by Joe Nickell
Figures 43.3 (top left), 43.4 (top right ), and 43.5 (right). In the transmitted light, a “cloudiness” forms (not shown), then colors and shapes gradually come into view. A face begins to be recognizable and eventually becomes even sharper. Finally, finished portrait on one panel (shown here in reflected light) is presented to the sitter. (Photos by Joe Nickell)
Although, as indicated earlier, the Bangs sisters may not always have received a photograph of the deceased subject in advance of the séance, they could nevertheless proceed once they gained access (by some subterfuge) to the photo. One sister could then go off to produce the portrait while the other kept the patron distracted. For example, one wrote, “Entering the séance-room, and finding only three canvases, I selected two of them, took them out in the sunlight, in company with one of the Miss Bangs, exposed them for fifteen minutes to the strong rays of the noonday sun, examined the surface thoroughly to fully assure myself that they were not chemically prepared, at the same time to secretly mark them for identification.” Subsequently, the identification marks would show that the “canvas” had not been switched (Thurston 1910). (If the panel was not marked—most accounts omit that detail—the procedure is simplified, since the portrait can be prepared on a panel that is switched for one of the selected ones, eliminating the need to surreptitiously affix the picture to a panel during the séance.)
One incident is particularly revealing: a couple who had sought a picture of their deceased son concluded that the resulting image resembled him only “in a general way” and “was not even a fairly good portrait.” In rationalizing the failure, one writer pointed out (perhaps more wisely than he knew) that the couple “had no photograph of their departed son with them” (Coates 1911, 325). Thus the Bangs sisters were apparently left with few options. They could fish for a description (in the manner of a police artist eliciting an eyewitness's recollection) or opt to produce a generalized child's portrait that the credulous couple might accept. In contrast, when a photograph had been brought to the sitting, the “spirit” painting might be pronounced “a perfect enlargement of the original” (“Bangs Sisters” n.d.). Whatever techniques the sisters actually employed—and May Bangs (1910) acknowledged that “No two sittings” were “exactly alike” —they were obviously effective, given the many testimonials they elicited. Significantly, as physical mediumship has largely given way to mental phenomena (witness the rise of mediums like James Van Praagh, who limit themselves to readings [Nickell 1998]), “spirit” paintings have all but disappeared. A few historic examples remain as reminders of an earlier, though not necessarily more credulous, time.
References
“Bangs Sisters.” n.d., Album, Lily Dale Museum (business card, clippings, photos, etc.)
Doerflinger, William. 1977. The Magic Catalog New York: E.P. Dutton, 196. Krebs, Rev. Stanley L. 1901. A description of some trick methods used by Miss Bangs, of Chicago. Journal of Society for Psychical Research 10.175 (Jan.): 5–16.
Moore, W. Usborne. 1910. Letter, quoted in Coates 1911.
Chapter 44
Stigmata
Of reputed miraculous powers, perhaps none is more popularly equated with saintliness than stigmata, the wounds of Christ’s crucifixion allegedly duplicated spontaneously upon the body of a Christian. Indeed one historical survey indicated that about a fifth of all stigmatics are eventually beatified or canonized (Biot 1962, 23). The year 1999 brought renewed interest in the alleged phenomenon. Among the offerings were the movie Stigmata (which even contained a brief shot of my book, Looking for a Miracle [Radford 1999]); a Fox television pseudodocumentary, Signs from God, which featured a major segment on stigmata (Willesee 1999); and the Vatican’s beatification of the Italian stigmatic Padre Pio (CNN & Time 1999). For a BBC documentary produced for the Discovery Channel, I took a new look at the subject.
Evolving Phenomenon
From the death of Jesus, about A.D. 29 or 30, nearly twelve centuries would pass before stigmata began to appear—unless one counts a cryptic reference by St. Paul. In Galatians 6:17 he wrote, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Many scholars believe Paul was speaking figuratively, but in any case the statement may have been sufficient to prompt imitation.
