From Saints To Sorcery: The History Of Levitation and Bilocation Through The Ages With Carlos Eire

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Hi.

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2:59

By introducing today's podcast or guest Greetings, and welcome to another episode of Haunted History Chronicles.

Today, we embark on a journey that challenges the very fabric of reality.

3:16

Joining.

Me is a distinguished guest, a man whose life is a testament to the extraordinary Carlos Eyre.

Born in Havana in 1950, Carlos arrived in the US in 1962 as one of the unaccompanied Cuban refugee children ferried to Miami by the Pedro Pan Airlift.

3:37

A survivor of separation and adversity, Carlos is now the TL Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University.

Carlos's most recent work, They Flew A History of the Impossible, takes us deep into the annals of history, where accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena were not only acknowledged, but woven into the fabric of everyday life.

4:04

Levitating Saints, flying witches and tales of witchcraft were as integral to the early modern era as the scientific revolution itself.

In this episode, Carlos guides us through a world where scepticism coexisted with belief, where the boundaries between the natural and supernatural were blurred.

4:27

Drawing on first hand accounts, we explore exceptional cases of levitation by location and witchcraft.

The lives of Saint Teresa, Saint Joseph of Cupertino, and others provide windows into a reality animated by a different understanding of the impossible.

4:48

Why did these seemingly impossible events persist in a world increasingly devoted to scientific thinking?

How did culture determine the limits of impossibility?

Carlos challenges established assumptions about the transition to modernity, provoking us to question our understanding of reality and the supernaturals relationship with the natural world.

5:11

As we delve into this part of history, the questions raised by Carlos resonate with our own time.

Can there be more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science?

Join us as we explore the history of the impossible, seeking answers that transcend the boundaries of our understanding.

5:32

Stay tuned for a mind bending adventure that challenges the very essence.

Of what we believe to.

Be possible?

Hi, Carlos.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks for inviting me.

5:49

Do you want to start by just giving a little bit about your background and and who you are and what you do?

Sure.

My name is Carlos Eyre, spelled EIRE, and I'm a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University.

6:09

My field of specialization is the history of Christianity, more specifically the early modern period.

So from roughly 1400 to 1700.

My field used to be called Reformation, but that term is not used as as often anymore, so I'm I'm an early modernist.

6:36

Quite a collection of books, some of which we're going to be talking about today, and some of them have this focus on the supernatural.

I mean, the latest book that you've written is They Flew A History of the Impossible.

What got you interested in wanting to write about that subject matter and the material covered in that book?

6:56

And then other books like The Life.

Of Saint Teresa of.

Is it Avila?

Avila Probably saying it completely wrong.

Avila.

Yeah, what got you interested in writing about books like that?

Well, I've, you know, I've always been interested in religion.

Even when I was a child, religion used to scare me.

7:14

Nothing scared me more than religion when I was a child.

But then then I I grew up and realized that was really scary.

Is the world itself.

That's that's the scariest thing of all.

It's the world.

And I I, I sort of, you know, intuitively figured out and in my teens that, you know, religion is a way of coping with the world and coping with all the stuff that life can throw at you.

7:45

But my chief interest even even back then when I was a teen and it has governed all of my research and and writing and teaching is, is the the very basic proposition of religion which is that there is some other dimension right that that they're either, you know a supreme being or several supreme beings or in some cases not even supreme being.

8:14

But there's another dimension beyond the world that that we inhabit.

And my preoccupation, actually my obsession has always been to explore, write about and teach about the ways in which the supernatural, that other dimension has been conceived of and what difference it has made in people's lives.

8:39

But as as I progressed with my work and now, you know, I'm I'm 73, I'm much more interested in the basic assumption, which is it?

Is there something beyond nature, something supernatural?

So I focus in this book.

8:57

I focus on 2 phenomena that are deemed impossible by modern science, and the first is levitation, which means being suspended in the air or in some cases actually moving through the air, flying and by location being in two places simultaneously.

9:21

Western history is filled with accounts of levitating and by locating people.

And in Asian religions too, it's very common that this is, this is what holy people do.

So I became interested in in this miracle or phenomenon of levitation 40 years ago.

