Sostiene inoltre che fu l'affidamento della Chiesa al processo inquisitoriale come mezzo per combattere l'eresia a condizionare la formazione di tutte le dissidenze religiose in sette.
According to her culpa — an abridged version of her deposition interspersed with a few follow-up questions from the tribunal — she did so gratis et sponte , that is, freely and willingly 1.
This phrase, which is usually best taken with a grain of salt when dealing with confessions before an inquisitorial court, carries some weight in this case, since it was followed by a rather more anomalous et sine interrogatione — and without interrogation. It would seem then that most of the statements the famous Na Prous made in her lengthy deposition were not prompted by the kind of formulaic question list that was the inquisitorial weapon of choice to confirm suspicions of heresy, and, just as importantly, to classify trespassers into properly defined heretical identities.
Her own words were damning enough. Moreover, this was connected to her belief that the Age of the Spirit, which was just starting, rendered the sacraments null and void, and that the only path to salvation was believing in the works of the Holy Spirit.
She believed herself to be the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, and in some instances, a vessel for the whole Trinity 6. In spite of her repeated protestations of humility — a common enough trope in the visionary genre — it was this belief that imbued her with a sense of entitlement, allowing her to disparage fasting and bodily penance along with any kind of ecclesiastical mediation.
