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Saint Sebastian - The matrydom of St Sebastian
Identifier
002412
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Eliade suggested that many of the Christian saints may have gone through a similar figurative death by visionary experience. ……….
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
Now similar scenarios are found in Christian hagiography, notably in the legend of the saints. In the last analysis, such [actions] are equivalent to an initiation, for it is through them that the saints transcend the human condition, that is, distinguish themselves from the profane masses
A description of the experience
Wikipedia – The matrydom of St Sebastian
Diocletian reproached Sebastian for his supposed betrayal, and "he commanded him to be led to the field and there to be bounden to a stake for to be shot at.
And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin (hedgehog)," leaving him there for dead.
Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health.
The other residents of the house doubted he was a Christian. One of those was a girl who was blind. Sebastian asked her "Do you wish to be with God?", and made the sign of the Cross on her head. "Yes", she replied, and immediately regained her sight.