The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [25]
Bartholomew may have felt this change in his appearance had come upon him as a result of his mystical experience on the operating table. But Castle knew better.
From decades of clinical practice, Castle knew without doubt that the priest’s exterior impression reflected his inner psychological realities. Castle speculated that Bartholomew, now in the grips of his mental illness, was becoming his mental image of what Christ had looked like in life. As an accomplished psychiatrist, Dr. Castle did not believe he was looking at the physical manifestation of the historical Jesus Christ in modern-day New York. He was simply looking at Father Paul Bartholomew’s idea of what he imagined Jesus Christ looked like, perhaps heavily influenced by the Shroud. Castle made a note on Bartholomew’s file to remind him to find out when Bartholomew had first seen the Shroud and to inquire about what impact the Shroud had had on the priest.
“So do you think you can cure me, Dr. Castle?” Bartholomew asked.
“Do you want to be cured?” Castle asked.
“I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with me.”
“Look at you, Paul. Do you think there’s anything about you that’s normal?”
“Let me return the favor,” Bartholomew said wryly. “So you don’t think that your trimmed beard and nicely tailored clothes make you look like Sigmund Freud? All you need is the cigar.”
“Touché,” Castle laughed, appreciating the priest’s intelligence and his wit. “So that’s how you see it? Christ meets Sigmund Freud.”
Bartholomew enjoyed the joke as well. “So, tell me, Dr. Freud, are you sure you don’t want me to help cure you of this delusion? You must have heard by now that I have exceptional healing powers—maybe not as great as yours, but I’m told they’re pretty considerable, just the same. If you let me take you into my own form of analysis, I am sure I could convince you not only that Sigmund Freud died a long time ago but also that there is a God who is very much alive.”
Castle appreciated that Bartholomew was highly intelligent, smart enough to be a particle physicist invited to join the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton at a young age. Einstein had ended his career at the institute and Bartholomew in his years as a physicist had aspired to solve the problems of a unified field theory that Einstein himself had failed to solve.
“But I’ve got to ask you a question,” Castle said, wanting to get serious.
“I’m here to answer your questions,” Bartholomew acknowledged. “Ask away.”
“Why don’t you cut your hair and trim the beard? Maybe if you looked a little less like Jesus Christ, you wouldn’t be seeing a psychiatrist.”
“That’s possible,” Bartholomew answered honestly, “but even if I could return to having short hair and being clean-shaven, I still have the stigmata.”
“Are you telling me there is nothing you can do about your hair?”
“Every time I cut my hair and shave the beard, within a day or two the long hair and beard are back. I’ve tried cutting my hair and trimming my beard three or four times a day, so they don’t get a running start. But even that doesn’t seem to work. If you want to prove it for yourself, we can head to the barber shop right now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Castle said, taking off his reading glasses so he could look Bartholomew directly in the eye. “I’m sure you know I’m an atheist.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m not even certain that Jesus Christ ever really existed. The events happened two thousand years ago. That’s a long time ago. You’re familiar with the Dead Sea scrolls, I assume.”
“Of course.”
“Then it’s quite possible the whole story of Jesus Christ had been made up, out of a misunderstanding about the Essenes, the splinter religious sect that wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, or—who knows?—maybe by some other splinter Jewish religious sect wandering around in the desert of ancient Israel. Who knows if Christianity was invented simply to meet psychological needs these dissident religious groups faced in coping with their occupying captors from Imperial Rome. Besides, the Romans crucified countless thousands of people