WEBVTT - Stigmata: Patient Zero 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.920 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.279 My name is Robert Lambs Hi, I'm Christian Seger. And 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:18.840 before we get into the topic today, I just want 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.160 to remind everyone you can find us on social media 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.040 on Facebook, on Twitter, and untum and on tumbler. We 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.560 are blow to Mind and I think all of those. Uh, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:29.920 And if you just do a search for Stuff to 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.199 Blow your Mind, people find us will definitely pop up, 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.200 and they can also email us questions and comments about 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.280 the episode. Where below the mind at how stuff Works 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.760 dot com and of course the mothership is Stuff to 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.280 Blow your Mind dot com. Yeah, definitely make sure that 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.080 you go to that site so that you can see 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.479 more of the videos and blog posts and galleries and 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.800 other content that we produce that go beyond the podcast. Yeah. 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.279 We will beam the knowledge directly into your body in 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.040 the same way that that one might have the wounds 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.880 of Christ lay there into their body. Yeah. I believe 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.200 that the way that it works is that an angel 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.160 with five wings flies over you and fires lasers from 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.480 the wings into the spots of the wounds. If the 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.240 paintings are any indication this seems to be the process involved. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.600 So if you couldn't guess we are going to talk 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:21.880 about stigmata today, Yes, Yes, stigmata a topic wanting to 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.920 cover here for some time and uh and it's it's 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.040 indeed a very they're very deep topic. There are a 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.480 lot of there's a lot of there's history, there's science, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:38.039 there's a religion, myth uh, iconography, there a lot of psychology, psychology, 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.640 and we certainly can't do every corner of the story justice, 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.600 even in a two part Yeah, I think that it's 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.920 important to recognize upfront that that we are not experts 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.520 in uh, certainly not experts in Catholic history, which is 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.280 a lot of what we're going to talk about in 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.000 the first episode is about St. Francis, who is of 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.640 course beatified by the Catholic Church and one of the 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.640 best known stigmatics in history, right, and he's essentially the 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:09.160 patient zero for stigmata and uh. And he's an interesting 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:14.720 figure from historical standpoint, but also from a biological standpoint, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.959 as we'll get into as as modern day historians look 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.079 back at the records and the accounts and try to 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.040 figure out what might have been going on with his body. 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.080 Uh from a medical standpoint, Yeah, he lived a really 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.560 interesting life. And you know, we can go through that 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.000 sort of chronologically today, but I think it would probably 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.040 help if we start off by just explaining stigmata as 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.800 a concept, uh, and and what it is, where the 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.360 idea of it came from, and and and how it 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.120 resonates with culture today. Indeed. Yeah, So to start off, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.000 the word itself, stigmata comes from the Greek stigma uh. 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.720 And this refers to the brand with which slaves and 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.600 criminals in ancient Greece and Rome were marked. Hence our 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:01.400 verb stigmatized to mark as with a brand disgrace. Yeah. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:06.320 So if you're if you are, what how does that 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:12.040 work in terms of stigma stigmatization of the eye Is 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.040 that there's a mark on your actual eye? Ah? You know, 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:16.680 I don't know, if I wonder, I wonder what the 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.360 connection is there, but I bet it's got to be 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:23.000 something like that. Given the synonym with markings. I know 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.520 that if you are suffering the the Catholic stigmata um, 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.560 your eye doctor will probably be able to do nothing. Yeah, 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.560 They're useless in that sense. They can't even stop the bleeding. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.800 It's true. It's true. So the Catholic stigmata, which a 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.240 number of you've probably at least absorbed through art or 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.200 pop culture. You know, we're talking about the physical manifestation 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:52.080 of the wounds of Jesus Christ crucified. Yeah, specifically the 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.680 two wounds in the hand. They're usually found in the palm, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.400 which is important. We'll come back to that later. There's 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.040 two wounds in the feet as well. These are from 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.840 the nails that were hammered through Christ's hands and feet. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.800 And then there's a fifth wound that a lot of 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.440 people don't recognize, which is on his side. I don't 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.120 know if it was on his right or left side, 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:17.960 but he was uh lanced or speared by I believe 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.000 a Roman soldier as he was carrying the cross. I 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:25.120 believe it's the right side at least in various paintings, 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.160 but I'm not I'm not sure of it if there's 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.720 a definite right versus left, you know, cannonized. So beyond 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:37.280 the horrific nature of being crucified, hanging from across bleeding 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.400 from those wounds, he also had a pretty massive wound 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:45.080 in his side, according to the Bible and other stories, 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:50.040 uh that that was bleeding and would have killed them anyways, presumably. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.599 And then there are a number of sort of add 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.560 on stigmata wounds you can throw in the pop up, 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:59.160 like the lacerations on the back from being scourged, crown 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:04.039 of thorns, fro thorn's, sometimes bleeding eyes are thrown in, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.080 as well as kind of uh, that's that's more of 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.560 a garden of a cassemine, kind of a thing that 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.320 would be on top of everything else that would be rough. Yeah, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.040 I mean, they really laid into the man. So there's 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.559 a lot to choose from, but certainly the the big five, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.720 the five wounds, those are the ones that typically in 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.479 order to be actually recognized I believe by the Church 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.440 to it has to be those five wounds. Right now, 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.160 I do want to point out that stigmata, at least 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.800 as we're discussing it here, it's not necessarily a purely 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:42.480 Christian phenomenon. According to Pamela ray heat M d Uh 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.719 in her work A Mind Matter Interaction or a View 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.400 of Historical Reports, Theories and Research, she says there are 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.320 a few accounts of stigmata among Muslims and Hindus. With 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.360 Muslims the alleged stigmata resemble the battle wounds of the 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:00.360 prophet uh and I've personally read accounts of one if 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.400 twenty one century Indian thinker, philosopher ug christa Mutri undergoing 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.400 supposedly undergoing physical transformations, the swelling swellings around the chakras 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:15.039 in various discolorations that match up with Hindu iconography. Yeah, 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.600 so I think it's important to acknowledge that at the top, because, 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.560 as we're going to find throughout the discussion today, there 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:29.359 are multiple possible origins for stigmata. And one could potentially 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.480 be self mutilation, which might explain why in different religions 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.919 there at different points the body. Another could potentially be 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.400 psycho sematic, which would also explain that if you were 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.120 hyper fixated in your mind on specific points of your body, 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:49.000 then there's a possibility that lesions could appear. Well, it 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.320 hasn't been proven or not, but there's there's evidence that 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.960 that might be the case in some of these stigmatic cases. 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.679 And then of course, lasers from an angel right, which 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.680 I believe that most of the research refers to as 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:09.000 uh de ific intervention. And you know, we won't spend 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:10.560 a lot of time on that one, but it is 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.720 interesting to sort of think about it as non theologians. 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.880 Uh you know why why how that would work with 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.480 the metaphysics. Like, the best I could think of is 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.680 that it's sort of like you have you have the 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.480 the the birth and death of Christ is kind of 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.240 a patch that's applied to the existing reality. So reality 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.760 comes out like a game comes out, and there's some 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:33.720 problems with him. God says, I, really, I have got 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.920 to put out a big patch to fix fix this right, 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.440 save humanity. But before I get into that, I mean, 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.720 I guess we should obviously just do a quick run 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:45.720 through of how crucifixion and Jesus fit factors into the 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.440 Christian and its particularly the Catholic worldview. So to summarize, 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.760 you have the basic notion here that God takes human 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.360 form in the guise of Jesus. He's tortured, killed on 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.480 a Roman crucifix for the ideas that he spread, and 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.480 it's through this execution and resurrection of God incarnate that 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.680 humanity is redeemed. So God suffers bodily death so that 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:10.680 humans might know bodily immortality. Yeah, and and I think 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.880 that that's important to consider when we're talking about later 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.640 stigmatics who think of themselves as also suffering for the 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:24.960 sins of mankind. Um, and I I think that I 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.160 have a little bit of a logic problem with connecting 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.520 the dots there. For the stigmatics I get, I get 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.560 the Christian origin story and believe it or not. You know, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.760 I I I grew up going to church reading the 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.240 Bible a lot, and UM, I have somewhat of an 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.719 affinity for those stories. I wouldn't call myself an atheist 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.640 per se, but I here's how I feel about the 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:57.360 whole stigmadeling. I don't necessarily believe that it's de ific 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.600 intervention going on here, but I will. I think I 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.720 believe that the people, most of the people who are 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:10.960 affected by stigmata believe it themselves. I believe that they believe. Yeah, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.240 there's there's definitely some some fakery in there at times 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.280 with some of the stigmatics. Oh yeah, there's cases that 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.959 will come across where people were called out on it 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.040 and it was discovered that they were you know, it 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.360 was it was self mutilation. Yeah. Now, I mean I 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.600 like to look at it from from from different vantage points, 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.360 and of course we invite listeners to do that. As well. