Bilocation: Mystical Supernatural Occurrence or Quantum Theory Proven?
By: Alexandria Addesso
In the increasingly business of modern life, in which multitasking has become a necessary survival skill, the old phrase “you can’t be in two places at the same time” seems to be a sobering dose of reality.
But what if you could be in two places at the same time? Would it be a blessing or a burden? How would you be able to physically “act” in two different situations at the same time?
While this may sound impossible and contrary to common logic, there are many, many reported instances of individual bilocating with thousands of witnesses confirming their stories.
Within the realm of science this notion has been a long time coming. Albert Einstein ended up second guessing his own understanding about quantum physics, in which he was the first to embrace that light waves could be in two different places at the same time.
He later disregarded this notion when he famously said, “God does not play dice with the universe.”
But what if such an incomprehensible God did allow such a phenomenon? In the realm of mysticism many faithful believe, and sometimes experience, just that.
Multiple canonized saints were credited with the phenomena of bilocation, in which witnesses stated that their physical bodies were in an ecstasy in one location while they were also physically acting in another. Are these simply visions of the individual or are they literally bilocated?
One of the most commonly known bilocaters is the saint and mystic commonly known as Padre Pio. A Capuchin monk born in 1887 in Pietrelcina, Italy, Pio was known for many of his mystical gifts such as being able to read hearts and his famous stigmata, the manifestation of the bleeding wounds of Jesus during the Crucifixion. But he was also known to bilocate and appears to people in faraway places while his body was also in a trance-like state in his monastery.
“The body of the saint, I believe, is actually bi-located. But, while active in one place outside the monastery, the body that is at the monastery is, so to speak, sleeping, perhaps with just the sensitive part of the soul enlivening the body, whereas the spiritual, or intellectual part of the soul, is with the ‘other’ acting body,” explained Brian Kelly, the editor-in-chief of From the Housetops Magazine, in an article about bilocation. “Or else the inactive body is just soulless, but preserved from death, and in a state of in-animation, trance-like. If the latter is the case, then there is the question of the heart beating and the lungs breathing.”
During World War II multiple Allied fighter pilots reported being stopped from bombing San Giovanni Rotando, where Pio lived and had established a hospital for the poor, by a “flying monk”. An American WWII plane pilot from Philadelphia even credited Padre Pio with once saving his life while Pio was bilocating over the South Pacific.
“The airplane was flying near the airport on the island where it was going to land after it had loaded its bombs. However, the airplane was struck by a Japanese attack plane. The aircraft exploded before the rest of the crew had the chance to parachute. Only I succeeded in going out
of the airplane. I don’t know how I did it. I tried to open the parachute, but I didn’t succeed. I would have smashed to the ground if I had not received a friar’s help who had appeared in mid-air. He had a white beard. He took me in his arms and put me sweetly at the entrance of the base.
You can imagine the astonishment inspired by my story. Nobody could believe it, but given my presence there, they had no choice. I recognized the friar who saved my life some days later while on home leave, I saw the monk in one of my mother’s pictures. He told me he had asked Padre Pio to look after me.”
Another mystic credited with using bilocation WWII was Edvige Carboni. Carboni is said to have bilocated to the battlefield to bring back information about soldiers that had died or gone missing. While imprisoned by the Chinese “Communist” State, Monsignor Guthberth O’Gara, the Passionist Bishop of Nanking, was visited by Carboni. The Chinese guards who saw him reportedly screamed at him in fear and called him “the witch if the Pope.”
The most astonishing of Carboni’s alleged bilocations was the one he made when he visited Stalin. His younger sister reported her saying “You have to convert”, while in their house praying in a state of ecstasy. Carboni later stated that Stalin replied “I will never convert. I will be God’s enemy forever.”
To the common skeptic these stories of modern mystics may seem to be nothing more than modern-day fairy tales. But in 2010 Einstein’s disregarded theory was proven accurate
when Andrew Cleland and John Martinis, two physicists from the University of California at Santa Barbara, built a machine that was able to make very small semiconductor material vibrate in two energy states at once according to the Science Journal.
Although this major step forward in the realm of quantum mechanics is not exactly bilocation, it opens the door to further scientific evidence of it.