9:40

And I haven't been working on this book for 40 years, but the the spark for it and I can date it Sometime in June of 1983.

I was visiting Saint Teresa of Ovilus Convent in Spain and one of the items pointed out by the tour guide, you know, along with, you know, the pots and pans in the kitchen, the staircase and other objects, was, oh, this is the spot where Saint Teresa and John of the Cross, St.

10:14

John of the Cross levitated together for the first time.

And it just my mind opened up in a very peculiar way.

And ever since I've been trying to, in one way or another, figure out what how, how can we in the 21st century?

10:34

You know, by we, I mean those of us that are very much enmeshed in our materialist culture.

How?

How can anyone write about, speak about, or try to make sense of things that can't happen?

10:52

Yeah that most people would dismiss as as being impossible.

But yet there are so many examples of this and and at various different times they've been termed different things.

They've had different terminology.

But it's it's fascinating to to look at in an examine because I think they have been looked at by various different people through different lenses if you like.

11:16

Whether it was through spiritualists and the rise of spiritualism and being focused on these types of phenomena all through religion and religious ecstasy and the connection with Saints etcetera.

But then also other cultures and other religions and and the list goes on and on and on.

11:35

But the fact is it is something that has been recorded about for centuries and it's such an interesting period of of history from that point of view alone to to to look at and examine but to also ask and and to think about those deeper, wider questions of well, what does that say?

11:55

Is there is there something beyond what we consider possible at the you know, Are these things really, truly impossible?

That's that's the big question and to me the the most important question.

But of course, proving that something happened 400 years ago, such as levitation or bilocation, you know, it's it's actually impossible to offer conclusive proof.

12:23

What I argue in in in this book They Flew is that maybe we should not give in totally to dogmatic materialism and rule out the possibility that some of these, quote, UN quote, impossible phenomena happened or might still be happening.

12:46

Closing it off simply because we don't have enough film from the 17th century, it shows anybody levitating.

It is, I think, irresponsible for any historian to simply dismiss the facts that are described in thousands of testimonies.

13:09

And sent to Teresa herself wrote quite extensively about it, didn't she?

So you know, like you said there are, there are just such a plethora of accounts and documented examples of this type of phenomena that like you said, I just think are worthy of really looking at it and not simply dismissing it as as being ridiculous and and therefore not worthy of the same kind of discussion that other matters get.

13:37

That's right, because you know, he so-called healing miracles.

I mean healings that can't be explained by modern science or medicine happen all the time.

And as a matter of fact that's the the the bar that has to be cleared is whether for for a miracle to be defined.

14:00

A miracle in in the Catholic Church, when someone is up for sainthood, the bar that one has to surmount is scientists saying we can't explain how this person was healed.

We have no way of explaining how this tumor went away or how this little girl developed nerves in her ears eight years after her birth.

14:23

These things just don't happen normally, but they're always these anomalous events.

And if these these healing miracles which happened very frequently, show us that what is termed impossible is not always impossible, why rule out other phenomena?

14:48

Absolutely.

So do you want to just kind of give us a broader sense of the the history of the impossible in terms of how common this was?

How was it frequent, was it infrequent to kind of have these types of documented experiences?

15:04

I mean you've mentioned other cultures.

I'm I'm just wondering if you know you could give us that kind of broader picture of what kind of backdrop?

Both of these phenomena are ancient and you can find them in, in some of the oldest documents that we have across the globe.

15:22

And and you know, even in in cultures that didn't have writing, the oral accounts have been passed on and on.

And whenever I would speak of this project to my colleagues who deal with Asian religions, they would always express no surprise at all.

15:38

Yeah.

Oh, So what?

Of course, yes, that's this is an essential part of religion, but it's never been frequent and and it's always been a very, you know, relatively speaking, small number of people who have been seen levitating or have been seen in two places simultaneously.

15:57

There are very few but it it it's a constant you know from ancient times and in the West pre Christian and then in the early years of the Christian religion there aren't that many accounts of levitating or bilocating people but you get to the early Middle Ages.

16:19

So beginning about the 8th, 9th century you begin to see more and more reports of this and and as as time progresses we keep seeing more and more reports.

But of course before the invention of the printing press around 1450, these reports were all in manuscript form.

