Joan Fontcuberta

The Miracle of Electrogenesis

Taking advantage of the cloud-wracked skies and electrical storms of Kaleva, Munkki Juhani raises his powerful Gnostic staff in the form of tau and transforms the radiant energies by means of a cosmic photoigneous polarization. In the Nordic cosmogonies, lightning and the sun's rays have both fertilizing and destructive properties, like the spear of Achilles, which could hurt or heal. For the guardians of the light who grant life or death, lightning can be compared to a deadly discharge or the emission of sperm. Lightning fecundates the water and causes inspiration to bud, but it can fry unruly or rebellious spirits. In the Icelandic sagas studied by Borges the hero Browulf exclaims courageously 'Moski, roski ut plandengui!' (thunder, lightning and sparks!) as he wards off the hail of lightning bolts sent down by the rulers of Asgard with his drakar.


The Miracle of Psychostasis

The notaries of Thule say that it is in the forge of the volcano that the ashes of the soul can best be weighed. Psychostasis or the act of weighing souls is one of the central themes of Egyptian theology; it requires a very accurate set of scales, the ashes of the heart of the deceased and an ostrich feather from the goddess Maat. Only in this way is divine judgement possible. When the volcano erupts it amounts to giving an exit to the pulses of hell, the lava is the sap that runs through the veins of Hephaestus and in its entrails is the lair of Loki, whose name means 'fire'. Loki is also known by other names, such as 'The Wily God' or 'The Father of Lies'. He can metamorphose into anything, into a bird of prey or into a cloud of smoke. Provoking the eruption of the volcano was equivalent to invoking Loki, and vice versa. For this reason the seismologists of Tapiola prayed for his intercession when they felt tremors and the earth roaring.



The Miracle of Levitation

This miracle consists of simulating a state of weightlessness and producing a mild fluttering in the air to control the movement. It requires a total mastery of the body, whose density must be made as ethereal as the atmosphere (in essence, then, it is a matter of applying the simple Archimedean principle used, for example, by the Montgolfiers). Levitation is mentioned in many Lives of saints or yogis, and in the second half of the 19th century it was popular with a good number of bogus mediums (See William Crookes, member of the Royal Dialectical Society, London, 1869). The iconography of the ascending man usually represents a positive response to a spiritual vocation and a movement towards holiness. The successful practice of the technique is enhanced by mystical fasting, resulting in a pronounced slimness but not anorexia; seriously obese novices are advised to pursue other options.


The Miracle of Walking on Water

This easy-to-master classic miracle, which novices tend to be given to build up their self-confidence, does not require special footwear. It is based on the ability to increase the elastic surface tension of the fluid at the point being walked on. The body must be made as light as a ball of cotton and as delicate as the leaf of a water-lily. Many apprentices ask for a life-jacket at first, but such cowardly frivolity only leads to failure: the jackets tend to be in distressingly loud colours and disturb the gravity and solemnity of the situation, that retrotrae epic mîses-en-scène such as that of the Master on Lake Tiberias, or that of Väinämoinen following the ill-fated Aino, before she sunk beneath the waters of Kaleva and was turned into a porpoise. The maiden had been bestowed as a prize on the old bard by her brother Joukahäinen, vanquished in a duel of canticles and charms.



The Miracle of Correlative Deconstruction

This consists in passing through walls and doors by taking advantage of holes of pseudomaterial density, and can be practiced in combination with apparitions, adding considerably to the effect. The technique goes back in the annals of classic alchemy to the famous solve et coagula: the disintegration of the body into permeating atomic particles that subsequently join together again in their original structure in accordance with the dictates of a particular frequency or acoustic vibration. Until shortly before these scientific advances came to be divulged -modern teletransporters are based on a similar principle-the adept practising this miracle used to spread an unguent on their body concocted from a combination of the most powerful plants in witchcraft: aconite, henbane, belladona, mandrake and hemlock. Mixed into a base of the fat of an unbaptized child, the ingredients fused with a magical synergy so powerful that the anointed could travel at the speed of light and even jump the traffic lights, and rendering solid masses permeable was plain sailing.