IRACLES ARE HOAXES
SCIENCE
AND MEDJUGORJE
There is no Scientific Basis for the
Supernaturality of the Medjugorje Apparition
Vicka
jumps away from the man about to stab her in the eyes during a “vision”. She claims she is not aware of what is
around her when seeing the Virgin and that she jumped because Mary seemed to
be about to drop the baby Jesus and she wanted to catch him! Also note that these two visionaries are
not looking in the same direction. It
is as if they are only pretending that there is a person only the visionaries
can see in front of them.
Again
two “visionaries” looking in different directions and expressing different
emotions as if they are play acting
This photo according to some shows the visionaries during an apparition. If that is correct, then it is a serious problem how we don't see any joy or enthusiasm in their faces when they are supposedly meeting with the Blessed Mother
This photo shows the children looking in different directions during an apparition. The lack of love and bliss is evident from their unenthusiastic facial expressions. They are not looking at a heavenly vision. Satan would give them good feelings so it is probable that the visions are not his work - the visions do not exist. The visionaries are lying.
OFFICIAL CHURCH DOCUMENTATION REFUTING THE
APPARITIONS
Index
Top
of the Document
Despite the official statements from the Catholic hierarchy that has
studied the alleged apparitions of Our Lady in Medjugorje in the former
The Laurentin and Joyeux book
Has the Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady, Queen of Peace been appearing
in Medjugorje in the former
The book we will be sifting
through is called Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at
Medjugorje. It was written by Fr
Rene Laurentin and Professor Henri Joyeux of the
The six visionaries go into
ecstasy. The ecstasy is the joyous
trance that shows the vision is happening.
The book says that “since the end of 1983, ecstasy begins before they
have finished the first Our Father” (page 7).
Yet the book says that when the youths look up when the youths look up
when the Virgin manifests there is no evidence of signalling to account for
them all doing it at the one time!
They say the prayer together and they could have agreed to throw their
heads back at a certain word and to change that word every day to make it
look genuine. In Channel 4’s program
from 1998, The Miracle Police two visionaries have a
slight difference as to when they raise their heads and eyes as the Virgin
allegedly departs upwards. Hold your
finger on pause to put it in very slow motion if you have a tape of it and
look carefully.
Page 10 says that the
apparition lasts no more than one or two minutes since the end of 1983 though
previously she would have stayed for three quarters of an hour. This suggests that when medical and
scientific tests began the visions may have been shortened by the visionaries
to make life and non-detection of their deception easier.
On page 11 we read how Vicka
managed to shorten the first medical examination they had in 1981. This examination was required by the
police. Vicka kept nagging Dr Bijevic
about when it was going to be over and it was not even her turn and she
refused to sit down and she said cheekily that she would stand for she was
healthy and she would come back for an examination if she needed one and the
doctor let her go. Anyone who really
saw the Virgin would want it to be verified and when she was afraid of being
examined it suggests she thought she had something to hide. Could it have been something like evidence
of psychosis?
Page 16 says that when the
Virgin saw one of the visionaries in a harness for testing his physical
reactions to the apparition she said that was not necessary when asked for
her opinion. The doctor, Botta, found
this offensive thinking that the Lady was accusing him of doing wrong in
testing. Dr Botta was then told that
the Virgin only meant that prayer was needed and that the tests were just
accessories and was not accusing him.
But this answer just tells him he was accused! If the Virgin was the real Mary or the
Devil they would welcome tests. Prayer
is not the essential. Prayer will not
tell you what is true or false with regard to an apparition’s authenticity.
Fr Bulat stuck a needle in
Vicka when she was having a vision.
“Under the sheer pressure of the action Vicka’s body moved somewhat to
the right but she quickly and gracefully regained her balance. Not a muscle in her face moved” (page
18). You can avoid seeming to have
felt pain when you are expecting the needle and think of the bad consequences
if you show any evidence of being hurt which will help you bear it. The children would have known that visionaries
were tested during ecstasy with needles and have been prepared for it. The thought of what they would lose if they
reacted was enough to make them blank out the pain. A reaction can be hidden. Actors do that all the time.
Referring to another test,
“When we questioned Fr Bulat he said that he had noticed some muscular
movement in the neck, at least during the course of the second prod. But he was placed behind Vicka and too much
on the vertical to be able to notice.
It would appear that any
movement was simply Vicka’s effort to regain her balance after the pressure
of the needle (page 18).
A neck movement can be seen
from behind if he is near her which he was.
He had to have been able to see when he said he saw it. Why prod if the face cannot be at least
partly seen?
So Fr Bulat was accused of
lying when he said he saw the neck and it is not true that the movement
appeared to be just an attempt to steady for it could just have easily have
been a reaction to pain. Why would the
muscles of the neck need to move if the body moved to the right meaning that
the muscles round the waist were responsible?
The waist would have been used to balance.
And there is no proof that
autosuggestion was not employed to help her take the pain.
This episode makes us wary of
this book for it shows that the authors were willing to ignore the case
against the apparition to focus on the reasons for it. And that is not an honest approach.
Henri Joyeux was going to
test the children with EEGs to determine if what was happening in their minds
was normal when they were having their vision. Jacov, Ivanka and Marija refused for the
Virgin had said there was no need.
They were urged to ask the
Virgin who said, “You did well to
ask. You can go ahead” (page 19). But it was not right for them to ask
her. Visions have to be tested before
they can be trusted. She would have
told them to look for tests from the start if she had really been from Heaven
or Hell. The tests showed that the
vision was not a hallucination. It
looks like stalling.
