Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00318)

Dec 9 2002

Dear Friend:

Re: Astral cause of wounds: stigmata, teratology, etc


Here are some statements on Stigmata from H P B's ISIS UNVEILED

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STIGMATA


"Catherine Crowe discusses at considerable length the question of the
power of the mind over matter, and relates, in illustration, many
well-authenticated instances of the same. Among others, that most
curious phenomenon called the stigmata have a decided bearing upon
this point.

These marks come upon the bodies of persons of all ages, and always as
the result of exalted imagination. In the cases of the Tyrolese
ecstatic, Catherine Emmerich, and many others, the wounds of the
crucifixion are said to be as perfect as nature. A certain Mme. B. von
N. dreamed one night that a person offered her a red and a white rose,
and that she chose the latter. On awaking, she felt a burning pain in
her arm, and by degrees there appeared the figure of a rose, perfect
in form and color; it was rather raised above the skin. The mark
increased in intensity till the eighth day, after which it faded away,
and by the fourteenth, was no longer perceptible. "
ISIS UNVEILED I 398
9
"The employment of the human breath by the sorcerer as an adjunct for
the accomplishment of his nefarious purpose, is strikingly illustrated
in several terrible cases recorded in the French annals -- notably
those of several Catholic priests. In fact, this species of sorcery
was known from the oldest times. The Emperor Constantine (in Statute
iv., Code de Malef., etc.) prescribed the severest penalties against
such as should employ sorcery to do violence to chastity and excite
unlawful passion. ...
The above cases are cited in the official report of the famous case of
Father Girard, a Jesuit priest of very great influence, who, in 1731,
was tried before the Parliament of Aix, France, for the seduction of
his parishioner, Mlle. Catherine Cadiere, of Toulon, and certain
revolting crimes in connection with the same. The indictment charged
that the offence was brought about by resort to sorcery. Mlle. Cadiere
was a young lady noted for her beauty, piety, and exemplary virtues.
Her attention to her religious duties was exceptionally rigorous, and
that was the cause of her perdition. Father Girard's eye fell upon
her, and he began to maneuver for her ruin. Gaining the confidence of
the girl and her family by his apparent great sanctity, he one day
made a pretext to blow his breath upon her. The girl became instantly
affected with a violent passion for him.
She also had ecstatic visions of a religious character, stigmata, or
blood-marks of the "Passion," and hysterical convulsions. The
long-sought opportunity of seclusion with his penitent finally
offering, the Jesuit breathed upon her again, and before the poor girl
recovered her senses, his object had been accomplished. By sophistry
and the excitation of her religious fervor, he kept up this illicit
relation for months, without her suspecting that she had done anything
wrong. Finally, however, her eyes were opened, her parents informed,
and the priest was arraigned. twelve voted to send him to the stake.
The criminal priest was defended by all the power of the Society of
Jesus, and it is said that a million francs were spent in trying to
suppress the evidence produced at the trial. The facts, however, were
printed in a work (in 5 vols., 16mo), now rare, entitled Recueil
General des Pieces contenues au Procez du Pere Jean-Baptiste Girard,
Jeuite, etc., etc.*
We have noted the circumstance that, while under the sorcerous
influence of Father Girard, and in illicit relations with him, Mlle.
Cadiere's body was marked with the stigmata of the Passion, viz.: the
bleeding wounds of thorns on her brow, of nails in her hands and feet,
and of a lance-cut in her side. It should be added that the same marks
were seen upon the bodies of six other penitents of this priest, viz.:
Mesdames Guyol, Laugier, Grodier, Allemande, Batarelle, and Reboul. In
fact, it became commonly remarked that Father Girard's handsome
parishioners were strangely given to ecstasies and stigmata!

