The vision gave Joan what was clearly a political task! When they threatened her with torture on 28th March in order to sentence her as a heretic, she abjured her visions.
On 2nd April she retracted the recantation that had been wrung from her:
On 30th May, 1431, lay executioners set fire to the stake with the tacit approval of the Christian judges. Joan died crying 'Jesus! Jesus!'
Twenty years later a court usher stated in evidence that Joan's heart had remained undamaged, although the rest of her body was completely destroyed.
It is no use puzzling or making far-fetched interpretations, the figures in Joan's visions wanted to achieve political goals. What kind of interest could the 'blessed in heaven' have in them?
In 1456 the Church saw its chance to lead both a saint and a national heroine back into the fold. The Church set aside the verdict that had brought their co-religionist to the stake. She was beatified in 1894 and canonized in 1920.
In the Epilogue to Bernard Shaw's St. Joan it says: The Gentleman: On every thirtieth day of May, being the anniversary of the death of the said most blessed daughter of God, there shall be in every Catholic church to the end of time celebrated a special office in commemoration of her; and it shall be lawful to dedicate a special chapel to her, and to place her image on its altar in every such church. And it shall be lawful and laudable for the faithful to kneel and address their prayers through her to the Mercy Seat.
Shaw used the official text literally. That is the kind of basic revision the Church subjects itself to, when saints are not only saints, but also active political power factors with whom they can advantageously identify themselves.
I have already mentioned that the Roman Catholic Church claims for itself all the visions designated
'genuine' by its courts. This is usurpatory, for there are other large Christian communities and sects who also base themselves on the Old and New Testaments. These millions of adherents of different Christian religions do not consider themselves a lesser breed of Christians, as second- or third-raters.
They, too, champion the 'authenticity' of visions in their religious world.
Once again, this obstinacy is contrary to all logic. The messages in visions received by Methodists, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, the New Apostles, members of the Greek Orthodox Church etc. work the very same religious miracles and proclaim the same values - such as faith, prayer, good behaviour loving one's neighbour, respecting one's fellow-men, the pro scription of criminal acts - that the Roman Catholic doctrine requires. Why then in the devil's name does the devil, if only Lucifer can appear to them, achieve such typically Christian aims among the 'others'?
The prophet Joseph Smith (1805-1844) founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
During the night of 21st September, 1823, he had a vision [21]: While I was so engrossed in prayer to God, I perceived a light shining in my room that increased in power until the room was lighter than at noon, upon which an angel appeared beside my bed, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the ground. He was dad in a loose robe of extraordinary whiteness.
He was whiter than anything else I have ever seen, nor do I believe that anything terrestrial could be so exceptionally white and brilliant. His hands were bare and so were his arms until just above the wrist.
His feet were also unshod, and his legs until just above the ankles. His head and throat were also bare.
I could see that he wore nothing else besides this robe, for it was open and I could see his breast.... He named me by name and told me he had been sent to me as a messenger from God and that he was called Maroni; God had work for me to do ... He said that a book was preserved written in gold plates which gave an account of the earlier inhabitants of this continent and their origin; it also contained the fullness of the eternal gospel as proclaimed to those former inhabitants by the Saviour ... After these pronouncements I saw the light in the room slowly shrinking around the man who had spoken to me, and this continued until the room was dark again, except around him. Then I could suddenly see into heaven as if through a shaft of light and the visitor rose up until he disappeared entirely and the room was once more as dark as before the vision of heavenly light ...
How does the vision in this report differ from the visions approved by the Roman Catholic Church?
Joseph Smith had more visions, in which he was shown the gold plates, the text of which he transcribed. In this way the Mormon Bible The Book of Mormon came into being in 1830. In 1848 the Christian Mormon community settled by the Salt Lake of Utah, U.S.A ... after lengthy wanderings in the desert, and founded the Mormon State of Utah with the flourishing settlement of Salt Lake City as its centre. Today the Mormon Church has over a million and a half members, who are scattered all over the world. Mormons really do live according to their Christian laws: they are more than a sect that could be dismissed as a quantite negligeable.
Who on earth can credibly explain the 'miracle' experienced by Joseph Smith except as an 'inspiration', i.e. a vision? Neither the F.B.I, nor a smart private eye knew the place on the unknown hill where Smith was to find the gold plates containing the Book of Mormon. No archaeologist had ever dug there. The vision led Smith to the hidden treasure, on the contents of which he was to base his religion.
No one knew about it, no one had been there before him so no one could have led the seventeen-yearold there telepathically. However it is logical that someone somewhere did know about this hiding place, indeed must have put the plates there. As this great unknown was not a contemporary of Smith, the impulse to search in this spot must inevitably - how else? - have come from people in the know outside our planet, people who at some point in time unknown to us had sojourned on the earth. For those who emitted the energy for the Smith vision must also
