By

Virginia Frohlick

"Marcia Quinn Noren’s paper, "The Mystic Legacy of Jeanne d’Arc" gently guides non-Catholics into a deeper understanding of Joan’s spirituality. Her intention is to reach them, exactly where they are. Her manner of opening them to Joan’s miraculous life is tender, loving and nurturing. Joan’s reverence for the Blessed Mother is expressed, and credit is fully given to the ultimate source of her amazing attributes; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Son of God and Lord of the Universe, the One Whose name Joan cried out seven times at the moment of her death; Jesus, the Christ.

By

Marcia Quinn Noren

"Six years of research and three separate field trips to France have allowed me to trace Jeanne d'Arc's footsteps across landscapes and battlefields, into monuments and crypts where the scents, sounds and sights of the physical world she inhabited have not changed all that much, in nearly six hundred years. My intention is to present an intimate portrait of the enigmatic Maid of Orleans who at age seventeen, appeared publicly for the first time as an extraordinarily active prophet and transcendent physical warrior. Initiated by the Archangel Michael in her father's garden at the age of thirteen, she kept her mission to unite France a secret for four years before stepping into her heroic destiny."

"Thank you for your excellent paper. It shows your devotion to the topic. You certainly did extensive research." Dr. Ruth Inge Heinze, University of California, Berkeley, California.

by

Marcia Quinn Noren

Prepared for Presentation at the Nineteenth International Conference on the Study of Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing Held at Santa Sabina Center, San Rafael CA, August 31 through September 2, 2002, Set for Publication in 2002 as part of the Conference Proceedings by Dr. Ruth Inge Heinze

Controversy stems from the great number of baffling elements in her story. Jeanne d’Arc was a mystic who declared openly that her ability to alter the course of human events came through knowledge gained during personal interactions with messengers from the divine realm. Through their direct counsel during the course of each day, she became able to facilitate large scale "manifestations in the Here and Now," activating what Ruth-Inge Heinze describes as the "dynamic relationships between the explicate and implicate order." (Footnote 1)

The immediate and long-range results of the work Jeanne d’Arc completed during her brief lifetime have been measured and legitimized by the place she is seen to hold, closing out the Age of Chivalry on the time line of history. The effects of her actions, described by witnesses as miraculous, have not been successfully set aside as mythological events, by scientific materialists.

Although her mystic legacy is identified with medieval, Judeo-Christian references and symbols, Jeanne d’Arc’s behavior clearly has not been understood by the Western culture she came out of; not by feminists or historians, not even by theologians within her own tradition. At the turn of this millennium, she was portrayed in feature films and scholarly biographies alike, as a zealot whose visions and voices are most often discounted as the inventions of a vivid, if brilliant imagination.

In lifting her out of the conceptual "box" in which she has been historically studied, rigid paradigms can be released as new ones become established for understanding her particularly active form of mysticism. Viewing her life through a lens that considers the study of shamanism allows a bridge to be built across time and geography that includes all cultures and all eras.

The increasing volume of inter-disciplinary research exploring the dynamics of shamanism is a branch of study through which Jeanne d’Arc and her mastery over multiple dimensions can become more clearly understood and comfortably defined. Her work was shamanic in that it was initiated for only one purpose, to restore her community to well being and wholeness. She actively engaged Heaven’s help, to heal all that she knew of Earth.

She can also be seen as the personification of the Divine Child, a girl who was called, "Daughter of God," by her guides. Records from two separate medieval trials provide the most reliable source of evidence about her. Translated into contemporary French only as recently as the middle of the nineteenth century, the transcripts have been widely published, and can be accessed on the Internet. (Footnote 2) An excellent analysis and rich discussion of the trial records can be found in, "Jeanne d’Arc, by Herself and Her Witnesses, by the universally respected, late French historian, Regine Pernoud. (Footnote 3)

Both trials provide clear evidence that Jeanne d’Arc was not schizophrenic, hysterical, narcissistic or grandiose. On the contrary, witnesses to her behavior describe her disposition as that of a calm, clear thinking, integrated personality who acted with precision. Historic chronicles, biographies, novels and essays do not always leave this impression, as they resonate with the subjective tone of each author’s era, culture, religious background, psychological profile, sources of information, and so on.

