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Stigmata: An Investigation into the Mysterious Appearance of Christ's Wounds in Hundreds of People from Medieval Italy to Modern America
On a warm summer day in Derbyshire, England, in 1985, Jane Hunt, a bus driver's wife, began preparing her family's breakfast when her hands began to burn and itch. She dismissed it as a temporary irritation until later in the morning, when on her way to go shopping she was suddenly riveted with pain, as though thousands of needles were being driven through her hands. The pain was so intense, she rushed back to the house. The night before she went to bed. In front of her husband and daughter, blood started to well up from the unbroken skin in the middle of her palms. Jane Hunt had developed stigmata. Wilson examines many of the confirmed cases, including that of St. Francis, but argues against a religious interpretation of the phenomenon in favor of a medical and psychological explanation. He believes the power of the mindover matter can ultimately be harnessed for more rewarding ends, and he offers evidence of a close link between stigmata and the puzzling phenomena of multiple personality cases. While he dispels the myth of stigmatics as saints, Wilson's intriguing conclusions point to the dramatic ability of the mind to change the body, and offers the potential for fresh insights into the laws of nature.
164 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
16 people want to read
About the author
Ian Wilson
239 books27 followersAuthor of historical and religious books. He was born in Clapham, south London, but now lives in Brisbane, Australia, with his wife, Judith and their two sons, Adrian and Noel.
Wilson is most well known for his research on the Shroud of Turin.
Wilson is most well known for his research on the Shroud of Turin.
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May 17, 2024
THE PSYCHIC RESEARCHER LOOKS ANALYTICALLY AT THIS PHENOMENON
Ian Wilson is a prolific author of books such as 'Life After Death - The Evidence,' 'Past Lives: Unlocking the Secrets of Our Ancestors,' 'The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved],' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1989 book, “My interest is stigmata goes back many years, and is a direct result of my long-term interest in the Turin Shroud… Stigmatics are professed to bear on their bodies replications of the crucifixion injuries suffered by Jesus, and an inevitable early question I needed to face was whether their wounds differed from, or were similar to, those indicated on the shroud. Since the answer was, for the most part, the former, this raised the problem: why, and in particular, how are stigmata to be explained and understood in our twentieth century… Clearly desirable for a work of this kind… has been access to a living stigmatic…”
He adds in the Introduction, “there can be no doubt that the thoughts and images that come into our mind can have rapid and readily demonstrable physical effects… However much we may think we know about the exterior universe of space, our interior universes of body and mind, and how they interact, are altogether more mysterious. All this has a great deal to do with the phenomenon of stigmata. For if the stigmatics’ central claim is valid, that bloody manifestations of Christ’s crucifixion wounds spontaneously break out on their bodies, then clearly there can be little more dramatic demonstration of the sheer power of the something within us we call mind over the physical matter of our flesh and blood… But why should we believe the stories of stigmatics? Are they not all too far-fetched and alien to our rationalist twentieth-century thinking? … all that is asked is that we approach everything we are about to encounter step by step, and with a genuinely open mind.”
