The world has no doubt seen fewer women than men having an impact on the course of history. But there were women like Jeanne d'Arc, the "Virgin of Orléans" who did what normally, in the past at least, was reserved for men.
She was born around 1412 in a small village, Domrémy, in Northern France. Her family was engaged in farming, not poor but simple. Very religious, at the age of around 18, Jeanne told her family and subsequently some noblemen that she had "heard voices" giving her instruction to engage herself in the ongoing but difficult war to liberate France from its oppressors, the English, then allied with the Dukes of Burgundy.
Times were extremely difficult, much of Europe was already at war for almost a century (the 100-year war) and and the then King of France, Charles VII was materially and morally exhausted. The English, allied to various noblemen who were contesting the King, were rapidly gaining the upper hand, even controlling Paris.
For more details about the recorded historic facts , Wikipedia gives an ample description.
The aim here is not to investigate history but more to try to understand what happened psychologically to Jeanne, the reasons and consequences of the events that took place. And, if it happened in the 15th century, why not in similar fashion again later on - and even why not today?
I believe in mysteries being just that because no-one managed to clarify them and miracles more or less the same. Not exactly in the way Catholicism tries to deal with these phenomena, but using other input, from Eastern religions and thought, astrology and findings by modern science.
Basically one can observe that fewer mysteries occur in our modern times than was the case in the past. Apparently it's not just that science today helps to debug what formerly might have been a mystery. There is also what one could call a "dilution or diminution of divine intervention" in modern times. A possible explanation being that with society progressing - the mass media, internet, easy travel, modern mode of scientific thinking etc. higher powers (for whom believes that such exist), may have had to adapt their way of steering humans on earth.
The other day I read about a modern "miracle or surprise" (all fabricated but real and the type of thing now occupying people's minds): Oprah announced that she will invite the audience of her show for a free trip to Australia - and their pilot would be John Travolta! With this kind of news in the air, one can estimate that there is not be much room left for news of "divine nature" to have more impact than that. Today's public has gotten used to being manipulated, all the time and would hardly have the necessary mental capacity to distinguish what's fabricated, man-made or "divine".
You may ask what has this publicity - motivated free trip to Australia to do with Jeanne d'Arc?
Quite a lot: In her times, living under a condition of "little news", people tended to give credence to what they heard. As it also was the Middle-Ages, their mode of thinking was very Catholic, uncritical but normal in the then world, and also mixed with other superstitions. Exhausted from 100 years of war, hoping for something better to happen, desperate even (Charles VII, about to loose his kingdom), divine intervention had a "ready-made audience", a terrain easy to operate in. And it happened. Simple from a psychological point of view.
I do not pretend to know how "divine intervention" operates, but I believe it does happen. Also, not having the exact birth date of Jeanne d'Arc, astrology could not help in explaining why she was chosen for being the vector of this intervention. And another point, difficult to rationalize, she was burned and died of a horrible death by the English AFTER the town of Orléans was liberated (under her guidance) and the King was returned firmly back into power.
(Illustration, right
"Entry into Orleans", from The Personal Recollections of Saint Joan of Arc by The Sieur Louis de Conte and translated by Jean Francois Alden and illustrated by F. V. Du Mond, copyright 1903.)
On her having had to die as a martyr, one can think that "up-there" someone thought that to galvanize more then just the military and the noblemen surrounding the King, but the people of France, Jeanne d'Arc had to die as and when she did, at only 19 or 20 years of age. I will not speculate if she died as a virgin, and neither if that whole thematic of her being a virgin was also planned from "above" or whether this were mere "favorable accompanying circumstances".
What is of interest however is that the Catholic Church was for a very long time resisting to recognize Jeanne d'Arc's merits and proceeded in "painful slowness" to declare her a Saint. Her beatification happened in 1909, only under considerable pressure from the French and it took another 11 years for her being declared a Saint, in only 1920, when World War I was over, and the French had won.
