Old people will remember the ‘60’s era TV series, “The Flying Nun,” with Sally Fields, a real cutey for adolescents such as myself at the time. The series left me with two impressions: one, how cool would it be to fly, even if it took a winged nun’s hat to do it; and two, how sad that this innocent young thing would never succumb to the caresses of some young hopeful like me. I have since moved on from Sally Fields, leaving her to the memory of Burt Reynolds, but never did I think then that a nun could actually fly, hat or no. Maybe Jesus could – of course he could if he wanted to – but not the rest of us mere mortals.
But we don’t always grow in one direction. Usually, time disabuses us of miracles, leaving us to the unkind mercies of a world whose only certainties are death and taxes. However, this attitude on miracles, or the scientifically impossible, has, with the help of prolific research, left me altogether. Impossible things – we often call them the supernatural – happen all the time. Cancer is cured instantly, people can read minds and affect physical reality through thought, and, most importantly for our purposes here, people can and have often flown.
Such says the title of a great book I am reading, The Man Who Could Fly, by Michael Grosso. No, Grosso does not work for the Vatican, and I am not sure he is even religious. Rather, he is a philosophy professor who has done extensive work on the paranormal and quantum physics, and has proven to me through his books that mind exists apart from physical reality. This has not been accomplished through the repetition of physical experiments with certain results, as is required for scientific proof, as the supernatural is, as the name says, beyond the common notions of the natural. Instead, in this book he has relied on witnesses to the flying antics and miracles of St Joseph of Copertino, such an enormous quantity and quality of witnesses that one simply looks silly and obstructionist denying the truth that at least something happened to and around the saint, something that cannot be explained by the standard scientific methods.
Flying. This was not the only wonder he accomplished, but it was done so often and is such an astounding feat that it is for this that St Joseph is remembered. In fact, as his witnesses attest, he flew every time he - a priest - said mass, or saw a picture of the Virgin, or anyone hinted at anything related to heaven. He flew to the tops of trees and remained perched on delicate branches for large portions of an hour, or flew several hundred yards over the heads of crowds, or hundreds of feet to the top of a cathedral where a portrait of Mary was kept; he flew or levitated while lifting the communion wafers for blessing in front of full congregations; and, most importantly from our view of “proof,” he flew during the two times he was forced to appear before the Inquisition.
Joseph was born in the first years of the 1600’s, which are counted among the most difficult years for anyone displaying extraordinary abilities. This century, more than any other in Christian history, was the “season of the witch,” in which America recorded the infamous Salem Witch trials. It was the culminating century of the counter- reformation, when the Catholic Church was still reeling from the schism created by Martin Luther a century earlier, which effectively ended Christendom. It is also noted as the century when the true modernisms of scientific materialism and capitalism took hold. It was then that demons were seen everywhere, even in a poor, slightly addled priest who had the misfortune of flying every time he entered ecstatic union with God.
Thus, through the terror and perhaps envy of his superiors, Joseph was subjected to two intense and possibly consequential meetings with the relentless Catholic inquisitors. There, he humbly admitted to his flights and other miracles, while also, in his peasant humility, stated beyond guile that he wished the heck that such events never happened to him. People gawked and flooded to his masses or to wherever the Vatican unsuccessfully tried to hide him, leaving him less time to contemplate the creator. And as he confessed and spoke before his inquisitors, he often flew, much to their horror.
What is important about this is that the clerks of the Inquisition took copious and careful notes of everything, serving as primitive camcorders. Nothing was too small to note so that the scourge of Satan could be washed from the holy lands of the Church. And there they were and are to see for all in stark black and white – full attestations that Joseph flew, not once, but hundreds if not thousands of times.
I have read physicists who proclaim that not only flight, but any levitation is impossible, and from their view of physics, they are right. What, we would have to ask, would happen to the object as the earth turned? How would other physical things be affected by this puncture in natural law?
Interestingly, it was often reported with both saints and the demonically possessed (so said) who levitated that the very clothes on them did not move with gravity. Possessed women were reported to flip upside down while there dresses remained hanging around their ankles. With Joseph, people who were touched by him when he flew or levitated were raised above with him with no effort applied. The single touch of a finger was all that was necessary to raise a fully grown man. Obviously, Joseph and others had created –and still create – spaces around them that answered to a different drummer.
