THERESE NEUMANN, THE CATHOLIC STIGMATIST
“Return to india. I have waited for you patiently for fifteen
years. Soon I shall swim out of the body and on to the Shining
Abode. Yogananda, come!”
Sri Yukteswar’s voice sounded startlingly in my inner ear as I sat
in meditation at my Mt. Washington headquarters. Traversing ten
thousand miles in the twinkling of an eye, his message penetrated
my being like a flash of lightning.
Fifteen years! Yes, I realized, now it is 1935; I have spent fifteen
years in spreading my guru’s teachings in America. Now he recalls
me.
That afternoon I recounted my experience to a visiting disciple.
His spiritual development under KRIYA YOGA was so remarkable that
I often called him “saint,” remembering Babaji’s prophecy that America
too would produce men and women of divine realization through the
ancient yogic path.
This disciple and a number of others generously insisted on making a
donation for my travels. The financial problem thus solved, I made
arrangements to sail, via Europe, for India. Busy weeks of preparations
at Mount Washington! In March, 1935 I had the Self-Realization
Fellowship chartered under the laws of the State of California as
a non-profit corporation. To this educational institution go all
public donations as well as the revenue from the sale of my books,
magazine, written courses, class tuition, and every other source
of income.
“I shall be back,” I told my students. “Never shall I forget
America.”
At a farewell banquet given to me in Los Angeles by loving friends,
I looked long at their faces and thought gratefully, “Lord, he who
remembers Thee as the Sole Giver will never lack the sweetness of
friendship among mortals.”
I sailed from New York on June 9, 1935 {FN39-1} in the EUROPA. Two
students accompanied me: my secretary, Mr. C. Richard Wright, and
an elderly lady from Cincinnati, Miss Ettie Bletch. We enjoyed the
days of ocean peace, a welcome contrast to the past hurried weeks.
Our period of leisure was short-lived; the speed of modern boats
has some regrettable features!
Like any other group of inquisitive tourists, we walked around the
huge and ancient city of London. The following day I was invited to
address a large meeting in Caxton Hall, at which I was introduced
to the London audience by Sir Francis Younghusband. Our party
spent a pleasant day as guests of Sir Harry Lauder at his estate
in Scotland. We soon crossed the English Channel to the continent,
for I wanted to make a special pilgrimage to Bavaria. This would
be my only chance, I felt, to visit the great Catholic mystic,
Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth.
Years earlier I had read an amazing account of Therese. Information
given in the article was as follows:
(1) Therese, born in 1898, had been injured in an accident at the
age of twenty; she became blind and paralyzed.
(2) She miraculously regained her sight in 1923 through prayers
to St. Teresa, “The Little Flower.” Later Therese Neumann’s limbs
were instantaneously healed.
(3) From 1923 onward, Therese has abstained completely from food
and drink, except for the daily swallowing of one small consecrated
wafer.
(4) The stigmata, or sacred wounds of Christ, appeared in 1926 on
Therese’s head, breast, hands, and feet. On Friday of every week
thereafter, she has passed through the Passion of Christ, suffering
in her own body all his historic agonies.
(5) Knowing ordinarily only the simple German of her village,
during her Friday trances Therese utters phrases which scholars
have identified as ancient Aramaic. At appropriate times in her
vision, she speaks Hebrew or Greek.
(6) By ecclesiastical permission, Therese has several times been
under close scientific observation. Dr. Fritz Gerlick, editor of
a Protestant German newspaper, went to Konnersreuth to “expose the
Catholic fraud,” but ended up by reverently writing her biography.
{FN39-2}
As always, whether in East or West, I was eager to meet a saint.
I rejoiced as our little party entered, on July 16th, the quaint
village of Konnersreuth. The Bavarian peasants exhibited lively
interest in our Ford automobile (brought with us from America) and
its assorted group-an American young man, an elderly lady, and an
olive-hued Oriental with long hair tucked under his coat collar.
Therese’s little cottage, clean and neat, with geraniums blooming
by a primitive well, was alas! silently closed. The neighbors, and
even the village postman who passed by, could give us no information.
