KNOCK

 

A Thought or Two

 

When religion makes its great shrines, you would think that if evidence came up showing that those shrines were based on false claims that is their days numbered.  Wrong.  It makes little difference.  Absolute proof that Knock was false or at least inconclusively supernatural (one does not have the right to adopt a supernatural explanation when a natural one would do even if one is not sure what the natural explanation is) would not get it closed down.  People defy and ignore the evidence.  In so far as they do that they are fundamentalists. 

 

Images of Mary and Joseph and others supposedly appeared on the chapel gable at Knock.

 

The Catholic Church reads in the Gospel of John chapter 2 how Jesus went berserk in the Temple.  Jesus made a whip and put the sellers all out.  He told those who were selling doves to get out for they were making a market place of his father's house.  Nothing at all in the episode indicates that these people were doing anything dishonest.  Jesus doesn't accuse them of that.  He accuses them of making a holy place a marketplace.  To me the episode proves that Catholic shrines with their bookstalls and shops full of tacky religious souvenirs and Catholic priests getting a salary out of religion, indeed any kind of paid ministry that calls itself Christian, is actually so enraging and disgusting to Jesus that it would make him resort to violence.  The Church makes money out of shrines that are based around religious images such as the Turin Shroud and the Tilma of Guadalupe.  If men selling in the Temple enraged Jesus so much, how much more would images enrage him?  Jesus when he spoke of the Temple being God's house was referring to a room in which there was absolutely nothing.  This room was believed to house the invisible God and its emptiness spoke of the inadequacy and vulgarity of religious images.

 

 

What was seen?

 

In a village of about a dozen homes and a Parish Church called Knock in Co Mayo, Ireland, an extraordinary occurrence was reported.

 

On the night of the 21^st of August 1879 the Virgin Mary flanked by St Joseph and a bishop thought to be St John the Evangelist and an altar with a lamb and cross on it allegedly appeared on the gable wall of the Parish Church for a few hours.  Fifteen people witnessed the vision including a child of five (page 60, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary) and stood watching it for two hours in torrential rain.  Why the whole village didn’t turn out is a mystery.  It is said though that the real figure is about twenty (page 8, The Apparition at Knock).

 

 

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Did the apparition really start before dark?

 

The vision reportedly occurred before it got dark and continued until darkness fell lasting for a couple of hours. 

 

Margaret Beirne, the sister of Mary Beirne stated, " I left my own house at half-past seven o'clock, and went to the chapel and locked it.   I came

out to return home ; I saw something luminous or bright at the south gable."

Is this a lie?  Or was she the person employed by the priest to set up the hoax?  She was there before others saw the vison so she must be considered a suspect.

Margaret and Mary both claimed they had the job of locking the Church.  Margaret left to do it as did Mary later on as if she didn't know.  This mistake could not have happened when they were living in the same house.  It is bizarre who the testimonies expect us to believe that though they lived in the same house, three visits were needed to inform.  And it was a different family member that was informed each time!  Did they not speak to one another?  First we read that  Mary Beirne went to get Dominick to the apparition at 8.  Then Catherine goes to get Margaret there at 8 or thereabouts .

According to Margaret, "Shortly after, about eight o'clock, my niece, Catherine Murray, called me out to see the Blessed Virgin and the other saints that were standing at the south gable of the chapel."

"Then Margaret goe to get ehtier mother to the appartion at 8.15, the mother said, "I was called out at about a quarter past eight o'clock by my daughter Margaret to see the Vision."   The one journey should ahve sufficied. 

It looks like Margaret already knew abut acted as if she did leaving Catherine to have to go and fetch her.

McLoughlin declared, "

We gazed on them for a little, and then I

told her [Mary Beirne] to go for her mother, Widow Beirne, and her brother, and her sister [Margaret who we have suspicions about, and her niece, who were still in the house which she and I had left. I remained looking at the sight before me until the mother, sister, and brother of Miss Mary Beirne came."  This indicates that Margaret did not go back to the house to get her mother.

Catherine Murray upon hearing of the apparition "followed my aunt [Mary] and uncle [Dominick] to the chapel ;

 

Dominick Beirne Senior stated, "my cousin, Dominick Beirne, came to see us at about eight o'clock, p.m., and called me to see the vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints at the south gable of the chapel. I went with him. "  This Dominick did not live with the Bernies and he lived with his nephew John Curry (page 178, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland).

 

Mary Mc Loughlin, housekeeper to Archdeacon Cavanagh, Parish Priest of Knock, said that the images were on the gable when it was daylight.  She thought they were statues.  This was about 7.00 pm or slightly after but in modern time it would be 8.30 pm.  She was the first person to see the images.  She stayed half an hour at least, at Widow Beirne’s house.  She never mentioned the images during her visit - which was very unnatural since she had seen something strange and Beirne's house was very close to the apparition site meaning she could not have forgotten.  The simplest way to understand this is that she never saw any images at all.  It may have been a lie.  If some trickery was involved, eg with lights that would be seen best in the dark, and she was part of the conspiracy it would have been necessary for her to lie that she saw the images in daylight to offset the chance of people guessing the truth.

 

 

Mary Beirne said that she left the house to walk Mary McLoughlin back to the parochial house "when it was still bright."  She does not say it was bright when she saw the vision which wasn't seen until they passed the Church.  They could have stood talking at the door.  Indeed she said she was in the presence of the vision from "a quarter past eight to half-past nine o clock."  Also she might have been there later than 8.15 for at the start of her account she is unable to decide if it was 8 or 7.45 pm when McLoughlin's visit ended.

 

Mary and Mary Beirne passed the Church after the visit ended.  This time both women claimed they saw the figures. Other people joined them allegedly about 8.15 pm (modern time would be 9.45) and it was getting dark (page 23, The Apparition at Knock).  The images became clearer once darkness fell (page 61, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary).  The images were then surmised to be exuding or emitting some kind of light.  Perhaps it was just a light that shone on them.

 

God would have made sure that the first witness would have known that they were not statues from the start.  And would Mary and co appear there and stay there when there was nobody about?  And could God not make the images brighter until it got dark?  Why did Mc Loughlin not see any light?  There could have been no light when she was so sure they were statues.  This suggests that whatever she saw it was not an apparition.  She never mentioned about what she thought were statues in the Beirne house.  It looks as if she and Mary Beirne didn't see anything until it was dark and when they passed the Church.  Then Mc Loughlin lied that there was something there when it was full daylight.  She was a friend of and a housekeeper to the Archdeacon.  She may have lied to cut out any suspicions of fraud such as a magic lantern being used.  There is reason to be suspicious of the Archdeacon and therefore of her.

Patrick Hill testified in 1879 that he went to the vision at 8.  Not that long after he testified soon in the Weekly News that it was dark then (page 59, The Apparition at Knock).  He testified to the Daily Telegraph that he went to the apparition when it was night and dark (page 60, 61, The Apparition at Knock).  So it was dark that night at 8. 

Consignments of statues had been sent to Knock recently and broken.  She said she thought that the Archdeacon had ordered new statues placed at the gable and never told her.  Strangely she never said that the gable would have been an odd place to have put the statues.  And what about the altar and the lamb supposedly floating about half way up the gable?  She said she saw a white light.  Incredibly, just a few minutes later she was in the Beirne house and still said nothing after seeing all these strange things?   It doesn't ring true.  She saw nothing. 