Why? Here there was a 24 carat case of a true Christian believer, turned visionary, hero and martyr. Is it that she helped put in place a secular power in France, then under the Kings, but having a tendency(continued after the French Revolution) of the French being French first and secondly only Catholics? When Napoleon was to be crowned by the Pope, he took the crown out of the Pope's hands and put it himself on his head. He also had a law passed, subordinating the Catholic Church in France to the state. Not having the horoscope of Jeanne d'Arc, here the map of Napoleon, so-to-say self appointing himself Emperor of France by an "organized vote" of the French Senate. This happened on May 18, 1804 and has, I think a direct link to the slowness of the canonization of Jeanne d'Arc:
(Click on image to enlarge it)
One notices in this horoscope (for mid-day) that Mars in Aries(Napoleon, the General turned now Emperor) opposes Jupiter (religion). There is also a somewhat by then already distant conjunction of Uranus to Jupiter in this map. But Napoleon was for some time already upsetting the "Catholic applecart" all over Europe. The Sun opposing Neptune at the time of Napoleon being voted Emperor was an indication of this becoming soon an ephemeral dream that could not last very long. But the facts of the French-Vatican-stressed-relationship once more were confirmed.
Back, and to conclude with the "Virgin of Orléans": Most probably the girl had had a "visit by some higher entity" whom she identified mostly as being St. Michael. Psychologically this is not unusual. In Hindu tradition visits by Avatars (higher entities) are quite common. The interested reader may want to look up an intriguing report by Gitta Mallasz, a Hungarian. She and her Jewish friends, during Nazi occupation in Hungary in 1944-45 had some extraordinary encounters with "Angels". It must have been very similar to what Jeanne d'Arc experienced.
We have today mostly lost the sense of such "divine occurrences" being possible. At least in the Western world. But from what one gathers this transformation also is taking place in the East, India, China, Indonesia etc. Consequently a profound new way of operating by "higher entities" may have occurred for them to influence the human race. And this is not being said lightly! It may either be happening, without us (or me at least) realizing, or "they have given up" on us. Hawking, that strange British scientist, believes and says so.
She was born around 1412 in a small village, Domrémy, in Northern France. Her family was engaged in farming, not poor but simple. Very religious, at the age of around 18, Jeanne told her family and subsequently some noblemen that she had "heard voices" giving her instruction to engage herself in the ongoing but difficult war to liberate France from its oppressors, the English, then allied with the Dukes of Burgundy.
Times were extremely difficult, much of Europe was already at war for almost a century (the 100-year war) and and the then King of France, Charles VII was materially and morally exhausted. The English, allied to various noblemen who were contesting the King, were rapidly gaining the upper hand, even controlling Paris.
For more details about the recorded historic facts , Wikipedia gives an ample description.
The aim here is not to investigate history but more to try to understand what happened psychologically to Jeanne, the reasons and consequences of the events that took place. And, if it happened in the 15th century, why not in similar fashion again later on - and even why not today?
I believe in mysteries being just that because no-one managed to clarify them and miracles more or less the same. Not exactly in the way Catholicism tries to deal with these phenomena, but using other input, from Eastern religions and thought, astrology and findings by modern science.
Basically one can observe that fewer mysteries occur in our modern times than was the case in the past. Apparently it's not just that science today helps to debug what formerly might have been a mystery. There is also what one could call a "dilution or diminution of divine intervention" in modern times. A possible explanation being that with society progressing - the mass media, internet, easy travel, modern mode of scientific thinking etc. higher powers (for whom believes that such exist), may have had to adapt their way of steering humans on earth.
The other day I read about a modern "miracle or surprise" (all fabricated but real and the type of thing now occupying people's minds): Oprah announced that she will invite the audience of her show for a free trip to Australia - and their pilot would be John Travolta! With this kind of news in the air, one can estimate that there is not be much room left for news of "divine nature" to have more impact than that. Today's public has gotten used to being manipulated, all the time and would hardly have the necessary mental capacity to distinguish what's fabricated, man-made or "divine".
