Ive Seen The Lights Post Four
chemistry, magick, organoiodides 0 Comments »
a fair exchange.
Because of that, it's been tough to focus here. Today I'm going to put something fairly narrow in the blog, nothing particularly surprising to any of us, but something that Fox sees as another important element in his survey of RERC spiritual light encounters book. This subject is specific religious apparitions.
Most of you will recognize, despite the out-of-focussed nature of the picture above, the famous claim of the Marian apparition at Zeitoun, Egypt. This manifestation is supposed to have shown itself several times during the years 1968-1970. For me it is one of the weirdest things in anomalies literature, and maybe some of you can give me the missing information to wipe away the weirdness.
First, though, the claimed phenomenology: during this time period, apparitions related to the Virgin Mary appeared many times, and in certain periods almost regularly, over the cupola of a coptic church in Zeitoun, near Cairo. Some of these apparitions were very distinctly "Mary", some fuzzily so, and some just "flying lightforms" called by some "doves" and by others blobs of light. The two things we see above are blobs. Sometimes these differing forms were part of the same "evening's entertainment", and sometimes only one or the other "sign" would be present.
Such was the phenomenology, now why I say it's weird:
1). these manifestations supposedly went on for nearly two solid years. Where's the flood of evidence? Why weren't camera crews from worldwide news agencies crowding in to get a piece of this story?
2). there are quite a few photos in books in my file on this thing. As far as I can tell, they all go back to just one citation. How the heck is THAT possible? Yet author after author seems to talk about this thing as if there were no doubts whatever as to the basic claims that these light phenomena did indeed take place [regardless of what explanation one wishes to ascribe to them].
I would be deliriously happy to know that the light phenomena took place at all [even just the vaguer "dove-like" lightforms], and then maybe one could begin a thought process.
Whatever's the case with Zeitoun, in theory it would perfectly illustrate what Fox is talking about, and at the same time compound the confusion between "religious" lightforms in the sky and "UFOs".
Whereas Fox doesn't mention Zeitoun, he does mention Fatima, Lourdes, Knock, and Medjugorje. Of these only Fatima has accepted [i.e. fairly well documented] elements in it which might confuse the UFO vs religious apparition separation. Even so, Fatima seems [to me] quite removed from UFOlogy [and, yes, I know there are many who disagree] and more like Zeitoun or Medjugorje. It is more like those in that all of these purport to have "messages" implanted in them of a distinct religious nature. Lourdes is like that without the little fly-around lights, and Medjugorje has its "spinning Suns" which only some people in a group can see. Knock, one of our favorite mysteries on this blog, is completely strange in that it has a vivid in-your-face Marianism-like apparition with no "message" at all.
The various Marian apparitions, with the exception of Knock, can at least be rationalized as some kinds of "moments of Spiritual desperation" [by God or by us] because of those messages. Other than Olde-style contacteeism and channeling, there are very few aerial displays with religious messages transmitted. Fox seems easily happy with the idea that these Marian apparitions/ lightforms are of religious significance and quite separated from almost anything in UFOlogy. And another thing seems to arise while reading of these things in the book: Marian apparitions are the most common "multiple witness" lightform incidents along with some UFO cases. Contrarily, and evading logic, visions of Christ are almost always solitary. This, by the way, has always boggled me as a Catholic who reads a lot of theology, and it has made Marianism a difficult phenomenon [socially as well as theologically] to accept. The Church itself is VERY tough about "approving" these claims, and I might be tougher than they are.
Fox gives several short tales of persons meeting a Light that they interpret as Jesus or generically "God". An agnostic was at a stage in his life when his inability to trust to anything greater was weighing him down.
"I was working in the field one morning... with a horse in a crop of sugar beet; then suddenly the horse stopped and a wonderful light shone around the leaves of the beet and between the horse and myself a lovely pair of feet appeared near the bottom of the gown. And a most beautiful voice said, three times, 'I shall come again'. From then I knew. There is a real God in whom we can trust".
Mundanely as it may seem, the witness was putting the horse's behavior up front in the story to make the experience more defensible as reality.
A divorced couple had decided to temporarily get back together and at least live in the same house for the benefit of their son having an intact family [at least to a degree]. This was of course awkward, as this was the first night back together after a separation of seven years. That night the wife was awakened.
"In the middle of the night I woke to see a light growing in the cabin. It grew in intensity until it seemed six feet or more tall, with rays shooting out in all directions. I put up my hand to try to pull the blankets off my husband in the upper bunk, to wake him, so that he could see it too. I was not frightened, just full of wonder. I was overcome by a feeling of reverence, and felt obliged to get out of bed and kneel on the floor and bow my head before the brilliant Presence. A voice seemed to say: 'you have made the right decision. A daughter will complete your happiness.' "
The light began to dim and turned all shades of pastels before going dark. These two people apparently re-found what they had originally seen in one another, continued their marriage as a true marriage, and had a daughter later, as the message seemed to promise.
The idea of "shining beings" is common across religions and particularly in Buddhism and Native American tales. These encounters may occur as the expected result of rituals or as accidents "on the path", usually privately. The beings are almost uniformly "humanoid"
usually precisely so, but at least in the Humanoid Form sense of Head/ Torso/ bilateral symmetry/ normal distribution and numbers of arms, legs, and facial features. When encountered due to ritual, there are messages which seem profoundly important. When encountered accidentally {think Celtic folkloric}, there may be no message at all.
In the buddhist scriptures, the boddhisattvas come down from the Heavens glowing and on lighted clouds. One could stretch the UFO analogy there if one wished, which I do not. Fox's point would be the universality of glowing light in all these things.
That light has one particular element to it which, frankly, fascinates me. This is the presence of the "Aureole" of Holy Light which surrounds the heads of such boddhisattvas as [my favorite, naturally] Qu'an Yin [above], and all the Christian saints as well. I am sure that the literature is rife with diffusionist speculations on why this is so, but this seems an odd "coincidence" nevertheless.
Rumi's quote of course focusses on the issue of the moment. For these spiritual experiences, IS The Light the Same? Or, sweeping away the trivial objection that some of Fox's cases are errors or lies or hopeful wishing, are the rest of the experiences all derived from the same "light"?, and What is it's source?, and What is its profundity?
Of course in this whole bag of experiences we are dealing with some multiplicity. But Fox is on the hunt for some core truth deep within his 400 cases, just as you and I are searching our own "files". Fox thinks that's Something is there. The Dalai Lama thinks that Something is there. The Pope thinks that Something is there.
And I think that Something is there.
But of course, we're all prejudiced.
