LEVITATION THE MIRACLE OF FLOATING ABOUT
Levitation is a miracle reported in the occult world and
also in the Catholic Church. A person just floats in mid-air.
The priest who debunked many Catholic miracles, Herbert
Thurston, observed that in cases of saints floating in mid-air without support,
the miracle of levitation, that reliable first-hand reports were very rare (page
166, The Book of Miracles). St Teresa of Avila testified in her own writings
that she could levitate. This miracle was a burden to her and very embarrassing
for it sometimes took place during services in Church (ibid, page 168). She
prayed for the levitations to stop. A nun called Sister Anne once found her
floating and in a very frightened state. Teresa warned Anne never to tell
anybody and she said she didn’t until she was compelled to tell at the
canonisation inquest after Teresa’s death. Teresa used to try and fight the
miracle and hold on to things to keep herself on the ground. One time this
happened was before Bishop Yepes just after communion time at mass. This would
indicate that the power to levitate was an uncontrollable force from her own
mind or demons were doing it for she found it very distressing. God would have
been furious with her had he been doing it because she had been trying to hold
herself down. It has been noted that the records of her trips into space were
not checked out by the Church and there is no convincing document that shows
that more than one witness saw her rising. Plus there are contradictions in the
accounts and many stories were improved with the telling (ibid, page 169).
The Book of Miracles argues that the Buddhist and Hindu holy men who can
levitate while holding on to a cane are not using contraptions to make it seem
like they are floating for the contraptions would be bulky and heavy and would
need to be put together but the holy men just hold the stick and rise into the
air without any evidence of anything suspicious (page 173). But if they can rise
into the air they should not need a stick. Good magicians always make it look
like they have no props and find ways to hide them and use them discreetly.
Catholic Leroy stated the differences between possibly
divinely inspired levitation and that of the occultists/psychics/mediums
MYSTICAL AND MIRACULOUS OCCULT DEMONIC UNCATHOLIC
1 Caused by weightlessness Invisible means of support
2 Radiate light No light
3 Happens anywhere Has to be induced - usually indoors
4 Can happen in daylight Only in the dark
5 Levitate even when sick Can't levitate when ill
6 Levitate during spontaneous ecstasies and trances Must put themselves into a trance
7 Levitate in private Done for public performances
8 Caused by the grace of God in the
person Caused by
an inherited gift
This list contains errors.
Regarding point 1, St Teresa of Avila said, "When I tried
to make some resistance, a great force beneath my feet lifted me up." Her
levitation was not caused merely by weightlessness.
However, she said that after the levitation that she felt
so weightless that "I scarcely knew that my feet touched the ground." She is
really only saying she felt weightless not that she actually was. She is not
sure what was happening.
Would a God do a miracle on her against her will?
Regarding point 2, occultist Daniel Dunglas Home radiated
light when levitating.
And he did it outdoors which refutes point 3.
Regarding point 7, Catholic saint, St Joseph of
Cupertino, the patron of aviators, did levitations in public. And some mediums
did them in private.
Regarding point 8, both saints and mediums claimed that
they had a gift from God or a grace.
The differences are not then as accurate as Leroy thinks.
Or does he think it? Is he just trying to hide the fact that the Catholic Church
was embracing occultism? He is trying to make Catholic levitations look good and
Spiritualist or occult ones look bad. He needs to find distinctions between them
even if there are none.
In relation to Joseph, he may have hallucinated his
flights and levitations. Perhaps the truth was he could jump no higher or better
than anybody else but his drug induced state made him think he was levitating
and staying in the air a while.
A cleric who knew Joseph well said simply: “I can say nothing except that he was a saint who went into ecstasy and was adored by everybody” (Chiappinelli 2008). That says it all.
The accounts that he levitated for a few seconds and sometimes even about a half an hour are tempered by the fact that he seems to have leaped onto something and then came down. He went up on a tree and up to a statue and stayed there. He was never suspended in mid-air.
Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and
Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, by Robert Bartlett, Princeton
records how Joseph, like many others in medieval times, baked the notorious
black bread. The ingredients included hallucinogenic mushrooms. He and
presumably the witnesses to his levitations ate this bread.
Robert Smith in Comparative Miracles debunked the
levitations of St Teresa of Avila. Until then, her case was considered to be the
most satisfactory in terms of believability.
He was sceptical because:
She only levitated in front of people she was close to
and who would have been reluctant to say anything about her that would make her
seem to be a fraud.
She never levitated in front of more than one person.
She was very secretive which shows that she did not want to be seen by many people at the one time.
The eyewitness reports of the levitations were kept
secret by the Church and the witnesses did not write the reports themselves.
Church personnel wrote them down and the witnesses were not allowed to check the
data over. How suspicious!
Many of the accounts contradict themselves and each other.
Some of the witnesses changed their stories as time went on.
Teresa did the levitations in a state of trance and may
have been wrong to think she was levitated. She may not have known for definite
what she was doing.
I would add that when she complained of being levitated against her will that if
the levitation was real, it was evil spirits that were doing it. ""Occasionally,
I was able, by great efforts, to make a slight resistance, but afterwards I was
worn out like a person who was contending with a strong giant. At other times it
was impossible to resist at all - my soul was carried away and almost always my
head with it - I had no power over it - and now and then the whole body as well,
so that it was lifted up from the ground."
Catholicism is an occult religion if levitation is anything to go by.
The miracle is very useless and bizarre. It is all about show. Religious people always chase after the showy miracle worker or the showy miracle shrine but if somebody had the miracle power to heal hearts and inspire evil people to become ultra-humanitarians that person would not be heard of. Even if the devotees do good, they are still no better than the rest of us.