You may ask what has this publicity - motivated free trip to Australia to do with Jeanne d'Arc?
Quite a lot: In her times, living under a condition of "little news", people tended to give credence to what they heard. As it also was the Middle-Ages, their mode of thinking was very Catholic, uncritical but normal in the then world, and also mixed with other superstitions. Exhausted from 100 years of war, hoping for something better to happen, desperate even (Charles VII, about to loose his kingdom), divine intervention had a "ready-made audience", a terrain easy to operate in. And it happened. Simple from a psychological point of view.
I do not pretend to know how "divine intervention" operates, but I believe it does happen. Also, not having the exact birth date of Jeanne d'Arc, astrology could not help in explaining why she was chosen for being the vector of this intervention. And another point, difficult to rationalize, she was burned and died of a horrible death by the English AFTER the town of Orléans was liberated (under her guidance) and the King was returned firmly back into power. (Illustration, right
"Entry into Orleans", from The Personal Recollections of Saint Joan of Arc by The Sieur Louis de Conte and translated by Jean Francois Alden and illustrated by F. V. Du Mond, copyright 1903.)
On her having had to die as a martyr, one can think that "up-there" someone thought that to galvanize more then just the military and the noblemen surrounding the King, but the people of France, Jeanne d'Arc had to die as and when she did, at only 19 or 20 years of age. I will not speculate if she died as a virgin, and neither if that whole thematic of her being a virgin was also planned from "above" or whether this were mere "favorable accompanying circumstances".What is of interest however is that the Catholic Church was for a very long time resisting to recognize Jeanne d'Arc's merits and proceeded in "painful slowness" to declare her a Saint. Her beatification happened in 1909, only under considerable pressure from the French and it took another 11 years for her being declared a Saint, in only 1920, when World War I was over, and the French had won.
Why? Here there was a 24 carat case of a true Christian believer, turned visionary, hero and martyr. Is it that she helped put in place a secular power in France, then under the Kings, but having a tendency(continued after the French Revolution) of the French being French first and secondly only Catholics? When Napoleon was to be crowned by the Pope, he took the crown out of the Pope's hands and put it himself on his head. He also had a law passed, subordinating the Catholic Church in France to the state. Not having the horoscope of Jeanne d'Arc, here the map of Napoleon, so-to-say self appointing himself Emperor of France by an "organized vote" of the French Senate. This happened on May 18, 1804 and has, I think a direct link to the slowness of the canonization of Jeanne d'Arc:
(Click on image to enlarge it)
One notices in this horoscope (for mid-day) that Mars in Aries(Napoleon, the General turned now Emperor) opposes Jupiter (religion). There is also a somewhat by then already distant conjunction of Uranus to Jupiter in this map. But Napoleon was for some time already upsetting the "Catholic applecart" all over Europe. The Sun opposing Neptune at the time of Napoleon being voted Emperor was an indication of this becoming soon an ephemeral dream that could not last very long. But the facts of the French-Vatican-stressed-relationship once more were confirmed.
Back, and to conclude with the "Virgin of Orléans": Most probably the girl had had a "visit by some higher entity" whom she identified mostly as being St. Michael. Psychologically this is not unusual. In Hindu tradition visits by Avatars (higher entities) are quite common. The interested reader may want to look up an intriguing report by Gitta Mallasz, a Hungarian. She and her Jewish friends, during Nazi occupation in Hungary in 1944-45 had some extraordinary encounters with "Angels". It must have been very similar to what Jeanne d'Arc experienced.We have today mostly lost the sense of such "divine occurrences" being possible. At least in the Western world. But from what one gathers this transformation also is taking place in the East, India, China, Indonesia etc. Consequently a profound new way of operating by "higher entities" may have occurred for them to influence the human race. And this is not being said lightly! It may either be happening, without us (or me at least) realizing, or "they have given up" on us. Hawking, that strange British scientist, believes and says so.