16:36

So if one looks for this phenomenon before the invention of the printing press, 1 finds relatively few accounts compared to what one finds after the invention of the printing press, when all such reports can end up being printed and distributed widely in the thousands or 10s of thousands of copies.

17:00

So for that reason alone, so the fact that the printing press makes knowledge of this more common.

It just so happens that 16th 17th century are the peak period in in Western history for accounts of hovering and flying and by locating people in the West and by the WI refer to all all of Europe and its New World colonies in the West.

17:32

Of course, the 16th century is also the time of the Protestant Reformation, and what happened at that time was that all the major leaders of Protestant churches that emerged in the 16th century began to teach that such miracles with quotation marks around them.

17:52

Not miracles at all, but rather the work of the Devil.

Because even though the New Testament is full of miracle stories and Protestant churches are Bible centered, you know, the Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, all the other leaders of the Protestant Reformation said yes, of course those miracles that recounted in in the New Testament actually did happen.

18:15

But when the last apostle died, so somewhere around the year 100, there was no need for miracles anymore because the world had begun to convert to Christianity already.

So since the year 100 or so, any such events, if they happen, are not from God but from the devil.

18:36

And we have this very odd asymmetry then that develops between Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians.

And before I go further, and let me let me add that the Eastern Orthodox Church in the eastern parts of of Europe, they're very much like the Catholic Church on this too.

18:56

This is something that can happen to very holy people, but can also happen to people who have given their soul over to the devil, such as witches.

So the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches these phenomena can be attributed either to God, if the person is living a very holy life, or to the devil.

19:17

But among Protestant churches, any such events or phenomena were instantly suspected of being demonic.

It's, I mean, it's fascinating.

It's something I've looked at before in terms of just that social history element of how religion really does kind of permeate into everyday life and experiences and how those shifts can happen when you have religious turmoil and changes in dogma and and so many other things.

19:51

But it is fascinating that you do have this this extreme of it could be one thing, or it could be the complete opposite.

With no middle ground and no fuzziness, no Gray area, it's it's one or the other.

20:06

It's either or.

And in in the case of Protestant churches in the 16th and 17th century, their attitude, the attitude towards miracles, would would change in some Protestant churches in the 18th century.

20:22

And there's a wonderful book by Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England, which documents very clearly that at the popular level, even though the the Church of England might have been teaching that, you know, these things are not done by God, people continued to believe in the reality of these phenomena and in the the divine nature of these phenomena.

20:47

But the fact is that this very same time period, 16th to 17th century, is also the age of witch hunts and, you know, talk about a a bundle of unpleasant developments.

In in addition to these differences of opinion between Catholics and Protestants and the wars caused by those differences, you've got witch persecutions.

21:14

And witches, of course, were believed to fly or to be instantly transported from one place to the other transaction, which is almost like by location.

So This is why it's the peak period for accounts of flying people.

21:30

You know you've got Saints in Catholicism, and you've and witches, and on the Protestant side, you've got witches flying to their their witchy rituals.

Which again, like I said is just so fascinating because it is those extremes and it's it's interesting that something has been used to highlight something sinful and yet the opposite side of that, something very dark and very dangerous.

22:03

And I think you see that play out in things like the witchcraft trials and the the rhetoric surrounding these types of events.

It's it's predominantly things that are unknown, isn't it?

It's people fearing something different and unknown and these very these very divisive judgments being made one way or the other as a result.

22:26

Yes, and you know that one can also find very logical explanations for why there's an increase in these phenomena during this period.

And that logical explanation would be that these phenomena are a marker of difference between Protestants and Catholics.

22:45

And since Protestants are saying, look, there are no more miracles like this, they're just demonic, you see an intensification of this, these phenomena among Catholics as a response to the Protestant denial of these phenomena.

23:03

And and it's you know it's I guess one could call it a vicious cycle or better to say inflationary spiral where you see more of these events taking place simply because they're they're a point of disagreement and and and a marker of one's identity.

23:26

So yeah, all of a sudden we've got all sorts of Saints in the Catholic world beginning in the 16th century who levitate and and a smaller number who bilocate.

And the the descriptions of some of them are absolutely fascinating.

23:43

I mean, I I I think I'm right in saying that sent Teresa was known to weigh herself down, wasn't she?