St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) is credited with being the first stigmatic—or at least the first “true” one, his affliction occurring just two years after that of a man from Oxford who had exhibited the five crucifixion wounds in 1222. That man claimed to be the son of God and the redeemer of mankind, but he was arrested for imposture, his wounds presumed to have been self-inflicted. In 1224, St. Francis went with some of his “disciples” up Mount Alverno in the Apennines. After forty days of fasting and prayer, he had a vision of Christ on the cross, whereafter he received the four nail wounds and a pierced side. Francis appears to have sparked a copycat phenomenon, since publication of his reputed miracle was followed by occurrences of stigmata “even among people who were much lower than St. Francis in religious stature, and have continued to occur without intermission ever since, ” according to Catholic scholar Herbert Thurston (1952, 122–23). He continues: “What I infer is that the example of St. Francis created what I have called the ‘crucifixion complex.’ Once it had been brought home to contemplatives that it was possible to be physically conformed to the sufferings of Christ by bearing His wound-marks in the hands, feet and side, then the idea of this form of union with their Divine Master took shape in the minds of many. It became in fact a pious obsession; so much so that in a few exceptionally sensitive individuals the idea conceived in the mind was realized in the flesh.” Thurston believed stigmatization was due to the effects of suggestion, but experimental attempts to duplicate the phenomenon, for example by using hypnosis, have been unsuccessful—except for one case which appears to have been a hoax. (The psychiatrist reported that bloody tears welled inside the subject’s eyelids, but a photograph shows rivulets originating outside the eyes [see Wilson 1988].)
As the thirteenth century advanced, exhibitions of stigmata began to proliferate, one authority regarding it as “a sort of explosion” (Biot 1962, 18). Within a hundred years of St. Francis’s death, over twenty cases had occurred. The trend continued in successive centuries, with no fewer than 321 stigmatics being recorded by 1908. Not only were they invariably Catholic, but more than a third had come from Italy and the rest mostly from France, Spain, and Portugal, demonstrating that “the Roman Catholic countries, mostly with a Latin and Mediterranean influence have dominated the history of stigmata” (Harrison 1994, 9; Wilson 1988, 10). The twentieth-century record of stigmata, however, “shows a change in pattern.” Italy dominated somewhat less, and cases were reported from Great Britain, Australia, and the United States (Harrison 1994, 9). The latter included (in 1972) a ten-year-old African American girl named Cloretta Robinson, a Baptist and thus one of a very few non-Catholic Christians to have exhibited the stigmata (including at least three Anglicans) (Harrison 1994, 9, 87).
Other evidence that stigmata represent an evolving phenomenon comes from the form of the wounds. Interestingly, those of St. Francis (except for the wound in his side) “were not wounds which bled but impressions of the heads of the nails, round and black and standing clear from the flesh” (Harrison 1994, 25). Since then, although bleeding wounds have been typical, they have been exceedingly varied, showing “no consistency even remotely suggesting them as replications of one single, original pattern” (Wilson 1988, 63). For example, some wounds have been tiny, straight slits, others simple crosses, multiple slash marks, or indentations—even, in the case of Therese Neumann, shifting from round to rectangular over time, presumably as she learned the true shape of Roman nails. In some instances, there were no apparent lesions beneath the seepages (or possibly fake applications!) of blood (Wilson 1988, 64; Harrison 1994, 70; Nickell 1999). Similarly, the wound in the side (representing the Roman soldier s lance [John 19:34]) has appeared at different locations in the right or left side, or has been variously shaped—as a
lateral slit, crescent, cross, etc.—or has not appeared at all. Some stigmatics have exhibited wounds on the forehead (as if caused by a crown of thorns [John 19:2]), markings on the back (representing scourging [John 19:1]), or abrasions on the shoulder as from carrying a cross), and so on, while others have not exhibited these. There are even symbolic markings, such as “a vivid cross” that twice appeared on the forehead of stigmatist Heather Woods (a phenomenon previously experienced by seventeenth-century stigmatic Jeanne des Anges). And stigmata-like skin lettering—including the names of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus—appeared and reappeared on the left hand of Jeanne des Anges (1602–1665) (Wilson 1988, 64, 131–48; Harrison 1994, 2, 52).
