Every easter season, I strive to deepen some of my recognitions of the high mission of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, to an earth still engulfed in darkness at the approach of a final judgement.
Before I proceed, I wish to state that my focus is on STIGMATA and STIGMATISTS. Stigmata are those wound marks of the Lord, as He hung on the cross, which appear on some people, especially stigmatists, periodically, year round or during easter seasons. Stigmatists are people on whose bodies these wound marks appear. So painful are the wound marks and bleeding that medications to stop them worsen the conditions. Some stigmatists are whipped by unseen hands. Some of them hear strange voices.When they are studied and relay the words they hear, language experts suggest this was the language spoken in the Golgotha region at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. In the 1970s and 1980s in eastern Nigeria, some stigmatists were sighted and sent to Rome.
Generally speaking, christiandom would appear not to understand stigmata and the stigmatist. In Rome, Christians troop to them to touch them or to pray before them, believing that these men were specially favoured by The Almighty Creator to bear the wound marks of Jesus on the cross. They do not ask themselves how a God of PEACE, LOVE and JUSTICE would bless his creature with pain and suffering to make whatever point. Thus, they miss the important message or lesson being conveyed to them by these events…namely that the cycle of the events of the mission of Jesus to the earth was closing as the final judgement was approaching, and that everyone who impeded this mission and cast stones on his path was now being given an opportunity to recognise the misdeeds in his or her suffering, repent and make amends before it is too late. Every event begins with the opening of its cycle and ends with the closing of that cycle. Birth and death are a cycle of events, like evaporation and rainfall, inhalation and exhalation, the seasons, day and night, and the circulation of blood beginning from the heart, round the body and back to the heart, evolution and dissolution of planets and the universes, among many other cycles.
Between stigmatists, their worshippers and the confused church, humanity and salvation stands Lucifer again, deceiving as He once did that Jesus had taken their sins away(to His Holy Father?), this time, robbing them of a great opportunity to make good their murder of their Lord.
Interestingly, according to revealed knowledge on the face of the earth today, THERESE NEWMAN, a female stigmatist, was the thief on the cross who reviled Jesus by asking him to come down from the cross and save himself and the two thieves crucified along with him, if, indeed, he was the Son of God. For people of deep recognitions in these matters, Therese Neumann of Konnereuth is a reminder that human souls can distort their gender by appearing on earth at different times in male or female bodies. This is not an achievement but a sin and waste of one’s time formented by wrong use of FREEWILL which comes with the attendant ACCOUNT someday. I hope that, for you, this demystifies transgender life, gayism and lesbianism.
Today is the last Thursday before 2019 Good Friday. Many christians world wide prefer to call the day their saviour was flogged, mercilessly beaten and nailed, hands and feet to the cross and pierced on one side with a spear GOOD FRIDAY because, intuitively, they knew the crucifixion was a dastardly murder. Leaders of Jewish religion and society who eagerly awaited the saviour who would deliver them from Roman rule passed him by, misrecognised him and plotted his arrest and elimination because they feared his teachings would rob them of power and influence over the people.
One of the disciples of Jesus would even betray him to his enemies. Jesus would warn Judas before then it would have been better for him if he was not born and, having been born, if a weight was tied around his neck and he was thrown into a river to drown, so he would not carry out the betrayal. Judas probably did not intend to betray Jesus so that his Lord would be murdered. He wished to belong to the inner caucus of disciples of Peter, James and John. He plotted a plan to out stage the trio. What if he made Jesus become political leader of the Jews? He met with generals of the Jewish resistance army. Jesus was to be used to declare a rebellion in the temple in Jerusalem during the passover festival. Judas arranged the now well known triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But, in the temple, Jesus declined to declare a revolution. Rather, he said: “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD” and preached “THE BROTHERHOOD OF ALL MEN”. Disappointed, Judas held secret talks with the Sanhedrin, leaders of religion. Perhaps if he identified Jesus was arrested on charges of treason, he would release the heavenly forces which surrounded him to smite the Romans. The popularity of Jesus would rise and spread and he, Judas, would receive a prominent appointment in the administration.
