Charismatic, Martyred Life of Joan of Arc (Denis)

Excerpt:

The memory of Joan of Arc has never aroused such ardent and passionate controversies as have raged for the last few years round this great historical figure. One party, while exalting her memory, tries to monopolize her and to confine her personality within the limits of Catholic doctrine. A second, by means of tactics which are sometimes brutal, as in the case of Thalamas and Henri Bèrenger, sometimes clever and learned, as in the case of M. Anatole France, tries to lessen her prestige and to reduce her mission to the proportions of an ordinary historical episode.

Where shall we find the truth as to the part played by Joan in history? As we read it, it is to be found neither in the mystic reveries of the men of faith nor in the material arguments of the positivists critics. Neither the one nor the other seems to hold the thread which form the mystery of this extraordinary life.

To penetrate the mystery of Joan of Arc it seems to us necessary to study, and have practical knowledge of, psychic science. It is necessary to have sounded the depths of this invisible world, this ocean of life which envelops us, from which we all come at birth and into which we are replunged at death.

How can writers understand Joan if their thoughts have never risen above terrestrial facts, looked beyond the narrow horizon of an inferior material world, nor caught one glimpse of the life beyond?

During the last fifty years a whole series of manifestations and of discoveries have thrown a new light upon certain important aspects of life, of which we have had only vague and uncertain knowledge. By close observations and by methodical experiment in psychic phenomena a far-reaching science is gradually being built up.

The universe appears to us now as a reservoir of unknown forces of incalculable energy. An infinite vista dawns before our thoughts filled with forms and vital powers which escape our normal senses, though some manifestations of them have been measured with great precision by the aid of registering apparatus .

The idea of the supernatural fades away, and we see Nature herself rolling back for ever the horizon of her domain. The possibility of an invisible organized life, more rich and more intense than that of humanity, but regulated by tremendous laws, begins to intrude itself. This life in many cases impinges on our own and influences us for good or for evil.

Most of the phenomena of the past which have been asserted in the name of faith and denied in the name of reason can now receive a logical and scientific explanation. The extraordinary incidents scattered over the story of the maid of Orleans are of this order. Their comprehension is rendered the more easy by our knowledge of similar phenomena observed, classified and registered in our own time.

These can explain to us the nature of the forces which acted in and around her, guiding her life towards its noble end.



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