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During the months which Vespasian spent at Alexandria waiting for the regular season of the summer winds to ensure a\u00a0safe voyage, there occurred many miraculous events manifesting the goodwill of Heaven and the special favour of\u00a0Providence towards him. At Alexandria a poor workman who was well known to have a disease of the eye, acting on the\u00a0advice of Serapis,whom this superstitious people worship as their chief god, fell at Vespasian’s feet demanding with\u00a0sobs a cure for his blindness, and imploring that the emperor would deign to moisten his eyes and eyeballs with the\u00a0spittle from his mouth. Another man with a maimed hand, also inspired by Serapis, besought Vespasian to imprint his\u00a0footmark on it. At first Vespasian laughed at them and refused. But they insisted. Half fearing to be thought a fool,\u00a0half stirred to hopes by their petition and by the flattery of his courtiers, he eventually told the doctors to form an\u00a0opinion whether such cases of blindness and deformity could be remedied by human aid.
\nThe doctors talked round the question, saying that in the one case the power of sight was not extinct and would return,\u00a0if certain impediments were removed; in the other case the limbs were distorted and could be set right again by the\u00a0application of an effective remedy: this might be the will of Heaven and the emperor had perhaps been chosen as the\u00a0divine instrument. They added that he would gain all the credit, if the cure were successful, while, if it failed, the\u00a0ridicule would fall on the unfortunate patients. This convinced Vespasian that there were no limits to his destiny:\u00a0nothing now seemed incredible. To the great excitement of the bystanders, he stepped forward with a smile on his face\u00a0and did as the men desired him.
\nImmediately the hand recovered its functions and daylight shone once more in the blind man’s eyes. Those who were\u00a0present still attest both miracles to-day, when there is nothing to gain by lying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nThe report was written in about AD 108, long after the Flavian dynasty of Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian had\u00a0passed into history. According to C. S. Lewis, the same incident is also reported by Suetonius and Dion Cassius. It is\u00a0worth noting that, despite the status of Roman Emperors as gods, no other such reports are discussed in Lewis’ book.\u00a0Tacitus’ discussion continues as follows.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThis occurrence deepened Vespasian’s desire to visit the holy-place and consult Serapis about the fortunes of the\u00a0empire. He gave orders that no one else was to be allowed in the temple, and then went in. While absorbed in his\u00a0devotions, he suddenly saw behind him an Egyptian noble, named Basilides, whom he knew to be lying ill several days’\u00a0journey from Alexandria. He inquired of the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple that day. He inquired of\u00a0every one he met whether he had been seen in the city. Eventually he sent some horsemen, who discovered that at the\u00a0time Basilides was eighty miles away. Vespasian therefore took what he had seen for a divine apparition, and guessed\u00a0the meaning of the oracle from the name ‘Basilides’. [I.e. king’s son.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/div>\nReading Tacitus, one glimpses the Weltanschauung of a bygone era. The structure of beliefs is held and expressed with\u00a0the same superior confidence in which we today indulge when discussing Tacitus. Was this crowd of spiritual beings\u00a0impinging on human affairs the busy invention of overactive imaginations? The modern view is an immediate and emphatic\u00a0“yes”. Perhaps, though, some other forces were at work.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAs we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her\u00a0owners much gain by soothsaying. She followed Paul and us, crying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who\u00a0proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. But Paul was annoyed, and turned and said to the\u00a0spirit, “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her\u00a0owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before\u00a0the rulers… [Acts 16; 16-19]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/div>\nLiberation from spiritual bondage is a theme that runs through the Gospels, and this story from Acts illustrates a\u00a0process of what might be called spiritual displacement. There are however, other ways to displace magic from human\u00a0affairs. One may simply abolish it by a change in the perspectives by which one accredits knowledge. Michael Polanyi, a\u00a0passionate advocate of scientific epistemology, illustrates this.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAstrology has been sustained for 3000 years by empirical evidence confirming the predictions of horoscopes. This\u00a0represents the longest chain of historically known empirical generalisations. For many prehistoric centuries the\u00a0theories embodied in magic and witchcraft appeared to be strikingly confirmed by events in the eyes of those who\u00a0believed in magic and witchcraft. Lecky rightly points out that the destruction of belief in witchcraft during the\u00a0sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was achieved in the face of an overwhelming, and still rapidly growing, body of\u00a0evidence for its reality. Those who denied that witches existed did not attempt to explain this evidence at all, but\u00a0successfully urged that it be disregarded. Glanvill, who was one of the founders of the Royal Society, not unreasonably\u00a0denounced this method as unscientific, on the ground of the professed empiricism of contemporary science.
\n[M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, 1958, 1962, p 168]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nWhere has this ramble led me? To this: magic and miracle are the darkness and the light of the spiritual influences in\u00a0the physical world. There are those who believe that the philosophy of scientific materialism is the new Philosopher’s\u00a0Stone, which has turned the gold of supernatural Christian reality into the dross of a spiritually barren, utterly\u00a0material reality. The good news \u2014 a tiny fragment of the Good News \u2014 is that this view is false, and has been\u00a0collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions for most of the last century. It, like the mental universe of\u00a0Tacitus, will pass away. Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis the materialist, “…but my words will not pass away.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI will finish with something from a woman, who, in spite of her Medusa-headed political correctness; in spite of her\u00a0fashionable furies; in spite of her elaborate exhibitionism, knows more about the Christian reality than many in the\u00a0Church today.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI became a Catholic priest in 1999, largely, I think, because I’m the type of woman that doesn’t like to get told what\u00a0to do by men, and I wanted to demonstrate that we don’t have to take no for an answer. There are an awful lot of women\u00a0out there would like to be priests, and the Pope says they can’t be, but there are a number of bishops who will ordain\u00a0women regardless. And, given that it’s a magic ritual, once a bishop ordains you, you are a priest, and there’s nothing\u00a0anyone can do about it. (And I do believe in magic, obviously.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n