On page 22, we read that
Joyeux and Laurentin would not have discussed testing with the children
anymore if they had been against it seemingly since the Virgin had told the
children to make up their own minds about being tested. This is disgusting and shows that the
authors were amenable to blind faith and did not come to their work with a
good scientific attitude.
Page 23 tells us that there
is no reaction to seeing bright light like blinking or turning away from it
when the vision is happening. Only the
pupils reacted. But you can train your
facial muscles to hide any reaction to such light. Or you can wear dark contact lenses. And if the children really see the Virgin
in a glowing aura their pupils should stay the same for it is the same
strength of light they are looking at.
On page 25, we learn that the
visionaries claimed that they could touch the apparition. Jacov alone was to touch her while he was
being tested to see if he was really touching anything. He did not and then said that he had
forgotten to ask her permission and that she had left as he was about to ask
her. But the real Virgin would not
have done that for she would have known he had something to say to her. And how could something like that be
forgotten until the end of the vision?
You don’t go to an interview and forget to go into the office and talk
about yourself.
Ivanka and Marija asked the
Virgin if they could have the test done and she said no (page 25). Obviously, when the Virgin was so unreasonable
there was no Virgin at all. The real
Virgin Mary does not make mistakes.
The visionaries were making up an excuse.
Page 25, “At the beginning of the ecstasy eye
movements ceased almost simultaneously”.
The visionaries knew that the
eyes should look at the one spot during ecstasy when the cause
manifests. The word almost is of the
utmost importance. The book is for
defending the view that the ecstasy is supernatural. If it were they would all fall into it in
the exact same fraction of a second.
Before the ecstasy of
It was concluded, “With regard to the hearing function, our
tests showed that the auditory nerve continued to transmit sounds but that
these sounds did not reach the cortex” (page 27). But it is only Ivan’s word we have that he
did not hear the sound. Why would the
nerve carry sound if not to the cortex?
What is the point of noise registering in the nerve and not the
cortex?
The tests revealed that when
Ivanka’s voice became quiet during the apparition “there was no longer any
movement of the larynx” (page 26). So
when she spoke to the Lady only her lips moved. There is no miracle in this though many say
there is! That is because they are
believing her when she says she speaks aloud to the Lady.
Speaking inaudibly is
motivated by a desire to prevent mistakes.
If they spoke aloud then Ivanka could have said, “Yes, we want you
here tomorrow,” and Jacov, “I know you have helped him”, both at the same
time proving that they were not really answering anybody at all. An inaudible voice would not testify
against the authenticity of the apparitions if there was only one witness but
only if there were more and with Medjugorje the apparitions are short and the
messages banal so the Lady has nothing to hide. It makes no sense that a supernatural being
would not make it look more like she or he is appearing which involves
letting them talk out loud.
You can gently move air
through your voice-box that makes it show up on the instruments as if you are
talking loud but something supernatural is preventing others from hearing
you.
But the silence may be
totally fictitious for Ivan was filmed having a vision in
Page 27:
“The visionaries do not feel pinching, prodding or other
interventions. This disconnection is
not total; rather it is partial and variable”. We even read: “It all happens as if the
visionaries, urged on by the ecstasy (their encounter with the Virgin)
gradually adapted themselves to it and eventually allowed themselves to be lost
in it”. This ecstasy cannot be much of
a miracle in that case.
Page 27 ends with the
extraordinary statement that the visionaries “warn the people when they
appear to annoy the Virgin or walk on her veil”. The Virgin must act upset which shows that
she is not a miraculous being. She
could miraculously enable the people to walk through her. If the visionaries did not believe the Lady
could look after herself it is strange when she was able to keep herself
invisible from the people. They are
certainly lying about the Lady and trying to make her seem too human because
they don’t know that Bernadette of Lourdes, for example, saw a Lady she could
not disturb or describe exactly. The
vision is not as mysterious and magical.
The visionaries did know what was happening around them.
I find it disturbing that
Ivan and Vicka are able to do without blinking while the rest do (31). Bernadette did not blink at
Page 35, “The visionaries’
gaze converges on the same well-located spot.
We have not been able to secure the evidence that would pin-point the
spot geometrically.”
The exact same spot. There is something very suspect here. One would stare at the left eye and another
at the right eye if there were a woman before them. Why don’t they gaze at the hands or
mouth? They are just looking at a spot
on the wall that they had agreed upon.
There is a cross on the wall and there are other items that they could
agree to look at.
When the book says they look
at the same spot and then that it could not verify where this spot would be
on the wall it shows it is not being scientific for how do the authors know
they are looking at the same spot? It
is easy for people to look the one direction but harder for them to look at
the exact same spot. The spot should
have been pinpointed and then the Lady asked to move to see if they could
still look at the same spot on an unblemished wall.
These photos all show that the
children are not looking at the face of an invisible person who is just a few
feet in front of them at all. They are
looking in different directions and have different facial expressions. When one visionary smiles and the others
look serious that makes no sense for if the Virgin Mary smiles surely they
would smile with her. Ecstasy is
supposed to be a state of joy.
The Lady starts the Our
Father as she goes and then they all say aloud, “Who art in Heaven”, at the
same time and recite the rest. There
are techniques for measuring time in your own mind to manage this. It is impossible that they will all say it
at the exact same time so signalling is still possible. It is hard to be sure if they all said it
at the one time. You can only look at
one face at a time. They say it slowly
and with concentration and with her gone they can’t start at exactly the same
time. When one voices the first
syllable the rest start.
They raise their eyes and
heads as the Virgin ascends (page 36).
The first person to move could be signalling the other to follow suit
by doing so. When they will raise
their heads at different rates one person starting it off would not be
noticed. There were no screens placed
between the visionaries. In conjuring
and mind-reading tricks similar and better feats are easily accomplished.