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:32.600 But but when I try and put myself in the 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.320 mind of the of the really devoute believer and trying 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.640 to think, well, how would this work in the metaphysics 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.640 of Christianity From a purely non theologian standpoint, I think 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.400 of screen burn You know, the old phenomenon where you'd 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.040 have your tell your computer screen. You leave some text 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.440 up there too long and it gets burned into the screen, right, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.000 like the reason why we have screensavers. Yeah, that it's 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.560 essentially your screensavers, not up on your your faith. And 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.280 so you're so into thinking about Christ and UH and 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.320 the iconography of Christ and holiness and and then it 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.880 ends up manifesting in your hands body or a more 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.920 elaborate version that came to mind is that it's uh 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.160 like a pre christ world. Is is like a game 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.640 that comes out. It comes out a little too early. 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.079 A lot of work went into creating this video game, 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.040 but there are some problems. So God says, all right, 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:26.720 I've got to apply a patch to this thing. So 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.440 it releases the patch. But the patch, as we all know, 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.679 you apply a big patch to a game, it just 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:36.080 creates more a little bugs. And so maybe the stigmata 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:40.800 is is kind of a bug in the game post patch. Uh, 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.120 that is just a sort of an accident. Right. It's 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.000 difficult because within the the actual I want to call 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.360 it Laura, as if we're like referring to some kind 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.000 of supernatural vampire story here. But like within the text 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.600 of the Bible, there's only one mention of stigmata, and 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:01.280 even that is fairly vague. I believe it's in Galashians, uh, 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.440 and it's in reference to the apostle Paul, but it's 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.720 not entirely known if he's actually talking about stigmata the 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.880 way that he refers to it, that uh, manifesting on 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.760 his body is the marks of Christ. Indeed, indeed, and 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:18.480 just to put that in the in the context of 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:24.000 the timeline here, Paul would have lived five c E. Right, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.320 And the exact quote, I'm sorry I didn't have it earlier, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.360 was I bear in my body the marks of the 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:34.080 Lord Jesus. Now does by marks does he mean literally 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.839 the wounds through the hands and feet inside or does 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.160 he mean something else, maybe a tattoo, Maybe it's metaphorical. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.319 We'll get into that later. But I believe that it's 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.040 best if we start off with what you referred to 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.120 as patient zero with St. Francis, who was really like 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.560 the case that that that has the most not evidence 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.120 because you know, it happened what eight hundred nine d 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.000 years ago, but there's a lot of documentation about it 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:07.439 and and um discussion about the wounds. Yeah, he lived 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.080 close to eight hundred years ago, and he's he's definitely 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:15.120 the trends thattor, this is the patient zero for stigmata um. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.720 And you know, modern historians continue to sort through early 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.880 biographies to make sense of the terms used in the 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.320 accounts given uh and in some cases make an argument 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.560 for the stigmata's roots in natural world illness rather than 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.160 supernatural miracle, which will we'll get into. But yeah, Francis 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.240 today is known as the patron saint of animals in 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.520 the environment, the father of the Franciscan Order. He was 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:42.640 born one died in twelve twenty six and the key 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.199 event in his life for the purposes of discussing stigmata 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.880 is that late in his life he's on the slopes 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.600 of Italy's Mount Laverna and he's visited by this fiery 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.480 vision of a crucified Christ flames twisting into the forum 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.240 of Sarah wings. And according to the lore, uh, this 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.959 is such an tense mystical experience that it inflicts the 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.440 wounds of the crucifixion right onto Francis hands and feet, 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.880 whereas it depicted in some of the paintings that we 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.400 were looking at laser beams from a fire. That's what 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.760 it looks like in the in these images. Yeah. Uh. 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.080 And and what's interesting about this is that there is 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.920 some documentation that says that there was someone with Francis 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.560 when this happened. And I believe the understanding was that 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:31.000 they didn't see this, uh, this angelic manifestatious manifestation in 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.199 the way that Francis described to them, but that they 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.520 did see him, you know, kind of fall in pain 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.559 and all of a sudden have these wounds. But makes 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.680 sense that someone would be with him, right, because Francis 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.280 was not a well man, and he was fairly infirm 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.160 and by late life I think he lived into his 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:50.600 forties maybe, so even for the time, he was only 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:52.640 a little bit older than us. Yeah. So if he 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:54.360 was to say, hey, I'm gonna go out into the 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.959 wilderness and pray a little bit, they would have said, well, 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:04.120 pulled on, let's send. Yeah. So Francis is uh kind 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.440 of interesting before he became, you know, the major figure 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.000 of the Franciscan order because he was you know, he 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.679 came from I don't know about like wealth, but he 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.960 was what we would probably referred to as middle class today. Uh, 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.720 and left that to go to war. Uh. He was 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.600 in one war, was a prisoner of war, and it 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.000 was described I think it's accurate to say that he 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.800 was fairly traumatized by that experience. Yeah, that was the 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.480 gist I got from the sources we're looking at. Uh. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.000 And then he came back, had some epiphanies about life, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.240 you know, as would be expected after an experience like that, 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.880 was sent to war again, and it was on his 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.920 way to the second War that he had a vision correct. Yeah. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.400 And this is where accounts get kind of complicated, because 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.480 some accounts seemed to indicate that he just either felt 0:14:55.560 --> 0:15:00.760 unwell or he suffered dreams about becoming unwell. It depends 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.200 on who he asked, but any rate, he definitely had 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.240 a change of heart. Uh. And maybe there was a 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.920 there was an ailment angle to that as well. There 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.680 could be, yeah, because he again, like he suffered illness 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.400 even from a fairly young age in life. Uh And 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.000 but basically the vision was that he shouldn't go to war, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.520 that he should go back devote his life to the 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.080 teachings of Christ and and basically modeling on the life 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.440 of Christ. Uh And there was a point where he 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.920 went to Rome. Uh and what he took to doing 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:40.320 was begging with the poor around Rome and becoming uh 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.960 becoming a pauper, becoming homeless, essentially an understanding life from 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.760 the streets. Yeah. And in twelve or six, which is 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.840 just you know, in the in the years immediately following 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.320 his his vision initial vision in which he gave up war, 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.560 he begins working with lepers, which and I mean working 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.440 in close confines, with living with them, eating with them, 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.640 kissing them, etcetera. Yeah, I'd like to stop there for 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:09.640 a second. So I have a personal experience. When I 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.560 was fifteen years old, I went on a trip to 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.000 Katmandu in Nepal and it was it was there was 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.480 like a tour service. I believe, it wasn't fancy or anything, 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.040 but there was a guide who took us around Catmandu 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.160 and we did various activities. And at the time, this 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.600 was in the early nineties, Uh, there were plenty of 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.080 lepers around Catman Do and it was my first experience 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.560 even with hearing the term, much less seeing in real life. 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:46.600 It is a horrible affliction and it's um, extremely sad. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.600 But the idea that he was, as you described, in 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.760 such close contact with these lepers of Rome and other 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:59.320 other towns around Italy mainly, Uh, it just it just 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:00.960 goes to show you, you know, what kind of a 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.320 man he was, how dedicated he was to to the 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.800 teachings of the church. Yeah, I mean, especially when you 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.200 think you think about how m complicated the idea of 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.840 physical ailment was at the time, because it's all tied 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.680 up with ideas about moral failing and sin as well. 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:18.760 So so there's the idea that not only is he 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:20.719 working with the disease, he's working with people that are 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:25.480 perhaps spiritually impure. Um. But again it's very much in 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.560 keeping with this, uh, this this new purpose in his life, right. Yeah, 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.920 he did not worry about being I guess tainted would 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.720 be the word physically or spiritually. So some other high 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.360 points from his life. Twelve thirteen twelve fourteen, he had 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.520 to aboard a journey to Morocco cut out he cut 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.200 out in Spain due to quote prolonged illness in which 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.760 he lost his speech for three days, uh twelve seventeen. 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.600 He suffered from court and fever, but accounts differ on 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.240 whether this was an actual illness or a metaphorical fever 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.160 such as a temptation, uh, you know vision experience. Yeah, 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:06.440 And so the resource that um we read from that 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.399 that accounts on this actually breaks down, you know, nowadays 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.359 when we referred to Corten fever, it's it's synonymous with malaria, 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.720 I believe. But what they were saying was that in 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.480 the Middle Ages, you know, obviously medicine wasn't where it 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.600 is now, and that there were different types of quote 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.000 unquote fevers basically that they applied to dozens of diseases, 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:29.600 and I think I think they've listed it as like 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.000 seventy seven different types of fever were possible at the time, 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.480 but there were four categories of them, and the way 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.119 that they categorized them was how often you had the fever. 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.960 So if you had it daily, it was Quotitian, if 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.240 you had it every other day, it was Tertian, and 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.000 if you had it every third day, it was corton. 