So that it wouldn't happen.

Yes.

And I just, I mean the visual of that to to have someone weighing them down with stones to prevent themselves from from lifting up from the ground is just absolutely intoxicating.

24:10

To think about in the sense of, that's just so fascinating and intriguing for so many different reasons.

Oh yeah, and Saint Teresa not only describes in her autobiography what it feels like to levitate, but she relates, she has many accounts of how she had since she was the superior of her convent, she had given strict orders to the nuns.

24:36

Next time you see me going up, hold me down.

Or if I'm up, pull me down and the nuns would try to either hold her down or pull her down and weren't able to do so.

And one can also find similar accounts on the other side, the demonic side of demonically possessed individuals who rise to the ceiling and can't be held down or pulled down.

25:06

And I found one as late as 1693 in Boston here in in New England, a teenage girl possessed by a demon, several burly men.

And that was the description in the document.

25:23

Burly men just piled up on top of her, try to keep her from going up from her bed.

And they couldn't.

And then they tried to pull her down from the ceiling and couldn't.

And these burly men were all Puritans.

They're not Catholics.

25:40

They're Puritans in Boston in 1693.

And the cleric involved, who by the way was also involved in the Salem Witch trials, Cotton Mather, made all the men sign affidavits that they had in fact witnessed this and had been part of it.

26:00

So 1693, not that long ago?

No, it could be speaking.

No.

And and like I said, if you, you can find examples of these types of things all the way through to more modern, modern times.

I mean if we think about examples recorded by the spiritualist movement, if we just take it from that point of view of of objects levitating and mediums being able to to levitate things and have them hovering in the air, you know these.

26:31

It's so very well documented and and like we said at the beginning when we were speaking, it's not being dismissive of these accounts, but really?

Trying to understand.

What could be happening or what else might be at play?

And and we we are very good at dismissing things because we, you know, can't see it.

26:49

If we can't understand that the motions in play if you like, we can be quite dismissive of something that seems impossible, seems unnatural because we like our neat tidy bows and things to be wrapped up in quite concise.

But sometimes things don't have those neat explanations because we just don't have the ability to to find the science behind it.

27:12

Not everything is necessarily so easily quantified.

That's right.

And there there there are ways in which in the 19th century there was a return to the more open minded approach to these phenomena, as you mentioned, you know, with spiritualism.

27:31

As a matter of fact, the term levitation was invented by spiritualists.

If you're looking in the documents I had to look at from the 16th and 17th century, you'll never find the word levitation being used.

That was invented in the 19th century and and the same goes for telepathy.

27:50

Spiritualists came up with that term too, the ability to communicate wordlessly.

So there was an openness to it, and the American philosopher William James came up with a term that I love, which is wild facts.

28:08

You know, that history is, is full of wild facts that can't be corralled into a neat little pigeonhole in our sort of modern scientific understanding of things.

They're just wild and they're anomalous and they happen fairly frequently and denying them is really unscientific.

28:34

Because I think you're just missing a whole, a whole litany of examples and A and a whole century's worth of examples of these types of phenomena.

I mean, I had the same conversation with Professor Erving Finkel from the British Museum on the same subject matter where he was saying, you know, if you've got these very early documented cases of of demons, say for example in ancient Babylonia, and you've got it documented on on clay.

29:04

These stories, these accounts, they didn't do that for everyday things.

You know, they, they recorded what was important to their society, to their belief system, to their everyday existence.

So the fact that we have these really very early examples and then continued on to dismiss all of that is dismissing a whole lot of history of belief systems, accounts, documented examples of things.

29:31

And you know that it's not, it's not scientific to do that.

You don't throw everything out just because you have a different opinion.

So yeah, it's it's fascinating that people do try to dismiss these types of phenomena so readily because it doesn't fit a viewpoint that they want to have.

29:48

That's right.

And there are some individuals who can be very aggressive in their denial, which means that they instantly label the person who is trying to, you know, analyze them, label them as silly or ridiculous.

30:08

As a matter of fact, I at a talk I gave some years ago on this subject, someone in the audience said, no, professor, you're not doing, you're not writing the history of the impossible, You're writing the history of the ridiculous.

