Friday, July 15, 2011

Clairaudience and Joan of Arc

A special kind of clairvoyance is called clairaudience – hearing things not perceptible in the ordinary way. Perhaps the most famous case of this was the one of Joan of Arc.
Being a medieval peasant, Joan lived in a world far less visual than most. Sound regulated her rural existence: she awoke to roosters crowing, was summoned to Mass by church bells ringing and learned news from the tales of travelers. So it seems natural that what she regarded as “divine guidance” came to her in voices.

Joan said she heard the voices for the first time when she was 13, she said they belonged to Saints Michael, Margaret and Catherine and carried messages from God, directing her destiny and foretelling her future. For example, the voices said she would lead an army to lift the English seize of Orleans in the spring of 1429 and would be wounded in the battle. These predictions came true.

The voices even assigned her a sword, saying it would be found buried near the altar of the Church of Saint Catherine at Fierbois, they also said it would be covered in rust but once cleaned it would have 5 crosses inscribed on its blade. At Joan’s request, priests of the village church unearthed the sword and upon cleaning the rust off of it found it to be inscribed with 5 crosses as she predicted.

In 1431, the English had Joan tried by an ecclesiastical court, which convicted her of witchcraft and heresy. Shortly before her execution she told her inquisitors of another prophecy, “have no care for the martyrdom; in the end thou shalt come to Paradise.”

Almost 500 years after burning her at the stake, the Church declared Joan a saint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc
http://www.joanofarc.info/

1 comment:

  1. Nice blurb about Joan of Arc but it did not convince me but only reinforced that she was hearing Divine guidance .

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