Rain began to fall; my companions suggested that we leave.
“No,” I said stubbornly, “I will stay here until I find some clue
leading to Therese.”
Two hours later we were still sitting in our car amidst the dismal
rain. “Lord,” I sighed complainingly, “why didst Thou lead me here
if she has disappeared?”
An English-speaking man halted beside us, politely offering his
aid.
“I don’t know for certain where Therese is,” he said, “but she
often visits at the home of Professor Wurz, a seminary master of
Eichstatt, eighty miles from here.”
The following morning our party motored to the quiet village
of Eichstatt, narrowly lined with cobblestoned streets. Dr. Wurz
greeted us cordially at his home; “Yes, Therese is here.” He sent
her word of the visitors. A messenger soon appeared with her reply.
“Though the bishop has asked me to see no one without his permission,
I will receive the man of God from India.”
Deeply touched at these words, I followed Dr. Wurz upstairs to the
sitting room. Therese entered immediately, radiating an aura of
peace and joy. She wore a black gown and spotless white head dress.
Although her age was thirty-seven at this time, she seemed much
younger, possessing indeed a childlike freshness and charm. Healthy,
well-formed, rosy-cheeked, and cheerful, this is the saint that
does not eat!
Therese greeted me with a very gentle handshaking. We both beamed
in silent communion, each knowing the other to be a lover of God.
Dr. Wurz kindly offered to serve as interpreter. As we seated
ourselves, I noticed that Therese was glancing at me with naive
curiosity; evidently Hindus had been rare in Bavaria.
“Don’t you eat anything?” I wanted to hear the answer from her own
lips.
“No, except a consecrated rice-flour wafer, once every morning at
six o’clock.”
“How large is the wafer?”
“It is paper-thin, the size of a small coin.” She added, “I take
it for sacramental reasons; if it is unconsecrated, I am unable to
swallow it.”
“Certainly you could not have lived on that, for twelve whole
years?”
“I live by God’s light.” How simple her reply, how Einsteinian!
“I see you realize that energy flows to your body from the ether,
sun, and air.”
A swift smile broke over her face. “I am so happy to know you
understand how I live.”
“Your sacred life is a daily demonstration of the truth uttered by
Christ: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’” {FN39-3}
Again she showed joy at my explanation. “It is indeed so. One of
the reasons I am here on earth today is to prove that man can live
by God’s invisible light, and not by food only.”
“Can you teach others how to live without food?”
She appeared a trifle shocked. “I cannot do that; God does not wish
it.”
As my gaze fell on her strong, graceful hands, Therese showed me
a little, square, freshly healed wound on each of her palms. On
the back of each hand, she pointed out a smaller, crescent-shaped
wound, freshly healed. Each wound went straight through the hand.
The sight brought to my mind distinct recollection of the large
square iron nails with crescent-tipped ends, still used in the
Orient, but which I do not recall having seen in the West.
The saint told me something of her weekly trances. “As a helpless
onlooker, I observe the whole Passion of Christ.” Each week, from
Thursday midnight until Friday afternoon at one o’clock, her wounds
open and bleed; she loses ten pounds of her ordinary 121-pound
weight. Suffering intensely in her sympathetic love, Therese yet
looks forward joyously to these weekly visions of her Lord.
I realized at once that her strange life is intended by God to reassure
all Christians of the historical authenticity of Jesus’ life and
crucifixion as recorded in the New Testament, and to dramatically
display the ever-living bond between the Galilean Master and his
devotees.
Professor Wurz related some of his experiences with the saint.
“Several of us, including Therese, often travel for days on
sight-seeing trips throughout Germany,” he told me. “It is a striking
contrast-while we have three meals a day, Therese eats nothing.
She remains as fresh as a rose, untouched by the fatigue which the
trips cause us. As we grow hungry and hunt for wayside inns, she
laughs merrily.”
The professor added some interesting physiological details: “Because
Therese takes no food, her stomach has shrunk. She has no excretions,
but her perspiration glands function; her skin is always soft and
firm.”