Another trend in the evolving phenomenon—represented for example by Virginia priest James Bruse—is the location of nail wounds in the wrists. Others have tended to have them in the palms of the hands, so Bruse’s wrist marks seem instructive. As Harrison observes (1994, 40), stigmata in the wrists have appeared only since photography “revealed the wounds so positioned in the Turin Shroud.” Actually, while the hands of the figure on the shroud are folded so that a single exit wound shows, it seems to indicate the palm, although the flow of “blood” does extend to the wrist, thus giving the appearance of the wound being located there (Nickell 1983). Those who believe the shroud authentic (despite definitive scientific proof to the contrary [Nickell 1998]) have an interest in promoting the wrist site. They point to experiments with cadavers that supposedly show nailed hands could not support the weight of a body and would therefore tear away (Barbet 1950). (Skeletal remains have been discovered of only a single first-century crucifixion victim, a man known as Jehohanan. A scratch on the lower end of the right radius suggests a nail had penetrated between the radius and ulna. Interestingly, a nail had been driven through the heel bones from the side, indicating that Jehohanan had been forced into “a sort of sidesaddle position, ” quite unlike the familiar depiction of Jesus in Christian art [Wilson 1979, 50, illus. fol. 128].)
In any event, if it is true that the wrist location is anatomically untenable—notwithstanding the gospels (John 20:25–27 and Luke 24:40)—the argument could be made that all stigmata in the hands are therefore false, a judgment that would exclude most reported instances. Certainly the shift of location to the wrists (in keeping with a modern view) is not surprising. Stigmatics in the middle ages likewise “produced wounds in themselves which corresponded to the pictures of Christ suffering around them” (Harrison 1994, 128). Similarly, the 1974 crucifixion vision of Ethel Chapman, during which her stigmata allegedly appeared, was “based on the images in an illustrated Bible which she’d been given” (Harrison 1994, 128; Wilson 1988, 147). Such strong connections between popular images and the nature of the stigmata are powerful evidence that the phenomenon is imitative.
Stigmatic Profile
A look at stigmata as an evolving phenomenon also sheds light on the people involved. The previously mentioned census of 321 stigmatics reveals “an interesting seven-to-one proportion of women to men.” Not only were almost all Roman Catholics, but “a very high proportion were cloistered priests or nuns”—as was, of course, the first stigmatic, St. Francis, and such thirteenth-century stigmatics as the Blessed Helen of Veszprim (1237); St. Christina of Stommeln (1268); and others (Harrison 1994, 10, 27–28; Wilson 1988, 131–33). Indeed, of the 321 stigmatics, 109 came from the Dominican Order and 102 from the Franciscans—an overall percentage of 66 percent from religious orders versus 34 percent laypeople (Biot 1962, 20).
Many stigmatics seem—also like St. Francis—to have had an early life that might be characterized as notably “worldly” before coming to believe they had been called to serve God. As a youth, Francis—the son of a wealthy merchant—was “gay, adventurous, generous, and popular” (Coulson 1958) and spent his leisure time in “hedonistic extravagance” (Jones 1994), even being crowned by his friends “king of the revelers” (“Francis” 1960). He later claimed he heard Christ’s voice asking him to rebuild a church, whereupon he plunged into religious service, adopting the life of a hermit and later forming the order of friars named for him (the Franciscans) (Coulson 1958). Others who were transformed from worldly to austere included the Blessed Angela of Foligno (1250–1309), who had married and had several children but lost them all after her husband’s death; selling all her possessions she gave the proceeds to the poor and joined the Third Order of St. Francis (Wilson 1988, 132). Another example would be St. Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), who married at sixteen, spent “ten years of a pleasure-seeking existence, ” then, with her husband, devoted her life to tending to the sick in a local hospital (Wilson 1988, 133). A more recent example is that of Father James Bruse (the Virginia priest with the wrist wounds mentioned earlier). Bruse’s preordination life included finding his way into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1978 for riding a roller coaster for five straight days. He became a Roman Catholic priest the following year but subsequently found he had lapsed into a routine. Then came the “dramatic” events of 1991–1992 in which he not only experienced the stigmata but discovered statues weeping in his presence (Harrison 1994, 80–87).
