Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

When Fagan’s miraculous cure became known, Catholic Church officials in Scotland hoped to use it to convince the Vatican to take the final step in canonizing John Ogilvie as a saint. In order to accomplish this, the Church officials had to extensively document Fagan’s cure. They convened a panel headed by Father Thomas Reilly. This panel obtained an account of the case from Dr. MacDonald, and then chose a committee composed of three Glasgow doctors to investigate further. After two years’ study, the committee could find no medical explanation for the cure. In 1971, the Vatican sent Dr. Livio Capacaccia, an expert on diseases of the stomach and intestines at the University of Rome, to Scotland. Although Dr. Capacaccia was inclined to believe Fagan’s cure was miraculous, Father Reilly encouraged him to carefully consider possible natural explanations for the cure. Dr. Capacaccia made some proposals, which were studied by the committee. For example, he proposed that perhaps the secondary cancerous growths had undergone spontaneous remission. The committee concluded that the medical evidence ruled this out. Another theory was that something other than secondary cancerous growths caused Fagan’s relapse. Along these lines, Dr. Gerard Crean, an expert on diseases of the stomach and intestines from Edinburgh, suggested that the original operation had removed all the cancerous growths, and that Fagan’s relapse had been caused by discharge from an abscess that later healed itself. Rogo (1982, p. 270) states, “Crean’s theory was finally rejected on the basis that (1) Fagan was too near death to have been suffering from a simple abscess; (2) the original surgeon was ready to confirm that not all of Fagan’s cancer had been removed during the surgery; and (3) Fagan’s decline was consistent with his doctor’s original diagnosis and prognosis. The panel could find no alternative explanation and concluded that Fagan was suffering from a secondary malignant cancer that had—for no apparent medical reason—suddenly healed of its own accord.”

In May 1971, Fagan underwent thorough medical testing at Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. The examiners concluded that Fagan’s relapse was “entirely consistent with the natural history of a patient with recurrent gastric carcinoma” and that there was “no satisfactory explanation” for his cure (Rogo 1982, p. 270). Dr. Capacaccia returned to Glasgow in October 1971 and reviewed all of the medical evidence in consultation with the doctors involved in the investigation. He found that the cure was miraculous and reported his conclusion to the Vatican. Pope Paul VI declared the cure a miracle caused by John Ogilvie, who was soon thereafter declared a saint.

Postmortem healings also took place in connection with St. Martin de Porres of Peru, who was born in 1579 and died in 1639. The Catholic process of declaring sainthood goes in two main stages. The first is beatification and the second is canonization. The beatification of St. Martin de Porres came in 1837. His canonization came in 1857. In connection with the beatification process, Pope Gregory XV on March 19, 1836 approved the following cure as miraculous. A woman in Lima broke a piece of pottery, and a sliver entered her eyeball, causing all the fluid to leak out. This injury left the eye incurably blind. Rogo (1982, p. 265) stated, “The master of a nearby monastery, however, sent the woman a small bone fragment, a relic of Martin de Porres, and instructed her to hold it to the damaged eye. She did as she was directed and woke the next morning to find her eye and sight totally restored. Though this was medically impossible, the cure was authenticated by the woman’s own doctor, who had examined the original wound.” The second cure connected with the beatification of St. Martin of Porres also took place in Lima. A Peruvian child fell eighteen feet from a balcony and split his skull. The child went into convulsions. A doctor looked at him and found his case hopeless. The child’s mother, and the Spanish noblewoman who employed her, prayed to Martin de Porres, and after the hours, the child got up from bed, having recovered completely. Two more recent cures were recognized by the Vatican in 1962. In 1948, Dorothy Caballero Escalante, an elderly woman in Paraguay, was suffering from an inoperable intestinal blockage. Her daughter, having been informed that her mother was near death, prayed to Martin de Porres, and she recovered fully. In 1956, Anthony Cabrera Perez, a boy four years old, was playing in a construction site in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. A large block of cement fell on his leg, crushing it. Gangrene later infected the leg. Doctors at St. Eulalia’s Hospital treated it with medicine, which failed to act.The doctors then decided to amputate the leg to save the boy’s life. But the parents prayed to Martin of Porres, and the next morning the gangrene was gone and the boy’s leg soon healed.

