Observations placeholder
Agnes of Jesus, Prioress of Langeac – Certain exceptionally favoured individuals were conscious of her heavenly fragrance
Identifier
024264
Type of Spiritual Experience
Inter composer communication
Hallucination
Background
Friar Herbert Thurston was a Catholic priest, a member of the Jesuit order and an historian. He wrote extensively on Catholic mysticism and psychic phenomena and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research. He was also widely read on this subject. He is described as ‘an honest skeptic’., and once said ‘the role of Devil’s advocate is a thankless one and does not make for popularity’.
A description of the experience
Friar Herbert Thurston - The Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism
The Dominican nun, Agnes of Jesus, Prioress of Langeac, died in 1634, and we have another example of a wonderful perfume, attested by many witnesses, including distinguished lay-folk and medical men. These manifestations were particularly remarked after death in connection with her tomb, and they seem to have been confined to certain exceptionally favoured individuals who suddenly were conscious of a heavenly fragrance and were moved by it to ardent devotion, though to others at the same time the fragrance was not perceptible.
None the less, we further learn that during her lifetime her cell was as it were embalmed with perfume which also at times exhaled from her person.
There are a considerable number of such cases in which little detail is available except by an examination of the processes of beatification, and these are not readily come by, but a general resemblance seems to run through them all, and what has already been said will probably suffice to illustrate the kind of evidence which they offer.