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.
