Lights of Madness: In Search of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc's legend has been embraced by diverse worldly ideologies, all competing for her meaning---icon, lunatic, early feminist, possibly a man? In this book Joan of Arc's trials and imagery are traced through the centuries, leading to modern scientific research to explain what is considered, or dismissed, as miraculous. Preston Russell examines the three trials of Joan; Joan's transformation in history and literature; and, as a physician, the evolution of insanity from antiquity to current brain research, presently probing the origins of consciousness to higher sources---opening up avenues that a few decades ago would have been dismissed as scientific madness. Does God speak to individuals directly? Are some human beings born with such a keen intuitive power that they can communicate with supernatural beings? Does God use otherwise ordinary people as the conduits for his miracles? And can science provide an answer to mankind's eternal search for God? Through Joan of Arc, Preston Russell provides a startling conclusion, achieving a reconciliation of science and religion, uniting the physical and the metaphysical.