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William B Stoecker: For centuries, thousands of people, mostly Catholics, have reported seeing and even speaking with a being they believe to be the Virgin Mary. Curiously, the being almost never clearly states that she is, in fact, the mother of Jesus; the witnesses tend to assume this. Her rather vague pronouncements and advice resemble that given out by "aliens" to ufo abductees. Sometimes the vision is accompanied by lights in the sky resembling ufos. Popes Leo XIII, Pius XII, and John Paul II have reported these visions, but most of the experiencers are ordinary people, often poor rural people, and often children: the same kinds of people who often report ufo abductions. Most, but not all, are in Catholic or at least primarily Christian countries. The Holy See has "confirmed" only a few of these, among them the Virgin of Guadalupe,St. Etienne le Laus, Paris, La Satelli, Lourdes, Fatima, Pontmain, Beauraing, Banneux, and Knock (Ireland). We shall examine Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, and the (non confirmed) Medugorje events.The Virgin of Guadalupe event took place near Mexico City on Tepeyac Hill from 12/9 through 12/12, 1531. It was reported by an Aztec with the Spanish name Juan Diego, and he stated that the being spoke Nahuatl (the Aztec language) but named herself "de Guadalupe." Supposedly, the Nahuatl words for "one who crushes the serpent" sound like "Guadalupe." Some researchers believe that it may also be significant that the Aztecs worshipped a goddess named "Tonantzin." Supposedly, the Virgin told Juan Diego to convince the Bishop to build a church where she appeared, and he gathered roses out of season on a cloth called a "tulpa" and gave them to Bishop Zumarraga, and an image of the Virgin appeared on the Tulpa. There are a number of problems with all of this. Zumarraga did not even become Bishop until 1533, some two years after the events, and became Archbishop only in 1547, and he never mentioned Juan Diego or the apparition in his writings. Furthermore, the image looks like a rather crude painting, and several art experts, including art restoration expert Jose Sol Rosales claimed to have found typical sixteenth century paint in the image. At this point it appears that the apparition was partly or even entirely fraudulent, although, as we shall see later, the roses may be significant.
In 1858 in the French town of Lourdes, on the meridian line and in the foothills of the Pyrenees, a girl named Bernadette Soubiros claimed to have encountered a "Lady" who referred to herself as the "Immaculate Concepcion" some eighteen times from 2/11/1858 through 7/16/1858. No one else saw or heard her. The sightings reportedly took place in a shallow grotto on a rock outcrop called Massabiele. A spring then issued from the site, and the other villagers, although they did not see the Lady, did report the sudden appearance of the spring. Lourdes, confirmed by the Vatican, became a popular (and profitable) shrine where thousands of people reported miraculous healings. The Lourdes Bureau claims to certified sixty of these as unexplained. Note that springs and wells are important in ancient Celtic, or Druid, mythology.
From 5/13/1917 through 10/13/17 three Portuguese children from rather poor families, Lucia Santos, Jacinta Marto, and Francisco Marto reported seeing a lady who called herself "Our Lady of the Rosary." Note the rose connection again, and note that the rosary was especially associated with the Virgin Mary, but, again, the being never clearly stated that she was, in fact, the mother of Jesus. They claimed to see her on the thirteenth of every month (a magic number, especially for the Masons) except in August, when they were briefly imprisoned (and threatened with torture) by the provincial administrator who represented an extremely anti clerical government heavily dominated by Masons. That month they saw her in the town of Valinhos on 8/19. On her last appearance, again at Valinhos, on 1013, some 70,000 people gathered to witness the event, and while no one but the children claimed to see "Our Lady," hundreds of people, as well as many in towns some miles away, reported that the "sun"change colors, spin, and zig zag, accompanied by an unusual amount of heat on what had been a cool, overcast day. This is a little hard to explain away as a hoax or "mass hallucination."
The being told the children to say the rosary daily and do penance, so they wrapped tight cords around their wrists and went without water on hot days. She also gave them three visions: a vision of a fairly conventional Christian version of a fiery hell, a prediction of a second terrible war (World War One was then raging in Europe and eleswhere) if Russia did not become Christian (the Soviets were just then taking power) , and the third vision, a secret. The second war would supposedly be heralded by a strange light or glow in the sky. The being asked that the mysterious third secret be revealed in 1960, but the Vatican refused to allow it. Meanwhile, Lucia Santos became a Dorothean and later a Carmelite nun, and claimed to see the being again, in 1925, 1929, and later. She even claimed to see Jesus once. When she died on 2/13/2005 (note the date was the thirteenth) Cardina Ratzinger, who is now the Pope, ordered her cell to be sealed shut. Clearly, he was hiding something, and earlier, in11/84, he had stated that the third secret was merely a call to conversion. Then the Church changed its story and announced that the third secret was a prediction of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. But Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite claims that it was actually a warning of satanism in the Vatican. Clearly, if so, the Vatican would have a motive to lie about it, and space does not permit a discussion here of the evidence of corruption and even satanism in the Church hierarchy, but that evidence is extensive.
On 6/24/81 six teenagers in Medugorje, Bosnia, claimed to see a white form carrying a child. "Our Lady" said people must accept Jesus, and supposedly made certain prophecies, but these have not been revealed, save that a sign would appear on the site just for atheists. The meaning of this is far from clear.Psychologists reportedly found no evidence of mental illness or hypnosis of the teenagers; if this is true, it may or may not be significant. It also may be significant that the local parish was run by the Franciscans, then in a state of near rebellion against the Vatican.
So we are left with uncertainties. It is interesting that many elements of Christianity seem to be of pagan origin, perhaps introduced by the Romans under Emperor Constantine to make the relgion "sell." The Virgin has always had a suspicious resemblance to the Roman goddess Diana, called Artemis by the Greeks, who is believed by archaeologists to be perhaps the oldest goddess in the world (by that I mean that she has been worshipped for a long time, whether such a being exists or not). The goddess' many forms and functions, over time, were divided among several goddesses, like Aphrodite and Athena as wll as Artemis. Aphrodite was associated with Venus, the consort of the supposedly male sun, and, as I have described elswhere, Earth and Venus in their orbits trace out a regular pentagram in the sky, and this powerful astrological symbol is also associated with the regular five-petaled wild rose. The Virgin Mary was sometimes referred to as the "Rose of Sharon," and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who was closely involved with the Templars, called the Virgin Mary the "mystical rose." His Templars would later build gothic cathedrals with rose windows (although they were not called that until the seventeenth century) and these often depicted in stained glass Mary and Jesus. The word "rosary" comes from "rosarium," Latin for rose garden. And the term "sub rosa," meaning "under the rose," means in secrecy. So is there some great secret to the Marian apparitions, and some connection with the goddess and perhaps with ufos? The evidence at this point is inconclusive, and I fear we are left with yet another mystery. But what fun would life be without mystery? William B Stoecker
The author mentioned La Satelli,when I believe he meant la Salette in France.
