Black Elk's letters in Lakota
Nine of his 16 signed Lakota letters of 1907 to 1912 were found in the mission paper Sina Sapa Wocekiye Taeyanpaha. They show him in his own language and his own name, decades after the book that made him famous. None has been translated yet.
A police report on his arrival in prison
Police commissioner De Vriendt reported on Kimbangu's arrival at Elisabethville on 14 February 1922. The report, Archives Africains AI 1405 bis, was read in print in Vellut's 2010 edition.
A scholar rejects the 1840 birth date
Wang's 2008 study rejects the traditional 1840 birth date behind Xuyun's reported age of 119. No government record of the 1951 Yunmen incident has been found.
Ottoman shelfmarks for a wartime commander
Two modern studies give Ottoman archive references for Nursi's volunteer command, his pay in Russian captivity and a pamphlet seizure, such as BOA DH.SFR 89/138. The originals have not been seen.
The swami in the American press
Fourteen US press pages from 1923 to 1948 track Yogananda's reception, from a governor's welcome to a 1928 Los Angeles district attorney's inquiry and an injunction fight in Miami, where the Associated Press called him a "fake Hindu lecturer". The accusations in those reports stayed allegations.
A gazetteer that passes through Shirdi
The 1884 Gazetteer names Shirdi only as a road stop and doesn't mention him. That silence proves little, since he was not yet widely known, but the entry shows how little paper surrounds his early years.
A life told 19 years after his death
Briggs's The Cities of Gujarashtra (1849) gives an outside account of his life, a dungeon at Ahmedabad, reported trances and a visit to his nephew and successor.
A visit dated after the death
An outside monk, Swami Chidananda, wrote about meeting him, but the article dates the last visit to October 1973, after his death, so that date must be wrong. Sources also conflict on whether he died at Mathura or Vrindavan.
A holy man who disclaimed miracles
Moses Yoshor's 1937 biography, Saint and Sage, says the Chofetz Chaim "never pretended to work miracles" and told people asking for blessings to pray to God instead. First-hand interviews report no wonders, and the story of a 40-day fast is late and unnamed.
A false report of his death in the London Gazette
The London Gazette, no. 46, April 1666, reported that Sabbatai Zevi had been executed. He had not. He lived another ten years, and the report shows how fast and how badly news of him travelled.
A false birth date at the Sorbonne
A Sorbonne register entry, reported to be in his own hand, gives the future Rebbe a false birth date of 1895. His French citizenship application and a 1928 wedding invitation have also been located.
A surgeon's own words on a levitation
Bernini's 1722 biography prints the attestation of the surgeon Francesco Pierpaoli in his own words. During a cautery in 1663, he says, Joseph rose almost a palm above his chair, a fly stayed on his open eye, and he felt nothing. Pierpaoli writes that he and the physician Giacinto Carosi "both saw clearly". The passage does not say it was sworn, and the cause volumes have yet to be read.
The Devil's Advocate story says less than its legend
Prospero Lambertini's own first-person statement is the source behind the popular story that the Devil's Advocate was won over by this cause. His words say less than the popular versions.
A saint's army file
Padre Pio's military record survives at Caserta. A 2012 press report says he was called up in 1915 and declared unfit at Naples in 1918 for double bronchoalveolitis. The sheet itself has not yet been read.
A vision recorded within days
Henry Simmons, a Quaker living among the Seneca, wrote down the trance of 15 June 1799 in his journal within days. The page scans survive at Haverford College. Few religious visions have a record this close to the event.
Two eyewitnesses, two different hats
In James Mooney's 1890s report, Tall Bull saw something black in Wovoka's hat, while Black Coyote saw the whole world in it. Wovoka is also reported to have said the bullet-proof story was only a joke.
The commission that recorded decay
The church commission act of 11 January 1903 recorded that Seraphim's body had decayed. It is a formal check on a tradition that often expects an incorrupt body, and he was glorified anyway.
The failed first volley reaches a diplomat in two weeks
The story that the first firing squad volley failed at Tabriz reached the British envoy Sir Justin Sheil by 22 July 1850, as hearsay. The Russian consul in Tabriz reported only a botched shooting.
Watching a healing story grow
Wilford Woodruff's journal entry for the July 1839 healings at Nauvoo is short. The twins, the handkerchief and the healing of Brigham Young appear only in later versions.
What the French files leave out
None of the French sources read so far mention Bamba's two most famous wonders, the prayer on the ocean and the ordeals in Gabon. The main Senegal archive files still have to be requested, so this finding may change.
The Baal Shem Tov on a tax list
A page of the 1758 Medzhybizh tax list shows house 95 under the name "Balsam", understood as the Baal Shem Tov. The 1760 register, Czartoryski Library 8203, lists him at no. 93, which explains why sources disagree. The man behind the legends turns up in ordinary fiscal documents.
A birth record corrects the encyclopedia
A certified copy of El Nino Fidencio's civil birth record gives 13 November 1898 at Iramuco. Wikipedia gives 17 October.
Two texts on one pogrom
John of Kronstadt condemned the Kishinev pogrom in April 1903, then blamed Jews for it in a letter of 23 May. Both texts belong on his card.
An impossible cardinal
A story set in 1933 names Cardinal Siri, but Giuseppe Siri became a cardinal only in 1953. The account cannot be accurate as told.
A court, a diary and a prophecy that fails
Das Ganu says a Shirdi village diary was consulted in court, which is a real lead, though the court file has not been found. Separately, the Colonel McKenna prophecy fails on army records: he retired a brigadier, not a general.
The unchanged body was an embalmed body
The Forest Lawn letter on Yogananda's body is often quoted in short form. The fuller text and the death certificate show the body had been embalmed.
A wrong weekday in a sacred date
Devotional sources date his meeting with Bishop Heber to Sunday 26 March 1825. That date was a Saturday.
A photograph that was a painting
A Wikimedia image labeled as an old photo of Charbel contradicted its own caption, which called it a painting. He is reported never to have been photographed in life, so the image was dropped.
The biggest gap so far
The best-known levitation case in Christianity still has no deposition in hand. His flights rest here on biographies of 1722 and 1753, whose margins point to the canonization process pages.