Testimony given by Jeanne d’Arc during her trial provides the answers to many questions that anyone would want to ask her, if given the opportunity. Speaking in her own defense under the most extreme pressure imaginable, she resisted being bullied by the ecclesiastic court. She announced her intention to answer their questions selectively, as she was under direction by her celestial counsel to use discretion in these disclosures. Her voice is bold and consistent, and challenges the ecclesiastics’ fundamental right to judge her.

Unlike other Christian mystics who had emerged out of a convent or sect, she stepped autonomously and suddenly into her destiny at the center of a savage war. What is not so commonly known, is that her initiation into the role that would eventually become hers took place a few years earlier, when she received a visitation in the form of an archangel from the Old Testament whose Hebrew name is "Mi-Col-El," "Voice of God."

"Who is Saint Michael?" This question was not asked of her, during the trial. His identity was well known to Western Europeans of every class, during the Middle Ages. In France, the monument on Normandy’s coast dedicated to him is one of the seven man-made wonders of the world, created over centuries of time. "Le Mont St. Michel" rises toward heaven from the silt of circling tides below. In this place, where through the ages, knights, monks, kings and pilgrims have sought refuge; no foreign invaders have ever succeeded in overtaking it. At the time of Jeanne d’Arc’s birth, this was seen as evidence of Michael the Archangel’s invincibility.

Rabbi Morris B. Margolies speaks of Michael in A Gathering of Angels: Angels in Jewish Life and Literature. Found throughout ancient Hebrew mysticism as "the archetype of all Jewish angels; guardian and lifesaver, through all of the Rabbinic literature," of all the angels, only Michael was designated as the "Prince of Israel, the special guardian and role model of the Jewish people." (Footnote 7)

In sculptures and paintings of Michael, at times he is seen carrying the scales of justice. Most often he holds a shield, appearing as a calm warrior in armor, hair streaming, giant wings unfurled. His sword is drawn and poised to strike the entity braced beneath his foot; depicted sometimes as a reptilian creature, but more often, a diabolical human form.

This image presents him in his Biblical role at the head of God’s protective forces, the "victorious one" who casts the embodiment of evil out of heaven. Jeanne d’Arc expressed the emotions she felt, upon experiencing his presence.

What is known about Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret? Each of these women lived during the 4^th century, but neither was known to the West, until after the 9^th century. During the Middle Ages, they had become extraordinarily popular saints in Europe, as early Christian martyrs who had gone defiantly to their deaths. Jeanne d’Arc would become unwillingly martyred herself, at the tender age of nineteen. Catherine and Margaret died under torture, at the hands of those in the highest ranks of power, during their eras.

Sculptures of Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine adorn the walls of most Medieval Catholic churches. A stone image of Margaret stands in the parish church where Jeanne d’Arc was baptized. In the nearby village of Maxey, there is a statue of Saint Catherine. Jeanne revered both of these images, during her lifetime. Some biographers have been led to suggest that when she became pressed for concrete information on the witness stand, her early familiarity with these ancient saints triggered the subconscious invention of their identities as those belonging to her voices. Her own testimony refutes that theory.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Egypt and Saint Margaret of Antioch, Syria led lives that are not supported by written documentation, in their respective parts of the Middle East. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia allows that this factor will disappoint scholars, but nonetheless, verbal traditions that supported their legends have survived to continue their influence into the 21^st Century.

Unlike Jeanne d’Arc, Catherine and Margaret were both highly educated, and strikingly beautiful. They were each so charismatic and skilled at public oration, their speeches converted entire crowds of former adversaries to Christianity. In remembrance of Saint Margaret of Antioch, it should be mentioned that she is still credited with contemporary miracles, and invoked as protector of pregnant mothers when they enter the throes of childbirth. In images of her, she is seen to be graceful and serene, while in the company of a dragon. Legend says that when swallowed by the beast, she burst forth from its belly. She holds a quill pen in some portraits, symbolic of her education and skill with language.