Page 72: “The screening test
does not impair the vision, therefore the normal visual pathways are not
used.” The screening test was putting
a card in front of the eyes of the witnesses during the apparition so that
they could be asked later if it interfered with their seeing her. They said it did not. If so, then what are they looking at with
their eyes? Why would God want it to
look as if they were seeing with their normal eyes? There is some fraud here. If God lets them act as if they can see
through their normal eyes then he is not reliable and he can’t be doing an
unnecessary miracle just so that it will be verified when the Virgin gave the
thumbs down for the touch test. The
children said they see the Lady as a real person and not as a vision (page
16).
The ecstasy is characterised
by alpha brain waves. Alpha is
associated with relaxation and expectation.
When you are paying attention you are in beta (page 73). New Age religion promotes methods of
putting yourself in alpha. Silva Mind
Control is chiefly concerned with using alpha as is Laurie Cabot’s Science of
Witchcraft Tradition. It says that
counting backwards and relaxing put you in alpha. If the children were not paying attention
to Mary they were not seeing her. They
could not have been talking to her for when you think or use the intellect
you snap out of alpha.
The conclusion of the experts
is that the apparitions were “scientifically inexplicable” (page 74). That judgment was based on believing the
visionaries. So it was not scientific
for science is for facts and not faith.
The only inexplicable thing might be the children doing things at the
same time as if prompted by Mary. But
that does not prove that they really see her or see anything. The authors are too anxious to verify the
apparitions.
As a test to pick up what
Vicka was saying in her voice that the human ear could not pick up (page 76)
the apparition came and went before the apparatus had time to give a good
interpretation. Vicka did not want it
to be found that she was not talking at all but just moving her lips. Even more telling is that the Virgin was to
deliver a message and she did not but said that the apparatus was not needed
and then she left. The expected
message was not given until the day after.
If all this is not suspicious then what is? The Virgin would not cancel what she had
promised to avoid a test that would do her or nobody else any harm.
And a stapedium for testing
the inner ear conveniently fell out of Ivan’s ear when he knelt at the start
of his vision. It would have been
inserted better than that so it must have been deliberate. Some oil in the ear would make it fall out
easier. Why was it not put in
again? The testers must have wanted it
to come out. Ivan might have hoped
this would happen and that was why he knelt so fast to try and budge it.
All this is on page 76.
The bishop of the diocese is
right to say that there is nothing supernatural at Medjugorje. The visionaries failed all the real
tests. It is hard to know how much
attention you can pay to tests like this.
There are millions of companies around the world which disagree on how
to make the best sunscreen and if you want to find what is the best UVA
protection you will have trouble finding out.
Nancy Fowler the visionary from Conyers, Georgia, was tested and
supposedly found to have the brain activity that is associated with a coma
though she was wide awake (An Overview of the Medical and Scientific
Testing of Visionary Nancy Fowler, Conyers, Georgia WWW). But what we are not told is that once Jesus
blessed a well in her visions so that pilgrims could use the water as a
sacramental and it turned out that the water contained dangerous
bacteria. Fowler makes apocalyptic
prophecies with no dates or times specified for when they will be fulfilled
and predicts the
More about
Laurentin
In Fr Raymond Brown’s book, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine,
we read about Laurentin and his dishonest methods. Laurentin frightens secular humanists who
believe that religion is harmful with his promotion of apparitions and
miracles. He once spoke up for a
miracle that allegedly caused food to be multiplied in recent years! Laurentin is a good example of how
religious people think and waste good time and good money for people silly
enough to buy or value their tripe.
Laurentin wrote a book on the
infancy stories about Jesus in the gospels which tends to solve the problems
in them by looking at them from a pious and blind faith point of view to the detriment
of the methods of historical analysis (20).
Laurentin once argued that
Luke saw Mary as the Ark of the Covenant (74). That was pure dishonesty.
He wrote a foreword to a book
that was filled with slander and bitter self-righteousness that attacked
modern biblical critics (75).
He wrote at times in an
emotional bigoted tone (76). He
accused many Catholic scripture scholars of rationalism and positivism
without any evidence (77).
He likes to distort the views
that he does not like (79). He
misrepresented Brown’s views on the annunciation and the Magnificat (79).
Brown notes a number of pages
to exposing how Laurentin twists and distorts to trick people into accepting
his views.
Page 80. He lied about Fitzmyer saying the virginal
conception was fictitious though he knew his book well.
Brown was falsely accused of
saying Mary was a symbol and that the virginal conception did not appear
until Matthew and Luke were written.
Page 81.
He was accused falsely of saying that he did not know if Joseph was
Jesus’ dad or not and of saying that Mary received no revelation at the
annunciation.
Page 156 makes a distinction
between Laurentin’s misunderstanding and even misrepresenting the work of
those scholars who are too liberal in scripture for him.
Laurentin believes the infancy
stories are true for the writers went to the trouble of writing what they
wrote instead of simply saying that Jesus came down from Heaven ready made
(157). That is a naïve argument and he
is not that naive.
Jesus was called the son of
Joseph on five occasions and the son of Mary once for Joseph was dead but
Laurentin says that Jesus had no father for nobody called him that in
He translated the Bible as
saying Mary was full of grace for that was St John Chrysostom’s
interpretation. But he never checks if
John did this because he thought of Mary in a way the author never thought of
and because it suited the Mariology of his time.
He argues that since Paul
described Jesus as born of woman it refers to the Virgin Birth. But the Old Testament says we are born of
woman. The Jews used the expression
for everybody (158).
Astonishingly, he argues that
since Luke does not mention Mary at the cross she was there!