At the time of parting, I expressed to Therese my desire to be
present at her trance.
“Yes, please come to Konnersreuth next Friday,” she said graciously.
“The bishop will give you a permit. I am very happy you sought me
out in Eichstatt.”
Therese shook hands gently, many times, and walked with our party
to the gate. Mr. Wright turned on the automobile radio; the saint
examined it with little enthusiastic chuckles. Such a large crowd
of youngsters gathered that Therese retreated into the house. We
saw her at a window, where she peered at us, childlike, waving her
hand.
[Illustration: THERESE NEUMANN, Famous Catholic Stigmatist who
inspired my 1935 pilgrimage to Konnersreuth, Bavaria—see neumann.jpg]
From a conversation the next day with two of Therese’s brothers,
very kind and amiable, we learned that the saint sleeps only one
or two hours at night. In spite of the many wounds in her body,
she is active and full of energy. She loves birds, looks after an
aquarium of fish, and works often in her garden. Her correspondence
is large; Catholic devotees write her for prayers and healing
blessings. Many seekers have been cured through her of serious
diseases.
Her brother Ferdinand, about twenty-three, explained that Therese
has the power, through prayer, of working out on her own body the
ailments of others. The saint’s abstinence from food dates from a
time when she prayed that the throat disease of a young man of her
parish, then preparing to enter holy orders, be transferred to her
own throat.
[Illustration: Two Brothers of Therese Neumann, I stand with them
in Konnersreuth, Bavaria.—see nbrothers.jpg]
On Thursday afternoon our party drove to the home of the bishop,
who looked at my flowing locks with some surprise. He readily
wrote out the necessary permit. There was no fee; the rule made by
the Church is simply to protect Therese from the onrush of casual
tourists, who in previous years had flocked on Fridays by the
thousands.
We arrived Friday morning about nine-thirty in Konnersreuth. I
noticed that Therese’s little cottage possesses a special glass-roofed
section to afford her plenty of light. We were glad to see the
doors no longer closed, but wide-open in hospitable cheer. There
was a line of about twenty visitors, armed with their permits. Many
had come from great distances to view the mystic trance.
Therese had passed my first test at the professor’s house by her
intuitive knowledge that I wanted to see her for spiritual reasons,
and not just to satisfy a passing curiosity.
My second test was connected with the fact that, just before I
went upstairs to her room, I put myself into a yogic trance state
in order to be one with her in telepathic and televisic rapport. I
entered her chamber, filled with visitors; she was lying in a white
robe on the bed. With Mr. Wright following closely behind me, I
halted just inside the threshold, awestruck at a strange and most
frightful spectacle.
Blood flowed thinly and continuously in an inch-wide stream from
Therese’s lower eyelids. Her gaze was focused upward on the spiritual
eye within the central forehead. The cloth wrapped around her head
was drenched in blood from the stigmata wounds of the crown of
thorns. The white garment was redly splotched over her heart from
the wound in her side at the spot where Christ’s body, long ages
ago, had suffered the final indignity of the soldier’s spear-thrust.
Therese’s hands were extended in a gesture maternal, pleading;
her face wore an expression both tortured and divine. She appeared
thinner, changed in many subtle as well as outward ways. Murmuring
words in a foreign tongue, she spoke with slightly quivering lips
to persons visible before her inner sight.
As I was in attunement with her, I began to see the scenes of
her vision. She was watching Jesus as he carried the cross amidst
the jeering multitude. {FN39-4} Suddenly she lifted her head
in consternation: the Lord had fallen under the cruel weight. The
vision disappeared. In the exhaustion of fervid pity, Therese sank
heavily against her pillow.
At this moment I heard a loud thud behind me. Turning my head for
a second, I saw two men carrying out a prostrate body. But because
I was coming out of the deep superconscious state, I did not
immediately recognize the fallen person. Again I fixed my eyes on
Therese’s face, deathly pale under the rivulets of blood, but now
calm, radiating purity and holiness. I glanced behind me later
and saw Mr. Wright standing with his hand against his cheek, from
which blood was trickling.