The Shrine of Saint Catherine, at the base of Mount Sinai contains her remains and a great monastery, where a library of sacred texts is kept, considered second only to that held in the Vatican. Astrophysicist and mystic Gregg Braden was allowed to enter the library there, after appealing to the graciousness of the monks who live and work inside. He observed them using computer technology to scan these sacred texts, in a race to preserve them for humankind. The monks told Braden that they had perceived the threat of destruction coming, in the form of a "Great War" that will threaten the survival of everything inside the shrine, and their lives. (Footnote 11)

That Michael, Catherine and Margaret were the identities behind the "voices" that advised Jeanne d’Arc during the course of her mission does not seem arbitrary, when considering their combined attributes. Witnesses to her heroic levels of physical and mental agility speak to her sudden acquisition of these strengths, in their testimonies.

Called to the city of Toul, she defended herself before an ecclesiastic judge for the first time at age sixteen, executing a winning rebuttal against a man who claimed she had been promised to him, in marriage. During their lifetimes, Catherine and Margaret had both refused men who attempted to press them into marriage as well, and were subsequently executed, as radically independent women of faith.

After her guides began their daily visitations, (she testified they came to her each day, and sometimes many times within twenty-four hours, whenever she had need of them and when they called her to their attention), she went about her life without dissociating, or psychologically "splitting." She was seen to fall into a state of prayerful rapture, rather than trance. Her overt behavior did not display an altered perception of reality, nor did she speak excessively. She used great discretion and discernment. An active sense of humor was expressed in verbal and physical interplay, with her comrades of arms.

Witnesses to her childhood describe a particularly joyful, reverent, obedient girl, whose birth date was remembered because it fell on a holy day; January’s Feast of Epiphany, 1412. Like all peasants in that time and place, her family was illiterate, and birth records were not accurately kept. Her natal village, in the northeastern region of Lorraine, was named for Saint Remy, the sixth century Bishop of Rheims who crowned Clovis, the first king of the Franks.

Next door to the family home, bells rang out from the church tower that night, announcing that Isabelle Romee, wife to Jacques d’Arc, had given birth to her second daughter and fifth child, Jehanette. She would testify that she had learned the Lord’s Prayer, Apostle’s Creed, and "Hail Mary" directly from her mother. In love with the sound of church bells, she was baptized and confirmed under Romanesque arches inside the sanctuary, and received the Eucharist at Easter.

The Hundred Years War impacted daily life in Jeanne d’Arc’s village. When roving mercenaries threatened to pillage Domremy, she drove her father’s cattle to a shelter nearby. She hid with her family in the neighboring city of Neufchateau’s walled refuge, while Domremy was sacked and burned by Burgundian soldiers, allied with English troops. Pestilence had returned to ravage the population of France at the turn of the fifteenth century, in the form of the Black Plague.

Two institutions, the French monarchy and Catholic Church formed a single governmental power structure over the populace, but the royal House of Valois was nonetheless at that particular time, in an advanced state of dissipation, denial, and bankruptcy. Charles VI was declared mad, during his reign. The legitimacy of his son, Charles who was the dauphin (heir to the throne) was in serious question. During this crisis, the French army had been left to languish without financial support or provisions, and had become hopelessly ineffective in fighting against ongoing English invasion.

These are just a few of the many extreme circumstances that called out for an extraordinary solution, in that moment and that geographic place. Twentieth century mystic Abd-Ru-Shin describes this portal, through which the Grail Seeker passes.

The degree of human suffering seen in early fifteenth century France is comparable to that recorded in Biblical history. In completing her heroic mission, it is appropriate that Christian and medieval heraldic symbols dominate Jeanne d’Arc’s mystic legacy. These traditions bonded the people of France to their origins physically, emotionally and spiritually.

