Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist of Bavaria

This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Therese Neumann the catholic stigmatist of bavaria 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 in my inner ear as I sat in meditation at my Mount 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. Footnote 1. The remarkable inclusion here of a complete date is due to the fact that my secretary, Mr. Wright, kept a travel diary. End of footnote. In the Europa, two students accompanied me, my secretary, Mr. C. Richard Wright, and an elderly lady from Cincinnati, Miss Etty Blatch. 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' young husband. 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 conerswit 1. Thérèse, born in 1898, had been injured in an accident at the age of 20.

She became blind and paralyzed. 2. She miraculously regained her sight in 1923 through prayers to Saint Teresa, the little flower. Later, Thérèse Neumann's limbs were instantaneously healed. 3. From 1923 onward, Thérèse 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 Thérèse's head, breast, hands, and feet. On Friday of every week thereafter thereafter she has passed through the passion of christ suffering in her own body all his historic agonies five knowing ordinarily only the simple german of her village during her friday trances thrse 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 Gellick, editor of a Protestant German newspaper, went to Connoisseur to, quote, expose the Catholic fraud, end quote, but ended up by reverently writing her biography footnote two other books on her life are therese neumann a stigmaticed as our little party entered on july sixteenth the quaint village of conisreuth 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 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 Eichstadt, eighty miles from here.

The following morning our party motored to the quiet village of Eichstadt, narrowly lined with cobblestone 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. Wurtz 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. Wurtz 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's paper-thin, the size of a small coin, she added. I take it for sacramental reasons. If it is unconsecrated, I'm 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 Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Footnote 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, Kutashta, 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? 1 Corinthians 6 6 verse 19. End footnote. Again she showed joy at my explanation. It is indeed so.

One of the reasons I'm here on earth today is to prove that man can live by God's invisible light, not only by food. 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 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 observed 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's 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 sightseeing 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 Thérèse 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 Thérèse my desire to be present at her trance. Yes, please come to Conosreuth next Friday, she said graciously. The bishop will give you a permit. I'm very happy you sought me out in Eichstadt. Thérèse 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. 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 seekers have been cured through her of serious diseases. Her brother Ferdinand, about twenty-three, explained that Thérèse 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. 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 9.30 in Conosret. I noticed that Thérèse'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, all struck 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 readily 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. Teresa'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, I began to see the scenes of her vision.

She was watching Jesus as he carried the cross amidst the jeering multitude. Footnote 4. During the hours preceding my arrival, Thérèse 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. 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 site again. Remembering the patiently awaiting line of pilgrims, Mr. Wright and I silently bade farewell to Therese and left her sacred presence. Footnote 5. Therese has survived the nasty persecution and is still present in Connersreuth according to 1945 American news dispatches from Germany. End of footnote. 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, Saint Francis. The European tour ended in Greece, where we viewed the Athenian temples and saw the prisons in which the gentle Socrates. Footnote 6. A passage in Eusebius relates an interesting encounter between Socrates and a Hindu sage. The passage runs, quote, 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 laughing how can a man inquire into human phenomena he said when he is ignorant 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 chapter thirty nine read by sandra near montreal in twenty twenty five