And a review of my my new book, this book we're talking about that just appeared last week in online and the Spectator, which is is a British website, accuse me of silliness.

30:40

So.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I I all I can say is yeah, sure, Yeah, that's the point of view you want to have.

That's fine.

I can easily call you silly too, for writing off the possibility of things that you can't understand actually do sometimes happen.

30:59

So, and and I'm always very amused by the fact that these, these aggressive materialists will not deny that spontaneous healing miracles do happen.

They can't deny that because, well, this this medical evidence that they happen, but they deny these other phenomena.

31:24

And you know, I, myself, my wife and I are living proof that medical miracles happen if you want to put quotation marks around medical and miracle.

We were told by numerous experts that we would never have any children, and we have three.

31:46

And after our first was born, one of these experts, a doctor at the hospital, said, well, you know, I I told you guys that you had a less than 1% chance of ever having children, but the real figure was 0%.

He was astonished that it had happened.

32:07

And you can't deny the the obviousness of what happened.

They just can't understand how it happened.

And again, that comes back to what we've been saying.

It's the we do like to know the insurance and outs and the detail, but we don't always have that ability to see it all.

32:24

Whether we can do that right now or if it's something that we just never really truly understand, we're not you know we just don't have the ability to see everything in the way that we would like to.

Again, I mean there's so many deeper questions.

I think with the with the regards to all of that as to whether these these are things that we could potentially be able to prove or disprove or like I said, if they're just always going to be the unknowns.

32:50

But but the fact is the unknowns are what drive us.

We like those types of things.

And so whether someone believes these things are silly or they believe that they're possible and that they're interesting to look at and studying and examine from whichever perspective they want to look at them from.

33:07

The fact is we all talk about them because we are intrigued by the unknown and someone will say that's that's ridiculous and someone will say that's fascinating.

I'd really like to know more about that.

Right.

But we will still talk about them for a reason.

Yes.

33:23

And we puzzle over these possibilities because they are rare, they are infrequent.

And if it were an everyday occurrence, we wouldn't have any inclination to talk about it as much as we do.

It's, you know, Oh yes, the grass is green, isn't it?

33:43

Yes.

Oh yes.

Imagine having that conversation every day.

Oh, the grass is nice and green today, isn't it?

But but levitating and bilocating individuals are are few and far between.

You know, even in cultures that think that such a phenomenon is possible, it doesn't happen all that often.

34:06

So there there's a lot of weirdness to these phenomena when one of them is the fact that they do seem to happen fairly infrequently, and that when they do happen, people are astonished.

34:22

Or in many of the accounts that I read from the 16th and 17th century, people can be frightened out of their wits or even faint when they see this happen, and the event can inspire terror as much as awe or surprise.

34:43

And you know, stage magicians or illusionists as they like to call themselves nowadays, they they they levitate on stage.

Or in one case that I saw in a documentary, illusionist David Blaine was doing his levitating trick on the street in New York.

35:08

And the the way that that it was filmed and and shown in the documentary, it was very interesting because they would focus, put the camera on his feet, which looked like they were off the pavement.

But then immediately the camera would turn to the people around David Blaine and their body language seemed to always be the same.

35:30

They pulled away from David Blaine.

They pulled away from him because they thought, obviously these people who were pulling away, there's just something too weird happening here, And one young girl said to the camera, and it was included in the documentary, of course.

35:50

Oh, he must be a very holy man.

So there's also that assumption that not only weird, perhaps terrifying, but there's there's something special going on here.

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37:10

And now let's head back to the podcast.

Which is interesting that that's something that because I I think it's something that still often gets equate equated to other acts where there's an element of the supernatural, the unknown, miraculous about what's being experienced and being documented.

37:37

And yet it you see the same type of thing sometimes creeping in, in terms of bystanders having that belief that there is something religious in tone to it, in the sense that maybe it's the person, they're connect, they're very spiritual themselves, or they have dabbled with something very unnatural.

37:57

And the opposite of that as a kind of a contrast whether it's for example they're having these negative experiences because they've dabbled say for example with the Ouija board.

You know you see these kinds of same types of of kind of references and and thinking coming through in lots of different examples either positively or negatively.

38:19

Whether this person is being somehow touched by God or by the devil and by demons.

