They Flew: A History of the Impossible

An award-winning historianâs examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance

Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern eraâtales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraftâeven as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.

Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newtonâs scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.

Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable Marà a de Ãgreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernaturalâs relationship with the natural world. The questions he exploresâsuch as why and how âimpossibilityâ is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by scienceâhave resonance and lessons for our time.