 

There is no reason to believe the claim that the figures were seen in daylight.  They were seen at twilight and in the dark. 

 

Some investigators make a lot out of the apparition appearing in daylight.  They say that it indicates for example that it eliminates the idea that a projector (a magic lantern) may have been used to make the images.  A projector would need the dark.

 

My preference is to hold that the images were cut outs stuck to the wall and some light source was shone on them.  Investigations have assumed a slide with the images on it was used but that is not necessarily correct.  The people who supposedly saw the images in daylight did not think they were amazing.  It was only after dark they seemed to be ethereal and magical.  Mary Beirne said in the 1930's that close up the images looked as if they were painted on the wall.

 

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Was Mary McLoughlin drunk?

 

Mary McLoughlin looked at the vision for about an hour and then extraordinarily she left for home and stayed in (page 23, The Apparition at Knock).  That was bizarre behaviour for somebody seeing the sight of a lifetime.

 

She was left alone with the vision as her friend Mary Beirne went to bring others to see it.  Incredibly, McLaughlin was standing admiring the vision from a very awkward angle.  She was standing at the schoolhouse leaning on a wall.

 

Some sceptics blame her for starting the whole fuss and they say drink was to blame for her "vision".  If a person who has been drinking sees a vision, it makes sense to assume the drink played a role in this.  They may have seen something and drink may not have been the cause but that is not the point. We just refuse to take such people seriously.

 

Mary McLoughlin may have been drunk for the following reasons:

 

1    She was visiting in Beirnes.  The sneaky Beirne household had a pub and like the rest of the houses there in Knock were probably selling drink illegally in the house (page 329, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland).  The incredible lack of communication between the family living in that house that night could imply she was not the only one drinking in it.

2    She couldn't get the times right - Mary Beirne contradicted her in everything.  The time she arrived at her house, the time she left etc.

3    She said that she had seen the strange figures on the way to Beirne's but for the half hour plus she was in their house she never mentioned them that was odd if just seconds before she had seen something and could truthfully say, "I thought the whole thing strange" as she did in her testimony.  A drunk person forgets easily and just as easily gets false memories.

4    She stood at a strange place for one really seeing a vision!  She picked a place for a bad far off view from an angle. In fairness though we must admit that the reason she and the others stood so far away could have been that the vision only looked good at a distance and close up was blurry and indistinct.  McLoughlin, "I was outside the ditch and to the south-west of the schoolhouse near the road, about thirty yards or so from the church ; I leaned across the wall in order to see, as well as I could, the whole scene." She was not tryign to see it as well as she could unless the images were vague except at a certain distance.  Or was she cross eyed with alcohol? 

5    What was she leaning on the wall for as she gazed at the vision?  She was not an old woman - just in her mid-forties.

6    She left the apparition as if she feared being sick with drink or the drink affecting her too much so she had to leave and sleep it off.  She only looked at it a while and went home which was strange.

7    The Archdeacon did not take her seriously when she supposedly told him to go to the gable to see the amazing vision - if that is true then he may have known she had been drinking

8    She was known for being fond of the bottle

10    A priest who was described as capable and who conducted a private inquiry  known to Canon Corbett declared that it was McLoughlin's drinking that started the vision story and started religious excitement (page 120, The Apparition at Knock).  Other priests confirmed the priest's conclusions in 1894.  All supporters say to that is that it contradicts Mary Beirne who attested that McLoughlin was sober and contradicts the Second Commission which took place in the thirties which said the priests who blamed drink did not investigate it right.  But the commission did not interview the priests. Its claims made in the thirties are too long after the alleged events to be worth considering.

11    The Nun of Kenmare though desperate to make the apparition perceived as supernatural by the world, was furiously keen to get rid of McLoughlin in case she would discredit the apparition that she was willing to finance a one way ticket to the states for her.  She stated that the reason she wanted rid was because McLoughlin was drinking too much.  The Nun of Kenmare turned against Archdeacon Cavanagh for letting McLoughlin stay in Knock (page 191, Knock the Virgin's Apparition in 19th Century Ireland). 

 

Point 11 is very important.  One get's the impression that there was more going on here than just a visionary being a drunk.  That happening would not discredit the apparition in the eyes of any fair minded person if the person was not drunk when the vision appeared.  Heavy drinking following the vision would only mean the visionary was not being respectful to the apparition.  Was McLoughlin claiming to have more visions and having them when she was drunk?   That makes more sense.  It would explain why such drastic measures were suggested for getting rid of her.  The Nun was writing reasonably close to the events in time.  Beirne then lied or was mistaken in 1936 when she made out that McLoughlin was taking only a little too much drink for a short time.  There is no evidence then that McLoughlin was sober on the night of the apparition.

 

As the apparition story had went so public her friends could not embarrass her by admitting she had been drunk.  They may have said she was sober or just said nothing.

 

 

 

Did McLoughlin really see the vision in daylight?

 

Mary McLoughlin reporting that she saw the vision before night fell as she went to Beirne's is cited by believers against suspicions that the images were made with a projector.  The projector would require great darkness.  The darker the better.

 

She said she saw a strange sight in a white light on the way there and thought the figures were statues.

 

There is no evidence that she really saw the figures before she visited Beirne's at all.  She didn't even mention what she allegedly had seen by then to the Beirne's though she was at least a half an hour in their house.  She had no time to forget for the house was only a minute away from the Church - was she drunk?

 

McLoughlin and Mary Beirne left the Beirne house.  They approached the chapel and still Mc Loughlin said nothing.  That is bizarre and can only be explained by confusion, forgetfulness, a hangover or drunkenness.  Mary Beirne was the one that had to notice the figures.  McLoughlin in her testimony says that she and Mary Beirne went near the chapel and Beirne cries out about the figures.  She testifies like one that didn't see them until Beirne alerted her to their presence.  Had they both seen them at the one time she would say, "We approached the chapel we saw beautiful images and Mary Beirne cried out, "Look at the beautiful figures".   The bolded bit is conspicuous by its absence in her testimony.  She says nothing about telling Beirne or anybody else that she saw them before. 

 

Mc Loughlin may have seen the images then for the first time and later with the hustle and bustle forgot this and thought that she had seen them before that.

 

It is said that Beirne said in 1879 that they saw the vision when it was still bright.  This is not true.  She said they left the Beirne house when it was still light.  If they stood talking at the door of the house they might not have seen the vision until it was darkening. 

Patrick Hill testified in 1879 that he went to the vision at 8.  Not that long after he testified soon in the Weekly News that it was dark then (page 59, The Apparition at Knock).  He testified to the Daily Telegraph that he went to the apparition when it was night and dark (page 60, 61, The Apparition at Knock).  So it was dark that night at 8.  We know from Mc Loughlin it was supposed to be quite dark at 8.15. 

Beirne's house was nearly in line with the gable of the apparition.  Why did nobody see the alleged light from the windows of the house or from the front door?