When Saint Remy, another great orator, crowned Clovis after baptizing him as a Christian at Rheims Cathedral, three important metaphysical symbols emerged from this first coronation rite that would permanently link the French monarchy with the Catholic Church. First, Rheims would become the one and only sanctuary accepted by the people of France as that country’s legitimate coronation site.

Second, a holy vial known as the Ampulla was (and is) kept in the Abbey of Rheims. It contains the sacre, (consecrated oil), that had sanctified every French coronation. First used to anoint Clovis, it had been delivered to Saint Remy, in the beak of a dove.

The legend of the third symbol, the golden lilies of France or fleurs de lys, comes from Clovis. He had been a pagan until he reached desperation during a crisis. In the heat of battle, he prayed to the God of his Christian wife, Clotilda and won the fight, with his strength having been redoubled. Each of the crescents on his shield became mysteriously replaced by a golden lily (formed by three bound petals), representing the Trinity. From that point forward, the fleur de lys would be the symbol identified with the all the monarchs of France, with the Church, and would also become associated with Jeanne d’Arc’s crest and family name. (Footnote 13)

There has been a mysterious absence of attention given to an important detail that seems obviously relevant, as related to Jeanne d’Arc’s personal spiritual connection to the symbol of the fleur. During the years of her childhood, she regularly visited a shrine, Our Lady of Bermont, located at some distance from her village, above the densely wooded forest of oaks known as the Bois Chesnu. Offering privacy and solitude, she was drawn to go there on Saturdays, for prayer and meditation.

Sometimes accompanied by her sister Catherine, she took a footpath that ascends uphill to the northeast, to a clearing in the wood. In this glade scattered with yellow wild flowers in spring, she gathered bouquets to place at the feet of a wooden statue, housed inside the shrine. Our Lady of Bermont, the polychrome sculpture revered by Jehanette, wears a simple crown of faded gold. Her robes are painted in rich hues of blue, magenta and red.

She stands poised, a young mother cradling her toddler, a smiling, animated cherubic image of Jesus, in the crook of her left arm. The source of his cheerfulness might appear to be the tiny bird he holds. But then it becomes clear to the viewer that his attention is drawn to something else. Atop a slender scepter, grasped in his mother’s right hand, is a symbol that holds his gaze, transfixed. It is the fleur de lys, the "Lily of France."

The young Jehanette, who meditated before this impressive imagery, would carry the symbols she revered into her role as a spiritual leader when she became "La Pucelle, "The Maid." Across the banner she carried as beacon of focus for her soldiers, the names "Jhesus" and "Maria" were prominently displayed. These sacred names preceded the text of every letter that she dictated to her scribes. On the index finger of her left hand, she wore a simple band engraved with three crosses, and these names.

After the onset of daily celestial visitations, Jeanne d’Arc’s demeanor became more serious, as the nature of her mission became outlined. She would be led to travel a great distance from home, through innumerable halls of power, into a specific chain of events. She learned to trust that infinite resources would become available to her, as circumstances warranted.

When she protested that she had no experience in such forms of leadership, that she knew nothing about riding and warfare, her voices reassured her that she would be led to operate quickly and effectively among those who held authority. She would succeed in convincing them to allow her access to the long disabled royal court and French army. Encouraged by her spiritual counselors to be verbally bold and forthright, her purity of intention and humility was so charismatic that others were held spellbound. Upon her arrival at Chinon, she identified the dauphin who tried to hide his identity from her, then six weeks later, took the staff of leadership from his chiefs of war.

Her words and personal presence had the effect of spiritually and physically electrifying others, charging them with renewed faith and limitless energy. Evidence supports this on every page of her story. From the first day that she disclosed her identity and purpose, in January of 1429, she was infused with belief that God would allow her to deliver what she promised. In order to do so, she successfully disengaged the forces of influence within the court that opposed her and sought to block her from gaining forward momentum.

