Ancient Cosmology & Civilisational Memory
ปาฏิหาริย์ กษัตริย์อังกฤษ-ฝรั่งเศส พลังศักดิ์สิทธิ์ รักษาโรคได้ด้วยมือสัมผัส
Summary
In medieval Europe it was believed that a king blessed by God could cure serious disease with a single touch of his hand.
The belief became a sacred rite that English and French kings performed for centuries.
The question is whether what happened was genuine divine power, or an unprovable phenomenon of the human mind.
The rite eventually fell out of use, and the manner of its decline is itself evidence about where it came from.
Key points
The rite was real and long-lived
Not folklore, but a state ceremony with continuous records.
Both England and France practised it
Both courts used it to affirm the legitimacy of the crown.
The ceremony did political work
Healing by hand demonstrated that royal authority came from God.
A psychological explanation is available
Expectation and faith genuinely affect symptoms in many cases.
Its decline is informative
When the underlying belief changed, so did the rite’s effect.