 

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Inconsistencies

 

Mary Beirne contradicted the witnesses who said there was a cross on the altar that appeared for she said she saw no crucifix or cross (page 25).  Margaret Beirne also didn’t see the cross (page 27).  Dominick Beirne contradicted Patrick Hill who said the altar was totally plain (page 21).  Hill said that it had symbols and pictures of angels on it (page 33).  It is not even certain that the 1879 commission took more than a day to work on showing the witnesses were telling the truth (page 37).  Page 47 has top witness Mary Beirne saying the vision of Mary had a yellow whiteness.  She didn’t see the vision’s feet but Bridget Trench said they were visible and tried to touch them (page 29). 

 In 1936, she said she couldn’t remember seeing a lamb on the altar (page 52).  

 

 

Those who say all the visionaries stated they saw the same thing are lying because some of the accounts are detailed and others are not.  Two boys saw angels flying about but the others never mentioned the angels.  This would be an extraordinary omission for people who loved angels to make.  The Irish had devotion to dead babies and considered them angels and also they prayed Angel of God, My guardian dear daily.

 

Mary McLoughlin lied that she went to Beirnes at 7 for Mary Beirne said she didn't see her until 7.30.

 

There is a serious contradiction between Margaret Beirne going to lock the Church at a certain time and Mary Beirne her sister going to do it at a different time.  They were sisters living together.  Also we have three different members of the Beirne family who lived in the house together making three separate journeys to tell the household of the apparition.  Mary goes to get Dominick at 8 pm.  Catherine Murray a niece goes to get Margaret at 8 pm.  Margaret goes back at 8.15 to get her mother Widow Beirne out (page 248, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  The Beirnes were being very untruthful and yet they were considered the main witnesses. 

 

The Beirne house was nearly level with the gable of the Church and was only a short distance from the Church.  It would not have been possible to see the vision from the house.  But it would have been possible to see the light.  The light would have been very noticeable had the likes of Patrick Walsh been telling the truth.  Yet we have the people in the house behaving as if it was not noticeable and having to have a number of trips made to them after dark to let them know!

 

It is strange too that the Archdeacon wouldn't go to the gable to see the apparition.  Mary McLoughlin went to tell him.  She said she was very precise in her description of the miracle.  She was known for drinking a lot and though people said she was sober that night did the Archdeacon know better?  He wouldn't even go to his door or window to look out.  He had a good view of the Church gable from the back door and back windows of his house.  Moreover, if there really was a bright light at the gable as witnesses said it should have shone in his windows.  He could not have missed it.  His behaviour was extremely odd.  As we shall see, this may have been because he was part of the hoax to create the apparition.  A real believer wouldn't sit by the fire when the Virgin Mary was outside.  He acted like he knew something and wanted to play the innocent.

 

All this suggests that there was truth in the suggestion that the apparition was a trick.  The witnesses may have lied or perhaps they were deceived thanks to a policeman using a projector or magic lantern as it was called. 

 

Mary Beirne stated that the Virgin’s crown was somewhat yellow.  A real miracle would have had a gold crown.  The crown was meant to be gold so why did the yellow colour not come out right?  It was because the vision was a trick.  And why did the image of St John closely resemble a statue near Westport as she admitted?  Why did the Joseph that appeared fit the unjustified Catholic stereotype that Joseph was an old man when he married Mary?  She saw gold stars appearing around the Lamb that appeared next the figures.  It never occurred to her that the stars could have been the light shining from the lantern on the rain as it battered against the gable.  She admitted that the stars seemed to be caused by reflection.  This is very important. 

 

Patrick Walsh who was half a mile from the Church alleged that he saw the light from one of his fields.  He said he noticed just a golden light on the gable that night.  How then could the stars have appeared to be gold when the light was gold?  They wouldn’t have been visible then or even noticeable. The witnesses certainly exaggerated what they had seen.  They allayed their own doubts by this means.  Walsh seems to be contradicted by the statement of Patrick Hill that it was a "soft white light" and that it didn't light up the whole gable - another indication that it was rather weak (page 59, The Apparition at Knock).  What makes it more plausible is that this was the truth is the fact that Patrick Hill's testimony was over-elaborate and he had imagined things that didn't match what the other visionaries said - maybe he made things up.  So when somebody who is prone to the spectacular says something as uninteresting as that the light was soft it rings true.  When magic lantern tests were conducted, it was found the light couldn't cover the wall.  Maybe that was the prompt for the other witnesses to start saying it covered the wall.  This would have been intended to prevent anybody thinking that they had been tricked by a magic lantern.

 

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Problems with who did the witnessing

 

There is a serious problem as to why the vision was only witnessed by the family and friends of Mary Beirne though there were plenty of other people in Knock.  Did she know that there was something odd about the whole thing that made her afraid to go to unbiased people?  Or was there a conspiracy to say the vision had happened?

 

Another interesting point is that Mary Beirne could have moulded the perception of the others of what was seen at the gable for she quickly took on a leadership role and was the first to suggest it was the Virgin Mary  (page 206, The Cult of the Virgin Mary).  She seems to have been behind the acceptance by the witnesses that the bishop was St John the Evangelist.  It is interesting that God would send John holding a book to suggest he wrote the Fourth Gospel when scholarship shows that he did not.  Anyway there could have been a strange light and she led the rest to think they saw these figures inside the light.  The illusion hypothesis is a possibility.

 

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Did the images move?

 

Most of the witnesses said the figures showed no sign of life.  Unreliable Mary McLoughlin said they moved but movement is a very easy thing to imagine. 

 

She had seen the images on the way to Beirne's house.  Later she and Mary Beirne passed the gable and the former exclaimed they are not statues they are moving.  She was excited and at a distance from the Church.  It is easy to imagine statues moving at a distance and especially if there is a light shining on them.

 

Bridget Trench said they didn’t move (page 29, The Apparition at Knock) and Mary Beirne said they showed no signs of life (page 48, The Apparition at Knock).  It is accepted that all the visionaries came to agree that the figures never moved (page 185, 197, 211, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  Archbishop Murphy of Tasmania asked pilgrims to pray that the figures of Mary had not been an image of her but really her (page 197, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  To me, the fact that the vision was not really a visitation by heavenly beings is sufficient proof that it was the waste of a miracle and has led most believers in the vision astray for they think it was a visitation.  The miracle was not from God for it caused error.  Protestants might say that the absurdities of the vision would show that it was Satan at work.

 

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Was the Vision flat against the gable wall?

 

A paltry three of the visionaries said that the figures were or seemed to be out from the wall.  But if you project a picture of a person on a wall and pretend that it is a ghost you will find that your imagination does seem to cause you to percieve that the image is not on the wall but in front of it.  

 

Trench said, " I went in immediately to kiss, as I thought, the feet of the Blessed Virgin ; but I felt nothing in the embrace but the wall."  She said the figures were full and round but this seems to indicate that she touched the wall when she expected to touch feet that were out from the wall.  The images were flat against the wall.  Her eyesight is suspect for she said Mary had something on her head like a crown.  She couldn't be definite.

 

Hill said the images were out from the wall but went on teh wall if you went too close. 

 

Mary Beirne sadi the figures stood otu from the wall "they stood a little distance out from the gable wall".  She also said that the images seemed to retreat into the wall when approached – maybe that was an illusion.  When you are far off a projected image it is easier to think it is three dimensional but when you get close it is easier to see that it is on the wall.  She added that she saw attempts to recreate the vision using slides but there was no comparison (The Apparition at Knock, page 50). 

 

She stated in the 1930s that close up the images seemed painted on the wall (The Apparition at Knock, page 62).

