

(the tallow

it

which

solid,

added a substance

"generic** solution to the vial half-filled

with a non-

(e.g.,

melted beeswax) that forms a mixture

room temperature. Only a small amount that, when the whole is cool, the mixture is

normally congealed at

is

of this

time).^^

that will remain liquid at even cool temperatures.

oil (e.g., olive oil) is

and

is

but

added, sufficient

when

slightly

warmed, the

trace of congealing substance melts

—slowly or even quite suddenly—the mixture be added —say dragon's blood, known from and

liquefies.

A pigment must and popular

classical times

Middle Ages. (Leaving aside such an oil-and-wax mixture, there

in the

are substances that already have the sharp temperature gradient necessary

to reproduce the Januarian

Along such

lines,

"St. Februarius**)

say

this:

we

are

phenomenon

—coconut

we have produced our own

which perform with

oil,

vials

normalists.

of "blood** (dubbed

sufficient success to

however accurately we may have guessed the

much

for example.)

secret,

permit us to

we

closer to the formula than anything proposed

As one

authority states:

"A

very important fact

will

wager

by the parais

that lique-

faction has occurred during repair of the casket, a circumstance in which it

seems highly unlikely that In 1991, before

made

God would work a miracle.**^

we could publish our research, a team of Italian scientists

international headlines with their

own

solution to the Januarian

mystery. Writing in the journal Nature, Prof Luigi Garlaschelli (Depart-

ment of Organic Chemistry, University of Pavia) and two colleagues from Milan, Franco Ramaccini and Sergio Delia Sala, proposed "that thixotropy

may furnish an explanation.** A when

agitated

and of

scientists, creating

thixatropic gel

resolidifying

is

one capable of liquefying

when allowed

to stand.

The

Italian

such a gel by mixing chalk and hydrated iron chloride

with a small amount of

salt

water, reported a convincing replication of

the Januarian phenomenon.^' (See Figures 7 and

8.)

83

Mystical Relics

In response, Bernard to review our

work

Leikind

J.

—a physicist who had been kind enough

—commented that he found the

Italians' idea "plausible,

you considered." While noting that the precise answer "cannot be decided until tests on the material are made," Leikind concluded: "The real point is that since there are at least two plausible naturalistic as

is

the one that

explanations for the liquefaction, both well within the range of normal

behavior of materials, there

Januarius

is

no reason

and the Pozzuoli Stone

Associated with the legendary his

"blood"

St.

Januarius

—not that contained in the

volving a quite different

Housed

to require divine intervention. "32

in the

from Naples,

relic

vials in

Naples but rather one

purportedly the stone

upon which Januarius'

course, as skeptics have explained, stones

axe or sword. Therefore, the pious

damage

may choose an

the blade of the

alternate legend. This

—a block of marble featuring an oblong cavity—was

the basin in which Januarius' nurse (or serving

her hands after

discussion.

a town about nine miles

are never used for beheadings because they will

holds that the stone

in-

at Pozzuoli,

Of

execution was carried out.

another "miracle" involving

and thereby warranting a separate

monastery church

this relic is

is

filling vials

The stone stands

in

woman), Eusebia, washed

with the martyr's blood.

a niche where lighting and viewing conditions

are not the best. Nevertheless, at least "under electric light," the stone's cavity "seems" to be "reddish

brown, with unevenly distributed spots."

Supposedly, the cavity reddens ples,

when

Januarius' blood liquefies in

Na-

although skeptics attribute this perception of reddening to pious

imagination and focused lighting. Nevertheless, "people say" that the stone

sometimes exudes blood, as

also

church dedicated to bled

St.

on September 19

it

reportedly did in 1860

Januarius caught

fire.

The

when a Neapolitan

stones also allegedly

(the martyr's feast day) in 1894. Bits of cotton

were supposedly used to sponge off the blood on these occasions. According to one writer

On May ther

who has researched the 31, 1926,

Pozzuoli

phenomenon

it

some

length:

one of these pieces of cotton was submitted by Fa-

Padulano to the laboratory of legal medicine

revealed that

at

contained

human

blood.

Of

at Naples.

The

analysis

course the narration of this

case necessitates the use of the conditional tense, because nothing can

prove that it is not a product of fraud, even though it may be unintentional,^^

— Looking for a Miracle

84

There has been considerable speculation over what causes the exudations:

It

has been supposed that heat or humidity used to cause them, but

seems

this hypothesis

after

false.

On

September

1902, Prof. Sperindeo,

19,

having extinguished the candle in the chapel, took the tempera-

ture of the

room

every five minutes while the

phenomenon was going

on. This temperature remained constant, at 1° C, and even

had the

tendency to decrease at the end of the observation. In September 1927,

Monsignor Rocco used a hygrometer to measure the humidity

in the

The machine registered 62 when the spots became a vivid red, and 100 when they returned to dark red. This measurement remained niche.

constant during three consecutive days.

We

cannot therefore blame the

intervention of humidity.^^

Nevertheless, skeptics remain unconvinced. In fact, there are

numer-

ous reasons to doubt the PozzuoH "miracle," one reason being that the tales related

about the stone's reputedly preternatural properties exhibit

motifs (or narrative elements) as blood**

common

and "ineradicable bloodstain

many such

tales in

to folktales: "revenant

bloody

after

[i.e.,

tragedy. "^s

ghost]

There are

which each of these motifs appears.

when Tripas' son, Erysichthon, cut down a sacred oak in which Hved a Dryad (i.e., a wood nymph) blood flowed from the cuts of the axe.^^ Again, on an occasion when the Trojan hero Aeneas and his men gathered myrtle, they saw the wood For example,

in classical mythology,

—

was bleeding and heard the voice of

their

dead comrade Polydorus

call

out from his uiunarked grave.^^

Other stain.

tales

dramatize the supposedly "ineradicable" quality of a blood-

For example, there

is

the story of Castle Lockenhaus in Austria,

whose sixteenth-century owner, a Countess Bathori, was rumored to have murdered young

girls

and to have drunk

their blood.

Under

the castle

faint,

brownish patch of earth that turns blood-red whenever

rain falls

on

"Efforts have been

no

Some

arch

is

a

avail.

it.

made

to

mysterious power has given

explanation and the power of the castle's caretaker

tells

modem

is

it

stain,

but with

a permanence that

science to get rid of

it.^^^

defies

Or so

credulous tourists. Apparently the "blood" has

never been analyzed and confirmed as such. in the rain, there

remove the

As

to the stain's reddening

nothing unusual about that since moisture typically

brightens a dull color.

Another

indelible-stain story

was one

that

John

F. Fischer

and

I

— Mystical Relics

an eastern Kentucky farmhouse with

investigated in 1978. It involved

—

mysterious sounds and a door that "bleeds" old tragedy. Investigation, however, turned

sounds, and analysis of the blackish stain

We

was not blood. ing leaves,

dirt, etc.

85

attributed to a century-

all

up mundane sources for the on the door revealed that it

traced the streaks to water-borne substances

—that had washed down from the roof

—decay-

^9

In the case of the Pozzuoli stone "miracle," one authority has observed: "It

is

made with

no

regrettable that

analysis of the

sufficient control." In

exudations would tend to be

less

any

phenomenon has

yet been

case, authorities indicate that "the

evident nowadays,"^ although this fact

has not kept the matter from being hyped by popular writers and miraculists.

More

recently, additional proofs against the authenticity of

legend and the miracle have been discovered. actually

comes from a sixth-century marble

traces, they are

phenomenon

altar.'*'

now known to be residues of old

in

which the "blood" of the

As

it

both the

turns out, the stone

And

as for the reddish

paint! ^2 Lij^g the Januarian

saint periodically liquefies, the

Pozzuoli "miracle" appears to be simply a pious hoax launched in earlier times

—

in

both cases the

to deceive the credulous.

"relics" It

being no more than fabrications intended

seems

that,

over the centuries, they have been

eminently successful.

The Incorruptibles

Among

the most incredible of relics are the entire corpses of saints and

other holy persons that have remained incorrupt

succumbed to decay even though

their bodies

—

i.e.,

that have not

were supposedly neither

embalmed nor otherwise preserved by artificial means. Their study broaches such subjects as death and burial, disinterment, and preservation of bodies topics that the writer of a credulous at first

appear of morbid and macabre

to be stimulating

and fraught with

The earliest-known St. Cecilia, the

saint

book on interest,

the subject admits "would

but which eventually proved

mystery."'*^

whose body was supposedly

incorruptible

was

patroness of music. Martyred about A.D. 177, she became

the subject of a legend that in actuality truth," according to

is

"a fabrication devoid of historical

an authoritative dictionary of

saints. In fact, the story

of St Cecilia's virginal marriage (she was forced to

wed

against her will

but retained her virginity by converting her husband to Christianity) was plagiarized

from a popular

history .''^

Looking for a Miracle

86

when Pope Paschal

In any case, in the year 822,

I

desired to relocate

her remains in a place of honor but was unable to find her grave, says

a further legend,

More than

the location.

of the

appeared to him in a dream and revealed

St. Cecilia

saint's basilica,

seven centuries

later, in

1599, during restoration

two marble sarcophagi were discovered, one of which

contained her reportedly incorrupt body. scarcely looked at the body, let alone

I

say reportedly because the clerics

examined

it:

Peering through the ancient veil which covered the body, they noted that Cecilia

was of small

stature

and that her head was turned downward,

but due to a "holy reverence," no further examination was made.'*^

Since the face was apparently not in view and the body was fully clothed

and observed only through a the remains,

much

less

how

veil,

could one

know

the condition of

be certain that the body had not been embahned?

came from a noble family who would have been expected to provide her with full funerary treatment. If the body had been eviscerated and treated inside and out with resin, which was used in antiquity for embalming, and if other conditions were favorable, the body might well have been preserved. Cecilia

Given

this possibility, the

reportedly emanated

"mysterious and delightful flower-like odor" which

from

Cecilia's coffm'*^

might be considered evidence

of the use of an aromatic resin like balsam (an oleoresin containing the preservative benzoic acid

A off

two years

Then

St.

body

there

is

now

is

the

"dry

may .

.

in

some

who

has been beatified but

The corpse emitted "a sweet fragrance" and

saint.)

it

embalmed

with only a slight tendency to dark-

applied to one

is

exuded a "blood-fluid." (In recent tion of the body,"

.

well have been

body of Blessed Mattia Nazzarei of Matelica (1252-

(The term blessed

not yet canonized a

account for the "suave fragrance" given

Sperandia (1216-1276) which was found intact

death and

after her

fashion. (The

1319).

may

similar explanation

by the body of

en.")

and commonly used for embalming).'*^

years, in light of "a slight deterioria-

has been "enclosed in plastic") The funeral

rites

for St. Antoninus (1389-1459) were delayed for eight days (a situation that

would

certainly

seem to

invite

embalming), but during that time the

body remained "intensely fragrant." Similarly, the body of St. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (1566-1607), which was entombed beneath the high altar of

a monastery church and disinterred a year

into the cloister),

liquor as

oil,

was found

well preserved

more odiferous

later (to

be moved

and soon began to exude "... a

[odoriferous: fragrant] than balm."^

87

Mystical Relics

more than one instance of an "incorruptible" corpse, investigation has shown that the body had, in fact, been embalmed. For example an examination of the corpse of St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) revealed that, in actuality, "the body of the Saint had been embalmed in the usual manner shortly after death." (A credulous writer states that "this was not held directly responsible for the preservation of the body almost three hundred years after the Saint's death," yet one should keep in mind several additional facts: that the body was never buried in the ground but in a tomb; that its condition was monitored on several occasions, with new vestments and coffins being provided; that, when it was found in a humid environment, it was removed until the condition was rectified; and that In

it

has been kept during the past three centuries in a presumably airtight

reliquary under excellent environmental conditions.)'*^

Another example after his

is

that of St. Philip Neri (1515-1595).

he was interred, above the

arch of the nave in a small chapel,

first

body was found "covered with cobwebs and dust"

served

yet so well pre-

—medical men attested —as to be "undoubtedly miraculous." This

case merely indicates the state of credulity, even

time (or else the peer pressure they fact

Four years

—as has always been known—

body embalmed

in

felt

physicians, at the

to attest to the miraculous). In

were removed and the

Philip's "viscera

a simple fashion after the Saint's autopsy in 1595."

Also a recent reference to the body's the corpse

among

"last

embalmment"

suggests that

had been repeatedly maintained.^o

The condition of many incorruptible

is

frankly

saints' corpses that

unknown

—or

at least has

have been pronounced

gone unreported

in the

standard text on the subject, Joan Carroll Cruz's The Incorruptibles (1977).

Among them

is St.

Alphege of Canterbury (954-1012), whose body was

reportedly free of corruption in 1022 although tioned. Also,

"no trace or

relic

remains" of

whether the remains have been preserved or

St.

its

present state

Waltheof

(d.

is

unmen-

1159) to say

not.^'

Moreover, numerous supposedly incorruptible bodies have been destroyed

—some during the Reformation (when estants), others

relic

veneration was attacked by Prot-

during the French Revolution and at other times. For example,

during the religious wars of 1561, Protestants burned the corpse of Blessed

Bertrand of Garrigua

(d. 1230),

and French revolutionaries

in 1791 buried

the corpse of St. Jeanne de Lestonnac (1556-1640) in a pit with a horse's carcass

where the body was reduced to a skeleton. What the

incorruptible bodies

state

of such

would have been had they had not been destroyed

a question best answered in

light

of those corpses that have remained.

is

Looking for a Miracle

88

In

many

additional cases, details of burial, exhumation,

pletely unreported so that there

a claim of

no

real basis

on which

are

com-

to honestly base

Take the body of St. Margaret of Cortona There is no mention of her body not being

incorruptibility.

(1247-1297) for instance.

embalmed

is

etc.,

in

some way, or of the conditions

interment. (The corpse

is

now

prevailing during her original

described as "dry.**) Another example

that of Blessed Margaret of Lorraine (1463-1521)

—puzzlingly

is

listed as

an incorruptible, even though her body was apparently not exhumed for 250 years, whereupon the remains were found in the form of a skeletal body.** Still

For

other

(Only a few bones relics

must be

instance, although St.

reportedly remained

on the

now

exist.)52

classified as, at best,

Coleman tree "for

(d.

