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They Flew: A History of the Impossible
An award-winning historian’s examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance
Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era—tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft—even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.
Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton’s scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.
Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time.
Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era—tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft—even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.
Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton’s scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.
Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 2023
142 people are currently reading
2395 people want to read
About the author
Carlos M.N. Eire
9 books30 followersAuthor also writes under Carlos Eire
A scholar of the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies at Yale University. He received his PhD from Yale in 1979, and taught at St. John’s University in Minnesota and the University of Virginia before joining the Yale faculty in 1996.
A scholar of the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies at Yale University. He received his PhD from Yale in 1979, and taught at St. John’s University in Minnesota and the University of Virginia before joining the Yale faculty in 1996.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
April 30, 2024
Excellent Exploration of Levitation, Bilocation and Other Extreme States
This is the best book to cover the remarkable physical effects of early modern religious hysteria that I have read. As the title avers, they flew. But how—and why?
This is the best book to cover the remarkable physical effects of early modern religious hysteria that I have read. As the title avers, they flew. But how—and why?
August 3, 2024
GOD this book was so fun. there are so many tangents in here but they build up perfectly and you can tell there's a real sense of humour about the whole thing not that he isn't taking it seriously because there's nothing more serious than a joke but just approaching everything with a certain lightness. bc obviously none of this is about getting at whether any of this actually happened it's way more interesting to figure out why people believed it. or continue to believe it. lots of 'god forbid women do anything' moments which is perhaps to be expected with a book covering this period of history but what can you do. the council of trent continue to be vibe killers but i believe women personally
March 18, 2024
A powerful critique of the “dogmatic materialism” that tends to dominate within the historiography on early modern Europe by exploring the plasticity of supernatural phenomena.
May 9, 2024
The book was very, very interesting and well-written. As a Protestant, I must confess that I tended to be quite sympathetic to the Reformer's claims that many of these miracles may have been infernal in origin. Dr. Eire did a good job showing that this interpretation was not a complete freak in the history of the Church, as almost all of the saints touched on in the book were first investigated for suspected demonic meddling when they started manifesting their levitation, bilocation, or whatever other signs and wonders their story entails. Due to this bifurcation of interpretation on the events chronicled in the book, I found the final chapter of the book, focusing on the Devil, to be the most compelling and have written a small rumination on the ideas that that final chapter churned up within my mind.
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I have respect for the Devil (but not sympathy).
Such a distinction is needed to understand one of the more enigmatic statements in the Bible found in the book of Jude:
"But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you.' But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion." Jude 1:9-11
The Devil is a powerful, devastatingly cunning foe and history gives us plenty of examples of well-meaning saints whose bloody attempts to root out the fiend should give us pause whenever we come up with yet another plan to oppose him in our own strength. Jude links this “blasphemous judgment” on the Devil with people who “walk in the way of Cain.” What does this mean? Cain was warned by God that sin (and the Devil) were crouching at his door, waiting to pounce. God explicitly (and omnisciently) warned him of the trap that had been set for him. But the only way to escape from the trap was to turn away from the mesmerizing, soothing resentment he nursed against his brother and amend his own ways, rather than reflexively putting his younger brother in his place. The "way of Cain" could serve as a shorthand for all the perversions dreamt up by the seed of the Serpent, but in its simplest reference is nothing more than trying to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye while a log obstructs your own.
The final chapter of this book, focusing on the medieval concept of the Devil and his schemes, provides a helpful lens through which to view all the preceding chapters. The theological and judicial contortions that Medieval Protestants and Catholics put themselves through in an attempt to root out the Devil from their midst drive home one truth captured by the Jude passage quoted above: It is truly blasphemous to think that any human could foil or oppose the plans of the Devil: who is the Lord’s own executioner, who himself will one day be dethroned and executed–by the Lord himself. As the Devil can never truly stymie any intention of the Lord, attempts to oppose him in one’s own strength are blasphemous hubris. But one must ask, if blasphemy is treason against the Holy– how could judgment against the Devil be blasphemous? Primarily, it is blasphemy against the Lord, the only Judge of the world, and the only one with the power to curb(stomp) the Devil. “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls” (Rom. 14:4a). And the Devil will fall, certainly,
Reading Dr. Eire’s catalog of the various ways in which Protestants and Catholics attempted to counter the works of the Devil in their midst, it is impossible to escape the irony that their efforts frequently look like murderous persecution of fellow believers in Christ. Rene Girard would have something to say about this (Google: Rene Girard scapegoating). Honestly, all of the various mass-movements aimed at rooting out the Devil reminded me of nothing more than the purity tests endemic to the various Communist movements, or incidentally, the purity tests of the various anti-Communist movements (red scare and all that). Once again, Girard would like a word (Google Girard mimetic rivalry).
One aspect to reading this book that puzzled and pleased me to no end was trying to figure out exactly what the Author’s personal view on his subject matter is. From the bit of biographical information I know about the author, my assumption is that he is a Conservative Catholic, or at least sympathetic to that position. Normally, I prefer reading authors who wear there hearts on their sleeve. That way it’s easier to assess any slant they may have on the topic. However, Dr. Eire’s attempts to remain “objective” about something that is likely near and dear to his heart actually made for a more complexly satisfying read than a passionate polemic. Dr. Eire holds a knife to his throat at the king's table! (Prov. 23:1-2) And what's more, he does all of that while refusing to be "cool-shamed" by academics who outright reject the possibility of the supernatural and the preternatural.
------------------------------------------------
I have respect for the Devil (but not sympathy).
Such a distinction is needed to understand one of the more enigmatic statements in the Bible found in the book of Jude:
"But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you.' But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion." Jude 1:9-11
The Devil is a powerful, devastatingly cunning foe and history gives us plenty of examples of well-meaning saints whose bloody attempts to root out the fiend should give us pause whenever we come up with yet another plan to oppose him in our own strength. Jude links this “blasphemous judgment” on the Devil with people who “walk in the way of Cain.” What does this mean? Cain was warned by God that sin (and the Devil) were crouching at his door, waiting to pounce. God explicitly (and omnisciently) warned him of the trap that had been set for him. But the only way to escape from the trap was to turn away from the mesmerizing, soothing resentment he nursed against his brother and amend his own ways, rather than reflexively putting his younger brother in his place. The "way of Cain" could serve as a shorthand for all the perversions dreamt up by the seed of the Serpent, but in its simplest reference is nothing more than trying to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye while a log obstructs your own.
The final chapter of this book, focusing on the medieval concept of the Devil and his schemes, provides a helpful lens through which to view all the preceding chapters. The theological and judicial contortions that Medieval Protestants and Catholics put themselves through in an attempt to root out the Devil from their midst drive home one truth captured by the Jude passage quoted above: It is truly blasphemous to think that any human could foil or oppose the plans of the Devil: who is the Lord’s own executioner, who himself will one day be dethroned and executed–by the Lord himself. As the Devil can never truly stymie any intention of the Lord, attempts to oppose him in one’s own strength are blasphemous hubris. But one must ask, if blasphemy is treason against the Holy– how could judgment against the Devil be blasphemous? Primarily, it is blasphemy against the Lord, the only Judge of the world, and the only one with the power to curb(stomp) the Devil. “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls” (Rom. 14:4a). And the Devil will fall, certainly,
Reading Dr. Eire’s catalog of the various ways in which Protestants and Catholics attempted to counter the works of the Devil in their midst, it is impossible to escape the irony that their efforts frequently look like murderous persecution of fellow believers in Christ. Rene Girard would have something to say about this (Google: Rene Girard scapegoating). Honestly, all of the various mass-movements aimed at rooting out the Devil reminded me of nothing more than the purity tests endemic to the various Communist movements, or incidentally, the purity tests of the various anti-Communist movements (red scare and all that). Once again, Girard would like a word (Google Girard mimetic rivalry).
