Letters from Heaven
Himmelsbrief
- Known today as
- Letters, copied by hand from one another, said to have been written by God or by Christ himself, promising protection to whoever kept them.
- Kind
- Amulet, in 1 older authority
- Earliest authority here
- The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907–1914)
Revised October 3, 2026: An authority added from a text read in full. Checked against its sources, each read in full, in part, or in its abstract. Version 1, first published September 28, 2026.
Letters from Heaven: what was it used for?
Kept in the house, or worn on the body against weapons and thunder; one German soldier carried a letter his mother-in-law wrote for him all through the First World War.
Letters from Heaven: what does modern science say?
Now kept in museums and folklore archives; the Church never sanctioned them.
Letters from Heaven: what lore surrounds it?
In the German lands such letters were copied by hand and handed down in households well into the twentieth century, and the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries spread the practice; each copy had to be written at one sitting, its mistakes left uncorrected.
Letters from Heaven: what did the older authorities say?
- The Catholic Encyclopedia
- The Catholic Encyclopedia counts among amulets “strips of paper, or parchment bearing enigmatic phrases, blessings, and maledictions,” used “as a safeguard against mishap or danger, or witchcraft, and invoked as a guarantee of success in enterprises.” It notes that “the reliance placed upon amulets, like other forms of superstition, grew out of popular ignorance and fear,” that “from the beginning the Church was on the alert to detect the first signs of this abuse and set her face sternly against it,” and that the Council of Laodicea decided “that those who wear amulets are to be excommunicated.”
Sources
- The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907–1914), “Amulets, Use and Abuse of.” newadvent.org/cathen/01443b.htm Read in full · the text read
- Müller, T. (n.d.). ‘Just as Christ stood pacified in the olive garden, all weapons shall be pacified.’ How Marie Geffers made her son-in-law invulnerable. Artefact of the Month 21, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg. Read in full · the text read
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026, and October 3, 2026
- Passes
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Every source read, in full, in part, or in its abstract, and every sentence checked against what was read (October 3, 2026)
- Sources
- 2 cited: 2 read in full.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 28, 2026 · last revised October 3, 2026
- Chicago
“Letters from Heaven.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 3, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/letters-from-heaven.
- MLA
“Letters from Heaven.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 3 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/letters-from-heaven. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Letters from Heaven. (2026, October 3). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/letters-from-heaven
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See Also
Also in The Catholic Encyclopedia
Lourdes water in The Catholic Encyclopedia · Holy wells in The Catholic Encyclopedia · The Miraculous Medal in The Catholic Encyclopedia · The holy water stoup in The Catholic Encyclopedia · everything The Catholic Encyclopedia names →
Nearby in the alphabet
Licorice (The root of Glycyrrhiza glabra) · Lesser bean-trefoil (Anagyris foetida, a Mediterranean shrub) · Lion’s mane (A single clump of hanging spines on hardwood trees) · Lenitive electuary · Litharge (a byproduct of refining silver) · Leech (Hirudo medicinalis) · Liverwort, or hepatica (Hepatica nobilis (syn) · Lavender (L)
Historical description, not medical advice.