1012)

formerly incorruptible.

was hanged and

when

his grave

his

body

such a lengthy period that the preser-

vation was acknowledged as miraculous," nevertheless that were found

"thin,

it

was

was subsequently opened.

his "bones'*

(In this case

we must wonder at the accuracy of the original account, which may be no more trustworthy than other medieval legends.) Similarly, the body of St. Edward the Confessor (1004-1066) was exhumed thirty-six years after his death and found "perfectly incorrupt"; yet when the coffin was opened in 1685, the remains "had been reduced to a skeleton." The body of St. Albert the Great (1206-1280)

now

is

another case of former incorruptibil-

Then there is the case of St. Agnes of Montepulciano (1268-1317). When her body was placed inside the walls of a church's main altar, "unfortunately the tomb retained an excessive amount of humidity and this provoked the decomposition of ity:

the remains

"consist only of bones."

most of the body."

A Rome

similar fate struck the once incorruptible

body of

St.

Francis of

(1384-1440) which was discovered preserved several months after

when

her death

was opened two

was

it

transferred to a tomb.

However, when the tomb

centuries later, "only the bones were

found

at this time."

Likewise, "only the skeleton remains" of the Blessed Eustochia of

(1444-1469), which was reportedly incorruptibles

who

still

Padua

preserved as late as 1633. Other

eventually turned to skeletons included St. Cuthbert (d.

John of God (14951550), St. Stanislaus Kostka (1550-1568), Blessed Alphonsus de Orozco (1500-1591), St. Camillus de Lellis (1505-1614), and Blessed Rose PhiUppine Duchesne (1769-1852). Although St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is cited 687), St.

among the fact

Anthony Maria Zaccaria (1502-1539),

the saints is

St.

whose bodies have supposedly remained

that his

body was embalmed; even

incorruptible,

so, eventually "only dust

89

Mystical Relics

\ and bones were found." Another embalmed 5oise

relic

was

that of St. Jeanne Fran-

de Chantal (1572-1641) which nevertheless became

St Jeanne,

•*A composite figure of

skeletalized; today,

clad in the habit of her order, contains

the bones of the Saint which are connected with silver cords." Similarly the

bones of the once incorruptible St Vincent de Paul (1580-1660) are **encased in

a wax

figure," as are those

of

many

San Severino (1653-1721), St Veronica

dfico of

Anna Maria Taigi (1769-1837), and St Still

Pierre

other "incorruptible" bodies are

mified; that

is,

the

body

is

desiccated

others, including

now

St Pa-

Giuliani (1660-1727), Blessed

JuUen Eymard (181 1-1868).53

more accurately described

as

mum-

—a condition that can occur naturally

under certain conditions (such as being kept in a dry tomb or catacombs)^ or be induced by embalming. For instance, the body of St. Urbald of

Gubbio (c. 1100-1160) was officially examined in 1960 and found to have "become quite mummified, having brown, dry skin with the texture of

—scarcely a description suggestive of miraculous incorruptibility.

leather"

Similarly, there is

is

body of

the dismembered

St.

Agatha

(d. 251),

which

preserved in different reliquaries, with only the arms, legs, and breasts

being exhibited in a glass case. Although described as "incorrupt" they

and dark."

are acknowledged to be "rather dried

Similarly the

body of

St.

somewhat dark and dry." Again

walled reliquary, "appears

cotpse of Blessed rupt

Andrew Franchi

on being viewed

in 1911; but

a medical report "described head

is

Zita (1218-1278), viewed through her glass-

without hair and

the point of the nose,

all

is

it

there

is

the

(1335-1401), reportedly labeled incor-

when

it

was

as being completely

last

examined

in 1966,

mummified." Also, "The

detached from the body, while the upper

lip,

the toes, and parts of the fingers are missing."

The body of Blessed Osanna of Mantua (1449-1505) has likewise become "hazel brown" and "is tried and darkened and wrinkled with age," and that of St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617) was supposedly discovered incorrupt although a few years later it was "found somewhat wasted and desiccated."

A

similar description attends the remains of St. Vincent Pallotti (1795-

1850): In 1949 they

were found "dry,

and face required covering

—the

partially

latter

munmiified," yet the hands

with "a silver

impression of the original death mask."

mask made from

the

The same treatment was given

the relic of St. Madeleine Sophie Barat (1779-1865). Likewise, forty-five

years after the death of St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney (1786-1859), his

remains were found "dried and darkened," but the viscera were removed as

a conservation measure and the face was "covered with a wax mask

which reproduces the features of the servant of God."^^

Looking for a Miracle

90

What was

described as "a slight mummification" affected the corpse

of St. Catherine Laboure (1806-1876).

It

must have seemed threatened

because "to insure the preservation of the body" there was injected into it

"a solution of formaldehyde, glycerine and carbolic acid"

(One does wonder why

—

(i.e.,

an em-

body was as intact as described the "incorrupt hands" were amputated and kept in a separate reliquary, having been replaced in situ by wax hands.^*^) In some cases artificial means have been used to help preserve a corpse balming

fluid).

the

if

—

or to conceal

its

poor condition

—even though miraculists continue to

cite

these saints' relics as evidence of incorruptibility. Take, for instance, St.

Edmund Rich

of Canterbury (1180-1240), whose body was pronounced

incorrupt "several years after his death" but which

with skin resembling parchment"; that artificial

we

is

learn that "in later years

methods were employed to conserve

corpse of St. Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308) fectly flexible"

—yet whose body

is

"now brown

it."

is

the

—described as "dry but per-

almost totally concealed in robes, the

remarkable case involves the corpse of

body was reported

appears

Again there

head covered with a crown, and the face shielded with a 1444). His

it

in color

St.

veil.

A

more

Bemardine of Siena (1380-

as incorruptible twenty-six years after death.^^

However, The body has been examined

several times during the years, the last

examination occurring in August 1968. The body

wrapped

in

tobacco leaves, and

it

was determined

at that

time was found

that preservatives

had

been used during a previous exhumation. Parts of the body are held together by various means, and chemicals were applied to the relic to

maintain

its

condition.^s

Less serious

is

the state of preservation of St. Rita of Cascia (1381-

1457). Despite reports to the contrary, her

have been replaced

many times

garments are not original but

over the ages. About 1650 the body, which

appears to be mummified,^^ began to show signs of deterioration.

eyebrow and a cheekbone became dislodged and were "repaired with

and

One wax

two medical examinations of 1743 and 1892 indicate." The corpse of St. Catherine of Bologna (1413-1463), which became string as the

"darkened" over the centuries, is supposedly still "incorrupt" although during

World War II the hands and feet required "a light coat of wax for protection," and in 1953 these relics received a "protective covering" in the form of a glass urn. Sometimes the maintenance of an "incorruptible" corpse can

Mystical Relics

91

take a bad turn, as was the case with that of Blessed Archangela Girlani

(1460-1495): the face

when

was examined

it

was injured

at this time

in 1932, "unfortunately this skin of

by the faulty application of a chemical,

which stripped away part of the flesh." (Had

this

not occurred, one wonders,

would any mention have been made of the "chemical"?) Better

results

body of St. Angela Merci (1474-1540) which is kept in a glass case in the Casa St. Angela in Brescia, Italy, and has the appearance of an ornately dressed and crowned

were undoubtedly obtained with another

mummy.

In 1930 a priest

natural resin to preserve

made "a chemical

it."

In

still

the

treatment of the

relic

Likewise, the relic of St. Benedict the

(1526-1589) having became "a "the face of the Saint

relic,

with

Moor

dry and hard" and rather unsightly,

little

was covered some time ago with a

wax

thin

mask."*^

other cases the reputed incorruptibility appears to be some-

what uneven. Consider, for example, the body of the Blessed James of Bevagna (1220-1301). Although the left foot was purloined as a relic, the remainder is supposedly "perfectly entire"; however, the face, hands, and right foot are said to

be "the best parts." In another case, that of

Peregrine Laziosi (1265-1345), are exposed, the lower legs

weU covered with

is

and

which

flesh,

Josaphat (1580-1623)

we

are told, "Although

feet, is

some of

of a predominately black color."

is

Still

Lucy

Filippini (1672-1732),

A

silver net,

little,

many

of the features

For example the remains of

St.

and

this

"6'

contoured to resemble her features.

other cases seem to exhibit

sidered thus far.

similar state

whose "venerable

the only part of the relic which has suffered a

covered with a

St.

held to be in "an amazing state of preservation,"

attends the corpse of St. is

the bones

the arms, skull, neck and chest are

although "the face has predominately skeletal features."

face ...

St.

we have con-

Nicholas of Tolentino

(1245-1305) were supposed to be incorrupt and placed on exhibit,

whereupon someone amputated pletely

his arms. Subsequently, the

body "com-

decomposed" except for the arms, which became "mummified";

yet the remains have been "arranged in a simulated figure that

ered by an Augustinian habit" and the skull "covered with

silver.

is

cov-

"^^

In at least two instances, the body of a saint remained relatively incorrupt (eventually seeming to

mummify), even though means had been taken to

hasten the decomposition. 1552) and

was

first

was done so that the

home from an coffin

The

island in the

raised

lime." Eventually

was

saint's

that of St. Francis Xavier (1506-

bones might more

Far East. Nevertheless,

and the body found to be it

easily

after ten

weeks "the

perfectly preserved

became "dry and shrunken

in size"

be sent

under the

and the

interior

— Looking for a Miracle

92

had to be braced with

wires, although the mystery of

to the "destructive agent" of the lime

is still

original resistance

its

no

cited. In reality there is

mystery: Contrary to popular belief, the chemical does not hasten the destruction but actually has a preservative effect

combines with body insects

A

and

bacteria,

on a

produce a hard soap that

fat to

and retards

second instance, the

putrefaction.

of

relic

St.

corpse! resists

"The lime

invasion by

*'63

Paschal Baylon (1540-1592), also

—used

involved the application of "quicklime"

"so that the flesh would

be quickly consumed, producing glossy white bones," which were felt "would look impressive in a shrine." After eight months in "this caustic agent" the body was discovered to be "miraculously preserved in the flesh." Knowing the true effects of lime,

who

of the priest

we can understand

stated at the time:

—

if not

"Human

—the wonderment

share in

language

is

inadequate to

portray such a spectacle."^

To summarize

this litany

some notable

there are indeed

of examples,

it

should be clear that while

instances of preservation of saints' corpses,

many accompanying reasons to account for them: embalming (sometimes unknown to the viewer or deliberately concealed), natural mummification (fostered by tomb or catacomb rather than earthen there are also

—

burial), periodic

But, as bility

examination and conservation of the

we have

also seen,

many

—more importantly—are

numerous

to bones or have

to be placed

Such

on

facts

instances in

had

and so on.

of the instances of alleged incorrupti-

cannot be verified or

the facts:

relics,

clearly disproved

by

which the bodies were eventually reduced

to be subjected to extensive restoration in order

view.

can serve as an antidote to exaggerated claims for

—claims

corruption

like

in-

those captioning the cover photo of a credulous

book. The Incorruptibles. The caption reads: "The incorrupt body of Saint

Bemadette Soubirous of Lourdes, France (1844-1879), preserved for 100 years without

embalming or other

artificial

means."

intact

Now it would

take an autopsy by independent authorities to determine whether (like the corpse of St. Catharine Laboure) St. Bemadette had been given injections

of embalming

body was

first

fluid.

But in any event, the book does note that when the

exhumed,

thirty years after St.

found "emaciated," and ten years a wax mask.65 jhis explains the

Bemadette's death,

later the face

lifelike

had

it

was

to be covered with

appearance of the saints

who appear

in close-up photos. It is also well

by other

to keep in

mind

that this

phenomenon

religious traditions, including Buddhists,^

is

likewise claimed

and there are

parallel

I

Mystical Relics

93

examples of the incorruptibility of bodies even of ordinary people. For example, a young

man who had

Bremen

fallen into the lead cellar of the

Cathedral in the eighteenth century was discovered "in an excellent state of preservation.*' requested burial

open

in their

Soon afterward,"members of the German aristocracy there and their mummified bodies can now be viewed

caskets. "^^

Small wonder that the author of The Incorruptibles concedes:

The presence or absence of faith

with which one would accept this

who

undoubtedly determine the viewpoint

will

phenomenon of incomiption. For those

habitually search for a natural socioeconomic explanation for every-

thing, there are

no arguments which

will suffice to satisfy their

doubts.^

Burning Handprints

A curious phenomenon that hitherto seems to have received little attention outside of religious sources

the "Mystery of the Burning Handprints**

is

(according to an article of that

title).^

pages of books or onto consecrated cloths or the like to be

from the unrequited

of the dead.

spirits

According to the story behind one such At the end of the

17th century there

agreed that the one

who

first

the next world. Father Meringer died

knocking at

his door.

1 1

He was

in the castle of

Georg Meringer.

died

In October 1659, toward

"relic":

was a profound friendship between

Romedius

the hermit of the chapel of St.

the priest and dean of Thaur,

and

it

was for

this

o'clock at night, the hermit heard

message.

someone

in the process of decorating the altar of

wooden box. He subsequently

celebrate

two masses

fate.

During

that

had been paid

his lifetime for,

reason that he was stUl suffering in purgatory.

The hermit asked this

had

said that both

first.

heard the voice of the dead priest bemoaning his

had forgotten to

It is

Thaur and

would give the other a sign from

the chapel with paper flowers stored in a

the priest

—scorched into the —are usually alleged

The handprints

Lo and

for a sign to confirm the supernatural nature of

behold, suddenly he saw the imprint of a burning

hand appear on the bottom of the Thereafter the hermit saw to celebrated. Finally, in

box of flowers. that the two masses

little

it

in question

were

a dream, Father Meringer appeared to him and

told of his deliverance.'^

Looking

94

for a Miracle

Afterward, Emperor Franz

II

of Austria closed the church, prompting

the resident priest to write in his journal (dated 1784):

"By supreme

order,

our House of God, being considered superfluous and unimportant for the pastorate, had to be closed. In our 'enlightened' epoch, the contem-

even in another church,

plation of the

relic,

transferred the

box to

behind a protective

the

What is German

his

not allowed." The priest

own room, but today it is exhibited for veneration

grille in

the

little

church of

St.

Romedius.

the rationale behind such burning handprints? According to mystic, Margarete Schaeffner

burning handprints on cloth on at

from

is

—who claimed to have received occasions — imprints were

least five

^the

purgatory. (In Catholic teachings, purgatory

spirits in

or condition, of temporary punishment wherein those grace must expiate their

sins.

died in God's

Theologians have held that in purgatory

by material

souls are actually "tormented

who

a place,

is

fire.''^i)

Thus Georg Siegmund

has suggested that the imprints "may have been symbolic allusions to the 'sweeping

mund he

fire'

which cleanses the soul." But by "symbolic allusions" Sieg-

does not

states,

"In

of the dead

mean

my

to imply that the imprints are not genuine. Indeed,

opinion these apparitions were materializations

—souls

who physically materialized for a short time in order to manifest

themselves in the world of our senses. "^2

Siegmund nonmaterial

is

aware of the apparent contradiction in supposing that

entities, as spirits are

bum

imagined to be, can actually

even leave traces on physical objects. "However," he says,

or

does not

"it

we should reject cases such as those outlined here." He adds: "Even if we are not in a position to explain the actual process by which such materializations form, the evidence of this phenomenon is so strong that we can hardly doubt its reality." Then, as if supporting

follow that therefore

his assertion rather

than undermining

his very next sentence, "It

it

noteworthy,

is

seriously, I

Siegmund

asserts, in

think, that the size

and the

form of the burned handprints do not always correspond to the normal anatomical

size

and structure of the human hand."^^ By

reasoning, that which

is

prima facie evidence of fakery

this

is

convoluted

actually taken

as support for the miraculous!

