Weird and Wacky from "A Skeptic's Casebook"

As an investigator with Australian Skeptics Inc., I come into contact with all sorts of interesting people—interesting that is in some odd ways. Not the least of these are diviners or dowsers, people who believe that they possess some inexplicable and mysterious psychic power which enables them to find or determine objects that cannot otherwise be seen or identified with the normal five senses.

One of the first I met was Maurie Hunt, an eighty-two year old former aircraft fitter and opal miner, who claimed to be able to divine—regardless of whether it was buried in the ground, under concrete or hidden in lead containers—bones, teeth (real or artificial), all minerals, fingernails, rocks, underground workers, salt, bore and rainwater, and to identify colours, coins and banknotes.

In support of his claims, he produced some old newspaper clippings—one of stones arranged on the ground at Lightning Ridge that supposedly represented the outline of a buried prehistoric animal. Only a crude outline was depicted, there was no indication of internal skeletal bones. The other clipping was a photograph of the diviner with his divining rod standing on Manly Beach, NSW, where he claimed police would find a long buried body. The police declined to excavate.

Maurie's theory appeared to be 'like attracts like'. His divining rods were made of poly-plastic bent at right angles, on the ends of which were taped pieces of coloured cloth, bits of mineral ores, bones, coins or banknotes. He explained that he would use the rods with the pieces of material taped on the ends corresponding with the materials, items or colours being sought or divined. In other words, if he was searching for a ten cent coin then he would use the rods with ten cent coins taped to them. This immediately raised some fundamental questions in my mind—what happens in the case of a composite material such as an alloy or something which meets two of his criteria such as a multi-coloured flower? Finding underground workers too I would imagine would pose a problem, in that case not only do you have teeth, bones, flesh, clothing material and metallic objects to tape to the rods, but in theory, Maurie should also have a human body! I decided to humour him, and stood by to watch his demonstration.

Taking two red painted rods from his incredibly vast array, he held them in front of him at waist level and walked towards a bright red flower. The tubes twisted inwards and crossed. The demonstration was hardly convincing, as I observed the rods being rolled between the thumbs and forefingers—they did not move of their own volition.

Maurie however, was convinced that he had substantiated his claim to possess a remarkable power and offered to be tested. Happy to oblige and with no other pressing engagements, I agreed. First a piece of gray coloured cloth was placed under a thirty by twenty centimetre sheet of lead on a concrete path. Maurie divined it as pink, and excused his failure by saying that there were rusty water pipes under the path and a box of stones nearby emitting ultra-violet rays. The gray colour of the lead also had something to do with it but he couldn't say why.

Undeterred he tried again. This time, away from the rusty pipes and ultra-violet emitting rocks! I placed a piece of white cloth (unobserved) under a piece of gray-green carpet. Maurie guessed it was either pink, blue or white. When pressed, he settled for white, but omitted to say why his gray and green tinted rods failed to react with the gray and green of the carpet. At this juncture our diviner adjusted his hat so that the brim touched the top of his left ear. He explained that this ensured the continuity of 'flow'. Satisfied that this sartorial maladjustment was the cause of his previous failure we moved on to the next test.

This involved a yellow rose petal placed in a matchbox and sealed in a white envelope. It was then placed under a piece of carpet. Using a selection of his rods, Maurie divined it as either pink or dark blue, and claimed success, for when the envelope was opened the inside lining was pale blue! He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that the predominant colour was white (the envelope), the matchbox had black printing on white, and the item he was trying to identify was yellow. So far I was not impressed, to say the least, so we moved on to minerals.

A pea sized copper nugget was concealed in a matchbox and placed on top of a pile of lead ingots. Although Maurie failed to identify it, this particular test thoroughly exposed the spurious nature of his claim. Concentrating on divining a small mineral in the matchbox, he completely overlooked the fact that the box was seated on the top of a pile of lead ingots with ten thousand times the mass of the small copper nugget, yet when he used his lead tipped rods there was no reaction.

Undaunted, Maurie suggested that we now try his speciality — divining the denominations of banknotes. A twenty dollar bill was placed under the carpet and Maurie again went through a range of banknote tipped rods from fifty dollars down to a one dollar bill. (for those readers about to query a one dollar note's existence, this was in 1986). Maurie identified the hidden note as a ten dollar bill. I magnanimously awarded him half marks.