Hey GP:
ReplyDeleteIt seems that indeed the story of Jeanne d'Arc is a mystery, a case of divine intervention. We probably will never know unless we figure out how to travel back in time. I don't even know if it matters. But I think that i astrological terms, the example of Jeanne d'Arc makes for a beautiful illustration of the Neptune and Mars in aspect to each other.
As Liz Greene said in her book "Neptune and the Quest for Redemption", Mars feels happy and potent because it has a worthy cause to fight for and Neptune can be the damsel in distress waiting to be rescued. Neptune can invoke a greater sense of power in Mars and Mars a greater awareness fragility and otherworldliness in Neptune which might be that sense of divine inspiration you were talking about.
But Mars can get tired of always being the leader while Neptune is content to being led. And maybe that is the reason we are seeing less "divine intervention" manifestations. Humanity might need to learn to walk for itself without being led, to show that it has grown up and needs less caring.
Although, it certainly does not seem that way.
Fabienne
This is a difficult one for me to comment upon, but I do always find history and mysteries intriguing.
ReplyDeleteDivine intervention is hard for me to undersand/believe, but on the known facts, it seems to be the only answer, other than a succession of sheer undaulterated "strange coincidences" - even harder to believe.
BUT, how about - Jeanne d'Arc having what we now term "second sight", clairvoyance - psychic knowledge of future events...something along those lines? That I could go along with more easily than divine intervention. One coul;d also argue that her second sight was the result of divine intervention.
My favourite theory "Cometh the hour, cometh the man" (or woman in this case) fits too. Somehow the right person is in place at the right time to achieve the "right" result for the good of all ....as in Winston Churchill in later, British, history. Again, some would argue that is divine intervention also.
I suspect it's not "angelic" or God-related though.....but something else we haven't quite worked out yet.
Hi Astrology Unboxed/Fabienne, these days it's become quite unfashionable to think that "divine guidance" exists and may be at work.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the way an atom is built, one however must recognize that there is a lot of space available between the atom's nucleus and the electrons surrounding and spinning around it, giving the impression of a "solid".
In this type of understanding Plato's Parable of the Cave takes a new meaning. What about imagining that more "rare" dimensions freely evolve within what we today consider "solid matter"? And since it's beyond our ability to understand, it my be called "of a higher order". It's a mystery which never ends...
PS. Your intuition may be right on by mentioning Mars and Neptune in this respect. Seen from our(human) point of view, Neptune can be passive. But I believe none of the planet's influences is. And then Neptune was also known as mighty Posseidon.
I liked you mentioning Sir Winston, Twilight. He now doubt was to the English what Jeanne d'Arc must have been to the French. He truly was the "man of vision and seemingly appointed by Britain's Protector-Lord".
ReplyDeleteThere again, what do we know about how all this functions? But at least we ought to be asking questions, or wondering. Greek mythology in my view had the great merit of not excluding the possibility of a "Deus ex Machina".
Imagine if you had that today in the USA to help solve the growing mess there?!
Basically it is true that Divine intervetion lessened and weakened in mdoer times, due to the general trends of thought, modern science debunking in comparison did much less, it is the generale trend that matters...
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately some of the french people still blame the English for the death of Jeanne D'Arc.
ReplyDeleteMy mother and I called into a garage in the South of France in 2002. My mother was in the waiting room when a Frenchman came in and starting speaking in very rapid French to my mother. She replied, in French, that she was Englsih and got a diatribe about the English murdering Joan of Arc which she found quite unsettling.
Result is that we now say we are Scottish when we travel in France which is half true as we are Anglo Scots in origin.
So she still has a hold on the public's imagination even so long after her life.
Hi Anon and Ever. Whatever the causes, you also find there is less "intervention". Maybe someone got tired to cater to ungrateful earthlings, or people constantly at war etc.