He recounts, “Padre Pio was born in 1887… on the outskirts of Naples… Not long after his ordination, in September 1915, the week of the anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi’s stigmatisation… he came out waving his hand … he complained of needle-like pains… Three years later Pio had become one of the Capuchin friars, the most austere branch of the Franciscan order… Suddenly Pio screamed, shattering the silence and bringing his fellow friars running back into the church to his aid… they saw blood pouring from what seemed to be deep nail-holes in his hands and feet… more blood could be seen soaking through his habit from an apparent stab wound in his left chest. Yet there was no sign that he or anyone else had inflicted such injuries… Throughout the entire subsequent fifty years and three days that remained of his life they stayed day and night, without remission. Repeatedly they would open, scab over and then bleed again, resisting every attempt to heal or cure them, yet never becoming infected.” (Pg. 6-7) He adds, “the stories are legion of Padre Pio’s powers of healing, as are reports of him mysteriously appearing all over Europe to individuals in need, despite his never physically having left Sand Giovanni Rotundo.” (Pg. 8)
He notes, “If, as is likely, our immediate reaction to such stories is one of a healthy suspicion, it needs to be recognized that the Roman Catholic Church, far from vaunting Padre Pio as miracle worker, adopted a similarly critical attitude, and took the strongest measures to discourage the development of any cult around him… The faithful were prohibited from visiting him, and even corresponding with him. He was debarred from hearing confessions. He was forbidden to conduct any public Mass… Although in time some of the restrictions were eased, he was allowed to hold just one daily public Mass, at the ungodly hour of five in the morning, and to hear confessions at any time… huge crowds … gathered in darkness to attend, while the queues for his confessions were so long that there was often a wait of several days…” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “In September 1224 Francis of Assisi … emerged from his hut before dawn and knelt in prayer, concentrating all his thoughts on what it must have been like for Jesus to suffer his death on the cross… ‘in the hands and feet of Saint Francis forthwith began to appear the marks of the nails in the same manner as he had seen them in the body of Jesus crucified…’ just like Padre Pio… Francis was reticent and embarrassed about what had happened to him… Francis’s stigmatisation cannot be brushed aside so lightly, not least because first-hand corroborations of it have survived from individuals who were his companions” (Pg. 11-12)
He observes, “there emerged literally hundreds of stigmatics between St. Francis’s death and our own time … Cold all of them, consciously or unconsciously have indulged in self-mutilation? Could all of these have attained the heights of saintliness of St. Francis? Or does the real answer to the manifestation of the wounds lie in something else---perhaps in some as yet poorly understood process relating to the stigmatics’ peculiar psychology?” (Pg. 18-19)
He recounts some cases of women who perhaps deliberately injured themselves, he notes, “Yet we cannot be certain whether such women, who clearly had a penchant for injuring themselves, produced their stigmata by self-mutilation, or whether there may genuinely be some other factor involved.” (Pg. 25) Later, he summarizes, “All that is certain is that the phenomenon of stigmata can neither be affirmed nor refuted from the evidence, however detailed, of times so much less scientific than our own. With every justification for suspicion, but no absolute proof of overall fraud, we can but now move forward to what can be deduced from the stigmatics who proliferated little more than a century ago, at the start of our own modern age.” (Pg. 29)
He explains, “With the new knowledge of the twentieth century it might be thought easier to determine the validity of stigmata once and for all. There is still little sign of any diminution of the phenomenon, for even my own comparatively modest researches suggest around ten stigmatics living at the present time.” (Pg. 43) He adds, “So despite the need for continuing vigilance against fraud, it can be said with confidence that in the case of some, if not all, claimed stigmatics their flesh does seem spontaneously to change and bleed in the same manner as has been reported even since the time of St. Francis.” (Pg. 61)
He admits, “Complicating the issue is that we have no certain knowledge of the precise locations of Jesus’s crucifixion wounds. We he, as imagined by most artists, nailed through the centre of each palm, or, as suggested by the controversial Holy Shroud of Turin, through the wrists? Was the lance plunged through his chest on his right side, or his left? At what level of his rib-cage did the lance penetrate? On which shoulder did he carry the cross?... But quite aside from the question of where Jesus’s own wounds were located, the sum total of the information we have about stigmatics’ wounds indicates no consistency even remotely suggesting them as replications of one single, original pattern.” (Pg. 63) He concludes, “Despite popular belief, it seems from the diversity of the wounds’ locations and shapes most unlikely that any are actual replications of the original Crucifixion injuries. Nevertheless, stigmata are still of profound interest in themselves. For if the flesh really does change, why should it do so among this such a select band of people? Exactly how does it occur, and what triggers it off?” (Pg. 71)
He suggests, “If stigmatic and multiple personality mental states resemble a hypnotic trance, could it be that under controlled conditions a skilled hypnotist might be able to induce stigmata phenomena? If this were possible, it would constitute the greatest proof that whatever the nature of the underlying mechanism, stigmatics really have quite spontaneously produced the sort of wounds claimed of them over the centuries. But is it possible? That is the question we must next try to answer.” (Pg. 90)
He summarizes, “there can be no easy overall assessment of the phenomenon of stigmata… Without denying the genuineness and intensity of the religious faith of many stigmatics, their wounds are not to be interpreted wither as miraculous or as signs of divine favor. Their very diversity defeats the claim that they replicate the original injuries suffered by Jesus. And many stigmatics have been notable more for their neuroses than their sanctity. Nor should such an assessment offend anyone’s religious faith, for even the Roman Catholic Church has adopted extreme caution and scepticism towards stigmatics throughout much of its history. A comparatively small proportion of stigmatics have been beatified and canonized.” (Pg. 124)
He concludes, “Stigmata, whatever their origination, deserve to be taken seriously… they are one of the most baffling and intriguing of medical and scientific mysteries. If they are as far-reaching in their effects as we have shown, they demand a fundamental reappraisal of our understanding of the laws of nature… Most important of all, if the inner power that seems to generate them truly exists and can be better understood and harnessed, they perhaps promise opportunities for the cure of diseases that have so far defeated the best efforts of modern medicine.” (Pg. 129-130)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying the topic of stigmata.