In this light, consider the example provided by a little eighteenth-century

prayer book, only about 6 x 10 centimeters, that

is

the respository for

another manifestation of burned handprints. The imprint of the fingers,

palm, and wrist has penetrated from the eighteenth page of the opened

book, through ten previous occurred

leaves, to the front cover.

when a member of

Supposedly

this

the Hackenberg family in Czechoslovakia

— 95

Mystical Relics

was returning from a pilgrimage which he had undertaken in order to fulfill a pledge made to his deceased father. During his morning prayers he suddenly

am

saying: "I

leave

I

awoke

asleep,

fell

whereupon

his father

delivered [from purgatory].

you a burned handprint

in

appeared and spoke to him,

As a

sign of

it,

this story

morning

becomes even

— when we consider that— as Siegmund concedes

^"the

the

hand was no

an

adult. "^5

deliverance,

your prayer book." Then the pilgrim

to find the imprint at the very location of the

Improbable on the face of

my

prayer.^"* less credible

burned imprint of

larger than that of a child, whereas the deceased

Siegmund seems unable or unwilling

to

was

draw the obvious

conclusion, speaking lamely about "the possibility that the story has been

and adding

altered over the years"

Indeed

itself."

hand to

the

so

is

the

does,

it

fit

and

the page

a

thumb and

little

detail that points to

anatomy

the crudeness of the

relic

speaks for

bespeaks fakery. The scaling of the

it

is

"But the

defensively,

(as

shown

in

an amateurish

size

of

forger;

a photo), since both

finger appear proportionally too long. Also (as

one

observer noted), "The fingers give the impression of being composed only

of bones"^6

—a

fact that

makes

little

sense in terms of the pilgrim's story

but would be consistent with a hot cast-metal "hand" which, unlike a real

human

hand, failed to flatten

rigid so that

A

a

slightly

when

pressed, instead remaining

lesser surface area imprinted.

German

cloth said to bear "the imprint of six charred fingers"^^

a sign supposedly left by a soul in purgatory best speaks for

itself.

Yet another

is

—

is

another "relic" that perhaps

a thumbprint burned into a sixteenth-

book of sermons that today reposes in the library of the dean of Hall in the Tyrol. The bum penetrates the leather cover and sixty-

century

four of the volume's antique pages, leaving a its

sharpness and depth,"^^

if

Another scorched book in

not for is

bum

that

is

"notable for

its credibility.

a missal kept in a church in the Saar (now

Germany). During celebration of a Mass for a deceased

supposedly appeared in the book to mark selected passages.

priest,

scorches

A "clairvoyant"

in the congregation claimed she

saw the shadow of an apparition twice

approach the book and touch

with his finger, smoke arising from the

book each open the

time.

The

priest,

possibility that the

it

however, saw and smelled nothing, leaving

bums had been produced

this possibility gains credibility

from the

fact that (as

Siegmund

pages were as cool as those of any hoaxer!

Indeed, notes),

book were never book and tumed the

"curiously enough, the margins or the blank pages of the

touched. "79 Apparently the hands that opened the

earlier.

96

Looking for a Miracle There

is

one case that departs from the souls-in-purgatory

at least

genre, although

no

it is

less instructive

on a

volves a burned handprint

—in more

great

oak

ways than one.

It in-

museum,

table in a Polish

supposedly once the tribunal table in the Hall of Justice. According to

a legend, during a lawsuit

in 1637

own and

property as his

bribed the judges.

widow

favor, the distressed

a wealthy nobleman claimed a widow's

When

they decided in his

Satan himself were the judge, he'd give a

cried: "If

on the wall and

gestured toward a crucifix

fairer

judgment." In

consequence, around midnight gathered judges wearing black wigs which concealed tiny horns. The judges forced the horrified court clerk to witness

The attorney

their "satanic tribunal."

for Satan presented the widow's case

and the occult tribunal found for the widow.

On

the crucifix, the legend

away in shame. The following day the clerk discovered the black handprint on the table the "seal" given to the case. One who has studied such relics described the imprint on the table as "rather large," adding: "What attracts our attention is that its digits do not resemble the imprints of different fingers; the impression given is more continues, Christ looked

—

diagrammatic than

realistic."

A photograph confirms this assessment^o

Other examples could be given, but these should be acterize this peculiar

form of

in these cases reveals

them

"relic"

and

its

sufficient to char-

attendant legends. Evidence

to be, at best, unsubstantiated

and

incredible,

and, at worst, probably spurious. Certainly, such burned imprints are easy to produce, as

my

example

in Figure 9 demonstrates.*'

Yet Siegmund

phenomenon, adding: "This same obtoday and underlies the crusade against the

disparages skepticism regarding the solete 'rationalism' survives

legitimacy of evidence for the paranormal." Just

phenomenon

seriously,

why we

should take the

he neglects to say.

Select Bibliography Brewer, E. 1884.

Cobham.

A

A

reference

Dictionary of Miracles. Philadelphia:

work

that includes

many examples

J. B.

Lippincott,

of incredible

relics

and

their legendary powers.

Tan Books and Publishers, account of more than a hundred cases of the phenomenon

Cruz, Joan Carroll. The Incorruptibles. Rockford, 1977.

A credulous

111.:

of the incorruption of saints' bodies. Nickell, Joe, with

John

F. Fischer, "Miraculous Blood," Chapter 9 of Mysteri-

ous Realms. Buffalo, N,Y,: Prometheus Books, 1992,

An

investigative look

Mystical Relics

at the liquefying

"blood" of

St.

97

Januarius and the related "miracle** of the

Pozzuoli stone.

Rogo, D.

Scott.

"The Miracle of

Parascientific Inquiry.

phenomenon of

the its

New

St.

St.

Januarius." Chapter 8 of Miracles:

York: Dial Press, 1982.

A

A

credulous account of

Januarius' liquefying "blood" with speculation as to

supposedly paranormal nature.

Siegmund, Georg. "Mystery of the Burning Handprints." Fate, June 1981: 4251.

1

Abridged from the author's presentation to a Catholic parapsychological

conference, an uncritical account of the

phenomenon of burned

handprints:

supposedly the marks of spirits in purgatory.

Notes Christopher Pick, ed.. Mysteries of the World (Secaucus, NJ.: Chart-

1.

well Books, 1929), p. 101. 2.

Ibid., p. 102.

3.

Ibid.

4.

St.

5.

Karl E. Meyer, "Were

Augustine, quoted in "Relics," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1973 ed.

August 1971,

Esquire,

New

6.

"Relics,"

7.

Meyer, "Were

8.

E.

Cobham

You There When They Photographed

My

Lord?"

p. 73.

Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967.

You There When They Photographed

Brewer,

A

My Lord?" p.

Dictionary of Miracles (Philadelphia:

73.

J. B.

Lip-

pincott, 1884), pp. 262-63.

Except as noted, information on such

9.

relics

comes from Joe Nickell, Inquest

on the Shroud of Turin (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1983; wherein additional documentation is given.

Howard W. Haggard,

10.

&

Row,

1929), p. 301;

Books, 1958),

i

and Doctors (New York: Harper The Saints (New York: Hawthorn

Devils, Drugs,

John Coulson,

ed..

p. 439.

11.

Seen.

12.

Nickell, Inquest, p. 53.

13.

Except as noted, information on

8.

St.

Januarius

is

adapted from Joe Nickell

with John F. Fischer, Mysterious Realms (Buffalo, N. Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992).

James Hansen, "Can Science Allow Miracles?" New Scientist, April 8, pp. 73-76; David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Ox-

14. j

!

rev. ed. 1987),

1982, ford:

Clarendon, 1978),

p. 208.

15.

Kathrine Jason, "Bubbling Blood," Omni, July 1982,

16.

From an

p. 92.

English translation of David Guerdon, "Le sang de Saint Janvier

Looking for a Miracle

98

se liquefie et se cogule depuis des siecles," Psi International Bimestrial 5 (1978):

9-29.

Out on a Journey of No Return," Time,

May

17.

"Starting

18.

Giorgio Giorgi, quoted in translation in D. Scott Rogo, Miracles

York: Dial Press, 1982), 19.

celebre miracle de Saint Janvier a Napels et a Pouzzoles

Beauchesne, 1909),

p. 346.

Guerdon, "Le sang du Saint Janvier."

20.

Quoted

21.

Rogo, Miracles,

22.

Ennio Moscarella, Ilsangue di

by Prof. Luigi

in

p. 189.

Gerlaschelli et

al., letter

Gennaro vescovo e martire

S.

to Joe Nickell,

23.

Moscarella, Ilsangue di S. Gennaro, p. 401.

24.

Guerdon, "Le sang de Saint Janvier."

25.

John Coulson,

ed..

York: Hawthorn, 1958), 26.

(New

p. 193.

Leon Cavene, Le

(Paris: Gabriel

17, 1976, p. 25.

The

Saints:

A

November

(1989), cited

5, 1991.

Concise Biographical Dictionary

(New

p. 239.

Hubert Larcher, Le sang: peut-il vaincre

la

mort?

([Paris]:

Librairie

Gallimard, 1957), p. 277. 27. Ibid., p. 278. 28.

Guerdon, "Le sang du Saint Janvier."

29.

See

30.

Coulson, The Saints,

n. 13. p. 239.

31. Luigi Garlaschelli et

"Scientists

Say

'Miracle'

No

al.,

letter to

Nature 353 (October

Mystery," Chicago

Tribune,

"Shakeup over Sacred Blood," Science News, October Leikind, letter to Joe Nickell,

1991): 507;

10,

October

10,

12, 1991, p. 229.

November 4,

32.

Bernard

33.

Guerdon, "Le sang de Saint Janvier"; Rogo, Miracles, pp. 195-96. Guerdon, "Le sang de Saint Janvier."

34.

35. Stith

J.

Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), 36.

Robert E.

ABC/CLIO,

Bell,

1991;

Literature,

1991.

rev.

ed.,

vol.

2

p. 466.

Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Santa Barbara,

Calif.:

1982),p.29.

37. Ibid., p. 30.

Out of This World: The Illustrated Library of the Bizarre and Extraordinary, vol. 12 (N.P.: Phoebus/ 5PC 1978), p. 58. 38. Perrott Phillips, ed..

39.

Joe Nickell with John F. Fischer, "Bleeding Door: Enigma on Dead-

ening Branch," chapter 9 of Secrets of the Supernatural (Buffalo, N. Y.: Prometheus

Books, 1988), pp. 119-28. 40.

Guerdon, "Le sang de Saint Janvier."

41. Moscarella, cited 42. Ibid.

by Garlaschelli

(see n. 22).

Mystical Relics

99

\ 43.

Joan Carroll Cruz, The Incorruptibles (Rockford,

111.:

Tan Books and

Publishers, 1977), p. 21. 44. Coulson,

The

45. Cruz, 46.

The

Saints, p. 107.

Incorruptibles, p. 44.

Ibid., p. 45.

47. Resins

were used in mummifying and embalming the dead from very

early antiquity to comparatively Britannica, cites

1960

modem

times. (See

"Mummy,"

The Oxford English Dictionary (compact

ed.).

Encyclopaedia edition,

1971)

a use of the adjective balsamate, meaning "embalmed," from 1470.

48. Cruz,

The

Incorruptibles, p. 48.

49. Ibid., pp. 190-93. 50. Ibid., pp. 210-12.

51. Ibid., pp. 64, 69-70.

»52. 53.

Ibid., pp. 83, 94, 162,

WM.y passim.

54. Ibid., pp. 31-33;

of

237-38.

monks

in the

55. Cruz,

The Sun, February

18,

Capucin catacombs of Palermo,

The

1992 (citing natural

mummies

Italy).

Incorruptibles, passim.

56. Ibid., pp. 281-85. 57. Ibid., pp. 83-84, 103-105. 58. Ibid., pp. 127-28. 59. Ibid., illus., p. 134.

60.

Vovdi.,

passim.

61. Ibid., pp. 95,

1

15-16, 232-34, 254-55.

62. Ibid., pp. 96-98. 63.

See Phil McArdle and Karen McArdle, Fatal Fascination (Boston:

Houghton

Mifflin, 1988), p. 119.

64. Cruz,

The

Incorruptibles, pp. 204-209.

65. Ibid., front cover; pp. 288-89.

and Colin Bord, Unexplained Mysteries of the 20th Century (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989), p. 270. 66. Janet

67. Ibid.; Cruz, 68. Cruz, 69.

The

The Incorruptibles,

p. 33.

Incorruptibles, p. 42.

Georg Siegmund, "Mystery of the Burning Handprints,"

Fate,

June 1981,

pp. 42-51. 70.

From an

old account, quoted in Siegmund, "Mystery of the Burning

Handprints," pp. 42-43. 71. "Purgatory," 72.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.

Siegmund, "Mystery of the Burning Handprints,"

73. Ibid., pp.

47^8.

p. 48.

Looking for a Miracle

100

74.

in

An

old account supposedly preserved by the Hacketiberg family, cited

Siegmund, "Mystery of the Burning Handprints," pp. 48^9. 75. Ibid., p. 49. 76.

A

Dr. Stampfl, director of the seminary at Weidenau, in a report of

November p. 48.

1,

1922, cited in

Siegmund, "Mystery of the Burning Handprints,"

See also the photographs in

77. Ibid., pp.

42^3,

ibid., p. 45.

51.

78. Ibid., p. 50. 79.

Ibid., pp.

49-50.

80. Ibid., p. 51; see also the

81.

ting

it

I

made

out,

photograph

in ibid., p. 49.

the imprint by tracing a child's

and heating

it

on the eye of a

stove.

hand on a sheet of

brass, cut-

Pentecostal Powers

Some

the scriptures) place special emphasis

of the

who

Christian fundamentalists (those

spirit."

