In the tradition of the Catholic Church, a person who met certain criterion could be recognized and then officially canonized as a saint. Webster defines saint as “one officially recognized, especially through canonization as preeminent for holiness.”

Teresa Neuman is one so recognized. According to Paramhansa Yogananda in Autobiography Of A Yogi (1946), she was born on Good Friday in 1898 in Northern Bavaria. When she was 20 years old she was in an accident that left her paralyzed and blind. She was miraculously healed in 1923 through fervent prayers to St. Theresa of Lisieux. After that time, Teresa did not eat any foods or drink any liquids except one small, consecrated communion wafer per day.

Stigmata, or sacred wounds of Christ, began to appear on her head, breast, hands and feet every Friday while she experienced the passion of Christ. Yogananda later said that in her past life she was Mary Magdalene and that she was here to show that it is possible to live on God’s Light. Until the time of her death in 1962 thousands of tourists would file into her small cottage to witness the miracle. A “miracle,” once again as defined by Webster, is “an extraordinary event manifesting through Divine Intervention in human affairs.”

In the same book, Yogananda also recounts his experience of meeting Giri Bali, an Indian saint who employed a certain yogic technique that enabled her to live without eating. When she was twelve years old she was married into a family of her parents choosing. Her new mother-in-law ridiculed her continuously about her insatiable appetite. It was then that she proclaimed that she would live without food. Even though it was a decision born of rebellion she later thanked this woman for arousing her dormant spiritual tendencies. She prayed for a guru who would teach her how to live without food.

After she purified herself in the Ganges, a master materialized before her and proclaimed that from that day forward she would live by astral light, her bodily atoms fed from the infinite current. She was initiated into the kriya technique that includes the use of a certain mantra and a breathing exercise more difficult than the average person could perform. Giri Bali told Yogananda that she believed the benefit of her lifestyle was to prove that man is a Spirit and that Spirit sustains the physical.

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