Ian Wilson is a prolific author of books such as 'Life After Death - The Evidence,' 'Past Lives: Unlocking the Secrets of Our Ancestors,' 'The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved],' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1989 book, “My interest is stigmata goes back many years, and is a direct result of my long-term interest in the Turin Shroud… Stigmatics are professed to bear on their bodies replications of the crucifixion injuries suffered by Jesus, and an inevitable early question I needed to face was whether their wounds differed from, or were similar to, those indicated on the shroud. Since the answer was, for the most part, the former, this raised the problem: why, and in particular, how are stigmata to be explained and understood in our twentieth century… Clearly desirable for a work of this kind… has been access to a living stigmatic…”
He adds in the Introduction, “there can be no doubt that the thoughts and images that come into our mind can have rapid and readily demonstrable physical effects… However much we may think we know about the exterior universe of space, our interior universes of body and mind, and how they interact, are altogether more mysterious. All this has a great deal to do with the phenomenon of stigmata. For if the stigmatics’ central claim is valid, that bloody manifestations of Christ’s crucifixion wounds spontaneously break out on their bodies, then clearly there can be little more dramatic demonstration of the sheer power of the something within us we call mind over the physical matter of our flesh and blood… But why should we believe the stories of stigmatics? Are they not all too far-fetched and alien to our rationalist twentieth-century thinking? … all that is asked is that we approach everything we are about to encounter step by step, and with a genuinely open mind.”
He recounts, “Padre Pio was born in 1887… on the outskirts of Naples… Not long after his ordination, in September 1915, the week of the anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi’s stigmatisation… he came out waving his hand … he complained of needle-like pains… Three years later Pio had become one of the Capuchin friars, the most austere branch of the Franciscan order… Suddenly Pio screamed, shattering the silence and bringing his fellow friars running back into the church to his aid… they saw blood pouring from what seemed to be deep nail-holes in his hands and feet… more blood could be seen soaking through his habit from an apparent stab wound in his left chest. Yet there was no sign that he or anyone else had inflicted such injuries… Throughout the entire subsequent fifty years and three days that remained of his life they stayed day and night, without remission. Repeatedly they would open, scab over and then bleed again, resisting every attempt to heal or cure them, yet never becoming infected.” (Pg. 6-7) He adds, “the stories are legion of Padre Pio’s powers of healing, as are reports of him mysteriously appearing all over Europe to individuals in need, despite his never physically having left Sand Giovanni Rotundo.” (Pg. 8)
He notes, “If, as is likely, our immediate reaction to such stories is one of a healthy suspicion, it needs to be recognized that the Roman Catholic Church, far from vaunting Padre Pio as miracle worker, adopted a similarly critical attitude, and took the strongest measures to discourage the development of any cult around him… The faithful were prohibited from visiting him, and even corresponding with him. He was debarred from hearing confessions. He was forbidden to conduct any public Mass… Although in time some of the restrictions were eased, he was allowed to hold just one daily public Mass, at the ungodly hour of five in the morning, and to hear confessions at any time… huge crowds … gathered in darkness to attend, while the queues for his confessions were so long that there was often a wait of several days…” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “In September 1224 Francis of Assisi … emerged from his hut before dawn and knelt in prayer, concentrating all his thoughts on what it must have been like for Jesus to suffer his death on the cross… ‘in the hands and feet of Saint Francis forthwith began to appear the marks of the nails in the same manner as he had seen them in the body of Jesus crucified…’ just like Padre Pio… Francis was reticent and embarrassed about what had happened to him… Francis’s stigmatisation cannot be brushed aside so lightly, not least because first-hand corroborations of it have survived from individuals who were his companions” (Pg. 11-12)
He observes, “there emerged literally hundreds of stigmatics between St. Francis’s death and our own time … Cold all of them, consciously or unconsciously have indulged in self-mutilation? Could all of these have attained the heights of saintliness of St. Francis? Or does the real answer to the manifestation of the wounds lie in something else---perhaps in some as yet poorly understood process relating to the stigmatics’ peculiar psychology?” (Pg. 18-19)