These miraculous

who undergo

to those

believe in the literal truth of

on what

(i.e.,

are called "charismatic gifts

divinely bestowed) gifts

can come

"baptism in the Holy Spirif^an experience the

resurrected Jesus promised to his disciples at the first Pentecost.'

authority explains the difference between water baptism

I

believe

In the

Spirit.

birth.

we can

first,

the is

While in the other the

Spirit

Among

and

Spirit baptism:

two operations of the one Holy comes to give new life and the new

see this distinction as

Water baptism

witness

and

As one

Holy

Spirit

the outward and visible sign of that Spirit anoints or

ministry. Jesus said,

comes on you, and you

the "supernatural

"you

will

gifts**

be

empowers

will receive

new

birth.

Christians for their

power when the Holy

my witness" (Acts

1:8).2

of the Spirit are speaking in tongues,

on of hands, and experiencing other miracles.3 Due to a passage in the Gospel of Mark, some adherents also include taking up serpents and drinking poisons to demonstrate their prophesying, healing by the laymg

—

imperviousness to noxious substances.

Because of the association with the Pentecost (the Jewish feast that

marked the end of the grain

harvest). Christians

101

who emphasize such "gifts**

Looking for a Miracle

102

are

known

as Pentecostals

—particularly when they

represent a separate

denomination within fundamentalism.

Although there have been various Pentecostal movements over the centuries, the

modem

in tongues,"

few years

group

met to pray for

several revivalist-minded Christian leaders

an outpouring of the Holy

and

This led to an outbreak of "praying

Spirit.

modem

as a consequence

the Assemblies of

later, in 1914,

mostly former

a prayer meeting on Azuza Street in

Baptists or Methodists. In 1906 at

Los Angeles,

who were

one began with members

Pentecostalism was

God

—the

bom.

A

largest Pentecostal

—was organized. In addition, the Church of God and various other

independent churches also practice Pentecostalism, and increasingly the

movement

is

making inroads

into

mainstream

religions such as Catholi-

cism. In this case the adherents are usually called charismatics, after the theological term charism (from the

Many

Greek charisma, or

fundamentalists disparage Pentecostalism because they believe

the gifts of the Spirit (outlined in for those early disciples these,

of

1

when Paul

Charity never

is

which

faileth:

(1

Pentecostalism

perfect" in the thirteenth chapter

New Testament:

but whether there be prophecies, they shall

is

shall cease;

know

away. For we

But when that which be done away.

is

thought to be foretelling the

whether there be tongues, they shall vanish

Cor. 12:7-11) were intended only

1

who were specifically anointed by Christ. Regarding

refers to "that

Corinthians, he

it

"gift").'*

perfect

is

fail;

whether there be knowledge,

in part,

and we prophesy

come, then that which

in part.

in part shall

is

Cor. 13:8-10)

is

often also derided for

what

is

perceived as

its

ad-

herents' uncontrollable hysterics, such as dancing with wild gyrations, exhibiting seizure-like bodily

motions while "going under the power," and

speaking or praying in tongues the sobriquet "holy rollers."

—

To

all

of which has

eamed

the charismatics

may appear

their critics, charismatics

as

overly emotional people under the spell of semi-charlatans.^

Indeed, the examples of several prominent Pentecostal/ charismatic

Jimmy SwagGod minister in

preachers have often seemed to justify the latter criticism. gart, for

the

example, was defrocked as an Assemblies of

wake of sexual misconduct and other excesses; and Jim Bakker survived

revelations about his lavish lifestyle only to be convicted

for defrauding his flock of $158 million.^ gelistic success

and imprisoned

Even Pat Robertson, whose televan-

has helped gain recoginition for charismatic Christianity,

— Pentecostal Powers

103

has been accused of "operating on the edge of ethics." According to

Hadden, a sociology professor

Jeffrey

critic

"He

at the University of Vir^nia,

used [a business] built by contributions of religious people donating to

a religious organization to build a personal fortune."^

many

Nevertheless, Pentecostalism has an undeniable appeal to pecially the economically disadvantaged (where ignorance

some 87 percent of them

prevail, critics note),

Also

it is

What

is its

The most important The

is

attraction?

basis for the

a basic hunger in the

truth

is

that

deeper. There

and mundane

is

According to one adherent:

growing acceptance of Pentecostal Chris-

human

psyche for a taste of the miraculous.

life

dissatisfaction with the

and long for something more and something

within most of us an insatiable appetite for the supernatural,

Christianity leaves us wanting.

of God's reality in our

and we look for the

lives.

We all long for the assurances

Rational theologies do not seem to satisfy

ecstasies that are described

by the

This being the case, therefore, "the Charismatic persons

who know how to

capitalize

on such

will gift

is

spiritual hungers.

"'^

on someone's

needs,

ample room for abuse. For example, the Rev. Peter Popoff (who

be discussed more

fully later)

was

publicly exposed

when

his special

of prophetic discernment turned out to be blatant trickery." Deception

including self-deception acles."

—has also been alleged in other charismatic "mir-

This naturally raises the question. Are there

that can stand scrutiny

some of

the

in

Tongues

—or what by the Greek term glossolalia— an

charismatics, speaking in tongues

It first

and imperviousness

and poisons (including poisonous snakes).

Speaking

circles

of the Spirit"

more widely touted phenom-

ena: glossolalia (speaking in tongues), divine prophecy,

to fire

"gifts

—that are indeed genuine evidence of the miraculous?

Let us take a closer look at

To

mystics.'

movement has spokes-

Unfortunately, as in other instances of capitalizing there

superstition

living in actual poverty.*

most Christians have a basic

quality of their spiritual

us,

es-

apparently growing in strength in North America, England, and

Latin America.

tianity

and

—

is

appears in the

that his apostles were

New

is

known

in psychological

essential aspect of Christianity.

Testament as a fulfillment of

Christ's

soon to "be baptized by the Holy Ghost":

promise

Looking for a Miracle

104

And when

the

day of Pentecost was

accord in one place.

And

it

sat

And

come, they were

and

there appeared to

it

filled all

It

with one

the house where they were

them cloven tongues

upon each of them. And they were

filled

and began to speak with other tongues, as the (Acts

all

suddenly there came a sound from heaven

as of a rushing mighty wind, sitting.

fully

of

like as

fire,

and

with the Holy Ghost,

Spirit

gave them utterance.

M)

2:

should not be thought from this that the concept was a new one.

Incoherent utterances that supposedly result from an altered state of consciousness or religious ecstasy are a practice

common

to

many

religions.

In the Greek oracles, for example, the priests of Apollo at Delphi, supposedly

under the influence of the god, issued such babblings which were then

by the

interpreted

The

"gift

priests. '2

of tongues** was also practiced by the old

Israelite prophets.

Indeed, "to prophesy" usually meant just such ecstatic and incoherent speech as

is

reported in

1

Samuel 10:10 concerning

Saul: "... a

company of

prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied

among them.'''^ Similar trance-like utterances have recurred in Christian revivals

through the ages

—for example, among thirteenth-century mendicant

ars; the Jansenists,

or followers of Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638); the early

Quakers; the converts of John Wesley (1703-1791), odism; the Shakers

(i.e.,

who founded Meth-

"Shaking Quakers," the frenzied worshipers of

the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing); and

other

fri-

many

revivalists.''*

Several references to different types of "tongues" in the

New Testament

can cause confusion. For example, the mention of "other tongues" in 1

Corinthians 14:21 has been interpreted as referring "to the disciples preach-

—

ing in languages they were not familiar with"

i.e.,

supposedly practicing

As we know from modem cases, there are many glossolalists on certain occasions, start speaking languages they knew years

xenoglossy.

"who

can,

ago but thought they had forgotten." (Such recollection

is

an example

of what psychologists term cryptomnesia, or "hidden memory.") For ex-

ample, as psychologist Robert A. Baker relates in his Hidden Memories:

In one reported case, a in

woman

reported alternating dual personalities

which "A" was the normal, primary personality with "B" the secondary

personality believing she

was the reincarnation of a Spanish woman of

Pentecostal Powers

At times

the previous century.

this patient

spoke automatically

in

consisting of fragmented Spanish with a few traces of Italian

105

a tongue

—

totally

untranslatable into English. Inquiries determined that while the patient

was attending convent school she did, girls talking

blow and

Mexican

Spanish to each other. Unconsciously, she assimilated their

The death of

speech.

periodically, overhear three

the patient's father

precipitated the personality

by her infatuation with a

man

came

as a severe emotional

This situation was aggravated

split.

of half-Spanish blood and

full

Spanish

who was the emotional source that precipitated her secondary personality. While she may have learned some Spanish words from her

appearance

lover, her

sample of Spanish contained references suggesting that she

heard the three Mexicans orally repeating lessons in Spanish history.

There were also a number of words which sounded were not.

Some

like

Spanish but

'5

gjossolalists

foreign language (in

merely jabber in a manner that resembles a

much

the

same way

to produce hilarious renditions of

that

known

comedian Sid Caesar used

"German" and "French" that might

easily

pass as such to anyone who was not actually conversant with those languages).

However, such utterances are Indeed, glossolalist

so as to

it

no more than

appears that some people

—superimpose

make

linguistically

intelligible

may

—while

false languages. '^

half-listening to

own inner "voices" into the pseudolanguage what is not. This may be the explanation behind their

such anecdotal cases as the following, related by Harold Hill in

How

I

i

Live

Uke a King's Kid:

When

another

man came and

sat in the prayer chair,

I

laid

hands on

him and prayed for him in the Spirit, praying in tongues. When the prayer was over, the scoffer was babbling like a baby, crying up a storm, slobbering

"What

all

over his expensive blue serge

ails

you?"

I

suit.

asked.

dont know if the man in the chair got anything, but God spoke to me when you prayed for him, because you were praying in High German. I'm a student of High German, and I doubt if even you know it, because it's a rare language." I said, "I don't know any German, high, low or medium." "Well," he said, "I

"WeU," he

said,

"God spoke

to

me

in perfect

High German and

said.

Who are you to scoff at any of My gifts?" And that big blubbering man got saved, and the next day, I heard him praying for someone in

a new language.

a

He was

really

turned on.''

to

Looking for a Miracle

106

no proof of any recognizable language uttered by a gloswhich cannot be accounted for by one or another psychological

In fact, there solalist

is

explanation. '8

Passages in

1

Corinthians describing "an

and "the tongues of that

.

comprehended only by God and

is

(14:2,4)

angels" (13:1) refer to a supernatural language

.

.

unknown tongue"

one charis-

angels.'^ But, says

matic writer:

Some have

argued that the speaking in tongues at Pentecost was different

from that described by Paul

The only

the same.

was given

the gift

in

difference

at the

1

Corinthians. In fact they were exactly

lies

moment when

the disciples were baptized in

The languages were unknown

the Spirit, and the audience were unbelievers.

who spoke

to those

For the and a

sign, thus fulfilling the

2:18).

On

" 'they will prophesy' " (Acts

words of Joel

the other hand, in the

Church

Be

that as

it

command

hence the

listeners,

heard them.

tongues took on the form of prophecy

in

Corinth the

use in church worship, was in a language

and

who

them, but recognized by those

listeners, therefore, the

At Pentecost

in the circumstances.

gift,

in

unknown both

its

normal

to speakers

to have "interpretation, "^o

may, Paul's instructions as to interpretation are earnestly

given:

Now, I

brethren,

if I

profit you, except

come unto you speaking with shall

I

speak to you either by revelation, or by

And

knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine? out

life

if

how

the trumpet give

to the battle?

So

speak into the

known what is piped or harped? an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself shall

how

air. (1

shall

it

be

any

man

most by

by the tongue words easy

known what

is

may

let

him

interpret" (1 Cor. 14:13).

let it

and that by course; and

one

be no interpreter,

let

him keep

let

Again Paul

stated:

be by two, or at the interpret.

silence in the church;

to himself, and to God. (1 Cor. 14:27-28)

an unknown

that speaketh in

speak in an unknown tongue,

three,

spoken? for ye shall

Cor. 14:6-9)

Therefore, Paul said, "Wherefore

tongue pray that he

be

it

likewise ye, except ye utter

to be understood,

If

even things with-

giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinc-

tion in the sounds,

For

tongues, what shall

and

But

let

if

there

him speak

Figure 1: The Shroud of Turin? Actually, rubbing image made from a bas-relief by Shroud of Christ was created, or was it of radiant energy at the moment of Jesus'

a negative photograph of an experimental the author.

Is this

instead produced resurrection?

how

the reputed

Holy

by a miraculous burst

Figure

The Image of Guadalupe,

as copied in an altar painting at the Santuario Santa Fe, New Mexico. The original venerated at a shrine in Mexico said to be a miraculous self-portrait of the Virgin Mary. (Photo by the author.)

2:

de Guadalupe City

—

is

in

—

II

Figure 3: Detail of altar painting at the Santuario de Guadalupe, depicting the Virgin's imaginary appearance to a peasant named Juan Diego in 1531. (Photo by the author.)

OFF-CENTER

PART CROWN APPARENTLY PAINTED OUT

EYES RAVE

OUTLINES

CAKED

TRADITIONAL ARTIST5' CONCEPT OF

'PIGMENT'

OBSCURES

WEAVE

MARY 'S

FEATURES

V FLAKING

j^

ALL ^original'

^RAYING H

/areas

CEN NOT ANCIENT

(FROM

IN

811*

iSEAAA

ATTITUDE Of PRAYEI^

AUREOLE SIGNALS DIVmiTV ^hyperduliaO

h

TRADITIONAL VESTMENT COLORS: RED ROBE, BLUE MAKITLE

FROM BOOK OF REVELATION

or ANGEL /^

:!^

Figure

4:

Quabilupo

-m'

Analytical sketch of the

Image of Guadalupe, showing evidence of

painting.

believers in the Image's authenticity maintain that beneath the painted areas,

However, and in certain supposedly unretouched

areas,

an

"original," miraculous portrait exists.

A

Figure 5: "weeping" icon at a Greek Orthodox church in Astoria, Queens, New York. Photographed here long after the "tears" had dried, the saint still appears to be crying due to her painted expression and surface irregularities in the image. (Photo by the author.)

Figure 6: The "blood of Saint Januarius," having just been transformed from its usual congealed form to a liquefied state.

(Photograph from Catholic News Service.)

Figure 7 (top) and 8 (bottom): Italian scientists' duplication of the Saint Januarius phenomenon. Congealed "blood" (top) suddenly liquefies (bottom) in a seemingly miraculous fashion. (Photo courtesy of Luijgi Garlaschelli, Franco Ramaccini, and Sergio Delia Sala.)