Add this to the fact that, in the case of Father Gaufridy, above
noted, the same thing was proved, upon surgical testimony, to have
happened to Mlle. de Palud, and we have something worth the attention
of all (especially spiritualists) who imagine these stigmata are
produced by pure spirits. Barring the agency of the Devil, whom we
have quietly put to rest in another chapter, Catholics would be
puzzled, we fancy, despite all their infallibility, to distinguish
between the stigmata of the sorcerers and those produced through the
intervention of the Holy Ghost or the angels. The Church records
abound in instances of alleged diabolical imitations of these signs of
saintship, but, as we have remarked, the Devil is out of court.
By those who have followed us thus far, it will naturally be asked, to
what practical issue this book tends; much has been said about magic
and its potentiality, much of the immense antiquity of its practice.
Do we wish to affirm that the occult sciences ought to be studied and
practiced throughout the world? Would we replace modern spiritualism
with the ancient magic? Neither; the substitution could not be made,
nor the study universally prosecuted, without incurring the risk of
enormous public dangers. At this moment, a well-known spiritualist and
lecturer on mesmerism is imprisoned on the charge of raping a subject
whom he had hypnotized. A sorcerer is a public enemy, and mesmerism
may most readily be turned into the worst of sorceries.
We would have neither scientists, theologians, nor spiritualists turn
practical magicians, but all to realize that there was true science,
profound religion, and genuine phenomena before this modern era.

We would that all who have a voice in the education of the masses
should first know and then teach that the safest guides to human
happiness and enlightenment are those writings which have descended to
us from the remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations
and a higher average morality prevail in the countries where the
people take their precepts as the rule of their lives.

We would have all to realize that magical, i.e., spiritual powers
exist in every man, and those few to practice them who feel called to
teach, and are ready to pay the price of discipline and self-conquest
which their development exacts."
ISIS UNVEILED II 634-5


Additionally Mr. Judge gives the rationale of this strange phenomenon:


"...Man is a soul who lives on thoughts and perceives only thoughts.
Every object or subject comes to him as a thought...these may be
words, ideas or pictures. The soul-man has to have an intermediary or
connecting link with Nature through which and by which he may cognize
and experience.

This link is an ethereal double or counterpart of his physical body,
dwelling in the latter; and the physical body is Nature so far as the
soul-man is concerned.

In this ethereal double (called astral body) are the sense-organs and
the centers of perception, the physical outer organs being only the
external channels or means for concentrating the physical vibrations
so as to transmit them to the astral organs and centers where the soul
perceives them as ideas or thoughts....

Speaking physically, all outer stimulus from nature is sent from
without to within.

But in the same way stimuli may be sent from the astral man within to
the periphery, the physical body; and may dominate the body so as to
alter it or bring on a lesion partial or total...

...a suggestion of a blister may make a physical swelling, secretion,
inflammation, and a sore on a subject who has submitted himself [ or
herself] to the influence of the hypnotizer. The picture ... is
impressed on the astral body, and that controls all the physical
nerves, sensations, currents, and secretions. It is done through the
sympathetic nervous plexi and ganglia.

It was thus that ecstatic fanatical women and men by brooding on the
pictured idea of the wounds of Jesus produced on their own bodies, by
internal impression and stimulus projected to the surface, all the
marks of crown of thorns and wounded side. It was self-hypnotization,
possible only in fanatical hysterical ecstasy. [which] imprinted the
picture deeply on the astral body; then the physical molecules, ever
changing, became impressed from within , and the stigmata were the
result.

JUDGE ARTICLES I 554-6


"It is a from of will-power..."imagination"...is the only one that
will express the necessities of the case. If...imagination cannot
make a picture of the spot and of the force, [one] can never --except
by accident--cause the forces to flow ...Hence the initial step is to
cultivate the interior image-making power. ... with no image the
forces have no place to focus upon... As each human being is
sui-generis, he has his own methods interiorly, peculiar to himself
and to no other...one should not look for hard and fast rules for all,
but go to work upon himself, find himself out, of whom he is the most
ignorant...
THEOSOPHICAL FORUM, Answers by WQJ p. 15, [also p. 45, 52-3

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I hope these will prove useful in showing that Theosophy has always
had answers for the most abstruse of subjects.

I do not find a specific reference to the Gospel of St. Thomas, which
followed some of the Gnostic traditions.

Best wishes,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: Cesar J
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] stigmata and "astral wounds"

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Hello friends

What is stigmata?
how was it is related to the gospel of Thomas?

is it true that it is gnostic in nature as assumed by the roman
catholic
church? or, it is the sacred saying of a gnostic Jesus who in my
opinion is an
initiates of mysticism? anybody can comment please

thanks....


cesar


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