Difference between revisions of "Debate:Did Joan of Arc truly hear voices?"

Revision as of 20:33, February 18, 2007

Yes, I believe so as given:

• She didn't have any holes in her personality so schizophrenia isn't very likely.
• She was very practical (which was something missing from the nobility and The Church at this time period) and never had any flaws in her accounts they all fit perfectly into another, so I don't believe she was lying.
• She didn't have one hallucination after another once, sometimes three times, a day which would be very unlikely. That would still not explain how these voices simply stopped after she denied to have them.

The only logical conclusion is that she did hear voices from The Archangel Michael delivering God's message.

--Working for Him 21:14, 17 February 2007 (EST)

I'm not very educated on the subject of Joan of Arc; did she claim that the voices came from Michael? If not, I see no reason to assume they did. They might have come from a demon or something (just another point of view...). At any rate, it seems that she really did hear voices one way or another. --BenjaminS 01:11, 18 February 2007 (EST)

Very, very interesting posting. But why would the Archangel take sides in the war concerning Joan of Arc? And why would divine voices drive her to lose and be viciously murdered? Did Jesus ever hear voices in this manner?

I don't have a clear opinion about this but do have these questions. (Be sure to mark this page as "Watched" so you can be alerted when it changes.)--Aschlafly 21:48, 17 February 2007 (EST)

I don't understand the reasoning here as to why schizophrenia "isn't very likely." Dpbsmith 22:06, 17 February 2007 (EST)

I think only severely ill schizophrenics hear voices, and Joan of Arc seemed far too productive to be suffering from a debilitating disease. I'm not an expert on this issue, but find it fascinating.--Aschlafly 22:32, 17 February 2007 (EST)

John Nash was "really crazy." Specifically, he experienced auditory, visual, and command hallucinations. He won a Nobel Prize in economics. (Unfortunately the excellent movie, A Beautiful Mind, while screenwritten by a man with great knowledge of schizophrenia and a desire to tell the "inner truth" of Nash's life, wrote what was basically a work of fiction about a John-Nash-like character... and I read the equally excellent biography of the same name before the movie and the movie has already blotted out most of the specific details I read in the book...) Dpbsmith 13:39, 18 February 2007 (EST)

It isn't clear to me what we mean by "truly hear" - I presume that means hear voices which were the result of external entities- not that the auditory sections of brains of schizophrenics do in fact light up under fMRI when they are hearing voices. Expanding on Dpb's comment- another relevant example would be Srinivasa Ramanujan an Indian mathematician who claimed that many of his results came from dreams in which he was visited by various hindu deities. I would point out that if one compares Joan of Arc to Ramanujan, there is far more evidence supporting Ramanujan's claims than Joan of Arc's; Ramanujan's results were generally correct (I'm not going to go into specifics because the details are quite complicated, but as far as I am aware, everytime Ramanujan specifcally credited a result to some form of divine revelation, it turned out to be correct). So we have one person making essentially testable claims and the other one not doing so. Now, I don't think anyone here wants to conclude that Ramanujan was getting actual revelations, a fortiori, neither was Joan of Arc. JoshuaZ 14:38, 18 February 2007 (EST)

I don't think we have any way to tell. There are 3 options,

1. She was crazy. This is hard to figure out at this point.
2. She was Lying. Impossible to tell
3. She did hear voices. Also Impossible to tell.

--TimSvendsen 23:42, 17 February 2007 (EST)

Option #1 seems implausible to me. Really crazy people don't do great things like winning battles. Option #2 is a clever suggestion. I don't know how to rule it out, although I don't see why someone would lie. Non-believers claim the Apostles lied about the Resurrection. But why would someone lie to be put to death, as Joan of Arc and the Apostles were?--Aschlafly 23:55, 17 February 2007 (EST)

There is a great book about Joan of Arc by Mark Twain. I beleive she did actually hear voices. If she was lying, would she go to the point of death because she was lying? Then that would be saying she was lying AND she was crazy. There were many investigations made by the Vatican and the Pope of the time (I cant remeber his name) and found that what she spoke was true, therefore canonizing her and proclaimed a Saint and patron of France. Now you should read more on this if you are intrested. Joan of Arc by Mark Twain --Will N. 13:33, 18 February 2007 (EST)

• When the Church canonized her, did they make any judgement on the reality of her voices? I.e. does the Catholic Church take a position on this point? Not a rhetorical question, I haven't studied it and have no idea. (Most of what I "know" about Joan of Arc is from Shaw's play, not exactly a reliable source...) Dpbsmith 15:23, 18 February 2007 (EST)