—scorched into pages of books or onto consecrated purgatory. This example — the branded page of a nineteenth-century book of meditations — was actually made by the author. Figure

cloths

9:

"Burning handprints"

— are attributed to

spirits in

o

nc

Vi

o X) (U

o

CT3

c

A different verdict was rendered

in the case of

County, Georgia, property of Nancy Fowler, a to the Atlanta Constitution

Virgin

—

water on the Rockdale

woman who —according

^"claims to see recurring apparitions of the

Mary." Mrs. Fowler stated that her well water was blessed when

Jesus Christ himself appeared to her. However, a sample of the water

was found to be contaminated with coliform bacteria and therefore "un;

The Rockdale County Health Department asked post a sign at the well to warn people of the possible

satisfactory for drinking."

the visionary to danger.^2

—

Then there is the **Lourdes of Bronx" as the New York Times dubbed it—where curative water flows from a rocky replica of the French grotto. The fake spring

is

only piped city water, but the parish priest blesses the

water annually in a special

rite.

The

parish business

people's claims of miracles at the local shrine:

**I

manager says of some can't prove anything

Lord and themselves. I do know there is something here you cant touch, see or feel. But there is something here."^^ but the faith they

had

in the

— Looking for a Miracle

154

Prophets of Healing

No

discussion of faith healing

Christian Scientists

Their

Scientist.

—adherents

name

its effectiveness."^'*

The founder,

is

They

first

known

of the sect

as

Church of

Christ,

declares their belief: they are followers of Christ

the healer, and their faith

of

would be complete without mentioning

"scientific" in the

supposed "demonstrability

therefore reject medical treatment.

practitioner,

and

first

teacher of Christian Science

was Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910). The youngest of six children of Mark Baker (a justice of the peace and Congregational Church deacon) and

Ambrose Baker, Mary was

Abigail

bom

Bow, near Concord, New then an academy at Tilton,

at

Hampshire. She attended ordinary schools,

and was

also privately tutored. After her first husband's death, with

infant son to care for,

In 1853

came her

Mary

ill-fated

an

taught school off and on for nine years.

marriage to her second husband, which resulted

in his desertion after ten years

and her divorcing him

Asa

years later (in 1874) she married

Gilbert

after ten

more. Four

Eddy who became her

first

serious convert to Christian Science.^5

In her youth, Mrs.

a pastor

who had

genius."

Her

^

Eddy had shown a deep

and

interest in religion,

tutored her described her as "an intellectual and spiritual

supposedly began at twelve when

interest in spiritual healing

prayer seemed to cure a fever. She regarded her "discovery" of Christian Science as occurring in 1866

by a

fall

on an

icy street.

when

On

she was injured

—supposedly

the third day of

critically

what seemed to her a

slow recovery, Mrs. Eddy asked for the Bible and read a passage about Christ curing a

man

of palsy (Matt.

9:2),

whereupon she immediately ^

recovered.

However, young Mary's condition may have been supposed and her recovery something

than implied.

less

childhood reveals a pampered, spoiled child

way by feigning various illnesses and

.

.

.

Mary

Baker's

"fits,"

less critical

seizures.

who

A

look at her

learned to get her

friends.

own

According to one biographer,

as outsiders rather crudely called them, are

a household word among her old

than

still

They frequently came on without

At times the attack resembled a convulsion. Mary pitched headlong on the floor, and rolled and kicked, writhing and screaming in apparent agony. Again she dropped limp and lay motionless.

the slightest warning.

At other times, animation.

like

a cataleptic, she lay

The family worked over

rigid,

almost in a state of suspended

her, but usually in vain.

Mark

Baker,

Faith Healing

wagon and

standing upright in his

Dr. Ladd, the family physician.

lashing his horses,

An old

155

would drive for

neighbor remembered him driving

"Mary is dying!" The family actually believed they expected that Mary would end her days

thus and shouting all the way:

For years

that she was. in

one of her

and went to every extreme to prevent

hysterical attacks,

them. As a precautionary measure they gave in to .

.

.

all

the

girl's

whims.

Dr. Ladd occasionally diagnosed them as "hysteria mingled with bad

He regarded the girl as an interesting pathological case. Becoming much interested in mesmerism at about that time, he practiced up on Mary Baker. He found her a sensitive subject. He discovered that, by mental suggestion, he could temper"; but at other times he took them seriously.

partly control her. "I can

make

merely by thinking," he would strated that he could

do

Mary

Nevertheless,

that girl stop in the street any time,

tell

his friends,

and he frequently demon-

this.'^

decided her "healing" had been divine, and she

then began to study the subject of Christian healing, saying, "The Bible

was

my

1870,

textbook," In a pamphlet, The Science of

Mary

call j

in

stated dramatically: "In the nineteenth century I affix for all

word Science

time the

Man, copyrighted

the world to battle

to Christianity^

on

this issue."

and error to personal sense; and

There followed several other books,

and Health with Key to published in 1875. (See Figure 12.) Mrs. Eddy formed association the following year, and in three more years

notably the Christian Science textbook, Science I

the Scriptures,

first

I

a Christian Science I

she and several followers organized a fledgling church. In 1892, she and selected followers

founded the mother church of today's Christian Science

religion, the First

Church of Christ,

Scientist, in

Boston.

Mrs. Eddy defined Christian Science as "divine metaphysics" and "the !

I !

system of divine healings." She maintained

scientific

it

was "the law of

God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and

rule of universal

ing

is

that

harmony. "^^ Christian Science's most important teach-

the distinction between that which

which

is

apparent but unreal

is

real

(hell, illness,

(God, health, truth) and

falsehood).

As Mrs. Eddy

explained:

All reality

which

He

is

in

God and

creates

is

His Creation, harmonious and eternal. That

good, and

He makes

the only reality of sin, sickness or death

is

all

that

God

real to

They

are not true, because they are not of God.^8

erring belief, until

made. Therefore,

the awful fact that unrealities

seem

human,

is

strips off their disguise.

Looking for a Miracle

156

However, Christian Science does not ignore the to overcome ness

with spiritual understanding, law, and power. Since sick-

it

one such

is

"unreal*' but rather seeks

unreality,

it is

to be conquered

by means of Christian

healing.^^

In adherence to church dogma, devout all

forms of medical treatment

members of

—including drugs and instruments such as

thermometers, as weU as even such simple measures as rubs. Instead,

members depend on

limited exclusively to praying. This

and the

practice, the

IRS

many

These practices

states)

whose

and whose treatment

Although the praying

is

clearly

permits the charges to be deducted as a medical

expense for income tax purposes, and some medical plans Blue Shield in

packs or back

may be done in person or by telephone,

practitioners charge for their tune.

a religious

ice

faith healers called practitioners

training consists of a brief period of religious tutelage is

the sect reject

(e.g..

Blue Cross-

cover such expenses.^o

—termed "bizarre" by

critics^i

—have necessarily resulted

numerous deaths, including those of many children who would surely have survived if medical treatment had not been withheld. An article in in

the

New England Journal of Medicine, who

entist

written

herself lost a child to the sect's

by a former Christian

dogma,

tells

how

Sci-

the church

defends parents' "right" to withhold medical treatment from their children.

The church if their

insists that

parents should not be charged with child abuse

children die as a consequence,

protect children

from abuse

practices like those of the forcefully against

A tion in

1990

and many

state laws intended to

nevertheless contain exemptions for religious

Church of

Christ, Scientist.

The church

lobbies

any attempt to remove such exemptions.^^

New York

Times headline "Christian

Death of Son" reported the

results of

one

Scientists

Get Proba-

tragic case of the sect's

The courtroom drama was played out in Boston, where the Church of Christ, Scientist, is headquartered. Church officials emphatically defended the sect's tenet on spiritual healing as an alternative to intransigence.

medical treatment and staunchly supported the two defendants in the case.

Ginger and Paul Twichell, The Twichells' two-year-old son Robyn died after

a five-day

illness in

1986

—an

illness

an autopsy revealed was a bowel

The defense maintained that by deeply held beliefs. The prosecution

obstruction that was surgically treatable.^^ the couple's actions were dictated

countered: "The whole idea

conduct of parents? of religious

We

beliefs. "^^

three other children,

is

to bring to the front:

are advocates of children.

What

We

is

the required

are not persecutors

At issue was the possible well-being of the Twitchells' two of whom were bom after Robyn died and the

Faith Healing

couple in

moved from Boston

to Brentwood,

New

York. The

157

trial resulted

a conviction for manslaughter and Judge Sandra Hamlin sentenced

the Twitchells to ten years' probation, a condition of which

The

pediatric examinations for their remaining children.

torneys filed an appeal, and a

spokesman

was regular

Twitchells' at-

for the church stated,

"The judge

"^^ in effect tried to take the heart out of Christian Science.

More

controversy

by

—

this

shortly after

and placed

embroiled in quite a different

time over a book titled The Destiny of the Mother Church

it first

appeared in 1948, in 1991

Reading

in Christian Science

the book's portrayal of

no more than the

author

itself

Knapp. Although church officialdom deemed the book unsound

Bliss

to be

found

recently the church

Knapp claimed

Rooms

was

officially

inspired founder

published

everywhere. At issue was

Mary Baker Eddy. Although

she herself claimed

and leader of Christian Science,

that Eddy's advent as a religious figure

by a prophecy of Isaiah ("Thy seed

foretold

it

had been

shall inherit the Gentiles'^.

Knapp also portrayed Eddy as virtually a second Jesus Christ. Some church members who were disillusioned by the book's publication charged it was done in a crass attempt to ease the church's financial crisis. At stake was a $90 million bequest from the Knapp family, the terms of which required publication of the book by 1993 or else the fortune was to go to Stanford County Museum of Art.^^

University and the Los Angeles

Strangely at odds with Knapp's "heavenly" portrayal indication of Mrs. Eddy's quite

and

human limitations: the fact that her husband

convert died only six years after the "science" was "discovered,"

first

occurring under conditions that are quite revealing.

suddenly disease,

fell

ill,

When

her husband

a physician. Dr. Rufus K. Noyes, diagnosed organic heart

warning that Eddy might die

at

any moment. Mrs. Eddy was

convinced, however, that her enemies were conspiring to that her

a documented

is

harm him and

husband must have been poisoned. She asked "Dr." Charles

J.

Eastman, a director of something called the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, to confirm her "diagnosis."

Her husband soon

died.

A biographer

explains:

Whatever the warmth of not really been a success.

their .

.

.

mutual regard, the Eddys' marriage had

And now

that marriage

her with the greatest embarrassment possible.

How

had confronted

was one to

reconcile

Eddy's death with the pretensions of his wife's healing method? Mrs.

Eddy chose

the characteristic course of insisting

view, whatever the consequences

and

on her own point of

as publicly as possible.

She

called

Looking for a Miracle

158

in Dr.

Noyes to perform an autopsy,

of foul play.

He found

certain that he

would

find evidence

the death to have been caused by serious disease

of the aortic valve of the heart, even showing that organ to Mrs. to demonstrate his conclusion.

She transformed

his findings in

Eddy

a unique

way. Since he had not found evidence of arsenical poisoning, she said, it

proved that Dr. Eddy had been

soning, which leaves

no

with her diagnosis.

.

Such was the

.

trace.

by metaphysical

killed

arsenical poi-

"Dr." Eastman was happy again to concur

.^7

bizarre thinking of the Prophet of Christian Science.

Another great guru of mystical healing was Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), the "sleeping prophet." In an alleged "trance," Cayce gave medical readings to thousands of people

some

who wrote

for his help. His disciples point to

14,000 case histories (housed in the library of the Association for

Research and Enlightenment

—a Cayce

promotional institution founded

by the prophet's son), wherein they find many supposedly accurate diagnoses of, and testimonials from, people who believed themselves cured. Yet as Martin Gardner observes:

j

Most of Cayce's early trances were given with the aid of an osteopath who asked him questions while he was asleep, and helped later in explaining the reading to the patient. There association with osteopaths

one

abundant evidence that Cayce's early

and homeopaths had a major influence on

the character of his readings. lesions of

is

Over and over again he would fmd

sort or another as the cause of

spinal manipulations for

its

spinal

an ailment and prescribe

cure.^s

In addition to osteopathy and homeopathy, Cayce's prescribed remedies derived from naturopathy, with

thrown

some

folk medicine

and sheer

inspiration

in.

There were special

diets, tonics, herbs, electrical treatments,

and such

medicines as "oil of smoke" (for a leg sore), "peach-tree poultice" (for

a baby with convulsions), "bedbug juice" (for [a priest with

peanut

oil

(for dropsy), "castor oil packs"

an epilepsy-like condition]), almonds (to prevent cancer),

massage

(to forestall arthritis),

tree (for tuberculosis

from a charred keg

and other

ash from the

diseases),

wood

of a

bamboo

and fumes of apple brandy

(for his [Cayce's] tuberculous wife to inhale).^'

II

— Faith Healing

An

obviously fantasy-prone individual (as a child he had imaginary

playmates), Cayce never attended school beyond the ninth grade but in

annually, but

worked

He read the Bible soon became a thoroughgoing occultist. He was arrested

a bookstore and was an avid,

and charged with

on the

159

if eclectic,

reader.

New

fortune-telling fraud in

York, but was acquitted

basis of "ecclesiastical" freedom.

Thus Cayce progressed

—

that

if

is

word

the right

—from

ascribing

homeopathic and osteopathic causes to ailments, to linking them with the person's

"Karma." He began to describe

and to "see"

their "auras"

his subjects' previous incarnations

from which he diagnosed character and health.^

But did Cayce possess clairvoyant diagnostic powers? James Randi finds in Cayce's readings "the

myriad

half-truths, the evasive

and garbled

language, and the multiple 'outs' that Cayce used." Randi explains:

Cayce was fond of expressions

words used to avoid

qualifying

tool in the psychic trade.

Many

like "I feel that

.

and "perhaps"

."

.

positive declarations. It

of the

letters

he received

—

is

a

common

in fact,

most

contained specific details about the illnesses for which readings were required,

and there was nothing to stop Cayce from knowing the con-

tents of the letters revelation.

as

I

and presenting that information as

To one who

were a divine

if it

has been through dozens of similar diagnoses,

have, the methods are obvious.

It is

merely a specialized version

of the "generalization" technique of fortune-tellers."

