TEARS OF BLOOD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 554, 5 January 1929, Page 24

TEARS OF BLOOD

MIRACLE MAN EXPOSED Herr Paul Diebel, a fakir or miracleworker who has, it seems, won immense fame in Germany from his power of weeping tears of blood at will and producing the stigmata of the crucified Christ on his outstretched hands, has been displaying his strange gift before Paris audiences, states the “Manchester Guardian’s” correspondent. Of the fact that tears of blood do flow from his eyes and that bloodstains appear on his outstretched palms there is no manner of doubt. A favourite theory of which one heard a good deal in the similar case of the German peasant girl, Theresia Neumann, is that these remarkable manifestations are produced by some as yet unexplored effect of suggestion upon the blood 'capillaries of the skin. A much simpler explanation has been found by Dr. Osty, chief of the Metaphysical Institute, lo whom Diebel made the mistake of submitting himself. Before the shedding of the tears of blood was to be performed Dr. Osty went to the German miracle-worker and turned back his eyelids. He found that the conjunctiva contained many pricks evidently caused by a minute needle contained in the hand. As the “Journal” says, the only tears that Diebel could weep after this discovery were tears of rage. But there remains the stigmata. Undaunted, Diebel undertook to produce these marks. It became at once evident to the trained observation of the French specialists that the miracleworker was doing his level best to keep attention drawn exclusively to his hands. The doctor also remarked that Diebel’s legs were crossed one over the other and pressed together with considerable force. Examining the thigh, he found that this, too, had been scarified and that the purpose oi the pressure was to squeeze out sufficient blood to enable a blood stigma to be placed on the palm of the hand by a surreptitious- movement. For once, j at least, the miracle of the stigma* 3 - seems to have been rationally e *‘ j plained.