He lies about Jesus telling
his parents that they did not understand that he had to be in God’s house as
referring to his going back to his father after his death (159). Jesus was in the
He argues for the Virgin Birth
on the basis of John 1:13 which has nothing to do with it at all. All the verse in question says is that some
people are not born by the will of man but of God which does not mean that
these men have not been procreated by men.
Because Son of God is
mentioned before son of David in Luke
Laurentin gives no proof that
Matthew deliberately left out kings from his genealogy of Jesus but says he
did. He gives no proof that it can fit
the one in Luke but he says it does fit it.
It actually contradicts it.
Laurentin argued that the
infancy in Luke is true for it is too coherent to have been invented! Hasn’t he heard of novels?
Laurentin believed that the
spirit that made Mary conceive in Matthew is female so there is no idea of a
God having sex with a woman (160).
Brown says this argument is unconvincing. I say the Holy Spirit could be God’s power
in Mary to conceive without sexual intercourse. To say that Mary conceived by the Holy
Spiritess is to say that Mary conceived without sex by her female composition
which was a gift from God. In other
words, God was believed to have done with her the same as he does with any
woman who comes in contact with sperm and gets pregnant.
Laurentin is not to be
trusted. When he lies and twists
things in his Bible why trust him in apparitions and miracles which he
believes are inferior to the Bible?
A notorious compendium of
mysticism and apocalyptic fanaticism called The Thunder of Justice was
published by Ted and Maureen Flynn whose integrity is disparaged even by
conservative Catholics in the know.
The book approves of messages from Heaven and visions that have never
even been properly investigated.
Typical of the book is the way the visions of
In Laurentin’s book, The
Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today, 1990 edition, he quotes the
locutionist, Fr Gobbi, giving a message from Mary in 1987 where she says that
that year some of the great events she predicted at
Laurentin accepts that the
bishop of a diocese should be the one to decide if devotion to an alleged
apparition should be allowed or not (page 41) and yet he argues that
supernatural things happened at Garabandal Spain in the sixties (page 146, The
Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today) despite four official
statements from successive bishops of that place clearly stating that
everything allegedly supernatural had been checked out and explained as
natural (The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today, page
145). This does not sound like great
devotion to the authority of the apostles invested in the bishops. The fact that the Garabandal children were
locked out of the Church to stop them having visions there and they went and
had them at the Church door shows no respect for the authority of the clergy
of the Catholic Church. The real
Virgin would not have appeared under such conditions because she would
respect the fear of the clergy that letting her appear in or near the Church
on consecrated Church grounds might be a sacrilege in case she is not the
real Mary.
Laurentin believes in the
visions of
Laurentin said that Mama Rosa
the visionary of San Damiano was a very holy woman though he implies that she
may have been guilty of fraud when he says Mary asked her to collect money to
build her a city of roses that never came to be and that many people
suspected her (page 147, The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today). She had enough money made to bequeath it to
the pope who refused it. Yet Laurentin
says that Mama got involved with traditionalist priests who persuaded her
that communion in the hand was a sacrilege and surprise surprise she soon had
the Virgin saying the same thing in 1969.
If so, she was clearly making the messages up. This message made the Church oppose the
visions as the sacrilege suggestion implied disobedience to the Church which
began to accept communion in the hand again just like it was done in the
early Church. Mama Rosa wasn’t that
angelic after all.
Laurentin’s approved of the
bishop of
Laurentin should have realised
that when an artist tried to reproduce the colours of the Medjugorje Virgin’s
dress, which is grey, silver and bluish and the visionaries said he couldn’t
make anything like it (page 32, The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today) that that was a warning sign.
Why? Because if you can see it
we have the paints and the technology to reproduce whatever is seen. We can make paints shine and make glowing
pictures. The visionaries were just
copying St Bernadette who said much the same thing.
Yet Ivan said on the
documentary Apparitions of the Virgin Mary stated that he sees Mary like an
ordinary three-dimensional person and stated that he talks to her just like
he talks to his interviewer (Galaxie Productions, Amaya Films, 2000).
He says that the ears and eyes
of the visionaries of Medjugorje respond to sounds and lights when they are
having their vision but they pay no attention to them (page 49, The
Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today) but just focus on the
apparition. Sounds like good yogic
concentration rather than a miracle to me!
So he says also (same page) that the EEG shows that the children give
no reaction during the EEG and their attention is focused only on the
vision. Significantly, it bears no
trace that an invisible person is speaking to the children. You would expect
sounds that didn’t exist in the room but which were made by the vision to
show up in the EEG. They don’t. The tests don’t prove that they are
communing with an invisible person at all.
Quite the opposite.
He states that visions are
false if they add to the gospel of Christ (page 18, The Apparitions of the
Blessed Virgin Mary Today) even though Medjugorje has given 10 secrets
and many other revelations that are not in the gospel. For the Virgin to stand up for priests like
Vego is as much an addition to the gospel as would adding a line saying Judas
was homosexual to the gospels would be.
There is no difference in practice where it counts.
Laurentin says he approves of
the Church having done away with the Canon Law forbidding the promotion of
unauthenticated apparitions. But it is
obvious that the Church cannot endanger its authority and let people publish
without permission for apparitions can easily lead people into separation
from the Church and heresy. But
according to Laurentin such publication is fine!!
Laurentin promoted the fake
seer Vassula Ryden who was known to have had messages fixed and then
presented to the gullible as real messages from Jesus and who was given the
honour of a condemnation by the
O Carroll and Science
Chapter 5 of Fr O Carroll’s book, Medjugorje, Facts Documents
Theology, informs us that Dr Maria Frederica Magatti thought that the
ecstasy was genuine and the children were normal.