Meanwhile, the wife of Pontius Pilate, the governor, who on earth as a member of the Jesus Mission to protect him with political authority as THE THREE WISE MEN were to do with temporal authority, was advised in three dreams to inform her husband, as she was advised, not to hand Jesus over to the mob. Actually, there were supposed to be four wise men. With earthly engagement, Lucifer blocked the path of one to the manger in Jerusalem and led the other three to reveal to the roman ruler what ought to have been a priced secret…the birth of Jesus, whose protection was the reason for their being on earth. Pontius Pilate feared for his job. The emperor would remove him from office and probably imprison him, if the Sanhedrin told the emperor Pilate freed the enemy of the emperor. Pilate handed Jesus out to be murdered. I used to be angry that someone would pierce the side of the Lord with a spear. I was relieved when I learned why, in love for Jesus, he had to do it. The authorities had been so afraid that Jesus would physically resurrect on the third day, not realising that Jesus had spoken of emerging from the grave in his ethereal body which Apostle Paul saw and which the two disciples on their way to Emaus did not recognise until he permitted their inner (ethereal ) eyes to open. The romans had planned to break all the bones of the Lord to prevent his physical resurrection. The piercing with the spear was to tell them the Lord had died and that the crushing of his bones was, therefore, unnecessary. Joseph of Aramatheas applied for, and obtain the body, and buried it a befitting sepulchre. A small circle of humanity which has followed these events with keen spiritual interest lives in the conviction that, in the fullness of time, or when the time is ripe, the earth would reveal what lies entombed within it.
Stigmata and stigmatists
Lest you wonder how people who were involved with the disturbance of the mission of Jesus would be stigmatists today when the church rejects the reality of reincarnation, I would remind you that the Lord said that this “generation” would not pass away” until his predictions concerning the judgement had been fulfilled. I asked since the judgement has not come to pass and the heavens and the earth have not been pulled away, has that “generation passed away?” . It had not and it cannot until the “fufillment”. So, the logical belief is that since stigmata is a reality, stigmatists are people connected with them. Reincarnation is real. In the law of the cycle, we come to this earth for spiritual growth and go away upon death to our origin if we are unblemished. If we were blemished on earth, we would have to return to the earth, origin of the blemish to redeem it, since, under the law of the cycle, everything must return to its starting point. We cannot drop the blemish anywhere other than from where we picked it up, its origin.
And to show how the human soul and perhaps, spirit continue to struggle with the understanding of these events and are trying to make sense of stigmata and stigmatists, I would like to share with you the thoughts of C.J SIMPSON titled THE STIGMATA : PATHOLOGY OR MIRACLE?
The stigmata: Pathology or miracle ?
By c.j Simpson
The medical approach towards religious phenomena is often to categorise them as “illnesses.” This may be seen in the diagnosis of St Paul as having epilepsy and of Joan of Arc as having schizophrenia. Is there, however, a pathological process in religious stigmatisation? Stigmata are the wounds of Christ appearing on the body; they may include bleeding marks or holes on the hands, feet, and side and marks on the forehead and shoulder-the sites of the crown of thorns and cross respectively.
Imbert-Gourbeyre found that of the 321 people with stigmata that he discovered since the time of St Francis, 41 were men and 280 were women and these during their reproductive years. They were mainly from Italy, followed by France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, Holland, Hungary, and Peru in that order.’ Few people with stigmata have been beatified or canonised, and the Catholic Church teaches that there is no intrinsic connection between sanctity and stigmatisation. The sites of the stigmata are interesting, as the work of Barbet on cadavers’ and evidence from the Shroud of Turin suggest that Christ had nails through his wrists whereas people with stigmata have palm wounds. The site of the lance wound is omitted in the Bible but changes, according to the current belief, from right or left hypochondrium to over the heart in those with stigmata. The wounds tend to change with the years; some bleed permanently and some just on Fridays. They normally appear when the person is in what is called “ecstasy.”
St Francis of Assisi (1182 to 1226) is thought to have been the first person to receive stigmata unless St Paul implied that he had them when he wrote “I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body”. St Francis developed the stigmata during an ecstatic vision in 1224, when they were seen by a friend, Brother Leo, whose own handwritten note (the authenticity of which is uncontested) vouches for their reality. They were also seen by many after his death and were described two years after his death in his first biography: “The marks on the hands were round on the inner side, but on the outer side they were elongated: and some small pieces of flesh took on the appearance of the ends of the nails, bent and driven back and rising above the rest of the flesh.”
Among famous 19th century examples was a Belgian girl called Louise Lateau (1850 to 1883), who bled every Friday except for two from 1868 to 1883. She was observed by various eminent Belgian doctors. A German peasant girl called Therese Neumann (1898 to 1962) was bedridden from several head injuries when she developed the stigmata in 1926. Blood started to come from her side during an ecstatic vision, and a few weeks later she developed the hand and feet wounds. From then on they bled regularly on Fridays until her death. Her doctor diagnosed her initially as having “hysteria traumatica” for insurance purposes, though after the stigmata appeared he changed his mind.