One aspect to reading this book that puzzled and pleased me to no end was trying to figure out exactly what the Author’s personal view on his subject matter is. From the bit of biographical information I know about the author, my assumption is that he is a Conservative Catholic, or at least sympathetic to that position. Normally, I prefer reading authors who wear there hearts on their sleeve. That way it’s easier to assess any slant they may have on the topic. However, Dr. Eire’s attempts to remain “objective” about something that is likely near and dear to his heart actually made for a more complexly satisfying read than a passionate polemic. Dr. Eire holds a knife to his throat at the king's table! (Prov. 23:1-2) And what's more, he does all of that while refusing to be "cool-shamed" by academics who outright reject the possibility of the supernatural and the preternatural.
June 11, 2024
A fascinating book. I'm familiar with Carlos Eire from his memoirs, but this was my first foray into his scholarly work (aka "books with footnotes"). He deals with the phenomena of flight and translocation in saints' lives and related accounts (including some discussion of demon possession, witchcraft, etc) from the perspective of a non-skeptic. That is, he invites us to set aside our modern assumption that such things simply can't be and engage thoughtfully with first-hand accounts.
I found this to be a bit of a mental tightrope walk. As a Christian, I embrace the reality of a spiritual realm; as a Modern, I find it almost impossible not to look for the man behind the curtain. What's more, I'm a Presbyterian, and many of these miracles were used polemically by the Catholic church against the Protestant Reformation. I think I wanted Eire to come to a definitive conclusion - did Teresa REALLY fly?! But he seems content to leave us in the realm of mystery. While a bit disorienting, I enjoyed the opportunity to inhabit an earlier worldview.
I found this to be a bit of a mental tightrope walk. As a Christian, I embrace the reality of a spiritual realm; as a Modern, I find it almost impossible not to look for the man behind the curtain. What's more, I'm a Presbyterian, and many of these miracles were used polemically by the Catholic church against the Protestant Reformation. I think I wanted Eire to come to a definitive conclusion - did Teresa REALLY fly?! But he seems content to leave us in the realm of mystery. While a bit disorienting, I enjoyed the opportunity to inhabit an earlier worldview.
August 3, 2025
"Properly speaking, miracles are works done by God outside the order usually observed in things."
–Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles III, 101.1
This quote is how Carlos Eire chooses to begin Part Two of his stellar "They Flew," and it gets right to the heart of the issues at hand. After an introduction which explains key terms and notes obvious issues with the historical study of impossibilities, Eire coyly invites his reader to be skeptical of skepticism, and to refrain, at least temporarily, from psychologizing or dismissing these miraculous accounts. Throughout early modern Europe, there are countless testimonies about holy people levitating or flying (the focus of Part One), with less (but still plenty) claiming that saints appeared in two locations at the same time (Part Two). Teresa of Avila is no doubt the most famous person who receives close treatment, though the sections on Joseph of Cupertino and María de Ágreda are also great.
In Eire's framework, there are three explanations for allegedly miraculous events: 1) they are real and good, having their cause in God; 2) they are false, faked by a person or persons for fame, wealth, or another motivation; 3) they are real and evil, having their cause in the devil or demonic forces. Part Three, entitled "Malevolent," covers the Protestant and Catholic responses to these latter two options, providing an excellently thorough survey of Inquisitional activity as well as Lutheran and Reformed demonic investigations. Throughout the book but especially in this third section, Eire accentuates the differences in theology that rippled across the fractures of Western Christianity, with both the miraculous and devilish having a polemical edge for Protestants and Catholics alike. Eire, a devout Catholic, makes the fair assertion that the first explanation of miracles was not available to the magisterial Protestants due to their advocacy of cessationism. The overwhelming response, then, was that these events were demonic and testified to the great evils of Rome whose Pope was the Antichrist himself. Like all Protestants influenced by ecumenical rapprochement, I find this polemical vitriol horribly sad - I also find it tired and boring.
This is a lively and well-researched book that I'm sure I will return to in my amateur study of early modern Europe. I don't know if it's because I'd like to be a little more holy and a little less disenchanted, and I'm sure that my irredeemably contrarian nature has something to do with it, but I'm inclined to agree with Eire: the punctuation that follows "They Flew" should not be a question mark, but an exclamation point!
–Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles III, 101.1
This quote is how Carlos Eire chooses to begin Part Two of his stellar "They Flew," and it gets right to the heart of the issues at hand. After an introduction which explains key terms and notes obvious issues with the historical study of impossibilities, Eire coyly invites his reader to be skeptical of skepticism, and to refrain, at least temporarily, from psychologizing or dismissing these miraculous accounts. Throughout early modern Europe, there are countless testimonies about holy people levitating or flying (the focus of Part One), with less (but still plenty) claiming that saints appeared in two locations at the same time (Part Two). Teresa of Avila is no doubt the most famous person who receives close treatment, though the sections on Joseph of Cupertino and María de Ágreda are also great.
In Eire's framework, there are three explanations for allegedly miraculous events: 1) they are real and good, having their cause in God; 2) they are false, faked by a person or persons for fame, wealth, or another motivation; 3) they are real and evil, having their cause in the devil or demonic forces. Part Three, entitled "Malevolent," covers the Protestant and Catholic responses to these latter two options, providing an excellently thorough survey of Inquisitional activity as well as Lutheran and Reformed demonic investigations. Throughout the book but especially in this third section, Eire accentuates the differences in theology that rippled across the fractures of Western Christianity, with both the miraculous and devilish having a polemical edge for Protestants and Catholics alike. Eire, a devout Catholic, makes the fair assertion that the first explanation of miracles was not available to the magisterial Protestants due to their advocacy of cessationism. The overwhelming response, then, was that these events were demonic and testified to the great evils of Rome whose Pope was the Antichrist himself. Like all Protestants influenced by ecumenical rapprochement, I find this polemical vitriol horribly sad - I also find it tired and boring.
This is a lively and well-researched book that I'm sure I will return to in my amateur study of early modern Europe. I don't know if it's because I'd like to be a little more holy and a little less disenchanted, and I'm sure that my irredeemably contrarian nature has something to do with it, but I'm inclined to agree with Eire: the punctuation that follows "They Flew" should not be a question mark, but an exclamation point!
March 8, 2024
This book was a wonderful recounting of the historical time periods and cultures. Eire also did a great job expressing the perspectives of the different actors and institutions in a grounded way. On the whole, a great read.
Going into this book I was nervous because he makes a few small comments at the beginning that made me aware that he is a believer in these events. That isn't necessarily a problem as long as he can recount and analyze the historical events impartially... Which I believe he did (until the epilogue). I don't personally believe or disbelieve in levitation but being a scholar of religious studies I've seen a lot of academic work where the writer starts out sane and then goes off the rails (I'm looking at you D.W Palsulka). However, what he does is what I think more historians need to be doing-- analyzing their own position and relationship to the material and clearly stating that to the reader in a space that won't bias the material.
When he started talking about Kripal I just facepalmed like of course he likes Kripal. I have no idea what the rest of his work reads like but I'm curious to find out.
Going into this book I was nervous because he makes a few small comments at the beginning that made me aware that he is a believer in these events. That isn't necessarily a problem as long as he can recount and analyze the historical events impartially... Which I believe he did (until the epilogue). I don't personally believe or disbelieve in levitation but being a scholar of religious studies I've seen a lot of academic work where the writer starts out sane and then goes off the rails (I'm looking at you D.W Palsulka). However, what he does is what I think more historians need to be doing-- analyzing their own position and relationship to the material and clearly stating that to the reader in a space that won't bias the material.
When he started talking about Kripal I just facepalmed like of course he likes Kripal. I have no idea what the rest of his work reads like but I'm curious to find out.