He recounts some cases of women who perhaps deliberately injured themselves, he notes, “Yet we cannot be certain whether such women, who clearly had a penchant for injuring themselves, produced their stigmata by self-mutilation, or whether there may genuinely be some other factor involved.” (Pg. 25) Later, he summarizes, “All that is certain is that the phenomenon of stigmata can neither be affirmed nor refuted from the evidence, however detailed, of times so much less scientific than our own. With every justification for suspicion, but no absolute proof of overall fraud, we can but now move forward to what can be deduced from the stigmatics who proliferated little more than a century ago, at the start of our own modern age.” (Pg. 29)
He explains, “With the new knowledge of the twentieth century it might be thought easier to determine the validity of stigmata once and for all. There is still little sign of any diminution of the phenomenon, for even my own comparatively modest researches suggest around ten stigmatics living at the present time.” (Pg. 43) He adds, “So despite the need for continuing vigilance against fraud, it can be said with confidence that in the case of some, if not all, claimed stigmatics their flesh does seem spontaneously to change and bleed in the same manner as has been reported even since the time of St. Francis.” (Pg. 61)
He admits, “Complicating the issue is that we have no certain knowledge of the precise locations of Jesus’s crucifixion wounds. We he, as imagined by most artists, nailed through the centre of each palm, or, as suggested by the controversial Holy Shroud of Turin, through the wrists? Was the lance plunged through his chest on his right side, or his left? At what level of his rib-cage did the lance penetrate? On which shoulder did he carry the cross?... But quite aside from the question of where Jesus’s own wounds were located, the sum total of the information we have about stigmatics’ wounds indicates no consistency even remotely suggesting them as replications of one single, original pattern.” (Pg. 63) He concludes, “Despite popular belief, it seems from the diversity of the wounds’ locations and shapes most unlikely that any are actual replications of the original Crucifixion injuries. Nevertheless, stigmata are still of profound interest in themselves. For if the flesh really does change, why should it do so among this such a select band of people? Exactly how does it occur, and what triggers it off?” (Pg. 71)
He suggests, “If stigmatic and multiple personality mental states resemble a hypnotic trance, could it be that under controlled conditions a skilled hypnotist might be able to induce stigmata phenomena? If this were possible, it would constitute the greatest proof that whatever the nature of the underlying mechanism, stigmatics really have quite spontaneously produced the sort of wounds claimed of them over the centuries. But is it possible? That is the question we must next try to answer.” (Pg. 90)
He summarizes, “there can be no easy overall assessment of the phenomenon of stigmata… Without denying the genuineness and intensity of the religious faith of many stigmatics, their wounds are not to be interpreted wither as miraculous or as signs of divine favor. Their very diversity defeats the claim that they replicate the original injuries suffered by Jesus. And many stigmatics have been notable more for their neuroses than their sanctity. Nor should such an assessment offend anyone’s religious faith, for even the Roman Catholic Church has adopted extreme caution and scepticism towards stigmatics throughout much of its history. A comparatively small proportion of stigmatics have been beatified and canonized.” (Pg. 124)
He concludes, “Stigmata, whatever their origination, deserve to be taken seriously… they are one of the most baffling and intriguing of medical and scientific mysteries. If they are as far-reaching in their effects as we have shown, they demand a fundamental reappraisal of our understanding of the laws of nature… Most important of all, if the inner power that seems to generate them truly exists and can be better understood and harnessed, they perhaps promise opportunities for the cure of diseases that have so far defeated the best efforts of modern medicine.” (Pg. 129-130)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying the topic of stigmata.
October 27, 2009
Interesting
March 16, 2013
quite the survey of dozens and dozens of stigmatics, including some modern ones [a few well-known, and a few otherwise]. wilson seems to be a bit too much impressed, however, by the phenomemon.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews