C.S. Lewis once observed that the world is full of stories of people who say they have experienced miracles. What, though, are we to make of them? Can they be true? Are miracles even possible?
Hagiographies sometimes convey extraordinary stories and legendary accretions, intended to leave devotees in awe. And then there are those tales of saints who flew.
By Carlos Eire
(Yale University Press, 2024)
Answering these questions cannot be determined by experience alone, for experience requires interpretation, and the experience of a miracle can always be interpreted as an “illusion,” a “hallucination,” or a “quirk of nature.” Consider, for example, this story from Lewis himself:
In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that that person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it. She says that what she saw must have been an illusion or a trick of the nerves. And obviously she may be right. Seeing is not believing.
Simply put, then, whether one accepts something as a “miracle” depends first and foremost on whether one thinks miracles are possible. If, for example, one is open to the idea that there might be higher dimensions to reality that can interact—however infrequently—with the space-time dimension we inhabit, then miracles become a distinct possibility, and reports of such events can be examined on a case-by-case basis according to reason and evidence. If, on the other hand, one thinks that the space-time continuum is all there is to reality, then by definition nothing independent of that continuum exists to interact with it, and therefore no miracles are possible. Now, while either view is up for grabs, it is worth noting that the latter view is the more dogmatic of the two. For it says that miracles do not occur regardless of the evidence. The former view, however, keeps an open mind. While it is not foreclosed to the possibility of miracles, it is not forced to accept any given miracle claim. It is free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Whichever view one takes, though, there are reports of events that are so out of the ordinary, so beyond the pale of expectation, that even those most open to the possibility of miracles have a hard time knowing what to make of them. In a new book, They Flew: A History of the Impossible, Yale historian Carlos Eire examines the history of these impossible-to-believe events—events like levitation and bilocation (the act of being in two places simultaneously)—including famous accounts from the 16th and 17th centuries. How, he asks, should we understand them, and what might they teach us about both the past and ourselves?
Eire begins by cautioning us to resist making snap judgments. Although readers may justifiably wonder whether the anomalous reports he presents may be the result of illusions, hallucinations, deceptions, or the otherwise credulous superstitions of a prescientific people, Eire reminds us that if we wish to understand the past according to the people who lived it, we must strive to see the world through their eyes. Only then will we be able to interpret it properly. “The history of the impossible,” he says, “is all about questioning, about being evenhandedly skeptical—that is, being as skeptical about strictly materialist interpretations of seemingly impossible events as about the actual occurrence of the event itself. … Dealing with the impossible requires one to end up with more questions than answers.”
If we wish to understand the past according to the people who lived it, we must strive to see the world through their eyes.
From here, Eire turns to examine the historical record. The first major case he introduces is that of 16th-century mystic and reformer Teresa of Avila, who was famously reported to have levitated on multiple occasions. Not only did people close to her record this phenomenon, but she documented it herself. Here, for example, is how she describes one such experience:
I must confess that it [levitation] produced an exceedingly great fear in me at first—a terrible fear, in fact—because one sees one’s body being lifted up from the ground; and although the spirit draws it up after itself, and it does so very gently if no resistance is offered, one does not lose consciousness and one is able to realize that one is being lifted up. At least, this is what has happened to me.
Furthermore, as Eire recounts, close confidants of Teresa, including the theologian and confessor Francisco de Ribera, wrote about these episodes, too. “‘One day, upon entering the kitchen,’ he notes, ‘the nuns found her [Teresa] totally elevated and transfixed, her face beautifully aglow, with the frying pan in her hand, suspended above the flames, and she was gripping the frying pan so tightly that it couldn’t be wrested from her hand.’”
Another famous case Eire documents involves Joseph of Cupertino, who enjoyed a 35-year period during which an unusually large number of people—including several leading authority figures—witnessed his levitations. “One of the most remarkable characteristics of his unique levitations,” Eire observes, “is the consistency of the eyewitness testimonies, all of which report the same array of astounding phenomena despite the fact that these witnesses were from disparate locations and different points in time and despite the more puzzling fact that many of these phenomena were unprecedented.” Moreover, these witnesses include “Pope Urban VIII, Prince Casimir of Poland, Duke Johann Friedrich of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, the Admiral of Castile and many others, including cardinals, bishops, and authority figures in his own order.”
These are not the only puzzling phenomena readers will discover here. Eire also covers, for example, reports of bilocation, including that of the famous 20th century friar Padre Pio. Pio’s “frequent levitations and bilocations,” Eire shares, “were acknowledged by many eyewitnesses, along with many other charisms associated with mystical ecstasy, including the stigmata.” Pope John Paul II, in fact, “was one of his devotees,” who witnessed Pio “curing a friend’s cancer in 1962.”
Perplexing as it all is, the obvious question is why anyone ever believed that the events these reports describe actually occurred. To begin to answer that, Eire stresses that we first must grasp the metaphysical framework—i.e., the framework for understanding what is real—that people took for granted back then, which assumed several things.
First, that human beings are both physical and spiritual, meaning that we inhabit two realms—the material and the immaterial—simultaneously. Second, that neither element on its own could account for the human person. Human beings, in other words, are neither souls alone nor bodies alone but the union of the two. Third, that through intense mystical experiences—often through fervent devotion to meditation, prayer, asceticism, and love—one could achieve a close encounter with the divine. As such, miracles like levitation were seen as the result of the most profound mystical experiences of the soul’s upward journey to God—controlled ultimately, of course, by God himself—while the physical body was dragged along with it. In the words of Joseph of Cupertino: “The elevation of the body … follows the flight of the soul to God.” Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that not all levitations were understood as divine encounters. Sometimes, for example, levitation was thought to be the result of the demonic. Even in Teresa’s case, as Eire records, “her confessors suspected the worst and warned her that her experiences were demonic in origin.”
Very well, but what is the upshot here? According to Eire, what we consider real generally depends on what we consider possible, and what we consider possible tends to be shaped by the historical, cultural, and philosophical framework through which we are conditioned to see the world.
Moreover, as he sees it, this worldview changed in the early modern period. Beginning with the Reformation, the idea that mystical experiences could bring one closer to God was increasingly denied. Not only did Protestant reformers like John Calvin maintain that miracles ended after the apostolic era, but the idea that one could draw close to God through mystical practice seemed to flirt with the notion of “works righteousness,” or the belief that a person can achieve acceptance by God through his or her own efforts. Furthermore, a multitude of other developments—including scientific, economic, cultural, and metaphysical—also impacted people’s perceptions of reality. Ergo, what was formerly considered possible began to be viewed as impossible under the new materialist paradigm that emerged.
Even so, Eire points out, accounts of seemingly impossible events have never completely disappeared:
Reports of supernatural levitations and bilocations gradually shrank in numbers in the Western world after 1787 but have never ceased surfacing altogether. Nearly a century ago, Olivier Leroy identified nineteen levitators in the period between 1700 and 1800 and the same number between 1800 and 1912. Since Leroy was the only researcher to have ever compiled lists of levitators—and he admitted his lists were far from complete—we have no reliable statistics on modern or postmodern cases of supernatural levitations.
In fact, as difficult as it may be to believe, there are even reports of levitation today. Consider, for example, a 2014 news report that appeared in the Indianapolis Star in which (among other seemingly impossible events) a 12-year-old girl was said to have levitated above her bed, and that resulted in an official 800-page report involving both the local police and the Department of Child Services (DCS), as well as medical and social service personnel. Strange? Yes. Bewildering, even. But is it true?
Well, it depends on what we accept as possible. And if the history here is any guide, reality may be far stranger than it seems.