Finally we went back to colour identification. This time a piece of bright red plastic was hidden under a piece of carpet — it was divined as blue. When confronted, Maurie explained that the colours taped to his rods must match exactly, although in my opinion, a spectroscope would have been needed in this instance to tell the difference. He could not come up with any reason to explain why all of his plastic rods didn't react with other pieces of plastic regardless of colour.

More comprehensive and serious testing of water and mineral divining has been carried out by the Australian Skeptics and like minded groups around the world, with the same negative results and unconvincing excuses. These are covered in greater detail in my book, A Skeptic's Guide to the New Age.

For over sixteen years Australian Skeptics have had on offer an award of thirty thousand dollars for any person who can demonstrate the existence of paranormal phenomena. There have been few contenders and some decidedly peculiar claims. One gentleman was convinced he could read the future in the bird droppings on his verandah, and another claimed to have invented a radiation proof hat. In the first instance, the prediction that the Ugandan navy (a land-locked country) would invade South Africa has yet to materialise, and in the second, the Australian Skeptics' offer to test the efficacy of the radiation proof hat by inviting the inventor to wear it in a microwave oven was declined.

Occasionally I receive letters from those who would rewrite science text books and re-define the laws of nature. One in particular that I recall, turned out to be written by an inmate of the Arizona State Prison. With tongue in cheek I reprinted it verbatim in the Australian Skeptics' journal, as an item of great moment, an item of such profundity, scholarship and evidential of in-depth research that it took my breath away.

"Dear Editors

I have not gotten a chance to study one of your magazines but am aware of the material you publish such as things concerning the occult, and religion, U.F.O. and the unusual. I am a writer; not a proffeshional but I am trying to be. I have some very unusual facts about ufo's and the Bible that has never ben published, and I bet that no scientist or Christian has ever thought of. I am not a preacher, I am a realist. Someone into facts. I know how Moses and the Isrealites crossed the Red Sea. The movie called the Ten Commandments is an exaggeration. You and your readers of your Magazine would be shocked, very intertained by what I have to say. I also Know what took place 11,000 B.C. during the flood of Noah. It was not a world wide flood, but a local flood which I can prove with shocking and convincing evidence that has never been thought of or published before. I can also point out how ufo's were involved with Moses and several other Prophets in the Bible. Let me give you an example of my theories.

Evolution, did it happen? Was evolution the grand design of god? Scientist who believe that life took place and evolved through trial and error and evolution claim that it all began in a soup. the ocean, or a lake. “LIFE CRAWLED OUT OF THE WATER.” Well, if you read GENESIS 1:20 it plainly states, let the waters team with life. What a simple way for ancient journalist to explain evolution. Then of course these creatures turned into land animals. The Bible verses parallel with modem day theorist because right after Gen 1:20, in Gen 1:24, it says, Now god said, let the earth bring forth living creatures. Yes, thats right, let the earth be the handyman of creation. Animals is the product of the earths ground. Let the earth bring forth animals. Even the Bible tells us in its own little inconspicuous way that evolution did take place. My article does not try to attempt converting people to be a Christian, in fact its completely scientific. I have placed a sample of my earliest proposal. Please read it. How much do you pay per word. please write me back. I have published a few articles in Fate Magazine. My book is now being published in Palm Springs, Cal."

"New age beliefs is right up my sleeve. No one has ever written or thought of the things I know about God and the Bible being connected to ufo's and evolution. Don Vaniken's (my emphasis) book called Chariots of the Gods has nothing on my scientific facts of ufo's and ancient man's involvement with them. Moses did not use magic or a miracle of god to cross the Red Sea. The Red Sea did not open up like we are lead to believ from the Movies that hollywood produced. The ancient people of the east were always crossing the Red Sea during a very low tide. Moses took advantage of one of these ocean tides that was out one morning. The tide goes out so far at times that you can sea dry sea bed and sand for a quarter of a mile. In fact, according to Egyptian writings, The banks of the Red Sea had police stations operated by the Egyptian police 24 hours a day so that nomads and refugees could not cross into Egypt during low tide hours. Almost like the American borders of Texas and Mexico. My article will explain all this in detail. The Red Sea is almost 200 miles across and a mile deep, give or take a few feet. Moses and the Isrealites did not cross the large body of water, or the greater part of the Red sea, they crossed at Succoth which is called the Suez Conal. This area is shallow water, expecially in 1400 B.C. When a tide takes place, the Sea bed is completely exposed and is easily used as a bridge to cross from Egypt over to the Sinai desert."