Also characteristic of many, if not most, stigmatics is a variety of symptoms “ranging from what have been described as the ‘mystical’ to the ‘hysterical’” (Harrison 1994, 31). Taking the hysterical first, Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament (Marguerite Parigot, 1619–1648) was prey to “devastating apparent diabolic attacks, ” while Anna Maria Castreca (1670–1736) “would hurl herself violently around the room” and revert “to the speech and manner of a child, ” and in his early life, Padre Pio (1887–1968) was “emotionally disturbed.” A few stigmatics were allegedly attended by “poltergeist phenomena” (disturbances attributed to “noisy spirits” but often found to be the pranks of adolescents); among them were Johann Jetzer (c. 1483–c. 1515) and Teresa Helena Higginson (1844–1905) (Wilson 1988, 131–48).
Illness is another frequent characteristic. René Biot, in his The Enigma of the Stigmata (1962, 57), exclaims with wonder at “how many stigmatics have been bedridden!” He notes that St. Lidwina (d. 1433) had so many alleged illnesses that she was “a sort of pathological museum, ” indeed a “museum of horrors.” Similarly, Therese Neumann experienced alternate bouts of convulsions, blindness, deafness, mutism, paralysis, and so on–effects that appear to have been due to hysterical hypochondria or, more likely, outright fakery since the alleged conditions evaded diagnosis (Rogo 1982, 65–66; Nickell 1993, 227–28). Given such cases, one researcher noted the parallels between stigmata and Münchausen’s syndrome, an emotional disorder involving feigned or inflicted illness (Schnabel 1993).
Still other stigmatics—like St. Veronica Giuliani (c. 1640–1727), Victoire Claire (c. 1808–1883), along with numerous others—often lapsed into states of ecstasy (i.e., apparent trance arising out of religious fervor). Following St. Francis, who supposedly received his stigmata during a vision of Jesus’ crucifixion, came several emulators, including Passitea Crogi, who on Palm Sunday 1589, fell into an ecstasy and later described a vision of Christ bruised and bleeding. Other vision-delivered stigmata were claimed by Johann Jetzer, Therese Neumann (1898–1962), and James Bruse.
A great number of stigmatics were blessed, allegedly, with other supernatural phenomena, including the powers of prophecy and healing, levitation, bilocation (supposedly being in two places simultaneously), and inedia (the alleged ability to forgo nourishment). As an example of the latter, Angela of Foligno (1250–1309) reportedly went without food for twelve years. After death, the bodies of a few stigmatics were discovered to be “incorruptible” (i.e., able to withstand decay). Also, vials of blood preserved from the stigmatic wounds of Passitea Crogi purportedly reliquefy on occasion (Wilson 1988, 131–48). Needless to say, perhaps, such claims are unproved, and may be attributed to folklore, misperceptions and misunderstandings born of superstition, and pious fraud (Nickell 1993).
That many stigmatics were fakes is well established.
For example, Magdalena de la Cruz, having become ill in 1543 and fearful of dying a sinner, confessed that her stigmata, inedia, and other phenomena were deliberate deceptions. Another, Maria de la Visitacion, known as the “holy nun of Lisbon, ” was accused by a sister nun who saw her painting a fake wound onto her hand. Although initially defended by doctors in 1587, she was brought before the Inquisition, whereupon her wounds were scrubbed and the coloration washed off, revealing “unblemished flesh” beneath (Wilson 1988, 26). Another fake was Palma Maria Matarelli, who not only exhibited the stigmata but also “miraculously” produced Communion wafers on her tongue. Pope Pius IX privately branded her a fraud, stating that he had the proof in his desk drawer and adding, “She has befooled a whole crowd of pious and credulous souls” (quoted in Wilson 1988, 42). A more public condemnation awaited Gigliola Giorgini (b. 1933): discredited by church authorities, in 1984 she was convicted of fraud by an Italian court (Wilson 1988, 42, 147).
The authenticity of some stigmata may be questioned in light of the mystic’s character. For example, Teresa Helena Higginson (1844–1905), an English stigmatic, was dismissed as a teacher on accusations of theft, drunkenness, and unseemly conduct. And Berthe Mrazek, a Brussels-born circus performer turned stigmatic, was first regarded seriously, but doubts came in 1924 when she was arrested for theft by deception and committed to an insane asylum (Nickell 1993, 223). Still other stigmatics must be viewed in light of their propensity for self-punishment and-mutilation. These include the thirteenth-century masochist Lukardis of Oberweimar who, before exhibiting the stigmata “had the habit of driving her fingernails into her palms” (Wilson 1988, 132)!