Although Cayce was never subjected to proper Dr. Joseph B. Rhine of

Duke

pathetic to Cayce's claims for Rhine's daughter

University

ESP

pioneer

should have been sym-

—was unimpressed. A reading that Cayce gave

was notably

wider of the mark, as

—who

testing,

inaccurate.^^ Frequently,

when he provided diagnoses of

Cayce was even

subjects

who had

died sincQ the letters requesting the readings were sent. Instead of perceiving their

profoundly altered

fashion, in

state,

Cayce

blithely

rambled on

one instance prescribing an incredible nostrum made from sarsa-

parilla root,

Indian turnip, wild ginseng, and other ingredients.

says of Cayce's lapses in these instances, "Surely,

symptom, and should be

I

S

in his typical

detectable.

dead

is

As Randi

a very serious

"^3

The guru of another type of "miraculous" healing was neither the founder of a sect like Mary Baker Eddy nor a sleeping seer like Edgar Cayce. Instead, Jos6 Arigo of Brazil was considered by many to be the most remarkable practitioner of so-called psychic surgery.

Looking for a Miracle

160

Psychic surgery typically involves the alleged healer placing his bare

hands

directly into the

removing the "diseased

come

as

no

body of the tissue"

which

patient is

—without any incision—and

then "ritually destroyed.**

surprise that such alleged surgery

is

should

It

nothing more than a

means

sleight-of-hand trick, the destruction of the tissue merely being a

of preventing a histological analysis that would reveal the animal source of the

Forensic tests of "tumors" and blood from one "operation"

tissue.

revealed they

had come from a

pig.

In another case the "tumor" was a

and the accompanying blood that of a cow.

piece of chicken intestine

A doctor who himself volunteered for a psychic operation later commented, "I did not feel his fingers inside, the

cold,

and the

I

saw running on

me was

showed me were not gallstones." X-rays later had been removed.^ Journalist Tom Valentine

gallstones he

proved that no gallstones said of

blood

one psychic surgeon that he "usually wears short

sleeves

when

he operates and often exposes his palms to viewers before beginning an operation to assure

them he has nothing

in his hands," just as

a stage

magician would.

The psychic simply pushes his fingers into the fleshy parts of the body, and when operating on the midriff of an obese person the hands can appear to be inside up to the wrists. This trick is not, of course, used in operations on non-fleshy parts of the body. In these cases the surgeon permits viewers to peer only through his cupped fingers. Valentine

concluded:

One

thing

I

learned from watching [a psychic surgeon]

can be fooled no matter

how

careful the viewer.

I

was

that the eye

did not notice

him

protrude his fingers beneath a blanket near the area of operation. Yet,

on movies,

it is

apparent.'^

The fake blood may be contained red balloon that

a fold of the

secretly

patient's

were a piece of

a magician's

is

tissue.

false

in

a sponge or be packaged in a small

palmed, broken under cover of the hands and

abdomen, and then extracted

in full view as if

Other hiding places for blood and

it

tissue include

thumb.^

Among the best-known psychic surgeons of the Philippines was Antonio Agpaoa who, in month later, on December

"Dr. Tony"

A

late 1968, 19,

was

arrested in

San

Francisco.

he was indicted by a Detroit grand jury

on a charge of fraud in foreign commerce. The indictment stemmed from a Michigan steelworker's 1966 visit to Manila, where Agpaoa pretended

Faith Healing

to

mend fractured bones in the man's neck.

Later X-rays, however, revealed

man (briefly relieved of healed. Many sick people had

the bones were as before although the

had believed himself

suggestion)

pain by actually

homes just to make a pilgrimage to see "Dr. Tony," and had decided to make a pilgrimage out of the country to avoid

mortgaged he, too,

161

their

—

answering the charges.^^ States writer Francis

The work of some able

among

these

X. King, however

psychic surgeons

was the

apparently, often taken over

"Doctor

is

not so easy to explain. RemarkArigo, whose

Brazilian, Jose

by the

spirit

of a deceased

body was,

German physician,

Fritz."

There seems to have been no question of sleight of hand being involved in the surgical operations carried out

to 1971.

Wounds were

left

on

by Arigo

in the period

his patients' bodies,

from 1950

which healed with

unusual speed, but were undoubtedly genuine. The quickness of this healing

was

all

more remarkable

the

—or "Doctor

in that Arigo

Fritz" used

unsterilized instruments.^

—Arigo—also had another appellation, as indicated by the

**Dr. Fritz" title

of a credulous

book by John

Fuller, Arigo:

Surgeon of the Rusty

Knife.

Apparently

Randi cites

**Dr. Fritz" usually

at least

one apparent exception mentioned by Fuller who claimed

that Arigo once used his bare

Randi

did eschew blatant trickery, but James

says: "Fuller

hands to remove a

spends no time at

all

he were embarrassed by

patient's liver. But, as

trying to convince the reader

Arigo was also fond

of this feat, as

if

of a simple stunt

—placing a knife blade (with a rounded

eye

—supposedly to demonstrate

his magical

it

all."^

tip)

power with the

under a patient's knife.

Randi explains the simple stunt (one that anyone can perform

how) and publishes a photograph of himself demonstrating the

Most

often, apparently, "Dr. Fritz" merely

However, if

feat.'*'

performed such simple

operations as lancing a boil, removing a cyst, excising a lipoma (a of fatty tissue) procedures.

He

from

just

tumor

under the skin of a man's arm, and similar

also prescribed various potions

depended for

shown

and concoctions that ob-

on the placebo effect. His prescriptions were filled at the only pharmacy in town run by the amateur doctor's brother. '01 By such means were Arigo's aUeged "miracle healings"'02 viously

their effectiveness

—

actually performed.

Looking for a Miracle

162

One

case of "psychic surgery" illustrates the false

of "miracle healings" are frequently subjected

man, who acted

in the television series "Taxi."

Philippines in the desperate

hope of having

one of the resident chariatans. Kaufman's

him on

was convinced

concerned

Kaufman

Andy Kauf-

traveled to the

his terminal cancer girlfriend,

no

cured by

who accompanied

was involved, she stood "not a foot away." Alas, Kaufman's reputed

the pilgrimage,

explaining that

to. It

hope that victims

that

trickery

"cure" had no effect on his cancer, and he died.

Select Bibliography Hines, Terence. "Faith Healing." Chapter 10 of Pseudoscience Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988.

A

and the Paranormal.

concise discussion of the nature

of disease, the techniques of faith healers, psychic surgery, and "healing" shrines.

Larue, Gerald A. "The Mysterious Power of Faith Healing." Chapter [10] of

The Supernatural, the

A

1990.

Occult,

and the Bible.

Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,

consideration of faith healing in relationship to biblical traditions,

including such topics as "Healing in the Christian Scriptures," Relationships," "Modem Faith Healing," "New

"Mind-Body

Age HeaUng,""Lourdes,""Oral

Roberts's City of Faith," "Spiritual Healing in the Philippines," and other related topics.

Randi, James. "The Medical Humbugs." Chapter 9 of Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, report

and other

on psychic surgeons and Edgar Cayce by an

paranormal .

Delusions. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1982. internationally

A

known

investigator.

The Faith Healers. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987.

tating indictment of faith-healing charlatans

and

their tricks,

A

devas-

based on an

in-depth investigation by a team of researchers using such techniques as disguise, infiltration,

Rogo, D.

and interception of secret messages.

Scott. "Miraculous Healings."

Chapter

1 1

of Miracles:

A

Parascientijic

Wondrous Phenomena. New York: Dial Press, 1982. A credulous faith healing at Lourdes, Kathryn Kuhlman services, and the like,

Inquiry into

look at

concluding that "psychic forces" are involved, whether they are divine or not.

Mary Baker Eddy: An Interpretive Biography of the Founder Science. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980. Psychological

Silberger, Julius, Jr.

of Christian

insights into the

life

of the eccentric founder of a religion based on faith healing.

Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra L. Encountering Mary: Princeton, N.J.

:

From La

Salette to Medjugorje.

A

phenomenological ap-

Princeton University Press, 1991.

proach to the study of Marian apparitions, including those alleged by Bemadette Soubirous at Lourdes.

Faith Healing

163

Notes Gerald Larue, The Supernatural, the Occult, and the Bible (Buffalo,

1.

N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1990), p. 116.

Faith

and the Bible,

2.

Quoted

3.

"Aesculapius, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.

4.

Larue, The Supernatural, the Occult,

5.

Ibid., pp. 129-30.

6.

Ibid., pp. 131, 138.

7.

Martin E. Marty and Kenneth L. Vaux,

The Supernatural, the

in Larue,

Traditions (Philadelphia:

Supernatural, the Occult,

and the

Fortress

metheus Books, 1988), Ibid.;

9.

and the

Bible, pp. 122-26.

eds..

Press,

pp. 117-18.

Health I Medicine and the

1982),

cited

Larue,

in

The

Bible, pp. 138-39.

Terrence Mines, Pseudoscience

8.

Occult,

and

the Paranormal (Buffalo, N.Y.: Pro-

p. 239.

Larue, The Supernatural, the Occult,

and the

Bible, p. 139.

See James Randi, "Lourdes Revisited," The Skeptical Inquirer 6.4

10.

(Summer

James Randi, TIk Faith Healers

1982): 4;

Promethe-

(Buffalo, N.Y.:

us Books, 1987), pp. 291-92; Rev. Robert D. Smith, Comparative Miracles (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder

Book

Co., 1965), p. 92.

11.

Randi, The Faith Healers, pp. 291-92.

12.

Hines, Pseudoscience

Supernatural, the Occult, 13.

and

and the

the Paranormal,

pp. 238-39; Larue,

The

Bible, pp. 139-43.

Robert A. Baker, They Call

It

Hypnosis (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus

Books, 1990), pp. 282-83. 14.

Larue, The Supernatural, the Occult,

15.

Hines, Pseudoscience

16.

Quoted

17.

Ibid., p. 235.

18.

Ibid.

19.

Ibid., pp.

20.

Tony Campolo,

(Dallas, Tex.: 21.

and the

Bible, pp. 142-43.

and the Paranormal, pp. 238-39. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, pp.

in Hines,

234.

236-37.

Word

How

to

Be Pentecostal without Speaking

in

Tongues

Publishing, 1991), p. 38.

Robert A. Steiner, Don't Get Taken! (El Cerrito,

Calif.:

Wide-Awake

Books, 1989), pp. 124-25. 22.

Ibid., pp. 124-26.

The Skeptical Inquirer

See also Robert A. Steiner, "Exposing the Faith-Healers,"

11.1 (Fall 1986): 28-31;

Don't Get Taken!

Randi, The Faith Healers, pp.

14M9.

23.

Steiner,

24.

Randi, TTie Faith Healers, pp. 149-50. See also Greg Garrison, "Un-

p. 126.

masking Fake Miracles," Birmingham News (Alabama), January 25.

Randi, The Faith Healers, pp. 124-27.

26. Ibid., pp. 105-106.

11, 1991.

Looking for a Miracle

164

27. Ibid., pp. 128-30. 28. Ibid.,

photo section following

29.

Hines, Pseudoscience

30.

Ibid.

and the Paranormal,

"Exposing the Faith-Healers,"

31. Steiner, 32.

p. 166.

Ibid., pp.

p. 242.

p. 31.

30-31.

33. Ibid., p. 31. 34.

Quoted

in Randi,

35.

Quoted

in Hines, Pseudoscience

36.

Hines, Pseudoscience

The Faith Healers,

p. 208.

and the Paranormal,

and the Paranormal,

p. 247.

p. 247.

Mark Plum-

See also

mer, "Current Investigations," The Skeptic (Australia) 6.2 (1986): 2-5. 37.

Randi, The Faith Healers,

38.

Ibid., pp. 183-95.

p. 212.

See also Clark Morphew, "City of Faith Buyers Face

Moral Dilemma," Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, 39.

Quoted

40. Randi,

in Randi,

The Faith Healers,

41. Denise Kalette,

February 42.

The Faith Healers,

Ky.), July

1 1,

1992.

p. 199.

p. 204.

"Watch Where You Make Donations,"

USA

Today,

3, 1992.

Quotes from Tilton are from the

letter,

brochures,

etc., in his direct-

mail "miracle package." 43.

Debbie Howlett, "Televangelist Under Scrutiny,"

USA

Today,

March

27, 1992. 44. Ibid.

The Faith Healers, pp. 217-25. Rev. George Lange, bishop's representative to the charismatic move-

45. Randi, 46.

ment

in Worcester, Massachusetts,

quoted in Randi, The Faith Healers,

p. 222.

47. "Pilgrimage," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.

48. Consider, in addition to Lourdes, the shrines at Guadalupe,

Mexico;

Fatima, Portugal; Medjugoije, Yugoslavia; and others, including La Salette, France.

See Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary:

From La

Salette to

Medju-

gorje (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991). 49. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering

Mary,

p. 50.

50. Ibid., pp. 43-49. 51. Ibid., p. 49. 52. Ibid., p. 52. 53. Ibid., p. 53. 54. Ibid., p. 56. 55. Ibid., pp. 57-67. 56.

John Coulson,

ed..

The

Saints:

A

Concise Biographical Dictionary

(New

York: Hawthorn Books, 1958), pp. 85-86; Joan Carroll Cruz, The Incorruptibles (Rockford,

lU.:

Tan Books and

Publishers, 1977), pp. 288-89.

Faith Healing

57.

Keith Thomas, Religion

and

The Supernatural, the Occult, and the 58.

and

Mines, Pseudoscience

the Decline

of Magic, quoted

165

in Larue,

Bible, p. 157.

the Paranormal, p. 249. See also Curtis D.

MacDougall, Superstition and the Press (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 495;

Larue, The Supernatural, the Occult,

59.

D. Scott Rogo, Miracles:

nomena (New York:

A

and the

Bible, p. 157.

Wondrous Phe-

Parascientijic Inquiry into

Dial Press, 1982), pp. 290-91. (Rogo cites Dr. West's book.

Eleven Lourdes Miracles, 1957.) 60. Hines, Pseudoscience

and the Paranormal,

p. 249.

61. Ibid., p. 250.

62.

James Randi, "Lourdes

Revisited," TJie Skeptical Inquirer 6.4

(Summer

1982): 4.

64.

and the Paranormal, p. 250. MacDougall, Superstition and the Press, pp. 493-94.

65.

"Have

63. Hines, Pseudoscience

Faith,

Save Water," Time, October

1,

The Supernatural, the Occult, and the

66. Larue,

67. Advertising materials

1990. Bible, p. 158.

from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate,

Belleville, Illinois.

68. " 'Miraculous'

News, February

Well Water Draws Hordes to Mexico," Rocky Mountain

13, 1992;

Thomas Von

Mouillard, "Throngs of Sick Wait for

Days to Drink the 'Miracle Water' from Mexican Well," Rocky Mountain News,

May

11, 1992.

69. " 'Miraculous' 70.

WeU Water."

"Throngs of Sick."

71. Ibid. 72. Bill Osinski, Site/*

Atkmta

73. 1

Constitution, February 15, 1992.

David Gonzalez, "At Lourdes of Bronx, Where Cooling Hope Flows,"

New York 74.