 

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Image really clear and distinct?

 

Children were indoctrinated as to who Mary and Joseph were and pictures of them were rife.  The lamb of God was a popular motif.  Yet Catherine Murray 8 said she saw "the likeness of of the Blessed Virgin Mary and that of St Joseph and St John, as I learned from those that were around about."  If the images were as plain as some of the testimonies say, what did she of all people need to be told who they were of?  She was attending school which was saturated in religion and sacred images for goodness sake!

 

Why did Mary Mc Loughlin and the otehrs stand so far away form the vision?  Was it because it looked clearer at a distance and close up was blurry and indistinct?  McLoughlin, "I was outside the ditch and to the south-west of the schoolhouse near the road, about thirty yards or so from the church ; I leaned across the wall in order to see, as well as I could, the whole scene." She was not tryign to see it as well as she could unless the images were vague except at a certain distance.  Or was she cross eyed with alcohol?  Patrick Hill, "At this time we reached as far as the wall fronting the gable ; there were other people there before me ... all were looking at the vision ; they were leaning over the wall or ditch, with their arms resting on the top."  Dominick Beirne the younger, "

by this time some ten or twelve people had been collected around the place, namely, around the ditch or wall fronting the gable, where the vision was being seen, and to the south of the schoolhouse;"  Margaret Beirne, said of the bishop that appeared that he was  as "if in the attitude of preaching to the people who stood before him at the ditch."

John Curry 6 years of age, "He could state no more that he saw the fine images and the light, ... nice things and the lights."

He only reported seeing images.  He did not know what they were.  Even a child would not call images of three people nice things.  He would say nice people.  How clear was the vision?

Why were they standing at such a strange angle to the vision and so far away if it was clear?  The picture below virtually gives it away that not only was the vision unclear close up but it was clearer if one stood at the south end of the school house.

 

 

 

Evidence for a projector being used

 

The book, The Apparition at Knock, A Survey of Facts and Evidence by Fr Michael Walsh is a good read.  Page 20 tells us that the figures seemed to move out and then backwards according to Patrick Hill’s testimony.  That is what something being projected from a machine would do.  Claims such as that the witnesses never mentioned the beams of light that would come from a lantern, or mentioned that shadows appeared as if they were standing in front of some light source so the magic lantern idea is false are inconclusive.  The witnesses didn't say everything in their testimonies.  They would not have liked to think about beams and shadows and things if they had happened.

 

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Was the apparition at Knock caused by trickery?  Many suspected that it was caused by a magic lantern, a projector.  Indeed in 1935, Liam Na Cadhain interviewed Mary Beirne then Mary O Connell and she declared, "The light about the figures was not like any light I ever saw but more like the soft silvery light of the moon" (page 50, The Apparition at Knock).  A soft light!  This refutes the lying witnesses who swore the light was very very bright.  And it proves that it could have been the light that comes from a magic lantern which would not be exceptionally bright.   Patrick Beirne in 1932, testified, "I saw three figures on the gable surrounded by a wonderful light.  They appeared to be something like shadows or reflections cast on a wall on a moon-light night" (page 53, The Apparition at Knock).  This sounds like a perfect description of what a lantern would produce.  Later in August 1936, under oath he lied that the whole gable was as white as snow with the brilliant light and that the figures were as clear and distinct as any human being (page 54, The Apparition at Knock).  He was known to be odd and consider himself a person of some importance but generally truthful (page 55, The Apparition at Knock).  He liked to be held important.  When he said that the light was like moonlight and the apparitions like shadows that was the truth.  Later he embellished all this to be important. 

 

Read  http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/eop_01/eop_01_02624.html

"The magic lantern theory was again revived in a British television program, "Is There Anybody There?" produced by Karl Sabbagh and telecast on October 31, 1987. In this production Nicholas Humphrey demonstrated how a passable magic lantern image could be projected from within the gable of a Cambridge church, using a right-angled shaving mirror. Humphrey suggested fraud by Archdeacon Cavanagh, parish priest of Knock one of the three commissioners. In support of the theory, a document from the State Papers in Dublin Castle was cited in which Cavanagh was reported by a spy as criticizing rebels and consequently endangering his prestige in the area by championing landlords and attacking local Fenians or Land League leaders. The idea that Cavanagh, widely respected in his parish, might resort to fraud was not well received."

It was concluded by the Church investigation at the time that a magic lantern could not have been used.  But everybody thought that it would have been deployed from behind a stone wall near the gable and a building nearby which proved impossible.  As it had been a very wet night, it was believed that the rain would have got between the lantern and the gable and ruined the image by getting in the way.  Nobody thought that a lantern could have been suspended very high up the gable and perhaps covered from the rain and shone unto a mirror reflecting the image unto the gable lower down meaning that what was seen by the visionaries was a mere reflection. 

The figures stood on top of the long grass at the gable.  Could the light source have been hidden in the grass?

 

The magic lantern could have been buried in the ground and a periscope could have been used to shine the images on to the wall.  It would have been close enough so that no witness was likely to knock it down.  The projector shines on to the mirror.  There is a mirror facing it that projects the image out on to the wall. 

It is typical of the Catholic Church to use people who have academic prestige but who are not qualified or experienced to refute people's doubts about the reality of miracles.  It is really a magician who should be deployed.  Even scientists can be fooled by good trickery.  Magicians in the 19th century were known to be able to project ghostly images unto glass sheets.  This stage trick fooled the audience into thinking they were seeing ghosts. 

Did the rain affect the vision?  Read this statement by Mary Beirne: "On the body of the Lamb, and around it, I saw golden stars, or small brilliant lights, glittering like jets or glass balls, reflecting the light of some luminous body".  It sounds like some light source shining on the rain.

It is bizarre how the visionaries could say that they saw that St Joseph had a grey beard when the Virgin's face was white but a yellower white than the white robe she wore (page 47, The Apparition at Knock).  The Virgin did not have a natural colour while Joseph did.  Beirne said that the Virgin, "Wore a beautiful crown; it looked like gold; and the face appeared to be a yellower white than the body of the cloak".  The yellowness is what you would expect from a magic lantern.  It was hard to produce pure white images in those days.  All that suggests a projector was being used.  We can't accuse God of producing poor images! 

Mary Beirne later described the Virgin's crown as white (page 49, The Apparition at Knock).  Catholics say that small errors like that do not discredit the story.  But who would think of saying a crown was white unless it was?  We tend to think of crowns as gold.  A white crown would suggest that the vision was a hoax.

In 1936, Michael McConnell, Knock villager residing in Belfast, went to talk to a priest, Father Clenaghan.  The priest took what he had to say very seriously.  The priest wrote down his direct speech as part of a letter that he sent to Archbishop Gilmartin, of the Archdiocese of Tuam of which Knock is a part.  The letter recorded that McConnell was repeating what he learned from a man who had been a policeman in Knock at the time of the alleged apparition.  The Constable stated that knew a Protestant policeman at Knock in 1879 who worked a magic lantern to make the apparition.  McConnell claimed that he had been told that the policeman had been projecting images from the Barracks in Knock on to the wall of the Church and some people saw the images and took them for visions.  The priest sent another letter in 1936 this time to Father Fergus the Archbishop's secretary.  However, in 1947 McConnell put pen to paper and wrote his own letter to the Archbishop.  This letter is still in the archives of the archdiocese.  He claimed that his informant was McDermott.  This time he did not mention that the policeman said the image was projected from the Barracks.  McDermott apparently said that a Protestant policeman who was good at making projector images trained religious images on the gable for practice.  Some people saw them and thought it was an apparition. He said that this picture making was done more than once.  The policeman realised that what he had done was being taken very seriously and he could lose his job.  So he urged his comrades to tell nobody and he asked for a quiet transfer from Knock to somewhere else.

