Was Saint Joan of Arc merely insane? We think NOT!

Glorious saint led French to victory over English occupiers.

Saint Joan of Arc said she heard divine voices which led her to repeated victories over the English. Her success appeared to be divinely inspired and it resulted in the coronation of Charles VII as king of France. But some neurologists think Joan of Arc had a medical condition, instead of divine inspiration.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Neurologists from the Universities of Foggia and Bologna think Saint Joan of Arc had a condition which caused her to hear voices. They believe her experiences are consistent with a form of epilepsy.

Saint Joan of Arc was a peasant girl born in 1412. By the time she was 13, she reported hearing voices. The voices told her to lead France to victory over England in the Hundred Years War.

She quickly became renown for her piety and her call to fight back against the English resonated with many. She manged to visit Charles, the dauphin of France. With his support, she became the de facto leader of an army. She led that army carrying a banner that read "Jesus, Mary." The army defeated the English who were besieging the city of Orleans.

Although she was a teenager, she rallied the French to the cause and soon the dauphin became King Charles VII of France.

However, once Charles was king, he abandoned Joan as if she were a liability. The English staged a plot to capture her. She was put on trial for heresy and provided detailed descriptions of her experiences. Saint Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a witch in 1431. The reports of her experiences have become the focus of study centuries later.

Doctors have suggested that Saint Joan of Arc may have suffered from a rare form of epilepsy that causes people to hear voices. It's a condition known as idiopathic partial epilepsy. One of its traits is "auditory epileptic hallucinations."

There is one way they might be able to prove the hypothesis. A single strand of hair is rumored to exist, trapped in the wax of a sealed document she sent. The hair would contain DNA that could show whether or not she had the gene for the illness.

However, none of this is conclusive. How was Joan, a peasant girl with no formal training, able to command an army? How was she able to defeat experienced English generals? How did she persuade a dauphin, or electrify the French people, if not by power of the Holy Spirit? Saint Joan also reported hearing voices almost daily. This is much more frequent than normal for the disease.

Epilepsy seems an insufficient answer in this case.

Saint Joan of Arc was canonized in 1920 and remains one of the world's most popular and influential saints. Whether she was ill or divinely inspired is up to the reader to decide. For the record, we still suspect the Holy Spirit!