April 15, 2024
The shift from the medieval to the modern world is never an easy line, and whose to say that our modern and rational worldview is axiomatically "correct." Carlos Eire provides a masterful account of "impossible" events, divine and demonic (sometimes depending on who you ask), right as the world begin the shift from medieval to modern. The most intriguing part of this book though is his decision to undermine the very term "impossible" as a construct of modern epistimology. What if belief in the impossible isn't and shouldn't be improbable? Belief is a powerful thing, more powerful than our modern zeitgeist and its worldview. Belief is why I dare to agree with Eire's final words unironically, "They flew!"
July 2, 2024
Fantastic book on levitation that's actually just a tacit defense for Catholicism vs Protestantism. Very well done.
April 23, 2025
For Catholics, levitation = ultra godly (proof to be sainted).
For protestants, levitation = diabolical (of the devil)
but they both believed that it really did happen!
so what should historians think?
I liked his stories and lots of primary sources, but his argument was very caveated and repetitive which made it hard to follow. Basically, if someone DID fly, why aren't historians interested? The testimony makes it as hard to disprove as to prove, so why are we so sure it didn't happen?
definitely recommend reading a shorter version (or maybe a podcast of his argument?) when or if it comes out so we can chat! but this book, probably not worth it sorry.
p.s.
Martin Luther's advice on demons: "Fart at them!'
For protestants, levitation = diabolical (of the devil)
but they both believed that it really did happen!
so what should historians think?
I liked his stories and lots of primary sources, but his argument was very caveated and repetitive which made it hard to follow. Basically, if someone DID fly, why aren't historians interested? The testimony makes it as hard to disprove as to prove, so why are we so sure it didn't happen?
definitely recommend reading a shorter version (or maybe a podcast of his argument?) when or if it comes out so we can chat! but this book, probably not worth it sorry.
p.s.
Martin Luther's advice on demons: "Fart at them!'
Read
May 5, 2025A fantastic collection of primarily Catholic stories of levitation, bilocation, withcraft, interrogation and validation, on one hand, and fraud, on the other. It spends a lot of time diving into some of the most notable levitators, Teresa of Avila and Joseph of Cupertino. I was especially interested in how they both saw their own miracles--they both kind of shunned them and were at times embarrassed by or resistant to them happening, which helped bolster their validity in others' eyes. Those who bragged about their miracles were usually found out as frauds.
I loved these stories, and they really do raise difficult questions about how so many people could witness and believe such seemingly impossible acts, yet I wasn't at all convinced by the book's "argument" that neutrally documenting how these were perceived and written about has anything to say about the nature of metaphysical reality. People also believed the sun revolved around the Earth, but that doesn't change or put into question what we know to be true. Most of the book, to be fair, eschews any kind of theoretical interpretation, and at the end, multiple approaches are suggested, including a traditional social-scientific approach that looks at social facts while bracketing metaphysical questions. Other approaches are suggested "beyond" that, including this "study of the impossible" approach that has become fashionable in certain parts of religious studies. Maybe there is something to be said for those, but the historical facts presented here would've benefitted, I think, from a more fully committed social-scientific approach rather than this "what if"-ism. Its perfectly fine for history to stick to history--wildly gesturing beyond that hurts its case more than helps, I think.
I loved these stories, and they really do raise difficult questions about how so many people could witness and believe such seemingly impossible acts, yet I wasn't at all convinced by the book's "argument" that neutrally documenting how these were perceived and written about has anything to say about the nature of metaphysical reality. People also believed the sun revolved around the Earth, but that doesn't change or put into question what we know to be true. Most of the book, to be fair, eschews any kind of theoretical interpretation, and at the end, multiple approaches are suggested, including a traditional social-scientific approach that looks at social facts while bracketing metaphysical questions. Other approaches are suggested "beyond" that, including this "study of the impossible" approach that has become fashionable in certain parts of religious studies. Maybe there is something to be said for those, but the historical facts presented here would've benefitted, I think, from a more fully committed social-scientific approach rather than this "what if"-ism. Its perfectly fine for history to stick to history--wildly gesturing beyond that hurts its case more than helps, I think.
December 18, 2024
Such a valuable and readable exploration into what has been deemed impossible in modern secularism. It definitely challenges the binaries (modern/premodern, religious/secular, natural/supernatural, etc.) that dominate our current landscape since those binaries may not be as descriptively effective as they claim to be.
Read
July 15, 2025A book about levitation and bilocation among Catholic saints, as well as a meditation on how history changes openness to, and enactment of, the impossible. The things left unsaid make its mystery shine.
August 30, 2024
Very interesting read.
December 9, 2024
I listened to this book a few weeks after reading Rod Dreher’s thought-provoking new book, Living in Wonder. Both books present some challenges to Protestant readers as they take aim at various aspects of modern metaphysical assumptions which, of the three major branches of Christianity, are most embedded within the children of the Reformation. Carlos Eire takes as his subject the levitation of medieval Catholic monks and nuns, prodigiously attested to by copious historical records. I was not aware of this phenomenon before. The book is a serious intellectual and historical treatment of a subject that would be treated as ridiculous by many.
The book traces the historical records of levitation from antiquity to the modern age. It shows up consistently throughout those many centuries in a number of different religious and pagan contexts, though it reaches its apogee in the medieval period within certain Catholic circles.
The book focuses in on three specific people for whom levitations and other similar miracles were common and widely attested: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the Venerable María de Ágreda. The overall picture that emerges is one where, despite budgeting for exaggeration and embellishment by hagiographers and admirers, it’s hard to deny that something truly remarkable happened with these people. The volume and variety of witnesses makes it very difficult to explain away.
The strangeness of the topic and the solidity of the evidence offers a direct challenge to our absorbed habits of skepticism and our confidence in the stable laws of nature. We come away with nagging questions. Just what happened, exactly? And how does it make sense within our understanding of reality? The book navigates this challenge carefully, letting the weight of the evidence land on the reader gradually, leaving the uncomfortable questions to nag at our modern minds.
The book includes a substantial and helpful treatment of medieval and early-modern views about the devil, witchcraft, and demons.
I was fascinated to learn that the topic of miraculous levitations became a proxy for the battle between the Roman Catholic church and the new fledgling but energetic Protestant churches, with both treating the phenomenon as real but Protestants largely attributing it to the power of the devil. Thus the rather fascinating phenomenon was reduced to one facet of a high-stakes battle between entrenched religious groups; a battle that not infrequently resulted in torture and death.
The fact that Protestant denunciations of Catholic miracles occurred in this fraught context gives me pause. I don’t think I agree with the esteemed Reformers in this matter, but I can understand how there was a strong impulse to circle the wagons. For their part, Catholic apologists argued forcefully that these miracles were nothing less than a divine seal of approval and approbation on the entire Roman Catholic institution; God’s ‘amen’ to their claim to be the One True Church. Thus there was a powerful partisan incentive, aside from the normal human proclivity, for Catholic chroniclers to exaggerate and inflate the accounts of the miraculous in their midst. This helps me understand why the debate about these kinds of preternatural or supernatural events played out the way they did in the wake of the Reformation.
With a bit of historical distance, and a warming of relations between good-faith members of Catholicism and Protestantism, it seems like a good time to revisit this issue. Here is a sketch of my own still-forming view of this. Levitations can be faked rather easily, especially if they occur indoors, but this cannot explain most of the historical record. The phenomenon is, at least part of the time, real. The physical body somehow is able to suspend the force of gravity, or to be unaffected by it, during a state of spiritual ecstasy. This porous barrier between the physical and the spiritual was the default worldview within medieval Catholicism, though it was considerably hardened within Protestantism, in part as a reaction against Catholic fixation on these and similar topics, and then fully cemented by the time of the enlightenment (which was really the enshrining of the new dogma of mechanistic, reductive materialism).