She convinced Charles, his advisors, soldiers and comrades that if she were allowed to lead the French army and regain control of Orleans quickly, nothing would stop them from going all the way to take back Paris. French victory would come swiftly she said, empowered by God, but dependent upon her army’s faith. After her prophetic, hard won victories along the Loire beyond Orleans, what followed became known as the miracle of the "Bloodless March," when ranks of English soldiers turned-tail and ran, upon the very sight of her.

Jeanne d’Arc believed that the English invasion of France must come to an end, in order for peace to return. Although she has been criticized for not attempting passive resistance, in letters sent to English leaders, she offered them opportunity to go back to their own country, immediately or face imminent destruction by her army. The plan she carried out was effective. In taking back France from English domination "by storm," swiftly and suddenly, lives were spared on both sides. She knew that the subsequent crowning of Charles VII would end the carnage in France, and repair interior boundaries that had been torn ragged, by one hundred years of war.

Her optimism came from having been told by her angelic counsel that within a single year from her instigating this sequence of action, the people of France who had dissipated under foreign invasion and been divided by civil war, would become united. Her voices constantly reminded her that she was the only human being capable of fulfilling this particular assignment, and that it had come directly to her, from God. She could not say "no."

Three years passed after her first visitation from Michael, during which she kept her own counsel, refraining from confiding in anyone. Sometime during this period, her mother warned her of a dream in which her father had seen her leaving home with soldiers. She testified that he threatened to drown her, if she should attempt it, and assigned her brothers to guard her, carefully. She kept her intentions to leave and the presence of her guides a secret from everyone; including her mother, the priest of her parish church, and her closest friend, Hauviette.

One of the most captivating, extraordinary aspects of Jeanne d’Arc’s story is the speedy pace at which major pivotal events unfolded, once she left Domremy and arrived in Vaucouleurs. When the time line is studied, it becomes clear that her influence was brief, but explosive. She had just turned seventeen before her arrival at the castle of Sir Robert de Boudricourt, whom her guides had said she would recognize on sight as the man whose approval she must receive, before she could begin her mission. Dressed in a hooded red cape, she introduced herself for the first time using the name that she had been given by her voices, Jehanne; La Pucelle, or, "The Maid."

Four months later, she had already raised the siege of Orleans and was preparing Charles to receive his crown at Rheims, which would take place in July. Before being cleared for action to achieve these specific goals, she was interrogated for several weeks by tribunals of learned men, in the city of Poitiers. The documents from those sessions were never found, thought to have been burned by the Bishop of Rheims during her lifetime, and would have provided the most exonerating evidence. She referred to these records frequently in her testimony, saying that she had answered their questions, before.

Her answers at Poitiers convinced literally everyone in power that she had been graced with divine inspiration. A pelvic examination confirmed her virginity and brought assurance to all that she had been carefully and completely tested, and that she had neither consorted with Satan, nor obtained her powers through sorcery.

In the month of April, La Pucelle prepared herself for war. She was guided to call for a specific sword that her voices said was buried behind an altar in the Church of Saint Catherine, in the city of Fierbois. She was told that it would be recognizable by its bearing five crosses. It was brought to her from that place having appeared miraculously; coming to her from out of the earth, much in the way Excalibur had come to King Arthur, from out of the water. She would use it in leading her troops, blade pointed downward with the hilt elevated, to form a cross. During the assault, the Sword of Saint Catherine was not just a symbol. It received and struck blows. But in her testimony, Jeanne d’Arc testified that she had never taken a life with it.

Her spiritual guides directed the design of her white battle standard. Over the field of golden fleur de lys, were sewn many religious images, symbols and names held sacred by her sovereign, Charles, and by the community she sought to make whole again. In the month following her release from questioning at Poitiers, she was fitted to a suit of plain (white) heavy armor, and trained hard for her role ahead, as an equestrian warrior.

She was gifted with a second horse by the Duke of Alencon, when upon their first meeting, she impressed him with her riding and jousting skills. He would become one of her most trusted comrades of arms. Her traveling stable would grow to include five coursers (war-horses, or destriers), and more than seven trotters, used for traveling from place to place. (Footnote 14)

Dictating letters of ultimatum to the English, she began to express strong opinions about matters of strategy, as the time to launch an attack on the Orleans approached. This was to be her most important battle, though by no means, the last. With Orleans liberated on May 8, 1429, she did not allow her armies to rest on their laurels, nor did she allow Charles to become distracted.

By mid-June, she had had led her army to reclaim several towns along the Loire. Next, Jeanne d’Arc turned her attention directly to Charles, moving him safely through enemy held territory, toward Rheims Cathedral. It is my personal theory that the divine purpose behind his crowning had nothing to do with his being well suited to the role of monarch. He was quite simply and fairly, next in line to inherit the crown. Of greatest importance to Jeanne d'Arc in what she was given to understand of The Sacred, was that this ritual take place on the consecrated ground of Rheims. She knew that the people of France would authenticate Charles as their monarch only if he were crowned in that sanctuary, along with the holy symbols that had long characterized the rite of coronation.

If she had not believed fully in Charles, she could not have gone forward, with any of this. What her guides instructed her to do, she did. As has been seen, through legitimizing him, France did return to wholeness. History has not found him worthy of her life, but she did not judge or condemn him. Shortly after his crowning, his support of her began to wane.

Her capture came on September 8, 1430 during an assault launched to secure the city of Compiegne, without an adequate army. She had already experienced losses but continued to gather what troops she could for these last pitiful skirmishes, knowing that time was of the essence. Her spiritual guides had warned her that within one year, her time for effective action would be over and finished, although she was not certain exactly how her freedom would come to an end. She was told that after her capture, she would in fact, be led to Paradise.

During her military career, she had been seen to heal from her own death- threatening injuries. She both predicted and prevented the deaths of other people. Nonetheless, during the trial, she remained in denial that her fate would be to die in the only manner that terrified her, by fire. When informed on May 30, 1431 that she would face this form of death on that very same day, she tore at her hair and named the man she believed was responsible for engineering her betrayal. She faced the robed figure of Pierre Cauchon, who had instigated and fueled the trial’s proceedings and said, "Bishop, I die by you!" (Footnote 15)

She condemned no one else, and at the stake, forgave everyone who had harmed her. Before dying, she was allowed to receive the Eucharist again. She had been deprived of either confessing to her personal priest or receiving the Eucharist, since her capture. During her military career, she had observed this ritual almost daily. The rigorous observance of spiritual ritual was required of her soldiers, as well. She barred prostitutes and forbade cursing in her camps, creating a radical change in conventional behavior. In order to honor the source of her their strength, she insisted that they kneel in prayer before battle. Her first personal act after each victory was to find a sanctuary within which to give thanks to God, Jhesus, Maria, Michael, Catherine and Margaret.

La Pucelle’s final prophecy was spoken at the stake. She expressed grief that the city of Rouen would eventually suffer, for her life having been taken there. As World War II neared its close, bombs fell directly over Rouen’s public square of execution, the Place de Marché on May 30, 1944, the five hundred and thirteenth anniversary of Jeanne d’Arc’s death. The destruction that day leveled a 12^th century church that had stood near the stake, and over 9,500 homes. (Footnote 16)

In remembering her death, it is important to understand how hard she fought to continue living. Without having been given the opportunity to become a woman, she remains forever in our minds as the girl whose faith changed history. One of my favorite images of her is at seventeen, when she was about to depart forever, the countryside she had been born into. She turned to thank the citizens of Vaucouleurs who had been the first people to believe she had been sent by God to relieve their miseries. They had provided her with shelter and food, while she prayed and waited after being twice refused permission to leave.

Clothed in leggings and tunic, she mounted her first horse and approached the arched monument of stone known as "the Gate of France" that stands today near the ruins of de Boudricourt’s castle. She assured the crowd who assembled to wish her well that divine protection would guard them as she and her company of six men rode eleven straight days and nights to the castle of Chinon, through enemy territory, in late February’s deep cold. The words she spoke on that day were simple, and clear. "I was born for this!" (Footnote 17)