Dr Lucia Capello found them normal as well and said that she was
interested in the synchrononous movements made at the beginning and end of
ecstasy that indicated the presence of the Virgin. She stated that the first could be
explained by natural causes. But she
then she says something strange. She
says that they could not naturally do things at the same time as if there was
something telling them what to do after that.
But if they could do it at the beginning of the vision they could do
it at the end too. If they can do it
the first time perhaps by signalling to one another they could do it at the
end by counting at a practiced rate to say one hundred and then raise their
heads to simulate seeing the apparition ascending. Yet O Carroll presents this as proving the
apparitions.
In 1984, Dr Mario Botta who was
a cardiac surgeon who took a cardiograph of Ivan during ecstasy and found
that the ecstasy did not cause anything strange.
Dr Enzo Gabrici was a
neuro-psychiatrist. He found that in
the case of Vicka there was no evidence of tiredness after the vision. In hysterical visions tiredness
follows. He found no evidence of
hallucination in the visionaries. One
wonders why he looked only at Vicka and Jacov in depth. If they had to be examined so closely for
evidence of hysteria what value does that place on his examination of the
rest? He even said that they were not
like Spiritualist mediums for they were not taken over by any spirits. But didn’t he know that most Spiritualist
experiences are not of this kind and that times mediums have been reported to
have had mental states that were very unusual just like the Medjugorje
visions? They have visions and voices
too. He said that the visionaries were
not hypnotised for they remember what happens in the trance when they come
out of it. But hypnotists can make you
remember. Perhaps they do go into a
hypnotic trance and have planned earlier in the day what to say happened
during the trance. Perhaps they make
up the messages and say they remembered them from the trance. O Carroll needs to get more familiar with
rational analysis.
It is interesting that Dr
Giorgo Sanguinetti saw the visionaries shake as the vision left. Then they retreated. He did not expect the shuddering so he
would not have noticed if they all really started at the same instant in
time. The bizarre shuddering suggests
that they had to use a crude way to fake synchronicity.
Dr Joyeux said they entered
slowly into ecstasy (page 65). He also
said that one or more said ode or she is going at the end. This could be prompting to act as if the
Lady had just gone out of sight. He
admitted that his tests gave no scientific proof that the Virgin was
appearing but he did say that what happens to the children during the ecstasy
cannot be explained (page 68). But
then he described the ecstasy as a state of deep prayer in which they forget
about their surroundings (page 69).
The ecstasy is supposed to be the puzzle and first he said there was
no explanation and then he gives one, deep prayer! Joyeux said his tests excluded trickery and
that the crowds being transformed in Medjugorje excluded it as well. We know by now that the suspicious
behaviour of the children speaks louder than any test. And Joyeux is being an unprofessional
scientist when he appeals to the fervour of the crowds as an indication of
authenticity. That indicates a
determination to make the apparitions look inexplicable when he should be
emotionally and mentally open to whatever the truth may be.
Would God be more interested in
evidencing the miracle of ecstasy than the miracle of the apparition? I doubt it!
In Looking for a Miracle,
we read that Joyeux’s arguments are far from persuasive and they are
equivocal (192). They are certainly
confused that is for sure. It quotes
Laurentin as saying that the children don’t go into another state of
consciousness but their awareness just gets stronger. Laurentin even dared to write that
describing this as ecstasy SEEMED to be correct. He’s not sure and he demands that we
believe in Medjugorje. Without an
inexplicable ecstasy the apparitions are not worth thinking about or testing. He said that the tests failed to prove what
the visionaries were saying but did not disprove it either. These startling admissions are to be read
on pages 8 and 126 of Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at
Medjugorje.
Dr Marco Margnelli was a non-believer who
said the children go into alpha but was puzzled by some things. He wanted to do an EEG but he felt that his
presence and that of his colleagues annoyed the children causing the three
apparitions he was present at to have too short a duration for any good
investigation. The neurophysiologist
thought that the children were in a deeper state of alpha than could be
attained by meditation and based his conclusion that they were not lying on
the way they seemed not to react to tests on the senses. He was impressed by videos of the cross
disappearing on the hill and the silence of the birds at the time of the
apparition. But birds can be sensitive
to what humans do. Birds can find it
alarming to have lots of noise which then stops. And how often do birds stop for a minute or
two anyway? Many of the people would
not even notice if the birds were singing and then be led to think the birds
stopped. Sadly, the doctor became a
good Catholic. After what Joyeux and
Laurentin wrote one can hardly expect the Virgin to do such things when she
can’t make it undeniable that something mystical and magical is happening
when she appears. That would be more
in line.
Cornwell and
Medjugorje
In Powers of Darkness, Powers of Light, the
intelligent and sceptical John Cornwell reveals some interesting things about
his experience of Medjugorje.
He related the story of a
priest who made one of the visionaries blink during the apparition and who ceased
to believe in it (50).
Lie-detector tests show that
the visionaries were not lying (51).
But by pretending that the lies are true and that you believe them you
can get around these tests.
The only thing that was found strange
by the doctors was the larynxes being used and making no sound and the
children looking up and coming out of the apparent ecstasy at the same time
(51). Stage magicians could explain
all this. Doctors understandably
cannot. This conflicts with the
Laurentin and Joyeux book that there are more wonders than just the soundless
voices. When doctors cannot agree we
should listen to the most sceptical ones.
A lot of devotees have
fantasised stories such as many being kissed by the Virgin and their rosaries
turning to real gold.
Cornwell noticed that when one
stopped speaking the other would begin during the ecstasy (76). I think that that should be taken as
evidence for the visionaries counting the seconds to create the simultaneous
ecstasy effect. It could be a
coincidence. When one stops speaking
surely the Virgin will answer her or him so there is something wrong when
another starts when one stops. The
communications are about spiritual problems: the children asking the Virgin
for her advice and receiving it.