Within premodern cultures and in certain spiritualist and occult traditions even today, this separation does not exist in the same way, and testimonies of such “impossible” feats regularly trickle out, though hard evidence that would be amenable to scientific analysis is almost never produced. The fact that the real phenomenon was mostly located within certain Catholic institutions like monasteries and convents does not, for me, serve to underwrite the whole of Catholicism. Far from it. But neither do I dismiss it as merely a trick of the devil to deceive the masses. We should leave room for demonic trickery and preternatural manipulations, such as the testimony of one tortured soul in the book who eventually confessed to making a pact with two demons, resulting in her ability to manifest, among other things, inexplicable levitations—I don’t see why that wouldn’t be possible. But if it’s not all demonic, and if I don’t buy what the pro-Roman Catholic apologists were selling, then we need some other framework to fit this into.
And so for me the conclusion is that these weird things did and do happen. They happened for a variety of reasons, perhaps divine and angelic, or demonic and devilish, or maybe even some other source besides that remains mysterious to us. God, in his perpetual purpose to confound the proud and the worldly-wise, perhaps scattered such manifestations among the Catholics in such a way as to frustrate the excesses of the Protestants. The injunction to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) applies to individuals. For Catholics to dismiss Protestants because of their lack of miracles (something which is not true today, if it ever was) is just as misguided as Protestants lumping all Catholic miracles together and denouncing them as demonic. In both of these approaches I see an all-too-human pride in one’s institution, one’s group. “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?” (1 Cor. 3:3:).
If I have taken anything away from my reading of church history, it’s that God does not play favourites with his children. There is enough shameful wreckage in each and every human grouping of Christians to keep us humble, and enough goodness and grace to rightly celebrate. We do well to keep this in mind even as we hold our Biblical, theological, and historical convictions firmly.
Carlos Eire has produced a book that feels very much suited to our moment of metaphysical re-evaluation. Although I struggled and skimmed through some parts of it—the accounts of levitations all blur together after a while—I enjoyed this book and the way it made me wrestle through this fascinating historical thread running from the medieval world well into our modern age.
The central question—they flew?—rests uneasily on the modern mind. Can we really believe they flew without losing all the goods modernity has bequeathed on us? Can we believe it without reverting to a medieval worldview that, if enchanted, also tended to be marked by ignorance and superstition? Can we really believe they flew and still remain well equipped to live and lead in the twenty-first century? My answer to all these questions is yes.
We must let go of reductive materialism and the hold it has on our minds. By this I mean broadening our view of reality in order for it to accord with the way the world really is. In fact, I’ve become convinced that letting go of reductive materialism is going to be a necessary step if we are to hold on to the goods of the modern age; if we are to avoid the ditch of scientism and the ditch of superstition; if we are to have the perceptual tools and the wisdom to navigate the challenges of the twenty-first century—an age when, if my intuition is right, we will see the return of the old gods and every strange being and phenomenon we so eagerly ignored during the age of reason.
In other words, we may well need categories for things even stranger than floating nuns and flying friars.
The book traces the historical records of levitation from antiquity to the modern age. It shows up consistently throughout those many centuries in a number of different religious and pagan contexts, though it reaches its apogee in the medieval period within certain Catholic circles.
The book focuses in on three specific people for whom levitations and other similar miracles were common and widely attested: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the Venerable María de Ágreda. The overall picture that emerges is one where, despite budgeting for exaggeration and embellishment by hagiographers and admirers, it’s hard to deny that something truly remarkable happened with these people. The volume and variety of witnesses makes it very difficult to explain away.
The strangeness of the topic and the solidity of the evidence offers a direct challenge to our absorbed habits of skepticism and our confidence in the stable laws of nature. We come away with nagging questions. Just what happened, exactly? And how does it make sense within our understanding of reality? The book navigates this challenge carefully, letting the weight of the evidence land on the reader gradually, leaving the uncomfortable questions to nag at our modern minds.
The book includes a substantial and helpful treatment of medieval and early-modern views about the devil, witchcraft, and demons.
I was fascinated to learn that the topic of miraculous levitations became a proxy for the battle between the Roman Catholic church and the new fledgling but energetic Protestant churches, with both treating the phenomenon as real but Protestants largely attributing it to the power of the devil. Thus the rather fascinating phenomenon was reduced to one facet of a high-stakes battle between entrenched religious groups; a battle that not infrequently resulted in torture and death.
The fact that Protestant denunciations of Catholic miracles occurred in this fraught context gives me pause. I don’t think I agree with the esteemed Reformers in this matter, but I can understand how there was a strong impulse to circle the wagons. For their part, Catholic apologists argued forcefully that these miracles were nothing less than a divine seal of approval and approbation on the entire Roman Catholic institution; God’s ‘amen’ to their claim to be the One True Church. Thus there was a powerful partisan incentive, aside from the normal human proclivity, for Catholic chroniclers to exaggerate and inflate the accounts of the miraculous in their midst. This helps me understand why the debate about these kinds of preternatural or supernatural events played out the way they did in the wake of the Reformation.
With a bit of historical distance, and a warming of relations between good-faith members of Catholicism and Protestantism, it seems like a good time to revisit this issue. Here is a sketch of my own still-forming view of this. Levitations can be faked rather easily, especially if they occur indoors, but this cannot explain most of the historical record. The phenomenon is, at least part of the time, real. The physical body somehow is able to suspend the force of gravity, or to be unaffected by it, during a state of spiritual ecstasy. This porous barrier between the physical and the spiritual was the default worldview within medieval Catholicism, though it was considerably hardened within Protestantism, in part as a reaction against Catholic fixation on these and similar topics, and then fully cemented by the time of the enlightenment (which was really the enshrining of the new dogma of mechanistic, reductive materialism).
Within premodern cultures and in certain spiritualist and occult traditions even today, this separation does not exist in the same way, and testimonies of such “impossible” feats regularly trickle out, though hard evidence that would be amenable to scientific analysis is almost never produced. The fact that the real phenomenon was mostly located within certain Catholic institutions like monasteries and convents does not, for me, serve to underwrite the whole of Catholicism. Far from it. But neither do I dismiss it as merely a trick of the devil to deceive the masses. We should leave room for demonic trickery and preternatural manipulations, such as the testimony of one tortured soul in the book who eventually confessed to making a pact with two demons, resulting in her ability to manifest, among other things, inexplicable levitations—I don’t see why that wouldn’t be possible. But if it’s not all demonic, and if I don’t buy what the pro-Roman Catholic apologists were selling, then we need some other framework to fit this into.
And so for me the conclusion is that these weird things did and do happen. They happened for a variety of reasons, perhaps divine and angelic, or demonic and devilish, or maybe even some other source besides that remains mysterious to us. God, in his perpetual purpose to confound the proud and the worldly-wise, perhaps scattered such manifestations among the Catholics in such a way as to frustrate the excesses of the Protestants. The injunction to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) applies to individuals. For Catholics to dismiss Protestants because of their lack of miracles (something which is not true today, if it ever was) is just as misguided as Protestants lumping all Catholic miracles together and denouncing them as demonic. In both of these approaches I see an all-too-human pride in one’s institution, one’s group. “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?” (1 Cor. 3:3:).
If I have taken anything away from my reading of church history, it’s that God does not play favourites with his children. There is enough shameful wreckage in each and every human grouping of Christians to keep us humble, and enough goodness and grace to rightly celebrate. We do well to keep this in mind even as we hold our Biblical, theological, and historical convictions firmly.
Carlos Eire has produced a book that feels very much suited to our moment of metaphysical re-evaluation. Although I struggled and skimmed through some parts of it—the accounts of levitations all blur together after a while—I enjoyed this book and the way it made me wrestle through this fascinating historical thread running from the medieval world well into our modern age.