Padre Pio (1887 to 1968) was also of peasant stock. His biographies describe him as always having been spiritually oriented and of a frail constitution. He had what seems to have been tuberculosis as a young man, and he fasted, in the opinion of his fellow Franciscans, excessively. He developed the stigmata in 1918 and they bled continually afterwards, but faded at the end of his life.
Desire to suffer
All these examples occurred in deeply religious people, who actually desired to suffer with Christ. They did not seem to seek publicity or material reward-indeed, they often avoided it. Whitlock and Hynes, however, reported on a Polish lady in Australia, who had a devotion to Veronica’s Veil and apparently wept blood while in ecstasies. She did not, it seems, avoid publicity and finally died in 1963 of a barbiturate overdose. Similarly, but even more bizarre, is the case of the 10 and half year old girl from a black Baptist family reported on by Early and Lifschutz who in 1972 was reported to have had spontaneous bleeding from her left palm initially and later from the right palm, both feet, and thorax. Unfortunately, no doctor was able to observe the beginining of these episodes so self induced trauma cannot be ruled out, although Early and Lifschutz believe the likelihood of this to be almost nil.
The question of aetiology remains controversial. Self induced wounds-that is, dermatitis artefacta- are a common theory. Therese Neumann was observed constantly on several occasions, but this satisfied only the observers, not the critics. In 1875 Dr Warlomont used an ingenious method to observe Louise Lateau. He put a glass cylinder over her whole arm and made X special seals, which he claimed could not be foiled. He assembled this on a Thursday, and on the Friday, with the seals unbroken, there was a wound on the hand and blood in the glass bulb. The evidence suggests that at least some people’s stigmata are not self induced. Could physical changes be taking place through psychological mechanisms? Moody reported various episodes of physical changes occurring under abreaction. For instance, a man who abreacted about an episode when he had been tied up developed weals and petechial haemorrhages on his forearms where the rope had been. Pattie and Paul reviewed reports of the induction of blisters under hypnosis and concluded that, though most experiments lacked good controls, blisters could be induced in some subjects. Needles described a Jewish man with a serious anxiety about castration who developed spontaneous bleeding from his right hand on three occasions when under threat from men.
There is no reason to suppose that all stigmata have the same aetiology. Despite reports of self induced stigmata it seems unlikely that this is always the case. Dermatographia, which causes an exaggerated triple response, and vicarious menstruation seem unlikely causes. St Francis had malaria, and purpura from this cause has been suggested as the mechanism in his case. Herpes simplex infection seems to be under emotional control, and it has been suggested that the stigmatic lesions are indeed herpetic.
Hysterical conversion symptoms
The autoerythrocyte sensitisation syndrome is a rare disease almost exclusively of women who become sensitised to their own red blood cells. They often have a history of psychiatric disease. Ratnoff and Agle reviewed 27 such patients, all of whom gave a similar clinical picture of painful areas becoming red and forming a bruise. Agle et al looked at six patients with this disease to see if there was any evidence of the haematomas being symptoms of hysterical conversion and concluded that there was in each case. The interest in the autoerythrocyte sensitisation syndrome with regard to the stigmata is that they are both rare, occur in women during the reproductive years, occur in people with slightly odd personalities with a history of physical illness, and have severe pain associated with the site.
Stigmatisation is often described as being “hysterical.” This would depend on what is understood by this word. It is most commonly used in this context to mean hysterical conversion and not hysterical personality disorder. No unanimity exists on the definition of hysterical conversion, but the question here is whether it can be used to describe a physical change due to psychological desire; Freud suggested that it should be motor or sensory disturbances, and the International Classification of Diseases requires a “psychogenic disturbance of function.” Lord suggested that the unconscious fantasy of those with stigmata leading to the conversion symptom is that of a woman desiring to be saintly and non-sexual (Christ like). Ultimately, however, we are just substituting one poorly understood diagnosis (stigmata) with another (hysterical conversion).
The validity of the miracle theory depends primarily on your personal beliefs. But even if you consider it to be possible you then have to consider why God has done this in the past to some rather odd people, why He has imposed ecstasy as an indispensable condition, and why He gives it to people at the varying sites in the abdomen and chest and why in the palms and not the wrists. Furthermore, why should God give the stigmata preferentially to women?
Many attempts have been made to diagnose the stigmata as symptoms of illness without much success. The evidence does suggest, however, that psychological mechanisms play some part in their formation. Theologians seem equally baffled. Whatever your beliefs, the study of the stigmata does typify the fascinating relation between physical, psychological, and spiritual phenomena.