**TL;DR - Joan of Arc was not hearing the real voices of angels, she was experiencing hallucinations caused by a neurological or psychological condition, most likely schizophrenia. She was not chosen by God and God did not speak to her, she was only interacting with her own voices.** Although we will never truly know whether the voices that Joan of Arc were real or not, a series of documents and claims made by Joan herself exhibit all the traditional symptoms of someone suffering hallucinations, and possibly having schizophrenia. There was no understanding of these conditions at the time, why is most likely why she was hailed as a prophet, however modern science can link her to a couple of conditions which would explain her hallucinations and debunk concepts of her being one of God’s chosen messengers. Joan of Arc testified throughout her life that she had both heard the voices of and seen St Margaret, St Catherine, and the archangel St Michael. She claimed in her trial that she encountered these angels ‘two or three times a week’ at least. However, many scientists have suggested that, although Joan was convinced she interacted with angels, she actually experienced schizophrenia, a type of psychosis where a person is unaware to distinguish their own visions from reality. [1] This would explain why Joan appears completely convinced that she interacted with angels, stating that she could even touch and smell them - she presents the traits of someone with paranoid schizophrenia. According to psychiatrist Ied Bleuler, Joan is likely to have had this condition, he argues that her 'clear cut delusional system which is not open to argument' connects to her hallucinations which reinforce ‘false ideas'. [2] Other researchers have argued that Joan of Arc suffered from a form of epilepsy that caused hallucinations, again using Joan of Arc’s own comments made in the trial to support their claims. Neurologists Guiseppe d’Orsi and Paola Tinuper argue that Joan may have had a condition called ‘idiopathic partial epilepsy with auditory features’. [3] Symptoms of this type of epilepsy predominantly include auditory and visual hallucinations, which could be used to explain Joan of Arc’s visions. The comfort Joan took from the voices and visions suggests ecstatic auras and combined with evidence from her trial that she saw the angels when she heard church bells suggests that she had reflex epilepsy, where her hallucinations were triggered by the bell’s noise. [4] This would mean that Joan of Arc was only interacting with the voices in her head, rather than voices of angels. She cannot be categorised as a prophet then, as it was most likely that a mental or neurological condition generated her voices. God did not choose Joan of Arc, but rather she thought He did. The likelihood that Joan of Arc suffered from one of these disorders is much greater than the limited chance that she actually was interacting with any angels. We need to reassess her claims with modern understanding of neurological disorders. The claims that she made about hearing and seeing angels would have been much more readily accepted in the 15th century than today due to their significantly limited understanding of mental disorders. [1] ‘Schizophrenia’, (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schizophrenia/) [2] ‘The Schizophrenia of Joan of Arc’, (https://www.medievalists.net/files/09012321.pdf) [3] ‘Neurologists speculate that Joan of Arc heard voices because she suffered from epilepsy’, (https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/neurologists-speculate-joan-arc-heard-voices-because-she-suffered-epilepsy-020929) [4] ‘What Really Caused the Voices in Joan of Arc's Head?’, (https://www.livescience.com/55597-joan-of-arc-voices-epilepsy.html)

TL;DR - Joan of Arc's mental state can be debatable, but there hasn't been a scholarly consensus on any punitive diagnosis. Several historians have mostly argued against the mental illness claims, and while the medical community suggests the possibility of a condition, there hasn't been any objective symptoms. While I believe we should use a modern scientific analysis to evaluate historical figures to better understand their action, the case for Joan of Arc has plenty of conflicting evidence. Though I do agree with the opinion title; Joan of Arc was probably not a prophet and many people didn't think so either during her time, including the English and the Burgundians. I would argue that she is indeed not a prophet and we should not recognize her historically as god's chosen one, but more for her contributions as the catalyst for an effective Christian narrative at the end of the hundred years war which was one of the factors for France's victory. The possibility of mental illness is there, but we should be skeptical of these claims. Many conditions have been suggested but Joan of Arc doesn't seem absolutely comparable with most of them. Dr. J. R. Hughes has rejected several of the conditions including idiopathic partial epilepsy (or temporal lobe epilepsy), paranoid schizophrenia, and other conditions proposed don't seem unlikely: "The possibility that Joan of Arc's voices and visions were epileptic phenomena has been considered, but clearly auditory and visual hallucinations are very uncommon in epilepsy. Epileptic phenomena are nearly always brief and primitive, like light flashes; the well-formed visions she described lasted hours, rather than just a minute or so. Thus, the extremely pious and religious Joan of Arc likely experienced religious messages, rather than epileptic phenomena." Others like Dr. Yakovleffa and Dr. Nores J. M. argue such serious types of mental diseases present in a patient like temporal lobe tuberculoma would've made her life-style and activities impossible. Some have suggested personality disorders with less of a biological link; Dr. Philip Mackowiak dismissed the possibility of schizophrenia but suggested delusional disorder. Although the medical advances in the 15th century were nothing close to our scientific knowledge on mental illness, higher officials in the French court could tell if someone was acting mad or unstable. After all, the then overthrown King of France Charles VII was the successor to Charles VI or better known as "Charles the Mad" for his well-known psychosis. Charles VII, then King of Reims, was constantly suspicious of people in his court experiencing signs of madness (St. Joan Center). So they weren't naïve on the issue. Joan of Arc didn't simply walk up to the French court on the first day talking about her visions; she was sent to a castle at Chinon where she was examined for three weeks, and later put to trial at Poitiers. Multiple clergy and ministers examined her deeds and sanity including doctors of law, theology, and the Bishop of Meaux. After much interrogation and surveillance, most ministers agreed she didn't appear to be anything out of ordinary; her behavior was strictly pious but she didn't show signs of madness, irrationality, or inconsistency (St. Joan Center). Although this doesn't tell us much about what's going on inside her mind, it's fair to say she appeared to be in full control of herself. I don't reject the possibility of a mental condition, but I do think that before we change the interpretation of Joan of Arc's biography we ought to be more confident about her illness. After all, if the source of her visions came from a grandiose delusion disorder, it would create a different historical interpretation than saying she had an epileptic episode. Hughes, J. R. (2005). "Did all those famous people really have epilepsy?". Epilepsy & Behavior. 6 (2): 115–39. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2004.11.011 Mackowiak, P. (2007). Post-Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries, ACP Press. Nores J. M., Yakovleff Y. (1995). "A historical case of disseminated chronic tuberculosis". Neuropsychobiology. 32 (2): 79–80. doi:10.1159/000119218. PMID 7477805. St. Joan Center. Arrival at Chinon and the Trial at Poitiers: Nullification trial testimony of Guillaume de Manchon, Dame Marguerite de Touroulde, etc. http://www.stjoan-center.com/Trials/null05.html

There's a fabulous book on the psychological make-up of religious leaders by Anthony Storr, one of the great British academic psychiatrists of the 20th Century - [Feet of Clay, a study of Gurus](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1165099.Feet_of_Clay)