Observations placeholder
Rochas, Albert De - Levitation of the human body – 12 The flying house of Santa-Casa de Notre Dame de Loreto
Identifier
028526
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Although Albert de Rochas calls this levitation, others may call it psychokinesis. It does however, raise a few questions about what the difference is between the two, and it is why the observation has some interest. As we can see from the description, levitation has been arbitrarily assumed to be human, whereas psychokinesis is of objects, but in neither case do we know who or what moved the objects - human or other concerned. Both objects and humans seem to be capable of being raised and even flung about. But the agent could be human or not. And may be self-inflicted or not.
There is clearly some need to treat these two phenomenon together to get a clearer picture for scientific analysis, despite the fact that this observation does stretch incredulity to the very limit.
It is the story of a flying house.
Pious Catholic devotees believe that the house was flown over by Angelic beings from Jerusalem to Tersatto (Trsat in Croatia) then to Recanati before arriving at the current site. The Basilica della Santa Casa (English: Basilica of the Holy House) is in Loreto, Italy. The basilica is known for enshrining the flying house. In other words the Catholic clergy built a shrine to house a shrine. The "house" itself is a plain stone building, 8.5 m by 3.8 m and 4.1 m high; it has a door on the north side and a window on the west; and a niche currently contains a small black image of the Virgin and Child, in Lebanon cedar, and richly adorned with jewels . The walls are made of rubble masonry made of soft sandy stone and brick colour. The introduction by de Rochas is key.
From Albert De Rochas D'Aiglun - Levitation of the human body
I would ask the reader to consider me, here as for some of my other quotations, only as a simple compiler, a rapporteur who exposes the various parts of a trial, leaving it to each of you to judge the degree of trust they deserve. I will therefore limit myself to extracting the essential details of the phenomenon of a long essay devoted to it by Father Lecanu in the dictionary of prophecies and miracles that is part of Father Migne's theological encyclopedia.
I think it is worth removing one’s skeptic hat for a moment to just enjoy the story. Who cares whether it’s true in this case, it is most entertaining.
A description of the experience
from Albert De Rochas D'Aiglun - Levitation of the human body
"On May 10, 1291, on the flattened top of a hill between the cities of Fiume and Tersatz, but closer to the latter, in a place called Rauniza, the inhabitants saw a building they had not seen before.
"We run, we examine; the building is built of stones of small appliance, cut and cemented, laid without foundations on the ground, topped by a bell tower. One enters the interior; the building forms an oblong , the ceiling is painted azure, divided into compartments, strewn with small golden stars. A frieze reigns around it, representing vases of various shapes included in hoops. The walls are covered with a plaster, on which various mysteries of religion have been represented with a brush. A side door gave the entrance, a window opens to the right; opposite is the altar dominated by a Greek cross with the crucifix painted on canvas and glued, and the legend Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews..."
"The Blessed Virgin appeared at that moment in a dream to the venerable Alexander, priest of Tersatz, and said to him: Know that the sacred dwelling recently brought to your country is the very house where I was born and where I spent most of my youth... the Apostles consecrated it... After having been, surrounded by the greatest honours in Galilee for many centuries, she emigrated from the city of Nazareth to your shores because she found herself forgotten by the loss of faith.
"Alexander having told this dream to the governor of the country, commissioners were sent to Nazareth to verify the fact; these commissioners observed, through the testimony of the inhabitants and through their own eyes, the disappearance of the holy dwelling, took the exact measurements of the foundations that had remained at ground level and ensured that the time of the rupture coincided with that of the appearance in Dalmatia...
"The happiness of the inhabitants of Tersatz was not long lasting. After three years and seven months the holy house disappeared. The emotion was great throughout the country. The pious governor, to console his ministers for the loss they had just suffered, built another house like the first one at his own expense ....
"The holy house had been transported to the other side of the Adriatic Gulf, in the middle of a wood, a thousand paces from the shore, near Recanati in the Ancona March. Shepherds saw it first during the night, surrounded by a celestial splendour, which attracted their attention. One of them even claimed to have seen it flying through the air and landing on the ground."
The surrounding woods were populated by bandits who, more than once, murdered the pilgrims who had rushed to get there. So the sojourn of the holy house was very short in this place; after eight months it left it and went two miles away to a small hill where it was not yet at will, for after four months it came down from the top of the hill and settled, at the distance of a stone's throw, in the middle of the public road, at the point where it is still standing today.
The Supreme Pontiff, Boniface VIII, ordered the Bishop of Recanati to take the necessary steps to make an authentic statement of such extraordinary facts. A deputation, composed of sixteen people, left Recanati for Tersatz. The deputies took the dimensions of the chapel that the inhabitants had just erected in the place of the holy house; they found that they related exactly to those they had raised before their departure; they went from there to Palestine, noted the existence of the foundations at the indicated place, took the dimensions, consulted the traditions and convinced themselves that everything was in conformity with what had been announced to them first. Their stay in Recanati removed the last doubts.