It's interesting that they still they it still comes through even in in something like David Blaine on the street doing one of his tricks that, you know, these are some of the reference points that we use when we're just when we're looking at something that is again something that we can't maybe explain.

38:47

That's right.

It's the unexplainability of it that terrifies people.

Sometimes it's just it's actual terror that that's described in the documents that I've worked with.

It's absolute sheer terror, and sometimes it can be funny.

39:04

And these accounts, As for instance the the greatest levitator of all time was Saint Joseph of Cupertino, who lived between sixteen O 3 and 1663, so he died when he was 60.

39:21

Once he literally flew over the head of the Spanish viceroy in Italy and his wife and the entire entourage and the viceroy's wife fainted and and had to be revived with smelling salts.

39:43

And another occasion, Joseph Cupertino also rose above the head of Pope Urban the 8th and the Pope was shocked and he supposedly said he was recorded as saying if this man dies before I do.

40:07

I will testify at his canonization inquest that he flew above my head very calmly, very cool, like, you know, accepting it.

They have two very different attitudes towards the miracle.

40:24

As he was saying, the bystanders often project things of their own on unto what is happening.

And again, I think we still do that As bystanders to these types of events, we we impose our own biases on them rather than just simply looking at looking at them as as pieces of evidence and what they reflect about that moment in terms of what people who witnessed it witnessed it saw what it was like for them and those experiences just in themselves.

41:01

And then you know from there you can do all manner of things with them.

But like I said, I think we often tend to impose our own thoughts and biases on them.

And that's where again you get people with, you know, those those thoughts and beliefs that they are simply ridiculous and nonsensical.

And then others who will just look at them for those historical references that they give, but also the the chance to examine these types of phenomena because it's interesting and worthy of looking into.

41:29

Right.

And you know, sometimes in in history that that personal attitude that the bystander or even, you know, literally the judge can have make a world of difference.

And another account that is I think, extremely significant is a witchcraft trial that took place.

41:51

I forget where in England, but it was in England where where witch trials were far fewer than Scotland, but they still had them anyway.

At a witchcraft trial a witness declared yes, she is a witch.

42:10

I saw her flying and the judge overruled the witness's testimony on the grounds that, quote UN quote, there is no law against flying.

And according to some experts, that was the beginning of the end of witchcraft trials in England.

42:30

And it's set a precedent, An actual legal precedent, the skepticism being so intense that yes, you can even, like, make it into a joke but also fold it into legal procedures.

There's no law against flying.

42:47

It is fascinating though, how certain people, whether it's religion or whether it is the judicial system which you just mentioned, how they do have this very important role to play in how these accounts are perpetuated, how they are related, how they are shared with the masses, if you like.

43:07

You know, the people in political power, whether it's the religious power, they're very much the storytellers of the day, aren't they?

They are the ones telling and driving the narrative and people then just being caught up in the middle of it.

And you know, I said before, I think you during this particular period you, you very much have people looking forward and looking back, being caught between an older type of religion and these belief systems and modernity coming through and these these changes in society and things happening all of the time that just create so much upheaval.

43:44

And and like I said, people being caught in the middle, looking forward and looking backward, just trying to make do and understand that what's happening around them.

Yes.

And you know, real history is is never simple, it's always complicated.

And you have, you know, one image that what can you use is, is a rope that is made of different strands.

44:08

I mean it still functions as a rope and the more strands it has the the stronger it is.

But in in the transition from let's say medieval to modern, which is the period my book covers, that transition was was not neat and clean anywhere.

44:28

And if you want to view it as a rope with different strands, all these strands were there simultaneously, the ones strands representing belief in these impossible phenomena and disbelief.

Because, point of fact, Isaac Newton walked on Earth at least for two decades, the same time as Joseph of Cupertino.

44:52

So the the, the man who discerned the law of gravity or the laws of gravity was on Earth at exactly the same time as a human being who defied the laws of gravity.

And you see this constantly.

45:11

It's never neat and clean and it, you know, as you said again, 19th century spiritualism revives belief in in in these phenomena and the 20th century, you know, still to the to this date in Catholicism you can find many people who who have accounts and claim to have witnessed Levitation and Bilocation.