There is no concrete scientific reason yet created for these phenomena, although quantum physics might someday fill this vacuum with the ongoing research into this seemingly magical realm, but of the reality of these ‘miracles’ I have no doubt. The days of doubting for me are long-gone. However, Grosso did point out something that still bothers me when expounded on the astounding phenomena often associated with near-death experiences (NDEs). Aside from proofs of out –of-body experiences during this time, where mind is shown to exist outside the brain (a huge boost to the idea of an afterlife), the NDE subject often is met by a personal super-being who radiates love and light, and whose presence often presages a full Life Review. Here, he is shown, “It’s a Wonderful Life” style, how important to others his actions on earth have been. However, here is also where he is held up to the mirror of perfect divine love, where he is relentlessly found to be wanting. Here, the subject experiences great pain and remorse.
In this I also believe, and in this I am most afraid. We might fly or experience miracle healings or win the lottery jackpot, but all of this passes. I am not sure, however, that the remorse for our moral failings ever does. Yes, there is infinite divine love, but can we ever find our way to it? According to Christian doctrine in general, we cannot without faith in Christ. But what of this faith? Is that perfected within us in the light after our death? Or do we have to be saints here on earth first to find eternal bliss? That is, do we, too, have to raise above the laws of physics, as St Joseph did, to raise above our mortal failings?
The East calls sin Karma, but by any other name, it weighs us down. Gravity, then, is not only a physical law, but a projection of Original Sin. Under such a view, it should be the natural laws that are seen as ephemeral and fantastical, not the supernatural abilities, which only reflect the possibilities of the greater, eternal world. The miracle deniers – and by this I mean all those who simply refuse to believe that anything supernatural can take place – then reflect an intransigence of soul that might never be penetrated by the light. This is allegory, of course: the deniers might change their minds on death and the believers might find themselves unable to admit to their own karma or sin. But it is to the greatness and judgement of the afterlife that miracles point, and to this where our attention might best be drawn. In this, the miracle saints might stand more as warnings than as puzzling curiosities.
Old people will remember the ‘60’s era TV series, “The Flying Nun,” with Sally Fields, a real cutey for adolescents such as myself at the time. The series left me with two impressions: one, how cool would it be to fly, even if it took a winged nun’s hat to do it; and two, how sad that this innocent young thing would never succumb to the caresses of some young hopeful like me. I have since moved on from Sally Fields, leaving her to the memory of Burt Reynolds, but never did I think then that a nun could actually fly, hat or no. Maybe Jesus could – of course he could if he wanted to – but not the rest of us mere mortals.
But we don’t always grow in one direction. Usually, time disabuses us of miracles, leaving us to the unkind mercies of a world whose only certainties are death and taxes. However, this attitude on miracles, or the scientifically impossible, has, with the help of prolific research, left me altogether. Impossible things – we often call them the supernatural – happen all the time. Cancer is cured instantly, people can read minds and affect physical reality through thought, and, most importantly for our purposes here, people can and have often flown.
Such says the title of a great book I am reading, The Man Who Could Fly, by Michael Grosso. No, Grosso does not work for the Vatican, and I am not sure he is even religious. Rather, he is a philosophy professor who has done extensive work on the paranormal and quantum physics, and has proven to me through his books that mind exists apart from physical reality. This has not been accomplished through the repetition of physical experiments with certain results, as is required for scientific proof, as the supernatural is, as the name says, beyond the common notions of the natural. Instead, in this book he has relied on witnesses to the flying antics and miracles of St Joseph of Copertino, such an enormous quantity and quality of witnesses that one simply looks silly and obstructionist denying the truth that at least something happened to and around the saint, something that cannot be explained by the standard scientific methods.
Flying. This was not the only wonder he accomplished, but it was done so often and is such an astounding feat that it is for this that St Joseph is remembered. In fact, as his witnesses attest, he flew every time he - a priest - said mass, or saw a picture of the Virgin, or anyone hinted at anything related to heaven. He flew to the tops of trees and remained perched on delicate branches for large portions of an hour, or flew several hundred yards over the heads of crowds, or hundreds of feet to the top of a cathedral where a portrait of Mary was kept; he flew or levitated while lifting the communion wafers for blessing in front of full congregations; and, most importantly from our view of “proof,” he flew during the two times he was forced to appear before the Inquisition.