"Noahs flood is easily explained. I don't like to call it a flood, in fact it was more like a great flash flood that takes place in deserts and dry areas of the world. Noah's flash flood was the greatest flood that was ever recorded. The Mediterranean valley was a valley of lush green trees and tropical vegetation. It was a valley of grass and villeges.

That's right, the Mediterranean Sea did not exist around 12 or 11,000 B.C. I can prove it was put there through a great flash flood event that wiped out everything in its path that lived in the area.

The Babylonian people wrote about this great flood before anyone did. The Biblical flood involving Noah was a second version barrowed from the first Babylonian version. I can prove that ufo's were involved with civilization on earth during this huge flash flood. I can prove that it was not a divine miracle brought on by god to destroy all of mankind who sinned. I can prove that Noah did not, and could not collect all the beast of the earth by two of each kind and put them on a boat. The Bible tells us that Noah took seven of each clean beast. Genesis 7:2 not two of each. Perhaps there is a contradiction in the Bible. Read my article to find out. Genesis 6: tells us that Sons of God and giants lived on earth with man and mated with the daughters of men. My article will explain this. Yes, ufo's were here long ago, and are still here today. I know why they have kept their selves secret in the last days. My article explains why this huge flash flood took place, and how. A map and details will be provided, there were never any miracles in the Bible, in fact everything is explainable. U.F.O.'s were the guys doing most of the miracles in the bible."

'Thank you for your letter dated April 8 and the two articles. Our editorial staff was, to put it mildly, astounded by your revelations. We wholeheartedly concur with your claim that no one has ever written or thought of the things about God and the Bible's connection with UFOs as you have done. Your incisive exposé of the erroneous explanations thrust upon us by Hollywood moguls and eagerly swallowed by a gullible public will be discussed at great length by our subscribers who, I am sure, will demand to hear more from you.

We do not pay for contributions; being an exclusive high profile scientific journal, space in our publication is in such great demand, that internationally famous contributors such as Sir Jim R Wallaby and Creative Science Professor Ian Pillar (fictitious names) actually pay us to have their works published, such is our prestige among the scientific community. In your case however, we were so impressed by the obvious perceptiveness you display that we will be pleased to publish any future contributions without charge, gratis and for free.

In the meantime, perhaps you would be kind enough to let us have copies of the articles you have had published in Fate magazine, and when published, a copy of your book to review.'

Further correspondence ensued, but the writer was completely impervious to any scientific explanations negating his theories or to irony, and it was pointless to continue.

Weird and wacky theories and untenable concepts abound, both as paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. In the absence of informed opinion, one has little alternative other than to accept or reject what is presented without the information necessary to objectively evaluate. The hypotheses are rarely, if ever, supported by scientific disciplines, and inevitably contravene all known natural laws.

Their survival relies entirely on unquestioning faith. The rest of this chapter is devoted to some of the strange, bizarre and uncanny beliefs and promotions I've looked at as a sceptical investigator during the past years, most of which have been published in the Australian Skeptics' journal, the Skeptic.

Move over channeled entities, spirit guides and psychics, here come the new breed—the 'angelologists'. Yes, according to a recent issue of Woman's Day, we are about to become infected (my term) with the latest occult disease from America and Europe with those (who for a fee of course) will put you in touch with your guardian angel.

Beth Palko, who claims the patronage of Princess Di, says the angel introduction service is about to boom. 'There are millions of angels just hanging around waiting to help all I do is help the two sides to get in touch.'

American angelologist Karen Martin-Kuri on the other hand warns that there are fallen angels and that they are behind the crazies who kill people.

Evidently this new fad has psychiatrists up in arms complaining that their businesses are suffering—those who use to pay good money for a consultation now get their advice for free from a guy in a white nightshirt, halo and wings.

(My own guardian angel—a former cleaner who used to empty astrologers' trash cans, and who is now the director of the Cosmic Bulldust Eradication Service, may be doing a good job 'up there' but his advice doesn't engender much confidence—as fast as I clean up one pile of psychic garbage another accumulates).

