Look, you'll see it in the records. It's for real." "Yes, I'm sure. But again, that's a natural phenomenon." "Where? Transylvania?" Chris said, incredulous. Karras shook his head. "No, I've come across cases of that in the journals. There was one, I remember, where a prison psychiatrist reported that a patient of his--- an inmate--- could go into a self-induced state of trance and make the signs of the zodiac appear on his skin." He made a gesture at his chest. "Made the skin raise up." "Boy, miracles sure don't come easy with you, do they?" "There was once an experiment," he explained to her gently, "in which the subject was hypnotized, put into trance; and then surgical incisions were made is each arm. He was told that his left arm was going to bleed, but that the right arm would not. Well, the left arm bled and the right arm didn't. The power of the mind controlled the blood flow. We don't know how, of course; but it happens. So in cases of stigmata--- like the one with that prisoner I mentioned, or with Regan the unconscious mind is controlling the differential of blood flow to the skin, sending more to the parts that it wants raised up.