 

The latest edition of the book, The Apparition at Knock by Father Walsh dismisses this claim for there is no corroboration and mainly because an image cannot be projected to the gable wall from the Barracks.   The Catholics agree that this claim is mere hearsay.  They say Mc Connell waited decades before revealing this.  But that cannot be proven.  He may have chatted about it for years before talking to a priest and writing the letter.  He was serious enough to write a letter about it.  He would only have done this if he had felt it was the truth and that hard evidence could have come up.   Plus we know now that the policeman would have had a motive.  The motive was to protect the priest and pacify a turbulent parish and thus make his own job easier. 

 

The letter was not written to cause trouble.  At that time it was doubtful that Knock was going to become a major shrine.

 

The claim was written a long time after the event.  Mr McConnell may have confused the information he received.  He may have been told that a policeman had been projecting images from the Barracks with a magic lantern and that he projected them unto the gable.  He may have taken it to mean the images were projected from the Barracks.  He misunderstood or misremembered.  The error certainly does not make him a liar for he knew being a Knock resident that experiments had been done in attempts to see if the vision was the product of a magic lantern or not.  He said he thought he was told the images were projected from the Barracks because he really did think that.  How else could you explain him saying the image was projected on the church from the Barracks when he must have known it was impossible?  Michael McConnell was known as a decent man.  He was not a liar.

 

There is a report of lights being seen on January 5 and 6 1880 on the gable at 11.00 pm.  Mrs Kileen from Knock, Miss Anderson and Miss Kennedy saw the lights.  They saw lights on the gable of the Church that were not too bright and then dimmed and moved around.  At one stage, Anderson thought she could make out the shape of the Virgin (page 100, The Apparition at Knock).  Two policemen at midnight also saw the lights on the gable later on at midnight.  This sounds like attempts were being made to reproduce the 1879 vision.  The lights show that somebody had a magic lantern somewhere and that though the police ruled it out they were a very ingenious somebody.  The police only checked the schoolhouse and the wall behind the church and that made them confident but the user might have put his instrument elsewhere.

 

Archdeacon Cavanagh at the time was not very popular in his parish.  If people were going to speculatively gossip that someone performed the apparition hoax then why didn't they blame the Archdeacon?  Why pick a policeman of all people?

 

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The apparitions could have been paintings

It has been suggested that the images were created by an artist with luminous paint.  This has been rejected for the artist would have been caught at work for it would have been time-consuming and would have had to clean the wall before the morning.  A stronger objection is that the heavy rain would have washed the paint off and ruined the images.

It is possible that cut outs were put on the wall and a light was fixed to the gable out of sight to shine on them. 

We must remember that nobody saw the images coming or going.  All the artist had to do was stick them to the wall when nobody was about.  It was easy to remove them when everybody was out of the way.  If he wanted rid of the people before he could remove the images all he had to do was pick a night when he was sure it would rain.  He would have hoped that if the rain were heavy enough the witnesses would have abandoned the tableau.  Also, he knew that if there was a way to get the light to go out the image would soon vanish causing them to disperse.

A magic lantern could easily have been used to create the lower bodies of the images.  The upper half of the bodies could have been mere paintings that the lantern was shining on.  More detail was necessary for the faces and the hands - the upper parts.  It is possible that the altar with the lamb and the cross was really a box that was fastened temporarily to the wall and concealed the magic lantern and mirrors required to make the image.

The Apparition at Knock rejects the idea that the images were painted using luminous paint or phosphorus on canvas hung on the wall for at 300 yards they were mistaken for statues which wouldn’t have happened.  But we must remember that if you saw strange shapes in vague bodily form at that distance in the grounds of a Catholic Church you would take them for statues for that is what you would expect.  What you expect to see influences what you think you see.  The paint would have looked white or greenish in the daytime so the book is wrong to say that the apparition being seen in daytime at that distance means it was not a luminous painting.  I’d say that four canvases were used and each one cut into the shape of the thing represented.  That would explain this.  The mysterious light was from a hidden lamp.  This would have kept the phosphorus stable because normally it would fade out in parts.  The painting was done in such a way that it looked real and detail could be seen.  Something must have been erected to keep the rain off the images for rain would ruin the phosphorus.  The book debunks the possibility of illusion but ignores the fact that these images painted by phosphorus might have done so much and illusion and imagination did the rest.  The contradictions between the witnesses show that hallucination was at play to some extent.  A crude trick could have been played and the witnesses imagined the rest, they could have imagined the things that make the vision seem convincing.

 

If a canvas was used, perhaps the magic lantern was behind it?  In that case, the lantern was just used not to project images at all but to brighten up images on the canvas.

 

The witness who said the ground was miraculously dry below the apparition would have wet hands.  If you expect the ground to be dry and your hands are wet then you will think the ground is dry.  Perhaps a shelter that wasn't seen was attached to the wall by the hoaxer to keep the phosphorous figures dry?  Or was a sheet of glass used and a light source used to project images on to it or to light up images already on it?  Did the glass protect the ground from the rain?

 

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Was the ground miraculously dry?

 

Bridget Trench tried to touch the Virgin’s feet but there was nothing there.  Her hands just touched the wall which suggests that the image of the feet was on the wall and not in front of it.  She felt the ground below the vision and it was dry despite the torrential rainfall that was happening.  But we are not told if she just touched one part of the ground so she failed to prove that she hadn’t touched a part of the ground that was sheltered from the rain beating against the gable by the people being in the way of the rain.  Her hands were already wet so how reliable was her discovery that the ground was dry?  Or perhaps the long grass had protected the ground from getting wet.

 

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The apparition encouraged sacrilege

 

The apparition led to people picking the cement out of the Church wall and putting it in danger of collapsing (page 89).  Would the Virgin knowing people would do this have appeared at Knock and caused the desecration of a Church?  They were stealing.  Strangely it got so bad that stones were being pulled out before anything was done about it.  Yet many in the Church held that many of the early miracle cures at Knock were connected to the pious use of the cement (page 88, The Apparition at Knock).   Apparitions of lights on the gable and even of the Virgin herself were seen after the vision but the Church dismissed those stories.

 

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The apparition caused danger

 

The Knock apparitions were not the work of God.  The fact that an old lady, Brigid Trench 75, was led to stand for an hour in pouring rain honouring a vision helps prove that.  A vision being optional for belief cannot have the right to encourage an old lady to risk death by pneumonia.  Even if we cannot find an explanation for the vision then that does not mean that we cannot keep looking for one or that there is none.  An unlikely but natural explanation is better than a magical or supernatural explanation.  Bizarre things do happen in nature.

 

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The visionaries abandoned a dying woman

 

Judith Campbell was an apparition witness.  In her testimony, she declared that Mary Beirne called at her house at 8 and asked her to go and see the apparition (page 31, The Apparition at Knock).  She did not say how long she stayed.  She did not mention abandoning her dying mother and leaving her on her own.  Her mother was dying and Judith left her in her sickbed to look at the vision.  Manipulator!