"Woman Asked to Post Warning about Water at Apparition

Times,

May 27,

Merle Severy,

1992.

Great Religions of the World (Washington, D.C.:

ed..

National Geographic Society, 1971), p. 381. 75.

"Eddy, Mary Baker," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.

76.

Georgia Mihnine, "Mary Baker G. Eddy," McClure's Magazine 28 (1907):

236, quoted in Julius Silberger, Jr., i

Mary Baker Eddy

(Boston:

Little,

Brown

and Co., 1980), pp. 27-28. 77.

From

Science

and

Health, with

Key

to the Scriptures

and Rudimental

Divine Science, quoted in "Christian Science," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed. 78. Science

and Health, quoted

in

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1960 ed.

79. "Christian Science." 80.

Hines, Pseudoscience

and

the Paranormal, p. 248. See also Rita

Swan,

Looking for a Miracle

166

"Faith Healing, Christian Science, and the Medical Care of Children," New England

Journal of Medicine 309 (1983): 1639-41. 81.

Hines, Pseudoscience

82.

Ibid.

and the Paranormal,

p. 248.

See also Swan, "Faith Healing," pp. 1639^1.

Get Probation

83. "Christian Scientists

Times, July 7, 1990;

in

New York

Death of Son," The

Monica Maske, "Care of Children Fuels

Christian Science

Debate," The Sunday Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.), September 22, 1991. 84. Prosecutor

on

John Kieman, quoted

in "Christian Scientists

Trial in Manslaughter Case," TTie Atlanta Journal

and

Say Prayer

Constitution, April

16. 1990.

85. "Christian Scientists 86.

Get Probation."

Richard N. Ostling, "Tumult in the Reading Rooms," Time, October

14. 1991, p. 57.

87. Silberger, 88.

Mary Baker Eddy,

Martin Gardner, Fads

Dover, 1957),

&

p. 143.

Fallacies in the

Name of Science (New

York:

p. 217.

89. Ibid., p. 218.

90. Ibid., pp. 218-19., P. Philips, ed..

Out of this World,

vol.

7 ([England]:

Phoebus, 1978), pp. 13-16. 91.

James Randi, Flim-Flam!

(Buffalo, N.Y.:

Prometheus Books,

1986),

p. 189.

92. Gardner,

Fads

&

Fallacies, p. 219.

93.

Randi, /7/m-/7am./p. 191.

94.

Tom

Valentine, "U.S. Attorney,

Fraud," The National

Tattler,

September

TV Newsman Qaim

Dr.

Tony

Is

23, 1973.

95. Ibid. 96. Randi,

H/m-F/am./ pp. 177-87.

97. Valentine, "U.S. Attorney, 98. Francis X. King, 99.

TV Newsman Claim Dr. Tony Is a Fraud.

Mind & Magic (New

Randi, F//m-F/flm./

York: Crescent, 1991),

p. 176.

100. Ibid., pp. 174-76. 101.

King,

Mind &

Magic,

102. Hines, Pseudoscience

p. 231.

and the Paranormal,

p. 246.

p. 230.

a

Ecstatic Visions

From

ancient times, shamans, prophets, and mystics have claimed to see

from

visions of otherworldly figures,

spirits

of the dead to angels and

other celestial representatives. In the Old Testament, for example, King Saul, seeking advice

on how to thwart an encroaching

Philistine

army,

turned to a necromancer, the infamous "witch of Endor," who had a familiar

Saul wished to confer with the deceased Samuel by having the

spirit.

contact Samuel's ghost, and so he

enemy likely

disguise

and slipped through

—

town of Endor. "Samuel" prophesied disaster the most outcome, considering Saul's desperation and the forecast deepened lines to the

—

He and

his despair.

battle

donned a

spirit

began

Most of

(1

Sam.

the Israelite

army were thus defeated even before

the

28-30).>

the Old Testament prophets, of course, conmiunicated not

with the underworld but with heavenly angels (Gen. 19:1-3),

and angels saved

entities.

Elijah

Thus Lot conversed with

from starvation

in the wilder-

Abraham spoke with God in a dream (Gen. 20:6), and Moses talked with him upon Mount Sinai where he received ness (1 Kings 19:5-8). Similarly,

the stone tablets of the law (Exod. 24:112, 31:18).

In the

New

Testament, apparitions are central to the story of Jesus.

The angel Gabriel announced

his

conception (Luke

God" heralded him at his baptism (Matt. Mary Magdalene at his tomb (Matt. 28).

of

167

3:16),

1:

26-31), the "Spirit

and an angel confronted

Looking for a Miracle

168

were entertained by Abraham (Gen.

18)

many

forms.

The

and Lot (Gen.

19)

Apparitions in biblical times could take

angels

were

who

indis-

from ordinary men. The "angel of the Lord" who spoke Moses on Mt. Horeb appeared as a burning bush (Exod. 3:2), and

tinguishable

to at

Jesus's baptism,

lo,

the heavens were opened unto him,

descending

and he saw the

a dove, and lighting upon him:

like

heaven saying, This

And

Spirit of

God

a voice from

lo

my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. (Matt.

is

3:16-17)

Agam,

tomb, when Mary Magdalene encountered "the angel

at Jesus's

Matthew

of the Lord,** according to lightning,

for

and

his

(28:3),

"His countenance was

like

raiment white as snow."

The guardians at Christ's sepulcher were terrified of the angel, "And fear of him the keepers did shake" (Matt. 28:4). Responses of others

to heavenly visitors ranged

from

fear to adoration

John, author of the book of Revelation, to

an angel

it

not: for I

am

at the feet of

thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren

them which keep the saying of

the prophets, and of

God. (Rev.

down

falling

in the case of,

However, the angel admonished him, saying:

in worship.

See thou do

—even,

this

book: worship

22:9)

Despite this admonition, the

Roman

veneration of angels since the late

Catholic Church has encouraged the

fifth century.

Several angels, such as

Gabriel and Raphael, have been promoted to sainthood, and churches are sometimes

named

after those so designated.

the practice observe that the veneration of angels the veneration of

worship

is

God,

bible scholar Gerald

Although defenders of is

of a lesser form than

Larue

states simply:

"But

worship and angels are worshipped within Catholicism. "2 The

same can be said of the veneration of the Virgin Mary. The status of Mary has been increasingly elevated by the Catholic church. As mentioned in Chapter 2, in relation to the Image of Guadalupe, the ecclesiastical term hyperdulia

Mary is accorded in his

—a

The Life of

status in

is

used to describe the special veneration

which (as Marcello Craveri pointedly observes

Jesus), the Virgin eventually

of divinity. "3 Early on,

Mary became

"assumed the functions

not merely the mother of Christ,

but— much more importantly—the "Mother

of God."

By

the seventh cen-

— 169

Ecstatic Visions

tury

—although the Gospels

(Matt. 12:46;

Mark

had been declared

sisters

Luke 8:19)— Mary's "perpetual

3:31, 6:3;

(i.e.,

and

clearly refer to the brothers

of Jesus

virginity"

that she avoided sexual relations with Joseph for

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception eventually proclaimed that Mary was even preserved from original sin at the moment she was conceived in her mother's womb. And in 1950, Pope Pius XII her entire

life).

proclaimed the doctrine of Mary's Assumption

was assumed bodily

like Jesus,

Indeed, so

—that

death Mary,

at her

into heaven.'*

much emphasis has been

placed on

Mary and

so

many

on her (such as the ability to produce miracles some have labeled Marian devotion especially

divine attributes conferred

own

of her

accord) that

when expressed that as

before statues and other images

may, dramatic

it

—

illustrations of

—as

"Mariolatry.''^

Be

Mary's special status and sup-

posedly miraculous powers are provided by the Marian apparitions that

have come to proliferate throughout the Catholic world.

Marian Apparitions Although apparitions of the Virgin began to outnumber those of Jesus, saints,

to

and angels

Mary

in the eleventh

and twelfth

centuries,

when devotion

increased in western Christianity, the early sixteenth century

brought a diminution in Marian sightings. This apparently resulted from

two

factors: first, the Protestant

Reformation, which rejected,

among many

other things, the veneration of the Virgin, and, second, the Inquisition,

whose witchhunting

proclivities

sort of experience that

Of lic

the

might dampen a

might be equated with the

Mexico, in 1531 (related in Chapter

2).^

Then

claim any

occult.^

Marian apparitions deemed authentic by the

Church, none occurred for three centuries

when

seer's desire to

Roman

after that at

Catho-

Guadalupe,

in the nineteenth century

there flourished such occultish interests as popular mesmerism, spir-

itualism,

Theosophy, and clairvoyance^

apparitions which

—came a

drew great crowds to

revival in reports of Marian

certain sites in Catholic Europe.^

These interests evidently served as models for such reports and their

book Encountering phenomenon:

attendant responses in that century. In her scholarly

Mary, Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz conmients on the

The

peculiar importance that has

apparitions of the past

two

become attached

to

some of the Marian

centuries can be explained, in part,

by the

Looking for a Miracle

170

many

fact that

apparition

of these have been both "serial" and "public."

one

is

in

which the

seers

have been led

an

in

to expect that this experience will be repeated, and

about

to relatives and friends and suggest that

it

word spreads and people gather around

rise to

from a few to

public events of sometimes

parition

miracle, generally speaking they

themselves.

bom

they speak

happen again,

will

occur in

seers, then,

several thousand people, giving

immense proportions.

A

public ap-

may

do not

witness a sign, such as a sun see (or expect to see) the Virgin

'0

nineteenth-century Marian apparition to attract widespread

first

was

interest

experience

simply one in which people surround the seers during their

is

experiences. While those gathered

The

when

serial

the seers at the announced or

expected time. The subsequent experiences of the the presence of anywhere

it

initial

A

that reported

by 24-year-old Catherine Laboure, a peasant-

Sister of Charity in Paris in 1830. Catherine

had a penchant

for

seeing apparitions, notably of St. Vincent de Paul, the founder of her

and she

order, five

who was

also claimed to

have a personal "angel," a child of about

radiant with light. Following a brief appearance of

Mary

which prompted Catherine to kneel before the apparition, a second

in July,

vision occurring

on November 27 had a specific purpose. Catherine claimed

she saw the Virgin in an oval frame on which appeared the words:

Mary, conceived without She

sin,

also heard a voice saying,

who wear

Persons

they wear those

it

who have

recourse to thee."

"Have a a medal struck from

this

model.

indulgenced will receive great graces, especially

around the neck; graces

who have

"vision"

it

pray for us

"O

confidence."

will

if

be bestowed abundantly upon

The medallion was produced

—

after

a third

—and became known as the "Miraculous Medal." This apparent

holy sanctioning of the concept helped those

who were

lobbying in favor

of the proclamation of Mary's Immaculate Conception to realize their desires in 1854.'i St.

classic

'

Catherine (who was canonized in 1947) seems to have been a rather

example of what psychologists term a "fantasy-prone personality"—

a type of person

who

typically exhibits certain personality characteristics,

including having imaginary companions during childhood; spending a considerable

amount of time

fantasizing; reporting apparitions, or having other

mystical experiences; experiencing vivid dreams; and yet being basically

a normal, healthy, and

socially

aware individual. '^

Given St. Catherine's proneness to fantasy and the rather popular subject

171

Ecstatic Visions

matter of the Virgin's alleged message, together with the well-known theological elements contained therein, there

seems no reason to give the

slightest

credence to the apparition.

D. Scott Rogo has suggested otherwise, dictions" the apparition supposedly

made

citing "several accurate pre-

to Catherine. '^ However, these

appear to have been Nostradamian in their openness to interpretation,

and they concerned events rather obviously foreshadowed by sentiments

had been current for some time across France. Also, some of the

that

prophecies were apparently not revealed until after the events they allegedly predicted.

According to an authoritative source, "For upwards of forty

years Catherine spoke to

and "she enjoined

silence

made

prophecies was not at

no one save her confessor of her experience" on him." Indeed, Catherine's role in the alleged public until shortly before her death in 1876,

which time the events that had supposedly been forecast had already

come

to

pass.!'*

In contrast to St. Catherine's visions, the parition to occur outside of

a cloistered

first

setting,

crowds, took place in the French Alps in 1846. At

two shepherd children claimed a in

single

modem

Marian ap-

and which drew large

La Salette, near Grenoble,

encounter with a figure described

Marian terms. One was fourteen-year-old Melanie Mathieu, the

illiterate

daughter of an occasionally employed laborer, described by her

employer as

lazy, sullen,

own

and disobedient. Rejected early by her mother

and often locked out of the house, Melanie said she was kept company during her isolation by her celestial brother, Jesus.

The second

an eleven-year-old boy named Pierre-Maximin Giraud as "reckless."

raised

September

was

described

Maximin's father was often absent, leaving the boy to be

—as well as reportedly abused —by

The two

who was

child

children

had only

his stepmother.

they took their respective

19, 1846,

and on the morning of

recently met,

little

herds of cattle together

up the slope of a nearby mountain. After eating lunch and taking a nap, Melanie and then Maximin saw a bright

first

scarcely discerned the figure of

light,

within which they

a woman. She began to speak to them,

my children. Don't be afraid! I am here to tell you great news." The woman then told them that if the populace did not mend saying:

their

"Come

near,

ways, she would cease to be able to restrain her son from wreaking

vengeance:

For a long time

abandon you,

I

I

have suffered for you;

am

forced to pray to

if I

do not want

him myself without

my

son to

ceasing.

You

Looking for a Miracle

172

pay no heed. However much you would do, you could never recompense the pain I

have taken for you.

I

have given you six days for work;

for myself

the

and no one

hand of

my

the

grant

son. It

it is

It is this

carts

these

which weighs down

cannot swear without

two

things which weigh

son.

They

your

fault. I

warned you

On

last

year about

when you you swore and you introduced the name

found the potatoes had spoiled be none

is

you have not heeded

the potatoes, but

my

to me.

hand of my son.

If the harvest is spoiled,

of

it

have reserved the seventh day

Those who drive the

son.

name of my

introducing the

down

will

I

it.

the contrary,

continue this year so that by Christmas there will

will

left.