I have heard it said that if you scratch a Filipino, beneath you will find a believer. The same can be said of Mexicans, Central and South Americans and others whose faith has been nurtured with uncompromising dogma the roots of which are deeply embedded in the supernatural, myth and a belief in miracles.

As Holy Week approached in the Philippines in 1994, there almost seemed to be a concerted effort by the print and electronic media to propagate the feasibility of miracles and to encourage a belief in them.

Some of the alleged miracles are pathetic in their conception—rather like a bald hairdresser touting the virtues of his latest hair restorer—a walking, crying Madonna for example—an expensively garbed wooden carving of the Virgin Mary standing on a solid semi-circular plinth which when stood on an incline will waddle along like a duck. I recall having a similar toy soldier as a kid. Then there is the highly venerated slice of polished wood mounted in an ornately gilded frame, a dark triangular stain ... which is said to be where the BVM was once imprisoned. Nobody seemed to question how someone who died nearly two thousand years ago could reappear as a miniature in a fifty-year-old tree on the other side of the world—and for what reason? The triangular shape of the grain too, is more representative of the way the Marianists dress their icon rather than the simple home-spun clothes one would expect the wife of a poor Jewish carpenter to wear two thousand years ago. Most remarkable though, was the testimony of one believer who allegedly saw a full sized normally supine black marble statue of a saint get up and walk! Interviewees all attribute miraculous cures to the foregoing.

While the Roman Catholic Church officially declines to confirm or deny supposedly inexplicable happenings as miracles, when it comes to displaying artefacts, no matter how mundane or inane, they have no reservations. The believers queue to make their donations, light a candle and pray to just about anything for a miracle.

In living memory, man has, without the help of prayer or faith in the supernatural, progressed from simple powered flight to riding rockets to the moon, he has banished many killer diseases to the pages of medical history, can see what's going on around the world from the comfort of his own living room and can watch his children play with sophisticated electronic gadgets undreamed of even a decade ago. Yet despite these wondrous achievements, every Holy Week hundreds flock to Mount Kanlaon, an active volcano in Negros Occidental, where witch-doctors, faith healers and psychics attend every Good Friday to rejuvenate their psychic powers by hurling animal sacrifices down the crater to either appease or to venerate the spirits said to occupy the premises.

Since 1989, in the town of Agoo in Northern Luzon, there have been reports of miracles following the appearance of a cloud formation in the shape of the BVM; a walking weeping Madonna, and 'a dancing sun'.

Perusing the newspapers and magazines I came to the conclusion that a more appropriate name for the town would have been "Magoo", after that lovable little cartoon character whose degree of optometric impairment was exceeded only by his uncanny ability to avoid disaster. Marian apparitions are not a new phenomena of course. Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe and Medjugorje are some of the better known shrines and all appear to have one thing in common—they only appear initially to the young, simple and religiously indoctrinated. Agoo's Judiel Nieva, variously reported as twelve or sixteen years of age is no exception. His intellectual status too is consistent with other adolescents who reportedly 'see' things or 'hear' voices.

It has been noted that the appearance of the visions and their utterances reflect only the extent and level of the visionary's own religious knowledge—as with the commercially channeled entities nothing new or profound is ever forthcoming.

Further, like Michael Jackson's ever changing physiognomy and pigmentation, the general appearance of the BVM changes to comply with the ethnic and environmental expectations of the visited one. Thus in Medjugorje we have a fair-skinned, blue-eyed Croatian-speaking apparition, while in Guadalupe it is described as an olive-skinned, brown-eyed Spanish-speaking Madonna. Agoo's Mama Mary is fluent in
Tagalog. To possess such chameleon like qualities and enjoy fluency in languages non-existent two thousand years ago is indeed miraculous and prompts me to ask whether a question put to Agoo's BVM in Croatian would on request elicit an answer in Portuguese. While we await the appearance of a short, black, curly-haired Pidgin-English speaking Madonna I am taking bets that no matter where she next allegedly appears she would be unable to answer a simple question put to her in her own dialect—Aramaic. Religious apparitions are generally taken by believers to be signs raising hopes of miracles to follow. Why God cannot speak for himself is unclear although it reflects the pecking order to which the Catholic Church has relegated him.

Despite the expectations, there is a paucity of miracles, and those claimed to be such when investigated usually turn out to be hoaxes or without substance. Likewise any pretence of heavenly wisdom dissolves when their utterances are found to be verbatim quotes from the Bible or other religious tracts.