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.080 And the fourth one was continuous. You just had it 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:54.680 all the time, all right, And then of course you 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.560 could just be saying I had a fever and yeah, 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.320 a mystical experience exactly. So it's really hard to tell 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.439 what they meant by this, but we're fairly certain it 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.320 wasn't malaria that they were referring to that they meant. 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.200 Around twelve twenty, he begins that you experience constant eye pain, 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.680 constant peers flowing out of his eyes, which gets back 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.399 to that, uh, your reference to stigmatics, who believed from 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:23.879 the eyes? Yeah, indeed, and that is the year that 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.320 he suffers the stigmata at Alverna. And after this, it's 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.639 it's important to note it's not just a matter of 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.399 these um uh, these these wounds or sores manifesting on 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.440 his hands and feet. He's experiencing pain all over his body. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.840 At this point, he's he has using wounds or sores. 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.480 He becomes unable to walk, right. So this is something 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.280 that I wanted to point out too, is the being 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.360 unable to walk thing could be a symptom of one 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.719 of the many other illnesses that he was exposed to, 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.359 or let's let's say the stigmata happened and his feet 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.840 were pierced through as if they had been pierced by nails. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.880 I imagine what walking would be difficult for any stigmatic Yes, 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.840 I would think so? Um so, I yeah, I'm kind 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.000 of wondering why that isn't a more common symptom that 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.040 we hear about as we, you know, later talk about 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.960 other stigmatics in history. Seems like they would all be 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.359 confined to a wheelchair, crutches or something. The year after that, twelve, 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.199 he receives treatment for his eye pains. And when we 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:28.400 say treatment, we're talking about the cauterization of veins from 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.200 years to eyebrows due to the constant accumulation of fluid. 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:36.320 And this was a standard medical procedure of the day. Uh. 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.320 But he also he felt no pain when he allegedly 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.000 when this was administered to him. And so by twelve 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:47.320 twenty six, he's almost completely blind. He has a wasted body, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.520 his skin is darkened, he's vomiting blood, suspected liver and 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.680 spleen ailments, headaches, and that same year he dies at 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.800 age forty four, after a life spent traveling off in 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.639 far and travel in poverty, working with the sick, including 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.000 those with leopards. So, in summary, Francis was a guy 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:11.240 who uh lived in poverty on purpose, so subsequently probably 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:15.320 had poor nutritional practices. Uh. He had a history of 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:21.119 exposure to many diseases, especially leprosy, and uh he was 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.679 debilitated by these diseases through probably the last decade of 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.119 his life. Yeah, so we have we have plenty of 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.439 stuff to work with when trying to look for a 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:34.000 purely biological explanation for why this guy would have experienced 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.280 what we would come to know as the stigmata. A 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:39.560 couple other facts about Francis I'd like to throw out 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.680 there before we dive into the disease part. Francis, did 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.879 you know this He was the first person to create 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:49.440 a Nativity scene. Yeah, apparently he was the one who 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.040 had the idea for that around Christmas time, you know, 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:58.120 replicating the Nativity. Uh. And it was only two years 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.359 after he died that he became a saying. He was 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.160 pronounced to saying by the Pope. Yeah, fast turned around. 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.440 You don't get back today, right, I would say that 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.679 that's I don't know, Pope John Paul. But it was 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.879 pretty quick for him. But even still I don't. I 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:14.760 don't think it was within two years. I mean, it's 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.400 also I think important to note about Francis that most 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.840 of the sources we were looking at, uh, there was 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.239 no indication that he made any personal claims to have 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:29.480 suffered or experienced some sort of supernatural Christ like wound 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:31.919 in his body. Yeah. That's what's really interesting about this 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:34.520 is a lot of the accounts and the research that 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.320 looks into the various evidence is that Francis himself was 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.919 very reluctant to talk about the stigmata UH, and in fact, 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.560 you know, didn't want it to be publicized would be 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.160 the wrong word because they didn't exactly have mass media then, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:51.399 but he didn't want it to be something that was 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.480 spoken of. He was actually worried that if it was 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.800 talked about, that his um that he you know, would 0:22:57.840 --> 0:22:59.679 be in trouble, that the grace of God that was 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.760 stowed upon him would be taken away from him. UM. 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:06.000 So he tried to hide the wounds. And there's references 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.320 to him being ill towards the end of his life, 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:12.720 you know, laying in bed, uh, monks tending to him, 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.280 and you know, one I think was like maybe washing 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.960 him or or or reaching to to uh move his 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:22.600 torso and touched the wound in his side, and he, 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:24.840