45:37

And actually there is a 20th century French nun who I I I I only discovered her existence towards the end of my project.

But I became very intrigued by her case because her dates were nineteen O 1 to 1951 and of course she was in France.

45:58

She was there during the the Nazi occupation, the German occupation of France and she helped the French resistance and and downed Allied pilots escape from the Germans by dressing them as nuns.

46:14

And she was given the five highest decorations that any French citizen can get, including the Croix de Guerre and the Legion de Nu pinned on her by none other than Charles de Gaulle.

And we have photos of Charles de Gaulle pinning this metal on Sister Yvonne Imei de Maestrois.

46:37

But she also reportedly by located frequently to prisons and concentration camps to comfort people in these horrible situations and in some cases help them escape without ever leaving her comp.

46:56

And at one point she was reeled in by the Gestapo and tortured.

And while she was being tortured, we have an account from her confessor priest, who says he was in the Paris metro waiting for a train and she suddenly showed up and told him exactly what was happening to her with the Gestapo and and asked for his prayers and the Gestapo eventually released her.

47:23

But I I don't have the details on what what was done to her by the Gestapo.

But at least one can point to an event where in the 20th century someone was seen in the Paris metro who was simultaneously in Molestois, several hundreds kilometres away.

47:43

That's fascinating.

Gosh, that makes me want to go and read more about her story.

I mean, that's so intriguing.

That's really fascinating.

What I also find intriguing and and fascinating about her is that virtually all of the literature on her is in French and has not been translated.

48:02

It's very weird.

I think there are no translations to any language English, German, Italian, any Chinese.

No it.

If you want to read about this nun, it's very hard to if your only language is English.

48:17

Although I did see that there are some YouTube videos on her.

But why?

Why this has remained so closely shuttered in France, just in French language publications, is, I think, somewhat baffling.

48:35

Yeah, it poses all kinds of questions as to whether it's is it, is it kind of further examples of what we've been talking about, which is does somehow talking about that somehow detract from what she was doing during the war, you know?

Yes.

48:51

Is there another motivation, kind of driving wide that that hasn't been delved into in the way that the rest of her life was?

Right.

And and again, there's resistance.

I think it's very funny.

I've, I've already started pitching the story of this nun to some publishers and I begin with the rescuing allied pilots and resistance fighters.

49:16

Part of it her real, you know, documented heroism.

And then I follow up with The Bilocations, and they have lost interest immediately.

Yeah.

So.

Well, that would make a great movie.

49:32

What a great movie that would be.

Yeah, the.

Nun who rescued people by men by addressing them as nuns, but then the violation.

Somehow throw the bilocation in and it becomes oh, actually no.

Yes, yeah.

It's not.

We're now going down the the the kind of the, the road of something ridiculous.

49:51

But again, it's just that, it's that dichotomy.

You know, you can be more than one thing and you can have these different, these different experiences, right?

But I think it speaks volumes as to actually, I think it all speaks volumes as to who she was if, if that was the role that she took during the war.

50:10

And yet here you have examples of of by location where actually that's still being demonstrated by coming through to help rescue, to comfort people.

You know.

It says a lot about her character and again, that strength and determination to to do what she was doing as part of the resistance.

50:29

Yes.

And there are also people, yeah.

And there are also accounts of her levitating.

So add add more fuel to the fire, so to speak.

Oh, I want to read her book.

50:44

Seriously.

I hope someone really does take that up and and take and goes with that one.

Accounts like that should not be kind of sidelined because they are so interesting.

Fascinating.

Really, really intriguing.

Yeah, honestly, it's been so wonderful to talk to you and I.

51:02

I really hope that people, having listened to the podcast, will will go away.

Take a look at your books and I'll make sure to put links to you to where they can find the books, et cetera.

Because there's so much more to this in terms of examining these impossible phenomena, the history of the impossible examples, and and diving into this subject matter in the way that you do.

51:25

And so, yeah, I really do hope people take a look because it's, it's certainly very intriguing and like I said at the beginning, you can look at this from so many different angles and it's just such a rich area to look at.

So thank you for giving us some of your time today.

51:42

Well, thank you for inviting me to join you for this podcast.

Thank you very much.

And I will say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everyone.