The central question—they flew?—rests uneasily on the modern mind. Can we really believe they flew without losing all the goods modernity has bequeathed on us? Can we believe it without reverting to a medieval worldview that, if enchanted, also tended to be marked by ignorance and superstition? Can we really believe they flew and still remain well equipped to live and lead in the twenty-first century? My answer to all these questions is yes.
We must let go of reductive materialism and the hold it has on our minds. By this I mean broadening our view of reality in order for it to accord with the way the world really is. In fact, I’ve become convinced that letting go of reductive materialism is going to be a necessary step if we are to hold on to the goods of the modern age; if we are to avoid the ditch of scientism and the ditch of superstition; if we are to have the perceptual tools and the wisdom to navigate the challenges of the twenty-first century—an age when, if my intuition is right, we will see the return of the old gods and every strange being and phenomenon we so eagerly ignored during the age of reason.
In other words, we may well need categories for things even stranger than floating nuns and flying friars.
June 11, 2024
Honestly this ripped
May 30, 2025
“They Did Not Fly: In How Many Ways Can You Make the Same Statement Using the Academic Register?
This book could be the basis of an excellent Atlantic Magazine type article if the author would explore the one point he skirts assiduously; the felt need of witnesses to be consistent with the prevailing view. With the Inquisition on your back, who dared to say that the Emperor had no clothes?
Other missed opportunities include the process by which the Church and parishioners transitioned from ready willingness to believe in miracles to total skepticism. In today’s world, what are people’s beliefs about miracles, and how are these associated with their educational levels, ethnic culture, and nationalities?
I would have wanted to know what current mental health professionals and neurologies have to say about the saints’ clinical pictures. So many interesting possibilities.
I understand that the author is suggesting that our worldviews are as rigid as those of people in the early modern era and that the world would benefit from more flexibility than we currently practice. But, redundancy is tiresome and insulting and if the writing is clear and straightforward, there is no need for it. Which brings me to a question I often ask myself lately. Where are the editors of yesteryears who did not let authors ramble to their heart’s content?
This book could be the basis of an excellent Atlantic Magazine type article if the author would explore the one point he skirts assiduously; the felt need of witnesses to be consistent with the prevailing view. With the Inquisition on your back, who dared to say that the Emperor had no clothes?
Other missed opportunities include the process by which the Church and parishioners transitioned from ready willingness to believe in miracles to total skepticism. In today’s world, what are people’s beliefs about miracles, and how are these associated with their educational levels, ethnic culture, and nationalities?
I would have wanted to know what current mental health professionals and neurologies have to say about the saints’ clinical pictures. So many interesting possibilities.
I understand that the author is suggesting that our worldviews are as rigid as those of people in the early modern era and that the world would benefit from more flexibility than we currently practice. But, redundancy is tiresome and insulting and if the writing is clear and straightforward, there is no need for it. Which brings me to a question I often ask myself lately. Where are the editors of yesteryears who did not let authors ramble to their heart’s content?
March 9, 2025
What a fascinating and highly specific slice of history! And right in my wheelhouse. In They Flew: A History of the Impossible, historian Carlos Eire focuses on the stories of saints (or candidates for sainthood) in the late Middle Ages and into the 17th century who were reported to levitate or bilocate (appear in multiple places at one time), along with a host of other paranormal signs of God's favor. As Eire goes to great lengths to explain (there's much repetition in this book), it doesn't fully matter whether these events are true, or literal - we are left with stories of people who flew, and that in itself is interesting and an important component of human history. I agree, but it felt like Eire bent so far backwards to remain neutral (presumably not to offend an audience that believes in levitation and bilocation, stigmata, demon possession, automatic writing, prophecy, incorruptibility...) that he was practically floating himself.
There are many individuals mentioned, but the three primary figures are St. Teresa of Avila (known for her religious ecstasies (quite likely the result of temporal epilepsy) who I knew the most about going in, thanks to the famous Bernini statue), Mary of Jesus of Ágreda (who in addition to levitating and writing a much-contested work of theology (The Mystical City of God) was said to mystically travel from her monastery in Spain to the New World, where she appeared to native Texans and New Mexicans as the "Lady in Blue"), and St. Joseph of Cupertino. I'll focus on Joseph for a moment, because the stories of his levitations made me realize where I'd point my time machine if I had one. He was said to not only float within the space of the church - where he would apparently lose mass during mass - but also float outdoors, to heights at which people could barely see him. His church levitations were not only frequent, but inspired pilgrimages of believers who came in great numbers and attested to his feats. He was able to repeat this not only for skeptics who sought to disprove his abilities - the Inquisition often played the odd role of debunker in order to weed out attention-seekers and demoniacs - but even flew to the satisfaction of Pope Urban VIII, who asked to see the levitation himself.
As an investigator of paranormal abilities, I wanted nothing more than to witness the events in question. I would often think in terms of mental conditions that might produce the described behavior, or how I might pull off some of the feats described if I were accomplishing them as trickery. Some of the levitators were said to rise just a few inches off the ground, and I thought how that could easily be done with robes covering support structures such as poles coming from the ground or a nearby wall, or trick shoes. Indeed, there is a chapter on tricksters who were caught, and these were the types of methods they used. There was a sister Maria who used sticks hidden under her skirts and thick shoes, and whose stigmata (marks of Christ's wounds) were rubbed off and revealed as paint by the Inquisition. She didn't think they would rub so hard, as her cries of pain had dissuaded other investigators from exposing her. Magdalena de la Cruz was similarly exposed as a fraud, after failed prophecies and after passing off a pregnancy as divinely "implanted". With Joseph of Cupertino, we can only speculate based on clues. One interesting note was that his levitations were preceded by a large shout and a leap, which suggests that either he was covering the sound of a mechanical assist, or simply exerting a gymnastic effort that was enough to impress audiences of the 1600s as indistinguishable from flying. Wires in dim lighting are another possibility, but harder to pull off. We all know that one very non-supernatural human ability is to sweeten stories with each retelling, which I can say for sure is a factor at play in all of these stories.
In later chapters, Eire devotes space to later levitators and stories of demon possession, witchcraft, witch hunts, Protestant hijinks, and more modern levitators and bilocators (I was surprised to learn just how common a miracle bilocation was, given that I'd really only heard of it as an eastern phenomenon in Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda). These chapters are dense and interesting, and I feel that if they had been expanded and the prior chapters contracted, the book might have felt more balanced and evenly engaging, but there were fascinating pieces of information all throughout. I've certainly come away with some new regular vocabulary: thaumaturge (a magician or worker of miracles), aethrobat (one who flies or levitates), and charism (a spiritual gift, and a direct sibling of charisma). And I'd never heard that "hocus pocus" may just be a corruption of the Latin "Hoc est corpus meum": "this is my body" from the Catholic eucharist ceremony. Also, the more I learn about Martin Luther, the more repulsive I find him to be. He apparently had a fixation on defecation and farts, and believed they were a means of rebuking the devil. Quotes from Luther: "I chase him away with a fart" (said of demonic presences), and "If this isn’t enough for you, devil, I just happened to shit and piss: wipe your mouth with that and take a big bite!" and "Hey Devil, I just shit in my pants, too. Have you added that to your list of sins yet?"
Eire is right that these stories are an important part of human history, whether the supernatural exists or not. I was left with the impression that otherworldly claims themselves follow trends and fads that tie them to their eras. Many of the "miracles" passed off as acts of God sound laughable to modern ears. This is a great collection of those stories.