Intelligently, he tells us that coming out of hypnosis or
hallucination wipes the memory of what one did or experienced in it is long
disproved (79). It says a lot about
those experts who use the memory of the children as proof that they are not
hypnotised or hallucinating. “The
forces and laws of hypnotism are powerful, extraordinarily flexible and
deeply mysterious, although hardly in a mystical sense” (79). Everybody’s nervous system is different and
affected by different things and we do not understand very much about
hypnosis. Some experts will find that
they are not hypnotised on grounds that would not be acceptable to other
experts. Some experts believe that
alpha is a hypnotic state.
Vicka told Cornwell that a
child’s dirty hand stained the Virgin’s veil.
This is an absolute impossibility when science says that there is no
tangible being there. The Church would
hold that the apparition body if it appears there would be very different
from normal bodies and people could pass through it like there was nothing
there just like Jesus was able to behave like a ghost despite being a body
after his resurrection.
Vicka said that the Lady was
preceded by a light in the first series of visions. That would be good if they could not look
up and go into ecstasy at the same time.
She said that on occasion the Lady would appear as soon as they made
the sign of the cross (102). The sign
was the trigger. No true scientist
could use science as a reason to believe in the apparitions.
Vicka claims that she and
Jacov were literally taken bodily to Heaven which only the most credulous
could absorb (103). It is convenient
that Jacov’s mother was out at the time.
The Lady took her and Jacov by the hand and they reached Heaven quickly. This gives the impression that they flew
there very fast. But why couldn’t she
take them there without them traversing the space between earth and Heaven?
Her Hell sounds naïve and
medieval with people having horns there.
Fr Svet explained that the Lord reveals difficult truths to the simple
in ways they can grasp so her vision of it was not exactly as it was
(104). But if Hell is something more
abstract than that why could God not show them a black space and let them
feel how you feel in Hell just for a moment?
That way there would be no danger of misunderstanding. Fr Svet is making excuses for Vicka. God would tell the visionaries if the
vision was figurative. The visionaries
are making themselves look unintelligent for they believe the lady when she
says she is the Queen of Peace and how can she be when her God that she wants
us to become subject to in all things is to blame for people going to Hell
for he could prevent us having full consent to sin so that mortal sin would
be impossible and without mortal sin he cannot send us to Hell forever. He could make us a bit retarded in that
area but give us trustworthy faculties in everything else.
Medjugorje
Herald
Medjugorje Herald of
February 1999, speaks of four different episodes of tests done in 1998. The last one was a psycho-physiological
investigation which was incomplete and therefore of little use for the
visionaries would not and said they could not participate fully. Some just didn’t want the test full
stop. No evidence of mental disorder
was found. They wanted to see if the
ecstasy had changed since 1985. It was
found that the ecstasy was less intense.
The doctors were convinced that the ecstasy could be caused by
hypnosis. “The hypnotically induced
state of ecstasy did not cause the phenomenology of spontaneous experiences
and therefore it cannot be deduced that the ecstatic states of spontaneous
apparitions were not states of hypnotic trance”. The witnesses’ ordinary consciousness was
tested, their hypnotic state was tested, their state when they visualised
strongly was tested and their consciousness during an apparition was
tested.
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES DONE ON THE
VISIONARIES OF MEDJUGORJE – 1998 SCIENTIFIC STUDY ON THE VISIONARIES admits
that the investigation which was on a psycho-physiological basis was
incomplete because the subjects, the visionaries, were not keen and a bit
uncooperative and complained about family and social obligations that had to
be put first. This report ruled out
the possibility that the children were hypnotised. But it dishonestly left out the possibility
that hypnosis was used to get them to do the other things that seemed usual. In other words, they might not be in
hypnotic trances but hypnosis could be used to train and manipulate their
behaviour so that they see the Virgin at the exact same time for
instance.
All the authorities agree that
you cannot be persuaded to do anything you consider immoral in hypnosis. Yet Marija told the ten secrets under
hypnosis to Dr Stopar (114, Scientific and Medical Studies,
etc.). She would not reveal them to
him before that in her right mind.
Marija was faking for no trick was done to make her think it would be
moral to tell and she would not have wanted her reluctance to tell
removed. She faked the trance to make
it look as if her visions were real which suggests that she was making them
up. She was pretending that hypnosis
made her tell because she believed what nearly everybody believes is that
hypnosis can make you do what you think is bad.
The fact that Medjugorje was
not touched during the war was down to the reluctance to harm a holy site,
payments made to the warring factions to keep away and refugees being turned
away from the town.
But Briefly…
The Marian apparitions of Medjugorje may rank among the greatest
religious hoaxes of all time. Some scientists
are saying there is at least one impostor among the six visionaries who is
not really seeing anything at all according to tests. And a documentary produced with the
collaboration of
In the documentary we are told
by a visionary that they touched the Virgin the first time she appeared. This is worrying for it made the children
relics of the Virgin Mary and elevated them to that state much too
quickly. We know how much relics are
glorified and adored in the Catholic faith.
I recommend the book,
Medjugorje After Fifteen Years by Michael Davies. The vision has been popularised extremely
well by the efforts of Fr Rene Laurentin.
Even many Catholic sources have a bad opinion of him. He lied about Fr Zovko being appointed
pastor of Medjugorje just a few days before the first vision and that Zovko
did not know the visionaries (page 73, The Medjugorje Deception). Laurentin even went as far as to correct
religious errors made by the apparition (page 78 ibid) for such errors would
betray the human origin of the visions.
