Charting "The Book The Devil Tried to Burn"
Gemma’s experiences were so out of the ordinary that numerous times her priests told her to write down and tell everything, and the people around her were documenting and writing down everything including her ecstasies. These writings are the sources for this study, and I am infinetly glad for them. The priests wanted her to tell them her paranormal experiences, but the problem was she was too averse to attention and self-aggrandizement she was loathe to do so (as shown by her Sun conjunct Descendant and Saturn among other aspects and placements). The solution was to take advantage of her Virtue of Obedience to her priests. As a wannabe nun, she was bound to obey her priests to a higher degree than normal laity. So, her priests ordered her to write everything. The first attempt at this was to have her keep a diary. This is a fun resource that I wish they would have kept up, but for whatever reason it petered out after a few months. Perhaps Fr. Germanus felt the diary was redendant with all the letters she was writing to him.
The next attempt was Fr. Germanus ordering her to write a “general confession.” A general confession is when a penitent tells all the sins they have committed over the course of their entire life. A general confession is made when a person first becomes a Catholic. As a lifelong, devout Catholic who was in the confessional about every day confessing walking on grass Gemma had no need to make a general confession. This was a ruse of Germanus’ to make her tell her life story to him without making it obvious what he was after (when her extraoridnary experiences started, how many, and how). I’m not sure why he didn’t simply tell her, “tell me all the crazy stuff that happened to you,” but here we are. Perhaps the venerable felt straightforward directions would keep her from providing valuable context.
This is not the last time that priests ordered a mystic to write and tell everything. A more notable case is with the Bishops to St. Lucia. They were more straightforward and demanding and made it clear they wanted to know anything and everything about her (even asking for the lyrics to songs she sang as a child). I wonder whether St. Lucia’s bishops were aware of Gemma’s autobiography wanted to be more thorough than Germanus was.
Gemma begins to write her “general confession” on February 17, at 09:00 at her angel’s urging. She continues through the week and into the next. During this week, Mercury begins conjunct her Mercury and moves toward her Sun, Saturn and Vertex when she writes to Fr. Germanus of her writing this. On the 17th, Moon is conjunct Venus and aspecting Natal Neptune. “Sees angelic guardian.” Her angel was telling her to stop procrastinating on the “confession” and get to writing. She won’t complete the autobiography until May 1901. The manuscript filled 93 pages of her notebook. I could not find an exact date for when she completed her autobiography.
The original handwritten Autobiography still exists, and is on display at Saints John and Paul Basilica in Rome, Italy. Gemma's beautiful handwriting is still legible, even with each page being scorched.
Father Germanus (Germano) C.P., St Gemma's Spiritual Director, explains this phenomenon in his work, "The Life of St. Gemma Galgani":
"Gemma manuscript, when finished, was by my orders given to the charge of her adopted "mother", Signora Cecilia Giannini, who kept it hidden in a drawer awaiting the first opportunity of handing it to me.
Some days elapsed and Gemma thought she saw the Demon pass through the window of the room where the drawer was, laughing, then disappearing into the air.
Accustomed as she was to such apparitions, she did not think too much of it. But he (the devil) having returned shortly thereafter to molest her with a repulsive temptation, as often happened, and having failed once again, left gnashing his teeth and declaring exultantly 'War! War! Your book is in my hands!' After this, she immediately wrote to tell me. Then, owing to the obedience I gave her to disclose to her adopted mother everything extraordinary that happened to her, she therefore was obliged to tell her what had just occurred.
They then went together and opened the drawer, and discovered that the notebook was indeed missing. I was written to at once, and one can easily imagine my consternation at the loss of such an important treasure. But, what was to be done? I thought a great deal about it and just then, while at the tomb of Blessed Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin, a fresh idea came to my mind. I resolved to exorcise the devil and thus force him to return the manuscript if he had really taken it.
With my ritual stole and holy water I went to the tomb of Blessed Gabriel and although nearly 400 miles from Lucca, I pronounced the exorcism in the regular form. God seconded my ministry and at the very same hour the notebook was restored to the place from which it had been taken several days before. But in what a state! The pages from top to bottom were all smoked and some parts were burned, as if each one had been separately exposed to strong fire. Yet, they were not so badly burned as to destroy the writing. This document, having thus passed through a hell fire, is in my hands."
(From "The Life of St. Gemma Galgani" by Father Germanus C.P., -St Gemma's Spiritual Director).
Unfortunately, I have not seen this manuscript, myself, yet. However, I do find it ironic that the first line in her autobiography is to tell Germanus to burn it immediately. I mention this because no one else does. If the two were not beatified I would have serious doubts about the authenticity of this hellfire burning incident on that line alone. But, as my book demonstrates, everything this girl and priest talks about regarding Gemma is astrologically verified. She does suffer supernatural demonic attacks, there’s no real reason to doubt this one other than that ironic opening line.
Germanus’ recollection of the stolen writing is different than Gemma’s telling of it. As mentioned above, the manuscript was kept in a drawer for some time and likely ignored. At the end of her July 4th 1901 letter she says the “book of the general confession has disappeared” and that she is too exhausted to tell him how it happened. She does not recount the event until at the end of her second letter for July 8th. She writes that she was asleep when the devil came with a “filthy temptation” that she struggled with for over an hour using all manners of prayers before invoking the “Immaculate Conception” which made it go away. The demon was angry at her for winning this battle and tried to hit her but could not due to being forbidden to do so by her priests. So, it instead stole her manuscript to spite her (as Gemma says). The rest occurred as described above by Germanus. In neither of these two letters does she mention burns. The next letter we have is of the 18th where she mentions a letter on the 14th that appears Germanus never published due to the penitent privilege. So, the burns were seen in person, by Germanus.
Obviously, the time is unknown for the theft. But, if it occurred on July 4th, this is a decent chart for it. We got angles at interesting near-conjuncts. But, most importantly, Mars is conjunct Gemma’s Ascendant and Anti-Vertex. Transit Mars and Transit Mercury are in perfect sextile with each other. “Steal book.” Mars can mean theft in Johndro’s astrological dictionary, and it is on Gemma’s angles for this day and aspecting Mercury. Transit Mars also perfectly trines her Mars and Pluto. Pluto represents demons. Mars represents fire. This is also an aspect on this fulcrum of her chart solidifying that we found this famous event of her life and how crucial it was to her life.