ReplyDeleteOr, and that is an element of hope: by staying away and letting do, humans might after a while find some nostalgic desire for more "security".
Some of the past (and still existing) "cosy cubicles" like ongoing religions have possibly not yet run their course. Our notion of time also may not be the most objective.
Hi Rossa, not a bit surprised at the Frenchman's reaction. But you probably misunderstood. The French can be very complicated. In my idea he wanted to show you that he knew history, or initiate some flirt "avec les petites anglaises..."
ReplyDeletePS. Visited your chicken recipe. As it so happened I had one on the charcoal grill at the same time. Let it go a while longer to have the brown meat really tender. Usually I did not eat it as I have some cats around. But you are right, it's good.
Maybe in those times, since people believed in the possibility of meeting angels and higher powers and getting instructions from them, the inspirations came that way (or maybe they were just halucinating, who knows:) Now, if someone comes out and says I got instructions from God or an angel, we would think of the person either crazy or religious fanatic or a fabricator of a hoax. So if any divine intervention occurs now, it must be interms of providing us inspiration, sixth sense, and luck and synchronicity.
ReplyDeleteI am always oscillating in deciding what divine means. Is there a hyrerachy up there with God and angels which works like a corporate and overlooks humanity, or are we a part of a spiritual energy that infuses everywhere and God is just the source where the energy comes from. Western and Eastern/mystic definitions of God are so different. I guess everyone experiences God in their own paradigm, and societies create religions in their own images.
Hi Seraphine, I share your view that everyone "experiences God in his own paradigm". Or just decides or ends up not wanting to experience at all in this direction.
ReplyDeleteFrom all I could read and personally experiment via astrology and other esoterica, I have no doubt that there is a hierarchic order governing the world/universe. On top of all that must be some ineffable "chief of operations", the Grand Architect for the Free-Masons, or the "original cell" of life/existence.
If ever you visit the Cathedral of Siena in Tuscany (Italy), look out for one inscription on the floor, in front of the altar: "Deus Omnium Creator..."
It says, briefly, God, the creator of everything, wants to be known etc.
Depending on the epoch and the people, His methods must be varying. But still are mysterious.
Hi! Can you teel me whats the painter of this image of Joanne D'Arc for this mail sofiaberberanmaya@gmail.com?
ReplyDeleteits really importante!
Thanks !
anontymous ~~~ sorry for delay - we have been away.
ReplyDeletePainting, at the top of this post is by N.M.Dyudin (1848).
Joan/Jehanne was obviously extremely psychic, and saw what she saw. But to try to interpret that now, some would claim she was visited by extraterrestrial beings/ spirits. Being in a higher dimension makes a person glow brightly. It's the love energy. She had divine help, yes. How else could she have accomplished so much, in so short a time? I understand that her sword was blessed and had special powers of its own, to help her as needed. (such as Excalibur had.)
ReplyDeleteThey could see the future, from where they were, and told her what to do, and what to say. She simply acted on it, by her pure faith in God, as well as Saint Michael, St Catherine and the other one (whose name escapes me at the moment). Her faith in them made her strong. With help like that, how could she fail???!!
Yes, her death was necessary. The church needed to be taught a lesson, and they are very slow to learn it still. They needed to have their nose shoved in it, as it were. Some still need to learn that covering their collective arse is not the same as actually repenting of their sins and never repeating them again. They just don't learn.
As for Joan, she did her job, and did it very well, in spite of being very young.
Tianca
Tianca - Thank you for your comment - I'll pass it on to the author of this post, who will no doubt respond.
ReplyDeleteHi Tianca: Glad that Twilight passed on your comment to me. Apparently we are on a "similar wave-length" in as far as believing what type of forces can be at work in this otherwise not always exciting world.
ReplyDeleteTaking the meaning of "exciting" by it's original sense, conveys the notion of "uplifting", not "flatlandish", able to "connect with another order". For that alone Jeanne d'Arc was extraordinary. The rest was "mere consequences".