“ A Subject of Investigation ”: Miracle at Mirebeau

Abstract

In 1914, “on Monday, May nth”, as Yeats noted precisely, he, Maud Gonne, and Everard Feilding arrived at Mirebeau, France, “to investigate a miracle”: bleeding oleographs of the sacred heart. Almost immediately, certainly before May 17, Yeats dictated an essay to Maud Gonne to record the details of their investigation and his own rather guarded evaluation. Mauds manuscript and a clean typescript which follows it carefully, even to occasional eccentricities of punctuation, are preserved in Yeats’s papers. Although he clearly intended to publish the essay, he did not supervise the typing nor revise it, as he surely would have, if he had prepared it for publication.

Yeats did not give his essay a title. I am indebted to Senator Michael Yeats for an opportunity to read Feilding’ s unpublished letters to Yeats and for permission to print the essay herein. I am also indebted to Mrs. I. Barry and Mrs. R. Tickell, of the Society for Psychical Research, for access to the Library and for generous assistance with information about the work of the Society (hereafter cited as SPR).