Joseph was born in the first years of the 1600’s, which are counted among the most difficult years for anyone displaying extraordinary abilities. This century, more than any other in Christian history, was the “season of the witch,” in which America recorded the infamous Salem Witch trials. It was the culminating century of the counter- reformation, when the Catholic Church was still reeling from the schism created by Martin Luther a century earlier, which effectively ended Christendom. It is also noted as the century when the true modernisms of scientific materialism and capitalism took hold. It was then that demons were seen everywhere, even in a poor, slightly addled priest who had the misfortune of flying every time he entered ecstatic union with God.
Thus, through the terror and perhaps envy of his superiors, Joseph was subjected to two intense and possibly consequential meetings with the relentless Catholic inquisitors. There, he humbly admitted to his flights and other miracles, while also, in his peasant humility, stated beyond guile that he wished the heck that such events never happened to him. People gawked and flooded to his masses or to wherever the Vatican unsuccessfully tried to hide him, leaving him less time to contemplate the creator. And as he confessed and spoke before his inquisitors, he often flew, much to their horror.
What is important about this is that the clerks of the Inquisition took copious and careful notes of everything, serving as primitive camcorders. Nothing was too small to note so that the scourge of Satan could be washed from the holy lands of the Church. And there they were and are to see for all in stark black and white – full attestations that Joseph flew, not once, but hundreds if not thousands of times.
I have read physicists who proclaim that not only flight, but any levitation is impossible, and from their view of physics, they are right. What, we would have to ask, would happen to the object as the earth turned? How would other physical things be affected by this puncture in natural law?
Interestingly, it was often reported with both saints and the demonically possessed (so said) who levitated that the very clothes on them did not move with gravity. Possessed women were reported to flip upside down while there dresses remained hanging around their ankles. With Joseph, people who were touched by him when he flew or levitated were raised above with him with no effort applied. The single touch of a finger was all that was necessary to raise a fully grown man. Obviously, Joseph and others had created –and still create – spaces around them that answered to a different drummer.
There is no concrete scientific reason yet created for these phenomena, although quantum physics might someday fill this vacuum with the ongoing research into this seemingly magical realm, but of the reality of these ‘miracles’ I have no doubt. The days of doubting for me are long-gone. However, Grosso did point out something that still bothers me when expounded on the astounding phenomena often associated with near-death experiences (NDEs). Aside from proofs of out –of-body experiences during this time, where mind is shown to exist outside the brain (a huge boost to the idea of an afterlife), the NDE subject often is met by a personal super-being who radiates love and light, and whose presence often presages a full Life Review. Here, he is shown, “It’s a Wonderful Life” style, how important to others his actions on earth have been. However, here is also where he is held up to the mirror of perfect divine love, where he is relentlessly found to be wanting. Here, the subject experiences great pain and remorse.
In this I also believe, and in this I am most afraid. We might fly or experience miracle healings or win the lottery jackpot, but all of this passes. I am not sure, however, that the remorse for our moral failings ever does. Yes, there is infinite divine love, but can we ever find our way to it? According to Christian doctrine in general, we cannot without faith in Christ. But what of this faith? Is that perfected within us in the light after our death? Or do we have to be saints here on earth first to find eternal bliss? That is, do we, too, have to raise above the laws of physics, as St Joseph did, to raise above our mortal failings?
The East calls sin Karma, but by any other name, it weighs us down. Gravity, then, is not only a physical law, but a projection of Original Sin. Under such a view, it should be the natural laws that are seen as ephemeral and fantastical, not the supernatural abilities, which only reflect the possibilities of the greater, eternal world. The miracle deniers – and by this I mean all those who simply refuse to believe that anything supernatural can take place – then reflect an intransigence of soul that might never be penetrated by the light. This is allegory, of course: the deniers might change their minds on death and the believers might find themselves unable to admit to their own karma or sin. But it is to the greatness and judgement of the afterlife that miracles point, and to this where our attention might best be drawn. In this, the miracle saints might stand more as warnings than as puzzling curiosities.
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