 

Bridget Trench 75 was in Campbell's house.  She left at 7.30 upon hearing of the apparition which she prayed at for an hour (page 30, The Apparition at Knock).  That means she could have gone back to keep an eye on dying Mrs Campbell when Judith appeared at 8 but didn't.  

 

The visionaries left the vision because Mrs Campbell had been found unconscious at her door and needed help.  Judith had thought she was dead when she discovered her (page 82, The Apparition at Knock).  The old lady heard about the vision and wanted to see and and got out of her bed and made it to the door where she fell.  She died the next day. 

 

Why does the Church say that if the witnesses hadn't run off and abandoned the vision to help dying Mrs Campbell, it would be a sign that the apparition was false? (page 83, The Apparition at Knock).  Surely a vision taking a daughter away from her mother is false then with that logic?  And the apparition did that!  Keeping the daughter away from the dying mother is more serious than keeping people at a gable when an old and abandoned woman is dying.  Judith left her mother's sickbed unattended.  Because of the apparition, nobody was with the old woman.  Why did the vision not vanish the very moment the alarm was raised about Mrs Campbell?  It lingered on as if disapproving of them going away.  God will not send a vision unless he wants people to see it.  Yet in Knock we have an apparition that was around before the first witness saw it.  She ignored it for a while and it was still there when she and friends went to see it.  It was still there when they all left the apparition site.  However, they helped Mrs Campbell and when they returned to the gable the vision was gone.  It vanished during their ten or fifteen minute absence.  It is strange that Judith didn't have her mother carried out to see the vision in the hope of a miracle.  Why is the apparition nearly killing a dying woman not a disproof of its authenticity?

 

Why did all the visionaries have to leave?  They behaved strangely.  Even more so when they stayed fifteen to twenty minutes away.

 

There is no way that people in a rural community in Ireland would have let it happen that an old woman would be left alone to possibly die.  It is enough to make one think that there was nobody at the gable that night.

 

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Who was the bishop in the apparition?

 

The witnesses saw a bishop with a mitre and a hand raised in blessing holding a book in the other hand.  They strangely decided that this was St John the Evangelist.  Why not St Patrick?  That would have been a more natural assumption.  It was said the image matched a statue of St John in Lecanvey but it has never been established that this statue existed and it didn't wear a mitre.  A true vision would not leave people guessing.  A Protestant policeman engineering a hoax might.  He wouldn't understand the Catholic religious mentality.

 

The Apparition at Knock (page 79) says that because the altar and the lamb in the vision come from the book of the Apocalypse written by the apostle John then its a hint that the bishop was John.  First, of all, modern scholarship says that the apostle John did not write the Apocalypse.  Tradition which is unreliable says he did.  So if the vision intended to hint that John wrote the Apocalypse the vision was certainly not from God.  Secondly, would it be wise for a true apparition from God to get involved in the dispute about who wrote the Apocalypse?  Of course not.  Thirdly, it is not flattering to make a link between Knock and a vindictive Bible book where Jesus and the saints are portrayed as vindictive.  There God and Jesus plot new ways to torment the world and the saints cry for vengeance.

 

It has been observed that the image of the bishop could have been of widely adored Archbishop John MacHale.  As he was not dead, the witnesses could not say the bishop was him.  If it was meant to be a representation of MacHale, then clearly the apparition was a joke.  There are some pointers that Archdeacon Cavanagh manipulated the facts to make it seem like that the bishop was John the Evangelist (page 196, Knock, The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).

 

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Why did nobody admit to the hoax?

 

Who would have wanted to refute an apparition that was bringing money into the impoverished village?  Soon after the apparition, it cost a fortune, a shilling and sixpence, to sleep in Knock in an armchair (page 67, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary).    

 

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The dubious testimony of Patrick Walsh

 

It is thought that as Patrick Walsh, 65, who lived at Ballinderrig about a mile from Knock saw such a bright light that it seemed as if the Church was on fire that a brightness of that potency could only be miraculous.  It is thought that luminous paint and magic lanterns can't account for it.  He said the light he saw was "quite stationary" and "circular" and "appeared high up in the air above and around the chapel gable" (page 26, The Apparition at Knock).  He reported that he saw the light from a half mile from the chapel. His testimony is used to verify that the apparition was not mass hallucination - he alone stands as its seeming refutation.   So his testimony is very very important - but is it true?

 

No effort was made to ensure that Walsh mentioned this light before he was told of it.  All we know is that he was asking the people about the light the next day.  This is only hearsay.  The story of the apparition would have been so arresting that the first person he met would have told him of it before he got the chance to ask about any fire.

 

The problems are that if his story was true, then why was he the only person at a distance that saw the light?  A light that bright and big should have been seen by more than him.  The area after all was quite flat with few trees.  It should have been seen for miles around.

 

Why didn't the police investigate?  They must have seen the light and they had a barracks nearby.  Was it because there was nothing remarkable about the light?

 

Surely somebody only a half a mile away from a church wrapped in light would have went to investigate - it would have looked as if the Church was on fire.  Indeed there are reports that Walsh thought it was on fire but went to rest for the night nonetheless (page 66, Mother of Nations).  Reliable and dependable wasn't he?   Surely when he went home his family would have went out to see if there was a light upon hearing his story?

 

People seeing lights is common enough - especially at apparition sites.  The Church pays no attention to them.  Nobody takes them seriously.  Gdo woudl have better things to do than make such effects.So why take Walsh seriously?

 

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The problem of the cures

 

Even by the bad standards of the 19^th Century the Church was unable to verify any of the cures that took place as authentic miracles in 1882.  But that didn’t stop it from saying they were happening.

 

Marion Carroll claims to have been miraculously cured of Multiple Sclerosis at Knock.  She was never officially diagnosed.  However, for 17 years, she had had many of the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis including bladder dysfunction, vision problems and inability to walk.  The Lourdes Medical Bureau would never accept her account as miraculous.  The rules of Pope Benedict XIV state that if a diagnosis is in doubt, then any claim that an illness was miraculously cured can also be doubted.  In Catholic standards, the miracle is not genuine.

 

The cure coincided with her being blessed with the communion wafer during Mass.  After Mass she was walking. There is nothing in this to suggest that she was miraculously cured.  If it were a miracle, it could be said to be a miracle of the Mass and not necessarily of the Virgin Mary's presence at Knock.  Perhaps it had anything to do with Knock as such.   It might have been the power of the wafer if you believe in that sort of thing.

 

The Lourdes miracle cures are dubious when looked at very closely.  But they are more impressive than any cure thing that ever was reported at Knock.  You might think some of the Knock cures were very impressive.  But they don't count for much as the Church never officially accepted them the way it did the miracles at Lourdes.

 

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We don't need an explanation

 

Even if we cannot explain the Knock apparition, we can explain that it is not a miracle for there is no good evidence that it is a miracle and that is enough. 