“Dick,” I inquired anxiously, “were you the one who fell?”
“Yes, I fainted at the terrifying spectacle.”
“Well,” I said consolingly, “you are brave to return and look upon
the sight again.”
Remembering the patiently waiting line of pilgrims, Mr. Wright and
I silently bade farewell to Therese and left her sacred presence.
{FN39-5}
The following day our little group motored south, thankful that we
were not dependent on trains, but could stop the Ford wherever we
chose throughout the countryside. We enjoyed every minute of a tour
through Germany, Holland, France, and the Swiss Alps. In Italy we
made a special trip to Assisi to honor the apostle of humility, St.
Francis. The European tour ended in Greece, where we viewed the
Athenian temples, and saw the prison in which the gentle Socrates
{FN39-6} had drunk his death potion. One is filled with admiration
for the artistry with which the Greeks have everywhere wrought
their very fancies in alabaster.
We took ship over the sunny Mediterranean, disembarking at
Palestine. Wandering day after day over the Holy Land, I was more
than ever convinced of the value of pilgrimage. The spirit of Christ
is all-pervasive in Palestine; I walked reverently by his side at
Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary, the holy Mount of Olives, and by
the River Jordan and the Sea of Galilee.
Our little party visited the Birth Manger, Joseph’s carpenter shop,
the tomb of Lazarus, the house of Martha and Mary, the hall of the
Last Supper. Antiquity unfolded; scene by scene, I saw the divine
drama that Christ once played for the ages.
On to Egypt, with its modern Cairo and ancient pyramids. Then a
boat down the narrow Red Sea, over the vasty Arabian Sea; lo, India!
[Illustration: Mr. Wright, myself, Miss Bletch—in Egypt—see
camel.jpg]
{FN39-1} The remarkable inclusion here of a complete date is due
to the fact that my secretary, Mr. Wright, kept a travel diary.
{FN39-2} Other books on her life are THERESE NEUMANN: A STIGMATIST
OF OUR DAY, and FURTHER CHRONICLES OF THERESE NEUMANN, both by
Friedrich Ritter von Lama (Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co.).
{FN39-3} MATTHEW 4:4. Man’s body battery is not sustained by gross
food (bread) alone, but by the vibratory cosmic energy (word, or
AUM). The invisible power flows into the human body through the
gate of the medulla oblongata. This sixth bodily center is located
at the back of the neck at the top of the five spinal CHAKRAS
(Sanskrit for “wheels” or centers of radiating force). The medulla
is the principal entrance for the body’s supply of universal
life force (AUM), and is directly connected with man’s power of
will, concentrated in the seventh or Christ Consciousness center
(KUTASTHA) in the third eye between the eyebrows. Cosmic energy is
then stored up in the brain as a reservoir of infinite potentialities,
poetically mentioned in the VEDAS as the “thousand-petaled lotus
of light.” The Bible invariably refers to AUM as the “Holy Ghost”
or invisible life force which divinely upholds all creation. “What?
know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which
is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”-I
CORINTHIANS 6:19.
{FN39-4} During the hours preceding my arrival, Therese had already
passed through many visions of the closing days in Christ’s life.
Her entrancement usually starts with scenes of the events which
followed the Last Supper. Her visions end with Jesus’ death on the
cross or, occasionally, with his entombment.
{FN39-5} Therese has survived the Nazi persecution, and is still
present in Konnersreuth, according to 1945 American news dispatches
from Germany.
{FN39-6} A passage in Eusebius relates an interesting encounter
between Socrates and a Hindu sage. The passage runs: “Aristoxenus,
the musician, tells the following story about the Indians. One of
these men met Socrates at Athens, and asked him what was the scope
of his philosophy. ‘An inquiry into human phenomena,’ replied
Socrates. At this the Indian burst out laughing. ‘How can a man
inquire into human phenomena,’ he said, ‘when he is ignorant of
divine ones?’” The Aristoxenus mentioned was a pupil of Aristotle,
and a noted writer on harmonics. His date is 330 B.C.