There are many individuals mentioned, but the three primary figures are St. Teresa of Avila (known for her religious ecstasies (quite likely the result of temporal epilepsy) who I knew the most about going in, thanks to the famous Bernini statue), Mary of Jesus of Ágreda (who in addition to levitating and writing a much-contested work of theology (The Mystical City of God) was said to mystically travel from her monastery in Spain to the New World, where she appeared to native Texans and New Mexicans as the "Lady in Blue"), and St. Joseph of Cupertino. I'll focus on Joseph for a moment, because the stories of his levitations made me realize where I'd point my time machine if I had one. He was said to not only float within the space of the church - where he would apparently lose mass during mass - but also float outdoors, to heights at which people could barely see him. His church levitations were not only frequent, but inspired pilgrimages of believers who came in great numbers and attested to his feats. He was able to repeat this not only for skeptics who sought to disprove his abilities - the Inquisition often played the odd role of debunker in order to weed out attention-seekers and demoniacs - but even flew to the satisfaction of Pope Urban VIII, who asked to see the levitation himself.
As an investigator of paranormal abilities, I wanted nothing more than to witness the events in question. I would often think in terms of mental conditions that might produce the described behavior, or how I might pull off some of the feats described if I were accomplishing them as trickery. Some of the levitators were said to rise just a few inches off the ground, and I thought how that could easily be done with robes covering support structures such as poles coming from the ground or a nearby wall, or trick shoes. Indeed, there is a chapter on tricksters who were caught, and these were the types of methods they used. There was a sister Maria who used sticks hidden under her skirts and thick shoes, and whose stigmata (marks of Christ's wounds) were rubbed off and revealed as paint by the Inquisition. She didn't think they would rub so hard, as her cries of pain had dissuaded other investigators from exposing her. Magdalena de la Cruz was similarly exposed as a fraud, after failed prophecies and after passing off a pregnancy as divinely "implanted". With Joseph of Cupertino, we can only speculate based on clues. One interesting note was that his levitations were preceded by a large shout and a leap, which suggests that either he was covering the sound of a mechanical assist, or simply exerting a gymnastic effort that was enough to impress audiences of the 1600s as indistinguishable from flying. Wires in dim lighting are another possibility, but harder to pull off. We all know that one very non-supernatural human ability is to sweeten stories with each retelling, which I can say for sure is a factor at play in all of these stories.
In later chapters, Eire devotes space to later levitators and stories of demon possession, witchcraft, witch hunts, Protestant hijinks, and more modern levitators and bilocators (I was surprised to learn just how common a miracle bilocation was, given that I'd really only heard of it as an eastern phenomenon in Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda). These chapters are dense and interesting, and I feel that if they had been expanded and the prior chapters contracted, the book might have felt more balanced and evenly engaging, but there were fascinating pieces of information all throughout. I've certainly come away with some new regular vocabulary: thaumaturge (a magician or worker of miracles), aethrobat (one who flies or levitates), and charism (a spiritual gift, and a direct sibling of charisma). And I'd never heard that "hocus pocus" may just be a corruption of the Latin "Hoc est corpus meum": "this is my body" from the Catholic eucharist ceremony. Also, the more I learn about Martin Luther, the more repulsive I find him to be. He apparently had a fixation on defecation and farts, and believed they were a means of rebuking the devil. Quotes from Luther: "I chase him away with a fart" (said of demonic presences), and "If this isn’t enough for you, devil, I just happened to shit and piss: wipe your mouth with that and take a big bite!" and "Hey Devil, I just shit in my pants, too. Have you added that to your list of sins yet?"
Eire is right that these stories are an important part of human history, whether the supernatural exists or not. I was left with the impression that otherworldly claims themselves follow trends and fads that tie them to their eras. Many of the "miracles" passed off as acts of God sound laughable to modern ears. This is a great collection of those stories.
December 21, 2023
Yes redundant at times but SO well researched and interesting.
September 27, 2024
.5 rounded up, as this is perhaps the worst history book I have ever read. Erin Maglaque says a lot of what I'm about to say in better words: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024...
However, I don't entirely agree with her, and for one simple reason: she believed Eire when he told her what this book was about, and believed him again when he repeated it in his conclusion. That makes sense - there is no reason to disbelieve him. After all, why would a historian lie about the subject of their own book? It's nonsensical. That is, however, exactly what Eire has done. He claims this book is a history of the impossible; a radical reframing of how we view miracles and magic, and a full-throated refutation of "secularist" history which outright dismisses such events.
That is not what this book is about. This book is, in fact, barely about anything. It is, at best, three poorly argued and poorly sourced books slammed together into one discordant whole. The first section of the book is the only one that actually deals with levitation, and only one of the chapters within this segment actually deals with the "impossible" nature of levitation and questions our automatic dismissal of it - and it's built off the less believable case of the two, based entirely on a hagiography! I cannot for the life of me understand why he chose to structure it this way! The other two chapters are from a book that could be more accurately named something like They Were Moved to Various Monasteries: A History of Stuff That Happens All The Time. They mostly handle the social and cultural effects of the BELIEF in levitation on the daily lives of the two figures, and their treatment by Church officials. That is, in fact, completely normal shit to talk about. Not impossible at all, in fact.
The second section claims to deal with bilocation (the miracle of appearing two places at once), but includes only one serious case study of bilocation. The rest of the segment is about, I am being completely fucking serious right now, DIVINE REVELATION. This is probably because bilocation is a shitty and stupid miracle - unlike levitation, which in theory you could basically just kinda look at and see if someone was flying - two people have to see the same person in different places at the same time and be 100% certain it was the same person. The bilocations in question? It was a Spanish woman who spent her life confined in a nunnery bilocating to NEW MEXICO so that she could CONVERT NATIVE PEOPLE TO CATHOLICISM. A PLACE WHERE NOBODY WOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE. AM I GOING FUCKING CRAZY? As for Divine Revelation, well, you can never prove that one way or the other, for the basic reason that it happens INSIDE SOMEONE'S MIND.
The last section is the least sensical, somehow, and it's on witchcraft, frauds, and belief in the devil. I don't even know how this got in here, honestly. This is an entirely different topic from an entirely different book just tacked onto the end because it also involves people flying around. There's a reason the above review barely even discusses this section - what the fuck are you even meant to do with this, as a reader? If we are to take what Eire claims his thesis is (which, as established, is barely extant within the text) and apply it to this section, it would effectively argue that witchcraft and demonic interference in the world are just straight up real, and therefore witch trials are totally cool and normal things to do. That CAN'T be what he's arguing (right? RIGHT??) - because that would be insane. You would have to be insane to do that.
Eire also hates Protestantism with a vitriol I have not seen in anyone have since the time he studies. There's a section in his introduction called "The Trouble with Protestants." The line "no miracles, no Catholicism" appears in his conclusion, targeted at liberal and progressive Catholics who have the GALL to look at a story of a woman doing magic colonialism in New Mexico with a dash of uncertainty. This book is deranged and nonsensical, uncertain what it is arguing. The true impossibility at hand is that it was published at all (but then again, he is a senior scholar at an Ivy League institution, so like his bilocating heroine, Maria de Agredar, he has the proverbial ear of the king).
However, I don't entirely agree with her, and for one simple reason: she believed Eire when he told her what this book was about, and believed him again when he repeated it in his conclusion. That makes sense - there is no reason to disbelieve him. After all, why would a historian lie about the subject of their own book? It's nonsensical. That is, however, exactly what Eire has done. He claims this book is a history of the impossible; a radical reframing of how we view miracles and magic, and a full-throated refutation of "secularist" history which outright dismisses such events.
That is not what this book is about. This book is, in fact, barely about anything. It is, at best, three poorly argued and poorly sourced books slammed together into one discordant whole. The first section of the book is the only one that actually deals with levitation, and only one of the chapters within this segment actually deals with the "impossible" nature of levitation and questions our automatic dismissal of it - and it's built off the less believable case of the two, based entirely on a hagiography! I cannot for the life of me understand why he chose to structure it this way! The other two chapters are from a book that could be more accurately named something like They Were Moved to Various Monasteries: A History of Stuff That Happens All The Time. They mostly handle the social and cultural effects of the BELIEF in levitation on the daily lives of the two figures, and their treatment by Church officials. That is, in fact, completely normal shit to talk about. Not impossible at all, in fact.
