The saint's abstinence from food dates from a
time when she prayed that the throat disease of a young man of her
parish, then preparing to enter holy orders, be transferred to her
own throat.
On Thursday afternoon our party drove to the home of the bishop,
who looked at my flowing locks with some surprise. He readily
wrote out the necessary permit. There was no fee; the rule made by
the Church is simply to protect Therese from the onrush of casual
tourists, who in previous years had flocked on Fridays by the
thousands.
We arrived Friday morning about nine-thirty in Konnersreuth. I
noticed that Therese's little cottage possesses a special glass-roofed
section to afford her plenty of light. We were glad to see the
doors no longer closed, but wide-open in hospitable cheer. There
was a line of about twenty visitors, armed with their permits. Many
had come from great distances to view the mystic trance.
Therese had passed my first test at the professor's house by her
intuitive knowledge that I wanted to see her for spiritual reasons,
and not just to satisfy a passing curiosity.
My second test was connected with the fact that, just before I
went upstairs to her room, I put myself into a yogic trance state
in order to be one with her in telepathic and televisic rapport. I
entered her chamber, filled with visitors; she was lying in a white
robe on the bed. With Mr. Wright following closely behind me, I
halted just inside the threshold, awestruck at a strange and most
frightful spectacle.
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