 

The apparition of Pontmain, France, in 1871 reminds one of Knock.  There a few children saw the Virgin in the sky for two hours.  One of the witnesses Jeanne-Marie Lebossé of Pontmain made a formal retraction of her claim to have seen the Blessed Virgin (page 200, The Cult of the Virgin Mary).  She confessed that she had never seen her.  What supports her assertion is the fact that the Virgin spelled out a message in the sky, “Mais prieze mes enfants”.  The nun who taught the children, Sister Vitaline, had a habit of starting sentences with the word Mais though it was terrible grammar (page 55, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary).  The Virgin making grammatical mistakes shows that the children imagined her.  Something similar could have had a lot to do with Knock.

 

We know that human nature being what it is, wittingly or unwittingly exaggerates.  The visionaries who said that the light covered the wall, that the images were moving and that no rain fell on the gable during the vision might have been doing just that.

 

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The Knock commissions of Investigation

 

Knock cannot be from God because the first commission was careless and did not ask the right questions or work out why the witnesses were sometimes contradicting one another (page 66, The Cult of the Virgin Mary).  God would do better than that.  The first commission is the most important one.  They did not try to explain why there was a dispute about if there was a Lamb there or not or if there were glittering stars or if the crown was somewhat yellow or gold or if there were angels flying about or if there was a cross on the altar that appeared in the vision with the Lamb standing on it.  Patrick Hill was known to have added a lot to his original description when he was interviewed in 1897.  Patrick Beirne only looked at the vision for ten minutes and then left so he was not too impressed by what he had seen and only testified in its favour for the sake of the rest in the group.

 

The first commission was held for only one day 8th October 1879 (page 174, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  We don't know who set it up or who the members were or how many.  We don't know who it was supposed to report to.  Early sources say Archbishop John MacHale set it up. Later reports say it was MacEvilly (page 175, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  A reliable source, Monsignor D'Alton of Tuam stated that it was indeed MacEvilly.  All these things are important.  If the commission was in any way illegitimate then we can't accept its authority.  The questions we are left with make us wonder if the commission knew what it was doing at all.

 

The depositions made by the witnesses are generally agreed to have been the product of many stages of development (page 185, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  The commission members seem to have perverted the accounts and the testimony to make it more convincing (page 211, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).

 

It is a serious problem how the signatures on three of them were penned by the same person (page 185, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  Scholars have determined that the commission was putting words in the visionaries mouths (page 189).  The eloquence of the testimonies was far beyond the abilities of the simple speakers. The depositions did not state the name of the priests to whom they were made.  The priests did not sign.  Worse some of them were probably made to only one priest.

 

It is known that Archdeacon Cavanagh was a member of the commission despite claiming bizarre visions of lights at the Church and columns of light (page 115, The Apparition at Knock).  Also he was bottling rainwater that washed down the gable the morning after the apparition to make holy water with healing powers.  He did not have an open mind.  He was hell bent on affirming the miracles and the reality of the vision.  He was disqualified thereby.  And the other members of the commission were disqualified merely by letting him in the door. 

 

Why would the Archdeacon say the things he said? - he must have been warned that his credulity was dangerous to the credibility of the apparition.  Was it because he felt the 21 August vision at the gable was somehow dubious or absurd and that he needed to bolster its believability?  There can be no other explanation.  Also he didn't go to see the 21 August vision when invited and stated that it was probably a reflection from a stained glass window!  Yet the next day started him on an extraordinary course of credulity.  His actions on 21 August are contrived.  He acted suspiciously.  He acted like a man who knew the vision was a hoax and pretended to be sceptical and therefore innocent of any collusion.  Then when the hoax had taken place he became determined to have it thought to be a miracle.

 

The accounts made by the visionaries to the commission describe Mary standing between two saints one of whom was a bishop wearing a low mitre.  The scene matches the depiction of Mary between a saint and a bishop like that in a stained glass window in nearby Ballyhaunis (pages 237-240, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century) too well to be a coincidence.  Most of the visionaries probably saw it and it influenced what they thought they saw at the gable.  Patrick Hill (same source) declared that the images he saw on August 21 resembled holy pictures he had seen.  The Ballyhaunis window has Mary dressed in white standing higher than the other two figures.   One figure is bowed to her.  All this was duplicated at Knock.  And there was a mitred figure on the other side of her as well in the Ballyhaunis image.   The bishop figure there was St Augustine.  He resembled the John figure at Knock. 

 

The Temperance medal, which would have been familiar to many at Knock, which showed an altar with angels flying around it and a lamb on it with a cross behind the lamb is a perfect match for the altar seen at Knock (page 240, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century).  The medal and the vision depicted the altar as emitting light.  Some visionaries denied seeing the cross and the altar.

 

 

All this suggests that the visionaries were not sure what they saw and their memories got mixed up with other things they had seen.

 

There are discrepancies and contradictions between the accounts.  Believers say that the errors do not refute the vision for they are not part of the main and important details.  But then they contradict this by calling upon the smallest details to bolster the claim that the vision was supernatural.   The main details fail to do that.

 

The evidences for the supernatural being at work are very small if not non-existent.  That is why we should not take the evidences for something supernatural very seriously.  Sometimes people can misremember something or make some mistake in a tiny matter that affects the bigger interpretation.  When the police investigate a case and there are minor discrepancies between the statements of the witnesses the police regard the the errors as a sign of honesty among the witnesses.  And nothing more.

 

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Why do many people believe the vision was supernatural?

 

One reason is the brightness of the light.  Reason two is the dryness of the ground under the apparition.  Reason three is that no shadow was mentioned - if the image had been projected the rain battering down or somebody going in front of the light source would have made shadows.  Reason four is that the images were detailed - they were too clear for a magic lantern production.  Reason five is the statement of a visionary that the images had roundedness - ie were three-dimensional.  But all of these elements could be explained by error, illusion, imagination.  They can be explained naturally.  The case for the supernatural nature of the vision rests on very small things - and it is the small things that most of the discrepancies appear in relation to.  Were the small things that indicate a supernatural origin mistakes?

 

The three dimensional thing is refuted by the idea that the figures went from outside the gable to onto the gable when approached.  the witnesses said that the images seemed to dissolve and go back into the wall when you went near them so they only looked detailed from a certain distance. A miracle wouldn't need to do that.  It is easy to look at your television and imagine that the figures are standing outside it and are rounded.  Try it.  The images going flat on the gable indicate that they never had any three dimensional quality at all.  And if the images go flat when you go near you cannot know for sure that they are three-dimensional.

 

Surely God could have made sure the events were recorded in a more accurate and more credible fashion and by more reliable people?

 

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What does the vision mean? 

 

Mary wears a crown and is the highest figure and stands in the pose of a priest at Mass with hands facing each other with her eyes raised to Heaven.  Joseph is praying to her on her right.  St John faces out to the people as if he was ignoring her and has his hand raised in blessing - he is blessing the people.  He holds the gospel book in the other hand.  Then there is the altar that looks like the altar on the temperance medal. 

 

Catholic doctrine says Mary prays to God for us.  But to have a saint, Joseph, praying to Mary, would imply that the saints pray to Mary which contradicts Catholic doctrine.  It would imply that the saints cannot influence God directly but need to use her as a mediator.  A saint who is with God and who experiences God directly does not need to ask another saint to pray or to pray to a saint.  Knock reflects the popular yet unorthodox and blasphemous belief among Catholics of the times that Mary was Queen of Heaven and could just give the word and Jesus would change his plans and his mind.  In the apparition of La Salette of the same century, she said that she was holding her son's vengeful hand back and was running out of strength. 

