Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily DeathMyers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)
Religion
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death
Myers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)
Immortality; Parapsychology; Personality
I. The voices do not begin with the summons to fight for France. Joan
heard them first at thirteen years of age,--as with Socrates also the
voice began in childhood. The first command consisted of nothing more
surprising than that "she was to be a good girl, and go often to
church." After this the voice--as in the case of Socrates--intervened
frequently, and on trivial occasions.
II. The voice was accompanied at first by a light, and sometimes
afterwards by figures of saints, who appeared to speak, and whom Joan
appears to have both seen and felt as dearly as though they had been
living persons. But here there is some obscurity; and Michelet thinks
that on one occasion the Maid was tricked by the courtiers for political
ends. For she asserted (apparently without contradiction) that several
persons, including the Archbishop of Rheims, as well as herself, had
seen an angel bringing to the King a material crown.[170]
III. The voices came mainly when she was awake, but also sometimes
roused her from sleep; a phenomenon often observed in our cases of
"veridical hallucination." "Ipsa dormiebat, et vox excitabat eam."
(Quicherat, i., p. 62.)
IV. The voice was not always fully intelligible (especially if she was
half awake);--in this respect again resembling some of our recorded
cases, both visual and auditory, where, on the view taken in _Phantasms
of the Living_, the externalisation has been incomplete. "Vox dixit
aliqua, sed non omnia intellexit." (Quicherat, i., p. 62.)
V. The predictions of the voice, so far as stated, were mainly
fulfilled; viz., that the siege of Orleans would be raised; that Charles
VII. would be crowned at Rheims; that she herself would be wounded; but
the prediction that there would be a great victory over the English
within seven years was not fulfilled in any exact way, although the
English continued to lose ground. In short, about so much was fulfilled
as an ardent self-devoted mind might have anticipated; much indeed that
might have seemed irrational to ordinary observers, but nothing which
actually needed a definite prophetic power. Here, again, we are reminded
of the general character of the monitions of Socrates. And yet in Joan's
case, more probably than in the case of Socrates, there may have been
one singular exception to this general rule. She knew by monition that
there was a sword "retro altare"--somewhere behind the altar--in the
Church of St. Catherine of Fierbois. "Scivit ipsum ibi esse per
voces":--she sent for it, nothing doubting, and it was found and given
to her. This was a unique incident in her career. Her judges asked
whether she had not once found a cup, and a missing priest, by help of
similar monitions, but this she denied; and it is remarkable that no
serious attempt was made either to show that she had claimed this
clairvoyant power habitually, or, on the other hand, to invalidate the
one instance of it which she did in effect claim. It would be absurd to
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