Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (30 page)

blessed in his presence. Bread rolls were to be baked with the remaining corn and distributed in Fontanelle in memory of her corning.

Since then people have hoped and prayed in Fontanelle and Montichiari. Every day and every night.

As in many places where visions have taken place.

Taken by and large, that is a classical example of a vision. A person unknown before the miraculous event sees 'something'. Confused and perplexed by the experience, he or she spreads the news and summons the faithful to the spot. Are they specially qualified people? Are they more devout than the average? Are they religious bigots? Are they extroverts? Do they want to get into the limelight?

In an attempt to answer these questions, I collected 'visions' for ten whole years. When I began I had no idea what an incredible mass of printed matter would accumulate. I have been selective, choosing characteristic cases to stand for countless others, so that I can offer explanations of the phenomena on the basis of this extensive sample.

When I say that the estimated number of visions in the Christian world alone is over 40,000 (!) you can imagine how varied the material is. Riding a bold steeplechase through history down to the present day I am going to present the reader with documented cases of visions. Not until the vast terrain has been cleared of undergrowth will it be possible to show what conclusions can be drawn, and what explanations can be offered or are theoretically conceivable.

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At that time the Right Reverend Bernard Olivier is supposed to have been assailed by doubts when during the mass the tintinnabulum (bell used in the mass) rang to transform the red wine into Christ's blood. From that moment, so the story goes, the blood mysteriously increased in volume, and it seemed to the faithful as if it flowed from the cloth of the Lord over the altar steps down to the floor of the chapel. Imagination went so far that some determined women mopped up the blood from the floor with cloths, the annals record. The Bishop of Solsona, St. Ermengol, heard of the happening and told the Pope. Pope Sergius IV (1009-1012) allowed public veneration of the strange relic, the bloodstained cloth of Iborra.

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[*] A relic may be the remains of a saint or a saint's possessions, also one of the instruments of martyrdom.

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It is not always holy figures that provoke visions, their trappings can do it, too. Iborra is not an exceptional case.