He removed a blasphemous story
about God going to destroy the world if a bloody handkerchief was thrown into
a river from one of his books, for he wanted to cover up that the Virgin told
Vicka that the tale was true (page 94, ibid).
He got a Professor Joyeux to test the visionaries and they wrote a
book about how inexplicable it all was.
There is proof that there were many lies told in this research. The visionaries had a lot to lose if they
failed the tests and that could have enabled them to avoid reacting to bright
light and sound and to the prick test.
On one occasion Jacov was to
touch the apparition under test to see if he was touching anything and he
forgot to ask her permission and she left and it was not done. How convenient and why did Mary not remind
him when she said that she did not mind the tests? They all looked up at the vision at the one
time and no evidence of signalling was found.
Perhaps they had electronic devices on their person that jabbed them
at the right time or the signal was given earlier and they had to inwardly
count at a trained rate so that they would raise their eyes at the exact same
moment without any obvious link with the signal. But there are several eyewitness
testimonies that the children did act as if they were signalling so that they
could get down on their knees to signify that the ecstasy and the vision was
happening. Patricia Waters, once a
devoted follower of Medjugorje, was interviewed as one such witness on the
video Divine or Deceived? The
same video provides evidence that the visionaries have been making money and
indeed had to have been out of the alleged appearances.
The visionaries were proven to
have lied to the bishop. The Lady
stood up for a priest who was accused of fathering a child by a nun and it
was later found that the accusation was true.
The bishop of the diocese where the apparition happens is the one who
has to decide if anything supernatural is happening and if it is from God and
yet this Lady counsels disobedience.
Catholic doctrine going back to the time of Ignatius of Antioch at the
beginning of the second century insists that whoever disobeys a legitimate
order of the bishop separates himself from Christ and the Church. Catholics might say that the bishop is
wrong and should not be obeyed but apparitions are subordinate to Church
authority. Mary would not appear in a
diocese if it would lead to trouble with the bishop. She certainly would not threaten the bishop
with divine vengeance as the visionaries reported she had done on June 21st
1983 in which she said he has to convert to belief in the events of the
Medjugorje parish or else. That was an
attempt to bias the bishop in the apparitions favour by scaring him. The real Virgin could not do that for the
Church leaves it up to each person to decide even when it approves of an
apparition if that apparition really was from God.
The visionaries say they have
no connection with the outside world when they have their vision. But in 1984 a French cameraman pretended to
be about to stab Vicka Ivankovic in the eyes with his fingers. She jumped and jerked her head away from
him and later it was explained by her that she thought Mary was going to drop
her baby Jesus and she was going to grab him!
But then why did she jerk away from the Lady? This incident was recorded on tape and was
once shown on a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary. If they were seeing anything they would
know that Mary would not be so inept that she would drop the baby for she was
full of God’s power. Notice again that
her and the other visionary are not looking in the same direction. Notice that she has a serene face not like
somebody that was trying to catch the baby Jesus. The hands are still tightly clasped. Yet the site showing this picture was
written up by a psychiatrist who claimed she reacted not at the man but at
something else that nobody else could see!
This shows that the pro-Medjugorje researchers are not to be trusted.
Fr Vlasic is in the picture too
looking on and shows no reaction. He
was according to many one big role-player in the Medjugorje fraud. He doesn’t react at the assault on Vicka
because he knows something like it had to happen sometime so he was
prepared. And the reason he was so
determined to act so calmly was so that he might not upset the visionaries
who had to look serene and detached from their surroundings.
What about the research of Dr
Giorgio Gagliardi who was involved in the 1985 medical testing of the
visionaries as they claimed to have a vision?
A world leader in research in Medical and Experimental Hypnosis he
sees nothing supernatural in the visions or anything to do with them. He was interviewed on the Network 5 video, Divine
or Deceived? The promoters just
want to mention experts who seem to back up their views and what they want to
be true. The same video contains
testimony that Fr Slavko Barbaric one of the main advisors and recorder of
Mary’s messages told people to leave the sacristy one time for their presence
prevented the apparition from appearing!
An apparition that is controlled by men is definitely a false
one. The false visionary Ivan was
proven by footage to have lied about having bad English though his wife was
English-speaking. The document he
filled out under oath that the sign predicted by the Virgin was stated by her
to be due to happen in June 1982 was displayed in the video. Everybody mentioned in the video was given
right of reply. Enough said! Fr Barbaric also approved of the phoney
revelations of Teresa Lopez according to the shocking book, The Medjugorje Deception. It is a concern when the visionaries need
such dubious people for guidance.
The Church cannot approve of Medjugorje for
it will start a precedent and will leave apparitions that run for years and
decades open to acceptance by the Church.
If Medjugorje were really from God the apparitions would have stopped
long ago to give the Church a chance to approve of them. The real virgin Mary would not appear in a
situation when her apparition cannot be approved. That would be an affront to the
Church. This apparition appeared in
the Church in defiance of the Church authorities and was itself disobedient.
CONCLUSION
There is no scientific evidence that Mary is appearing at
Medjugorje. The fact that people with
bad motives and proclivities were involved in showing she was appearing shows
she was in fact was not.
BOOKS CONSULTED
“I BEG YOU: LISTEN
TO MY MESSAGES AND LIVE THEM,” Padraic Dunne, published privately, Drogheda,
BIBLICAL
EXEGESIS AND CHURCH DOCTRINE, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press,
LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books,
MEDJUGORJE, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society,
MEDJUGORJE HERALD, Vol 13, No 2, Feb 1999,
MEDJUGORJE, A TIME FOR TRUTH AND A TIME FOR ACTION, Denis Nolan
MEDJUGORJE, FACTS DOCUMENTS THEOLOGY, Fr Michael O Carroll, Veritas,
OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE, Tomislav Vlasic OFM, published by Peter Batty,
POWERS OF DARKNESS, POWERS OF LIGHT, John Cornwell, Penguin,
POWER OF THE WITCH, Laurie Cabot with Tom Cowan, Arkana, Penguin,
QUEEN OF PEACE (Newspaper), Fall, 1995,
SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL STUDIES ON THE APPARITIONS AT MEDJUGORJE Rene
Laurentin and Henri Joyeux, Veritas, Dublin, 1987.