Since Melanie was having a

little

difficulty in

comprehending the

lady's

French, the apparition switched to the local dialect, continuing:

If

you have wheat,

beasts will eat,

it

All that

you

will

will

sow, the

not dare to

eat.

will fall into dust.

great famine will come. Before the famine comes, the children

under seven years of age in the

it.

and that which remains the beasts

In the upcoming year

A

not good to sow

it is

hands of those

The

who do

others will

be seized by trembling and they

will

will die

hold them.

their

penance in the famine. The walnuts

be worm-eaten and the grapes

will rot. If

will

they are converted, the stones

and rocks will become heaps of wheat, and the potatoes will sow themselves in the fields (in the year that comes). In the

women go

summer only some

It

old

Mass on Sunday and the rest work, and in winter the boys only want to go to Mass to mock religion. No one observes Lent; to

they go to the meat market like dogs.'^

The figure also instructed the children to pray each evening and morning. "Now, my children," she said, "make this known to my people," whereupon the figure strode up a knoll, rose into the air, and disappeared. By the following evening, word of the alleged apparition now identified •

—

as the Virgin site

Mary

became a focus for

reports of miracles.

up

—had

for relics

A

when a

one of the smaller

spread throughout the area. Predictably, the

local pilgrimages

and soon there were the usual

rock on which the Virgin sat was being broken

priest appropriated

pieces,

when

contain an image of Jesus' face.

later

A

what was

broken in

spring,

left

half,

of

it.

However,

was discovered to

which appears to have been

,,

Ecstatic Visions

173

became a "miraculous spring" that had magically appeared. Almost immediately, its water was discovered to have healing powers, and many miraculous cures were reported. But as Zimdars-Swartz says in her Encountering Mary, near the

site all

Many

La

of

along,

Salette's healings, particularly those that

occurred at the

site itself,

were said to have

were associated with mass pilgrimages involving

very large numbers of people, and this suggests that psychological factors

could have played a considerable part in these healings.'^

A local priest

seems to have agreed, writing to the bishop: "Children, old

men, old women, pregnant women,

all

and panting, drinking

and descend again joyous and con-

tent.

at the spring,

rush up there, arriving sweating

Their prayers and their confidence purify the water;

no one.

it

has harmed

"'8

In addition to the reputed healings, divine punishments were also reportedly administered. that "the Virgin

For example, a man who was said to have declared

was a woman

like other

women," had

his infant

daughter

taken from him. She died after fallmg mto a pot of boiling water, whereupon the father went with his wife to the

mountain

site

to seek the Virgm's

pardon. Let that be a lesson to skeptics, the credulous thought.

Other supposedly miraculous aspects of the the children claimed

affair

had been given them by the

these have been cited as having

come

true

the apparition's supernatural powers, the fact

were the prophecies

apparition.

Although

and thus providing proof of is

that the "prophecies'* about

become less than impressive when we consider additional facts: The 1840s had brought a famine to Europe; by the time of the Virgin's alleged visitation, it had ah^ady reached the southeastern portion of France the famine

(i.e.,

the Grenoble area), resulting in shortages of food and consequently

bringing higher prices. Certain other prophecies for

example

—were not in

the children's messages. received, these

fact contained in

And

officials

at his specific request. Unfortunately, as

evaluation of

The

it

any of the early accounts of

as to certain secret messages that the children

were obtained by local

they are "so cryptic that

—about war and floods,

would be

and sent to Pope Pius IX

even the credulous

difficult to offer

Rogo

admitted,

an objective or concise

them. "'^

alleged

Marian appearance

apparition claims that followed

at

La

Salette

—mcluding

(discussed at length in the preceding chapter)

is

prototypical of certain

those at Lourdes in

and

at

1858

Pontmain, in north-

174

Looking for a Miracle

western France, in 1871. The

most astonishing of Marian

latter

has been described as "one of the

visitations of all time.^^o

In the late nineteenth century, Pontmain (near Le

dominantly

Roman

CathoHc

by homes and farm

village consisting

buildings.

On

January

Mans) was a preof a town church encircled France was

17, 1871, while

war with Prussia, the Barbadette family was engaged in routine chores. The father and two of his sons, Eugene and Joseph, were working in the bam. At six o'clock, Eugene stepped outside "just to see the weather,** at

when he saw an

woman wearing a blue robe Eugene

was the

apparition: in the sky

studded with

alerted his family,

who

figure of a

tall,

lovely

stars.

in turn brought others into the street

outside the Barbadette home. His brother and other village children claimed

they could see the "apparition," but, try as they would, the adults

and

Madame

pious nun

—Monsieur

Barbadette, and various neighbors, including a beloved and

—were unable to see anything out of the ordinary.^!

But there

is

a clue to the

selective nature

identified three stars in the sky

of the vision. Eugene pointedly

and explained to the adults how the

delineated the Blessed Virgin's figure.

At

least

stars

according to some of the

accounts of the "miracle," the adults were indeed able to see the triangle

of bright

stars;

they just could not see anything else of significance.^^ This

suggests that the apparition stellation.

(Everyone

figures of Hercules,

creatures,

and

is

was simply an imaginative viewing of a con-

familiar with constellation charts that depict the

Andromeda,

objects

Perseus, and other mythological beings,

—each supposedly indicated by a patterning of

stars

but helped along by accompanying white outlines in a sort of connect-

on a blue background. And everyone knows the degree of imagination one must apply to any attempt to visualize a given figure.) The children were less inhibited in being able to "see" (i.e., imagine seeing), in the blue sky and stars, the familiar figure of the Virgin. The children's later explanation of how an "oval frame containing four candles had formed the-dots fashion

around her"23 could simply be an extension of the same effect

—

i.e.,

inclusion

of four additional stars in the constellation picture. That the figure

re-

portedly changed expression, and that words slowly appeared underneath to spell out

an innocuous message, could simply be the

effect

another person's imaginative perception influencing others

power of suggestion

at

—

of one or

in brief, the

work. (The claim that a few children allegedly

perceived the figure without prompting

is

a self-serving one that

is

obviously

included to provide a measure of verisimilitude to the situation. it is

a dubious assertion that cannot

now

be

At

best,

verified.)^'*

I

175

Ecstatic Visions

The

last significant

Marian apparition of the nineteenth century was

reported in Ireland in 1879. Although

Rogo

characterizes

(with his usual

it

hyperbole) as "one of the most bizarre incidents in the history of the miraculous,''25

The

it

scarcely seems so.

events transpired at the

little

village of

Knock, County Mayo,

About seven o'clock in the evening of what had been a dismally rainy day, a young girl named Margaret Beime was making her daily visit to lock the doors of the village church when she noticed on August

21, 1879.

something odd: a strange brightness that illuminated the top of the church.

She gave

thought, but half an hour later

it little

passing by and saw within the glow church's southern gable

—which seemed to emanate from the

—a "tableau" of immobile

and a bishop, standing beside an

Mary McLaughlin was

altar.

figures:

Mary, Joseph,

A crowd of fourteen villagers soon

congregated and for some two hours viewed the "apparition" in the falling rain.26

Although investigated and deemed authentic by a commission of three priests,27

by La in

the "apparition" seems less akin to the

Salette

Chapter

Marian

and Lourdes than to some of the holy

2.

visitations typified

illusions

we

discussed

Recall the illuminated figure of Jesus, with his hand

the shoulder of a boy, that appeared

on a soybean

oil

tank

on

—an image

explained as "a combination of lighting, rust spots, fog, and people's imaginations."

Now

it

is

impossible to recreate the exact conditions that prevailed

at that precise place

and time,

but, considering that the tableau figures

were unmoving and unspeaking, the possibility of the ethereal scenes being merely some kind of optical illusion seems for the illumination, such as the

other source, together with

its

moon

likely.

Given any potential source

or a reflection of light from some

diffusion

by the misty atmosphere, a play

of light and shadow could result which would be eminently capable of stimulating the pious imagination of credulous villagers.

Although Rogo the paranormal,

implicitly assigned the

some of

his observations

phenomenon

to the realm of

seem equally applicable to the

hypothesis of illusion, imagination, and wishful thinking. Noting that apparitions tend to occur in times of social stress,

The country was undergoing one of

Rogo

the worst periods in

continues:

its

history.

potato crop had failed in both 1877 and 1878, and was bound to again in 1879.

Many who

The fail

were spared death by the resulting famine

were stricken by an epidemic of typhus that swept through the country

Looking for a Miracle

176

that

same year. In these hard

no doubt often turned to feast

on

religion, especially

Knock community

this special

day

—for

was the eve of the octave of the Assumption,

the date of the visitation

a

times, the thoughts of the

of special importance in the worship of Mary.^*

''Miracles" at Fdtima

The

story of the

Marian

Fatima, Portugal, that began in

visitations at

1917 was also set in a time of trouble. After the

monarchy

in

1910, there

persecution, followed

involvement in World

The

came a wave of

fall

of the Portuguese

anti-clerical

by various revolutionary

conflicts

sentiment and

and Portugal's

War l.^

May

on

story properly begins

when three shepherd some two miles west of

1917,

13,

children were tending their flock in a pasture

Fatima, a town near Ourem. The children were ten-year-old Lucia de Jesus

dos Santos and her two cousins, Francisco Marto, age nine, and Jacinta, seven.

a

slope,

A

sudden

flash of lightning sent the children fleeing

whereupon the two

woman, radiant in a small holm oak.^o

white

girls

to the that

end of a six-month period site

all

see her,

on the

figure,

among

the holly-like leaves of

who promised

to identify herself

—during which the children were to return

thirteenth of each

month. The

woman

told the children

of them would go to heaven but that Francisco,

would have to

recite

down

beheld a dazzling apparition: a beautiful standing

light,

Only Lucia talked with the at the

his sister

many

to have Francisco say the rosary,

who

could not

She then instructed Lucia

rosaries.

whereupon the boy became able

the apparition, although he remained unable to hear instructing the children to pray for

it

to see

speak. After

an end to the war, the figure vanished

into the sky.^i

Although the children agreed that they should keep the matter once home,

little

secret,

Jacinta blurted out to her parents that she had shared

a vision of the Virgin Mary. News soon spread throughout the town, and when the children revisited the site on June 13 they were accom-

in

—

panied by approximately

—

fifty

devout

oak, the children presently saw the

villagers.

woman

and again taking up a position amid the oak's

Kneeling in prayer at the

gliding

down from heaven

foliage.32

was repeated each month of the specified period, although the children were absent on the August 13 date (being

Thus began a pattern

that

111

Ecstatic Visions

who

detained for questioning by secular authorities

and who held them

disbelieved their tale

On

briefly in the public jail at Ourem^^).

July 13,

the children claimed they received a special revelation that the lady forbade

them to

Throughout the period the apparition remained

disclose.

invisible

some reported seeing a little cloud rise from (or tree and a movement of the tree's branches **as if in

to the onlookers, but

from behind?) the

going away the Lady's dress had trailed over them.''^^

At the end of the six-month period, on a stormy and rainy October 13, an estimated seventy thousand people were in attendance at the site, anticipating the Virgin's final visit and with many fully expecting that she I

I

|(

\\

!i

t|

would work a great miracle. As before, the

figure appeared,

Lady of

only to the children. Identifying herself as "the

urged repentance and the building of a chapel at the

and again

the Rosary," she

site.

After predicting

an end to the war and giving the children certain undisclosed the lady lifted her hands to the sky.

sun!"

visions,

Thereupon Lucia exclaimed, "The

As everyone gazed upward, and saw

that a silvery disc

from behind clouds, they experienced what

is

known

had emerged

in the terminology

of Marian apparitions as a "sun miracle. "^5

This "miracle" was variously described.

Some

claimed that the sun

spun in pin wheel fashion with colored streamers, others that

One

reported, "I

saw

clearly

east to west, gliding slowly

the sun

seemed to be

falling

and

distinctly

it

"danced."

a globe of light advancing from

and majestically through the toward the spectators.

Still

air."

To some,

others saw, before

the "dance of the sun" occurred, white flower petals showering

down

but

disintegrating before reaching earth.^^

Exactly what did happen at Fatima has been the subject of controversy.

Church

authorities

made

much

inquiries, collected eyewitness testi-

mony, and declared the events worthy of

belief as

a miracle.^^ Skeptics

have countered that people elsewhere in the world, viewing the very same sun, did not see the alleged gyrations; detect the

nor did astronomical observatories

sun deviating from the norm. Therefore, more tenable expla-

nations for the reports include

phenomena such possibility gains

as a

mass

hysteria^^

and

local meteorological

sundog (a parhelion or "mock

some credence from a

sun").

The

latter

researcher's claim that the sDver

wrong azimuth and elevation to have been the sun. 39 A similar phenomenon occurred in 1988 at an outdoor Catholic service in Los Angeles; according to the Los Angeles

disc's

described position seemed to be at the

Times,

Looking for a Miracle

178

.

.

.

many

in the

in the

crowd reported seeing a prism

effect

and brightness

sky to the north. The reports by some of "another sun" or a

"rainbow" or both prompted speculation about a supernatural

sign.''*'

But a meteorologist dismissed the phenomenon as a sundog, explaining: The sun

passes through water droplets or ice particles high in the

atmosphere or through high, thin clouds, which a way as to have a coloration

However, several eyewitnesses straight at it" or otherwise

made

so, the

is

have been due to optical retinal distortion

at the

actually looks like the

October

were looking Tixedly

specifically stated they

actual sun.'*2 If this

It

such

That area of the sky also looks

effect.

brighter than the surrounding sky.

refract the light in

13, 1917,

at the

clear they

sun.**'

gathering at Fatima

sun" or "tried to look

were gazing

directly at the

"dancing sun" and other phenomena

effects resulting

from such

caused by staring at the intense

factors as

light,

may

temporary

or by the effect

of darting the eyes to and fro so as to avoid fixed gazing (but thus combining ;

image, afterimage, and movement), or other illusory

results.

Indeed, there was very likely a combination of factors, including optical effects

and meteorological phenomena

thin clouds, causing

it

(e.g.,

the sun being seen through

to appear as a silver disc; an alteration in the density

of the passing clouds so that the sun would alternately brighten and dim, thus appearing to advance and recede; dust or moisture droplets in the

}

atmosphere imparting a variety of colors to sunlight; and/ or other phenomena'*^).

The

the people had

had

effects

come

of suggestion were probably also involved, since

to the site fully expecting

their gaze dramatically directed at the

and excitedly discussed and compared certain to foster "contagion" (or Believers in the

parition allegedly

mass

Francisco would soon

event,

sun by the charismatic Lucia,

their perceptions'*^ in

j

I

a way almost

hysteria).

Fatima "miracle" also

made

some miraculous

i

cite certain predictions

the ap-

to Lucia, including the "secret" that Jacinta and die.

Indeed, both soon succumbed to influenza,

Francisco in 1919 and Jacinta the following year. Other predicted events included an end to the First

World War,

the

coming of the Second, and

the rise of Russia as a major power.'*^ However, according to Zimdars-

Swartz, "much of what devotees today accept as the content of the apparition

comes from four memoirs written by Lucia later resided]

in the convent [where she

between 1935 and 1941, many years