The second section claims to deal with bilocation (the miracle of appearing two places at once), but includes only one serious case study of bilocation. The rest of the segment is about, I am being completely fucking serious right now, DIVINE REVELATION. This is probably because bilocation is a shitty and stupid miracle - unlike levitation, which in theory you could basically just kinda look at and see if someone was flying - two people have to see the same person in different places at the same time and be 100% certain it was the same person. The bilocations in question? It was a Spanish woman who spent her life confined in a nunnery bilocating to NEW MEXICO so that she could CONVERT NATIVE PEOPLE TO CATHOLICISM. A PLACE WHERE NOBODY WOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE. AM I GOING FUCKING CRAZY? As for Divine Revelation, well, you can never prove that one way or the other, for the basic reason that it happens INSIDE SOMEONE'S MIND.
The last section is the least sensical, somehow, and it's on witchcraft, frauds, and belief in the devil. I don't even know how this got in here, honestly. This is an entirely different topic from an entirely different book just tacked onto the end because it also involves people flying around. There's a reason the above review barely even discusses this section - what the fuck are you even meant to do with this, as a reader? If we are to take what Eire claims his thesis is (which, as established, is barely extant within the text) and apply it to this section, it would effectively argue that witchcraft and demonic interference in the world are just straight up real, and therefore witch trials are totally cool and normal things to do. That CAN'T be what he's arguing (right? RIGHT??) - because that would be insane. You would have to be insane to do that.
Eire also hates Protestantism with a vitriol I have not seen in anyone have since the time he studies. There's a section in his introduction called "The Trouble with Protestants." The line "no miracles, no Catholicism" appears in his conclusion, targeted at liberal and progressive Catholics who have the GALL to look at a story of a woman doing magic colonialism in New Mexico with a dash of uncertainty. This book is deranged and nonsensical, uncertain what it is arguing. The true impossibility at hand is that it was published at all (but then again, he is a senior scholar at an Ivy League institution, so like his bilocating heroine, Maria de Agredar, he has the proverbial ear of the king).
July 5, 2024
They Flew is very engaging, although it's more an investigation into social facts, rather than the documentary evidence for these seemingly 'impossible' events. The reason for that is simple: most of the evidence relating to these allegedly supernatural and preternatural events are in contained in the Vatican, and there has never been an attempt to archive them (seems like an entire academic career just waiting for someone). Carlos Eire said in a interview with Tara Isabella Burton that the number of impossible cases he discusses in his book is only the very tippy-top of the iceberg. I would highly recommend watching that interview to go along with reading the book.
Most of They Flew is not scholarly analysis, but rather stories about these people who claimed to do miracles while in a state of cataleptic ecstasy. Eire recounts the stories of alleged levitators and bilocators, some of whom were canonized, others who were proved to be frauds, and the unsettling case of Sor Luisa de Carrión, who was acquitted of fraud and making a pact with the devil, but nevertheless has still not had her claims vindicated by the Catholic Church.
These stories are very interesting, and not just because they are tales of wonder workings—it is astounding to discover how famous these impossible-doers were, how they were involved with and honored by the most powerful men in Europe. Furthermore, They Flew remains gripping as Eire, the author of several memoirs, keeps the prose conversational and accessible to non-academics and non-specialists.
To go along with the simple language, Eire pairs admirable erudition, both on Protestant-Catholic relations and the surprisingly complicated subject of demonology. It was very helpful to have an introduction to the differences between magic, sorcery (called maleficium in Ancient Rome), and pacts with devils to gain powers.
It seems that the 17th Century must have been the most action packed of all centuries. Everyone knows about its religious wars, worldwide voyages, and conquests; about its triumphs in music, theatre, and portraiture; about the planting of liberalism, rationalism, and empiricism. What Eire argues effectively, is that the impossible feats of saints, witches, and demoniacs may have just been the most important of all. They are certainly the most terrifying.
Most of They Flew is not scholarly analysis, but rather stories about these people who claimed to do miracles while in a state of cataleptic ecstasy. Eire recounts the stories of alleged levitators and bilocators, some of whom were canonized, others who were proved to be frauds, and the unsettling case of Sor Luisa de Carrión, who was acquitted of fraud and making a pact with the devil, but nevertheless has still not had her claims vindicated by the Catholic Church.
These stories are very interesting, and not just because they are tales of wonder workings—it is astounding to discover how famous these impossible-doers were, how they were involved with and honored by the most powerful men in Europe. Furthermore, They Flew remains gripping as Eire, the author of several memoirs, keeps the prose conversational and accessible to non-academics and non-specialists.
To go along with the simple language, Eire pairs admirable erudition, both on Protestant-Catholic relations and the surprisingly complicated subject of demonology. It was very helpful to have an introduction to the differences between magic, sorcery (called maleficium in Ancient Rome), and pacts with devils to gain powers.
It seems that the 17th Century must have been the most action packed of all centuries. Everyone knows about its religious wars, worldwide voyages, and conquests; about its triumphs in music, theatre, and portraiture; about the planting of liberalism, rationalism, and empiricism. What Eire argues effectively, is that the impossible feats of saints, witches, and demoniacs may have just been the most important of all. They are certainly the most terrifying.
February 2, 2025
“Levitation is one of the best of all entry points into the history of the impossible, principally because it is an event for which we have an overabundance of testimonies, not just in Western Christianity but throughout all of world history. Yet levitation is still a subject that attracts disparagement and repels serious inquiry […] Human levitation seems incompatible with seriousness.” Someone somewhere on god’s internet last year posted about Carlos Eire’s study of levitating saints, They Flew: A History of the Impossible, and I’ve been desperate to read it since. And there were elements of it that disappointed me: it is very repetitious, to the point of seeming just poorly structured and edited; some arguments are flimsy and under-developed; it is at times too academic and dense, which perhaps can’t be helped given its nature as a serious academic text, which is a deliberate aim in the face of its subject matter seeming incompatible with such writing. But there is much of interest in Eire’s work, from the testimonies of the levitating Saint Teresa of Avila and those who witnessed her miraculousness, to the bilocating María de Ágreda, as notable for her miracles as she is for certain elements of her story (for instance, she was displayed to spectators without her consent when she entered ‘spiritual’ catatonic states). But also: does the Catholic Church really recognise a C.20th priest-turned-saint with levitating and “intercepting Allied bombers in midair”?! Wild. I enjoyed the chapters on fraud and levitation-as-witchcraft, and ideas of “conterfactual history”, and I do think Eire’s concluding argument is valid, that secularist materialism is at odds with strange events with (contestable yet maybe credible) witnesses, and that there must be space for scepticism and open, good-faith inquiry to co-exist. (Swipe to see the full cover image, Vicente Carducho’s ‘The Stigmatization of Saint Francis’, and a fav of mine which is ref’d in the text, Francisco Goya’s ‘Witches’ Flight’.)