THE APPARITIONS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY TODAY, Rene Laurentin,
Veritas,
THE HIDDEN SIDE OF MEDJUGORJE, Fr Ivo Sivric, Ed. Psilog, Saint
Francios Du Lac, Quebec, 1989
THE THUNDER OF JUSTICE, Ted and Maureen Flynn, MAXCOL,
UNDERSTANDING MEDJUGORJE, HEAVENLY VISIONS OR RELIGIOUS ILLUSION? Donal
Anthony Foley, Theotokos Books,
VISIONS OF THE CHILDREN, Janice T Connell, St Martin’s Press,
WORDS FROM HEAVEN, Anonymous, Caritas of
The following books are available from Militia Immaculatae Trust,
CRITERIA FOR DISCERNING APPARITIONS REGARDING THE EVENTS OF MEDJUGORJE
by Monsignor Peric.
MEDJUGORJE – AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS, Michael Davies, Remnant Press,
MEDJUGORJE THE UNTOLD STORY, E Michael Jones Fidelity Press,
MEDJUGORJE, Bishop Zanic, Mostar, 1990.
THE
THE MEDJUGORJE DECEPTION, E Michael Jones, Fidelity Press,
TWENTY QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDJUGORJE, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus
Press, Dallas, 1999.
UNDERSTANDING MEDJUGORJE, HEAVENLY VISIONS OR RELIGIOUS ILLUSION? Donal
Anthony Foley, Theotokos Books,
To Order Understanding Medjugorje visit http://www.theotokos.org.uk or write
to Theotokos Books, PO Box, 8570,
Videos
VISIONS ON DEMAND, Network 5 International, 1997
DIVINE OR DECEIVED? COVER-UP, Network 5 International, 1998
Contact:
Network 5 International
L69 3EE
A critical look
at...
the
"apparitions" of the Virgin Mary in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Since 1981, the
Virgin Mary, reportedly, has been appearing to six young Croats during daily
ecstasies which last several minutes. Millions of pilgrims have responded to
the Lady of Medjugorje, the young visionaries, and the Franciscans who lead
the parish there. What exactly has happened?
From a unique
vantage point---he is both a Franciscan priest and a native son of
Medjugorje---the author of this book exposes contradictions and falsehoods
that have been omitted or intentionally concealed until now. He introduces us
to the group of visionaries, makes known and explains the Church's teachings
on Marian apparitions, and comments on exceptional and previously unpublished
material (in appendices) which allows a thorough examination of the roots of
these events. He scrutinizes the role of Medjugorje's Franciscans and the
Bishop's interventions, as well as those of the Commission of inquiry set up
to evaluate the whole question. He also provides an update of the recent
events in Medjugorje and attempts to explain the so-called apparitions.
Finally, the theologian urges readers to draw their own conclusions as to
whether it is still possible to believe in the Madonna's presence and action.
Father Ivo
Sivric was born in Medjugorje in 1917. After completing his studies in
philosophy and theology in Mostar, he was ordained in 1941, and then went on
to complete his postgraduate studies in
The author of the prospective Volume II (Observations
of an anomalist) visited Medjugorje, filmed the visionaries during four
of their «ecstasies» and explored various physical and psychological
hypotheses to explain both the luminous phenomena and visions as not
supernaturally caused. He illustrates the sequences of a spontaneous test
done during an «apparition» and analyses their consequences. He invokes the
testimony of critical witnesses, as well as the opinion and work of expert
specialists. From the matrix of his special interest in altered states of
consciousness, he proposes his own experimental counteranalysis of the
«scientific and medical studies.» For example, an «ordinary» student is shown
doing a laboratory reproduction of the «ecstatic electrophysiological
parameters» identical to those recorded in the young Yugoslavian visionaries.
Important sociopolitical, ecclesiastical, and economic factors, as well as
the high stakes for Marian propagandists and the overt manipulation are
introducted and explored. In all, Louis Bélanger provides readers with a
complete overview of Medjugorje's apparent anomaly: on a fine June day in
1981, two teenaged girls, moved by the sincerest hopes, incited a collective
drama which has drawn millions of believers in search of tangible expressions
of the spiritual dimension.
Louis Bélanger was born in
To order The
Hidden Side of Medjugorje, 419 pages, including 16 original
transcripts - ISBN 2-921010-01-1, please enclose a money order for CAD$ 40.
($ 25.00 + $ 15.00 for Express/Priority postage & handling to the U.S.A.
(including Internet tracking and insurance - 3 to 4 days to come in) payable
to PSILOG INC., 465 Notre-Dame, Saint-François-du-Lac, (Québec) Canada JOG
1MO.
THE WEB
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES DONE ON THE VISIONARIES OF MEDJUGORJE – 1998
SCIENTIFIC STUDY ON THE VISIONARIES
www.childrenofmedjugorje.com/medj/research.htm
AN OVERVIEW OF THE MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TESTING OF VISIONARY
http://members.aol.com/bbu84/biblicalstupidity/science.htm#10
DISCERNMENT AND SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF VISIONARIES FROM THE MEDJUGORJE
STAR
http://members.aol.com/bbu84/biblicalstupidity/study.htm#11
09/09/07