29 MAY 1947, Page 16

THE PSYCHIC IN MIRACLES

Sm,—I have just finished reading with much interest and admiration The Rise of Christianity, by Bishop Barnes, which was recently reviewed in The Spectator by Canon Raven. To my mind, the Bishop, by his somewhat peremptory dismissal of anything in the nature of the miraculous, leaves the reader with an unnecessary sense of negation. Might not the key to both Old and New Testament " miracles " lie within the realm of the psychical? To anyone. who has made any attempt with an unbiassed mind to study the vast amount of literature relating to psychical research and psychical phenomena, the conclusion that Our Lord and His Disciples possessed great psychic gifts, which to the uninitiated appeared , as "miracles," seems inescapable.—Yours