Stigmatics

Over the centuries, certain persons of Christian faith, including, but not limited to, saints, have developed marks (stigmata) on their bodies corresponding to the wounds Christ suffered during the crucifixion. These persons, called stigmatics, usually develop wounds in the palms of the hands and in the feet, corresponding to nail wounds, and sometimes also develop a wound on the side of the chest, corresponding to the place where a Roman soldier stabbed Christ with a spear. Several authors have explained these stigmata as psychosomatic effects, produced on the body by the mind of the stigmatic, who imagines the crucifixion scene. One argument in favor of this is that the wounds sometimes appear in slightly different places (Stevenson 1997, pp. 34–42), just as they do in different artistic representations of the crucifixion. In other words, just as artists may imagine the marks on the body of Christ in a slightly different way, so might the stigmatics. Alternatively, the stigmata could be manifested on the body of the stigmatic directly by some supernatural being, or by some combination of the psychosomatic and supernatural influences. I favor the latter suggestion, but in either case, the stigmata do represent a paranormal modification of biological form. Stevenson (1997, p. 34) noted that usually a variety of paranormal phenomena, in addition to stigmata, manifest in the lives of stigmatics, including “visions, bilocations, healing powers, extrasensory perception, the ability to live normally without food and water, and postmortem incorruptibility of the physical body.”

The German psychiatrist A. Lechler studied the stigmata case of Elisabeth K. Although he does not give her last name, he does provide extensive documentation of his thorough study of her hypnotically induced stigmata, including photographs. Elisabeth K. was born in 1902, and suffered from many psychiatric disorders. Lechler began treating her in the late 1920s. Stevenson (1997, pp. 43–52) gives a summary of a report on Elisabeth K. by Lechler (1933).

Elisabeth identified with the sufferings of others. For example, if she saw someone with a limp, she developed a limp herself. Once she heard of someone with an inflamed tendon in the arm, and thereafter her own arm developed the symptoms of tendonitis, including redness, pain, and swelling. Lechler (1933, p. 11) wrote: “Whenever she read in the Bible stories about the healing of the lame, she had the feeling that she herself was lame and numb in her legs. She attended a lecture (illustrated with lantern slides) about the suffering and death of Jesus; as she looked at the picture of the Savior on the cross, she felt severe pain in her hands and feet at the places where nails had been driven into Jesus.”

This incident occurred in 1932. Lechler wanted to see if the actual stigmata might appear. He hypnotized Elisabeth and told her to continue thinking, while she was asleep that night, about nails being driven through her hands and feet. The next morning, Elisabeth, very much alarmed, showed her hands and feet to Lechler, who noted (1933, p. 11): “The sites I had indicated during the hypnosis all had areas (about the size of a small coin) that were red and swollen with the skin somewhat opened up and showing moisture. Elisabeth calmed down when I explained to her the cause [his hypnotic suggestions] of the wounds. Then with her consent I gave her, in a waking condition, the further suggestion that the wounds would become deeper and also that she would weep bloody tears.” The wounds did in fact become deeper, exposing the underlying tissues, which appeared bloody. There were, however, no bloody tears. Lechler gave further hypnotic suggestions, and before two hours had passed, Elisabeth came to him with bloody tears running down her cheeks from her eyes. Lechler took photographs, which he later published, of the wounds and the face with tears. He then gave Elisabeth a suggestion that the tears would stop. They did. He also gave a suggestion that the wounds would close up, and within 48 hours they did. Lechler soon thereafter induced the stigmata on Elisabeth’s hands and feet a second time, during which he observed actual bleeding more distinctly than the first time. Another time, Lechler suggested to Elisabeth that he was putting a crown of thorns on her head. The next morning, her forehead was red and swollen and covered with wounds, triangular in shape, like those made by a thorn. When Lechler suggested the wounds would bleed, within an hour they did.