 

Mary wears a crown to indicate her superiority to the other figures including the lamb - the symbol of Jesus the Lamb of God.  She acts as a priest and looks directly to God and ignores her son on the altar.  She tells the people they can go directly to God and don't need the Mass for that.  They can go to her instead of a priest for she acts like a priest.  The bishop blesses the people and his holding the gospel book implies he has taught the gospel to them and is blessing them now.  The bishop then is none other than John McHale, the Archbishop of Tuam who taught the people and was the only bishop they probably ever had seen.  This is the best identification.  The apostle John would not be properly depicted in episcopal robes and in a mitre - these did not come into being much later.  The apostle John wrote his gospel on a scroll.  He would have been unlikely to appear holding a codex or book.

 

Mary is higher even than the bishop which contradicts Catholic doctrine.  Though Mary is the greatest of the saints and Queen of Heaven Catholic doctrine says she has no right to function as a bishop or better than a bishop or to exercise episcopal powers.

 

The altar tableau indicates a call to temperance is being made.  That this was never realised is a sign that divine grace was not working to promote this apparition and explain it.  In other words, the apparition was not from God.  It contradicts Catholic doctrine and supports the crude folk Catholicism in which priests were often disparaged and Mary was preferred and which didn't concern itself very much with going to Mass.  This kind of Catholicism is documented in the book Knock The Virgin's Apparition in the Nineteenth Century.

 

Knock and the resurrection of Jesus

 

How could God give us fifteen modern witnesses to a miracle when he only gave us a handful of obscure and legendary witnesses to the resurrection?  Why is Knock more believable than the resurrection of Jesus though the latter is essential for belief?  In relation to the resurrection, none of the witnesses were cross-examined and no eye-witness reports were left behind.  Knock didn’t have that problem.  Knock certainly can claim to be more believable and authoritative than the resurrection of Jesus.

 

The Bible forbids the worship of images as they cannot see us.  The people at Knock worshipped the images they saw even though the testimonies show that they saw an apparition of statues!  Would God be behind such an encouragement to idolatry?

 

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Apparitions today at Knock

 

Knock hit the headlines in October 2009.  Clairvoyant Joe Coleman predicted that Mary would appear to him and others there.  Thousands gathered into Knock to witness the visions.  Thousands ignored an invitation to attend Mass in the basilica because they wished to stay outside looking at the sun in the hope of a sign instead.  The fact that those people showed more enthusiasm for "visions" predicted by somebody engaging in the sin of clairvoyance than for the allegedly true visions at Knock in 1879 and for the Mass  raises the question of, "How Catholic are those people?"  A genuine Catholic would not believe that Mary would give messages to a practicing clairvoyant.  The Knock "Catholics" preferred signs to Masses and believing the Church that clairvoyance is wrong.  It is certainly a testament to the fact that most people who are into religion are only after spiritual thrills and pleasures.  And many did report seeing things in the sun at Knock.

 

If miracles happen too often and if they are absurd like people seeing the sun turn blue etc such as at Knock they cease to be impressive.  They also cause trouble.  They appeal to people who need to believe they saw something so that they can feel special and chosen.  The fact that the bishop who appeared at Knock in 1879 carried a gospel book shows that the apparition was evil or a fraud.  How?  Because it indicates approval for the gospels which report that Jesus did many miracles - many of them totally unnecessary just to get a following.  Jesus gave a really bad example.

 

If I go to Knock and see something strange such as the sun turning blue and apparently spinning, that is obviously a false sign and wonder like the ones Jesus talked about.  If it is a real sign, then there is no way to tell false signs apart from real ones.  If seeing the sun change is not a false wonder then what is?  To suggest somebody who already believes needs such a useless sign is an insult to God.  Is God more interested in showing off with his miracle power instead of helping some sick person?  It encourages those who run to fraudulent apparition sites and who imagine they see the sun change.

 

A false sign happening at an apparition site may indicate that the apparition is a hoax or from Satan.  If the sign is an illusion, Satan the deceiver has had something to do with it at least indirectly.  Satan would not do any sign, even a bad one, that seems to attract attention to a real apparition from God.  Would he do a false sign to make it seem that the apparition must have been from him even though it was not?  That would not be a very good way of discrediting an apparition.  A miracle or sign you see yourself is more important than a miracle or sign that has been reported by others.  A miracle is so out of the ordinary that you should only believe in it if there is no doubt that it is real.  If you experience a miracle that is absurd and which purports to support a claim made by someone else that they had an apparition, then you will certainly disbelieve in the apparition if you have any sense. The sign is that some deceiving miraculous power is trying to fabricate evidence for the apparition and draw attention to it.

 

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Knock and the scientific method

 

The scientific method is - Observe what is happening in matter and in the universe and the world.  Form a theory about why it happens and in the way it happens.  Do experiments to test this theory.  If the theory is proven, then we say we have discovered that we can predict that similar things in similar situations will have similar results. 

 

The Knock apparition is outside of all this if it is miraculous.  We cannot have the same degree of belief in it as we would if something was shown to be true by a scientific experiment.

 

Science at the gable on the day of the apparition would say, "Mary can't appear here."  The apparition rejects the science and opposes it.  It opposes the very thing that has given us today's quality of life.  You are either for science or against it.

 

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Conclusion

 

Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland shows that the original Knock apparition was reported by people and a society that delved heavily into superstition and often couldn't separate reality from religious fantasy.  The apparition then in that context would certainly be an encouragement to such a society.  If you honour Mary, don't insult her by claiming that the Knock apparition was really her!  If you claim that it was, you are saying she was a catalyst for superstition.

 

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BOOKS CONSULTED  

Margaret Anna Cusack, The Nun of Kenmare, by Catherine Ferguson CSJP, Gaelbooks, Co Down, 2008

Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Eugene Hynes, Cork University Press, Cork, 2008

Knock: Some New Evidence. The British and Irish Skeptic, Berman, David. Vol 1, no. 6, November/December 1987

 

Knock 1879-1979, Rynne, Catherine.  Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1979

 

Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993 

 

Our Lady of Knock, John MacPhilpin, Tom Neary, London: Catholic Truth Society, 1976

 

Our Lady of Knock. William D Coyne, New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1948

 

"Papal Visit Resurrects Ireland's Knock Legend." The Freethinker (October 1979). Reprinted in The British and Irish Skeptic 1, no. 1 January/February 1987

 

The Apparition at Knock, A Survey of Facts and Evidence, Fr Michael Walsh, St Jarlath’s College, Tuam, Co Galway, 1959

 

The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock, also Official Depositions of the Eye-Witnesses. Tuam, Ireland, 1880. 2d ed. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1894.

 

Mother of Nations, Joan Ashton, Veritas, Dublin, 1988

 

The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996

 

The Cult of the Virgin Mary, Michael P Carroll, Princeton University Press, 1986  

 

The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary, Kevin McClure Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, 1985  

 

The Thunder of Justice, Ted and Maureen Flynn, MAXCOL, Vancouver, 1993  

 

The Wonder of Guadalupe, Francis Johnson, Augustine, Devon, 1981 

 

Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh, Liam Úa Cadhain, Knock Shrine Society, Roscommon Herald, Boyle, Roscommon, Ireland, 2004 

 

 

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