August 8, 2025
just kind of unbelievably bad. im on board for the argument that what is "true" and "real" is historically and socially contingent, but there are limits to that. Eire ignores them. instead, he tongue-in-cheek argues that catholic miracles--flight, bilocation, etc--did actually happen, and it is our dogmatic (post)secularism that refuses to acknowledge said miracles. just dumb as fuck. throughout the whole book, Eire's writing is tinged with this ironic, tongue cheeky quality, which i guess he sees as a writing style, but is obviously a facade for the deep intellectual insecurity of his work.
and there is a deep, intellectual insecurity to his work. he relies on "eye witness accounts," which are really hagiographies written against the backdrop of the spanish inquisition, so of course they would confirm the miracles. not exactly strong evidence. no time is spent on possible explanations for the flights, bilocations, etc., except for one sentence that said Teresa of Avila is believed to have had epilepsy. rather, Eire just finger-wags and doubles down that the demand for "explanations" is (post)secular dogma. this is particularly funny, and rhetorically ineffective, because he dedicates part of his book to people who did fake miracles, which begs the question, how do we know everyone else didn't fake them too? Eire refuses to touch that question with a ten foot pole.
so we're left with an intellectually weak, if not entirely dishonest, book that gives a limited history of a few miracle workers and fraudsters. im not sure why you'd ever read this, unless you're a catholic wanting "historiography" that confirms your beliefs.
and there is a deep, intellectual insecurity to his work. he relies on "eye witness accounts," which are really hagiographies written against the backdrop of the spanish inquisition, so of course they would confirm the miracles. not exactly strong evidence. no time is spent on possible explanations for the flights, bilocations, etc., except for one sentence that said Teresa of Avila is believed to have had epilepsy. rather, Eire just finger-wags and doubles down that the demand for "explanations" is (post)secular dogma. this is particularly funny, and rhetorically ineffective, because he dedicates part of his book to people who did fake miracles, which begs the question, how do we know everyone else didn't fake them too? Eire refuses to touch that question with a ten foot pole.
so we're left with an intellectually weak, if not entirely dishonest, book that gives a limited history of a few miracle workers and fraudsters. im not sure why you'd ever read this, unless you're a catholic wanting "historiography" that confirms your beliefs.
May 2, 2024
Although levitation is pretty spectacular, that’s not the only subject Carlos Eire covers in this remarkable book. Historians have long struggled about what to do with “impossible” events. In the last couple of centuries, despite authoritative voices to the contrary, they have simply tended to dismiss them, or ignore them. Either way is safer when tenure’s in the balance. I applaud Eire heartily. He’s an award-winning historian and he has written a most intriguing book.
While primarily about (generally Catholic) figures who were known, and witnessed, to have levitated, Eire also addresses the larger picture of why documents which otherwise are treated as “historical” are suddenly dropped when the impossible happens. There’s a lot of information on Teresa of Avila, Joseph of Cupertino, and Maria de Agreda, and many others. The book also considers bilocation, another impossibility. The third and final section deals with the Devil, demons, and witches (who were believed to fly).
This is a fascinating book. Although a bit long, it kept me engaged cover-to-cover. And I’ll be turning back to it from time to time. I’m eager to give it five stars for courage alone. But this is accompanied by skillful writing, with even a bit of wit. This is a serious book, however. As I note in my blog post on it, Sects and Violence in the Ancient World, it was published by Yale University Press, adding to its credibility. I hope it’s read widely and considered deeply.
While primarily about (generally Catholic) figures who were known, and witnessed, to have levitated, Eire also addresses the larger picture of why documents which otherwise are treated as “historical” are suddenly dropped when the impossible happens. There’s a lot of information on Teresa of Avila, Joseph of Cupertino, and Maria de Agreda, and many others. The book also considers bilocation, another impossibility. The third and final section deals with the Devil, demons, and witches (who were believed to fly).
This is a fascinating book. Although a bit long, it kept me engaged cover-to-cover. And I’ll be turning back to it from time to time. I’m eager to give it five stars for courage alone. But this is accompanied by skillful writing, with even a bit of wit. This is a serious book, however. As I note in my blog post on it, Sects and Violence in the Ancient World, it was published by Yale University Press, adding to its credibility. I hope it’s read widely and considered deeply.
January 17, 2024
When someone mentions a flying nun, one might be tempted to think of the old Sally Field sitcom, "The Flying Nun." But what Eire studies in this book are the stories of nuns and monks who levitated and/or bilocated. Some of them are disproven as frauds, but many, based on contemporary testimony, actually levitated. Admittedly, the bilocation is much harder to prove. Eire's conclusion can be summed up in his own words: "The testimonies are simply there in the historical record, cluttering it up abundantly, and their existence cannot be denied. But ironically, it is ultimately impossible to prove that what is claimed in these testimonies happened exactly as recorded" (377).
But the book raises legitimate questions about miracles, their role in the Christian faith, and their place in the modern church. I especially recommend the book for any Protestant who does evangelistic or apologetic work among Roman Catholics.
But the book raises legitimate questions about miracles, their role in the Christian faith, and their place in the modern church. I especially recommend the book for any Protestant who does evangelistic or apologetic work among Roman Catholics.
November 20, 2024
A genuine tour de force. Thoughtful, curious, rigorous history of the miracle workers of the Age of Enlightenment. If you were hoping for a fun, cozy read about saints who fly and glow, this book would be a disappointment — but I was grateful for Eire's unflinchingness about how disturbing the working of impossible miracles can be.
They Flew leans toward a Catholic view of history. But Eire is surprisingly balanced in his treatment of the Catholic-Protestant polemic of this time. The history he tells feels like a genuine Catholic/Protestant Rorschach test. What are we to make of a God who whips up such alarming and dreadful rewards for his most holy? And what are we to make of a world in which the same miracles can claim both divine and diabolic origins?
I'll be thinking about They Flew for a long time. I'm waiting for someone to write a carefully-researched historical novel about an inquisitor investigating a nun's claims of levitation...
They Flew leans toward a Catholic view of history. But Eire is surprisingly balanced in his treatment of the Catholic-Protestant polemic of this time. The history he tells feels like a genuine Catholic/Protestant Rorschach test. What are we to make of a God who whips up such alarming and dreadful rewards for his most holy? And what are we to make of a world in which the same miracles can claim both divine and diabolic origins?
I'll be thinking about They Flew for a long time. I'm waiting for someone to write a carefully-researched historical novel about an inquisitor investigating a nun's claims of levitation...
September 4, 2024
I went into this book with high hopes, but came away feeling bleh. I had hoped Eire would examine at length the epistemological criteria for assessing the validity of alleged miracles, but instead he just details the testimonies themselves and then more or less says, "Some people accepted the testimony; but others didn't, and some attributed the miracle to demons." If you are reading this book to determine whether the alleged miracles actually happened, and whether they were orchestrated by God or by demons, then you will be disappointed. But it's a decent introduction to some of the more incredible claims of levitation and bilocation. And I appreciate that he included some examples of verified false miracles, in which the perpetrator later confessed to performing their miracles through a pact with the Devil or simply using "tricks."
April 11, 2025
Impossible accounts of saintly miracles, witch hunts, and demon-possession are "medieval," right? Wrong—or not quite. The fever pitch of these phenomena struck in early modernity—precisely when Newton and Descartes were alive and kicking—and not merely among the illiterate unwashed but among the most learned elites of the age.
Eire, an award-winning historian, takes the reader on a fascinating expedition through the most famous (and infamous) levitators and bilocators of that era and the voluminous documentary witnesses to their feats. At the end he brings the pile-driver. In the 16th and 17th centuries, "everybody knew" that levitation was real. How did it come to be that in the 20th and 21st centuries "everybody knows" it isn't real independent of data one way or the other?
Eire, an award-winning historian, takes the reader on a fascinating expedition through the most famous (and infamous) levitators and bilocators of that era and the voluminous documentary witnesses to their feats. At the end he brings the pile-driver. In the 16th and 17th centuries, "everybody knew" that levitation was real. How did it come to be that in the 20th and 21st centuries "everybody knows" it isn't real independent of data one way or the other?
June 20, 2024
The author describes and describes story after story of saintly flight and bi-location with an insolent credulity that's evidently meant to challenge the reader's assumptions about empiricism, rationality and how people at different times experience what is real. I'm sympathetic to the premise that such widespread first person accounts of miraculous events were neither fabrications nor exactly real in the sense we mean today, but if the author ever gets around to making a case for how we should think about what's in the middle of those two, it must be after the hours of him conveying the redundant anecdotes that ultimately ended up making me hit the eject button. GET. TO. THE. POINT!
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