Among the estimated half a million pilgrims who made their way to 'Apparition Hill' at Agoo on March 6, 1993, were a few closed-mind sceptics prepared to ask a question or two. Two ladies standing next to each other were relating what they saw, '... a cloud that was very white looked like the Virgin Mary with her arms outstretched.' Asked exactly where this cloud had appeared, the two ladies simultaneously pointed up and in opposite directions! Mr Pineda, a former town mayor, insists that he 'saw the sun change colours' and 'appear like a ghost. At first it was blindingly bright, but after a while I saw different colours, red, orange, blue and yellow. Afterwards it began to look like a ghost with distinctive rays. I also saw yellow on the people.' Mrs Pineda however said she saw nothing, and her husband was subsequently seen purchasing a pair of dark glasses and a white cane!

Judiel Nieva, then a fifteen year old church choirboy, claimed in 1993, that the mother of Jesus Christ had been appearing before him.

In March that year, tens of thousands of Filipinos in this largely Roman Catholic nation gathered on a hilltop in Agoo hoping to see the Virgin Mary.

Nieva claimed to have seen the Virgin on that day, whereupon he began chanting and rapidly scribbling notes of her message.

But the committee noted that the Blessed Virgin's supposed messages—to spread love and pray regularly—had been plagiarised from at least five sources, including the apparition at Medjugorje, which the church has certified as genuine.

Committee members also said they had investigated reports that a statue of Mary had shed tears of blood during the apparitions and found that the statue had canals inside the eyes and a tube in the crown.

They said that Nieva's notes of Mary's messages were full of grammatical errors—the words immaculate and serenity were misspelled—and that his chants were rapid, indicating that he had memorised them. They likewise slammed Nieva for using contributions from believers to build a chapel on the apparition hill, saying that it was not authorised.

Father Mario Valdez, a member of the committee, admitted that many Filipino would be disappointed by the findings but hoped that 'little by little they will accept' the verdict. Filipinos are avid believers in apparitions and other miracles.

Agoo now takes its place with the other shrines around the world and commercialism has moved in for the kill. Oh that I had been there with my dehydrated homoeopathic Holy Water!

What are we to conclude?

Teenagers go through a frustrating period of life, too old to be a child, too young to be accepted as an adult. In their pre-teens it was, 'watch me daddy', 'look at me Mummy', to get the attention and reassurance they need.

Now the emerging adult, sometimes in despair, will go to bizarre lengths to retain that attention. How easy it is by appealing to those with a proclivity to uncritically accept the most outrageous claims.

Many of the alleged visitations could be dismissed as hallucinations brought on by overwrought imagination. Given the right environment and conditions conducive to enhancing expectations, people will see what they want to see.

There is in men a hunger for belief, the will to believe. Religion is the opium of the masses?

Maybe the desire to believe in miracles is symptomatic of a growing despair among those who have ceased to have faith in human beings. If faith can move mountains, then the hunger for faith can conjure up visions.

As a young teenager in war-weary London I used to form a queue outside any shop with a couple of mates then, as others joined the queue, would walk away leaving people blissfully waiting to buy they knew not what!

On other occasions we would stand on the footpath staring intently at the sky, and within minutes a crowd would have gathered to join us in our vigil ... looking at what? Sometimes I would asked whether anyone could see 'it', more often than not the answer was' yes' without even asking' what?'

While teenage pranks may seem far removed from religious shrines the paradigms serve to illustrate two things—conformity and self-induced visual experiences—essential precursors in deciding what becomes a religious shrine and where it is to be established.

There are literally tens of thousands of shrines throughout the world, because no culture is without them; but I propose only to deal with four of the most celebrated in the Western world: Guadalupe (Mexico), Lourdes (France), Fatima (Portugal) and Medjugorje ( former Yugoslavia).

Before giving an overview of these shrines however, it should be noted that all four (and the vast majority of those not mentioned) are located in countries where the religion is predominantly Roman Catholic, and therefore, a brief introduction to Catholic dogma and doctrine may assist in understanding why this is so.

Mary, otherwise known as the 'Blessed Virgin' 'Virgin Mary' 'Our Lady' or simply the BVM, is the claimed mother of Jesus referred to in the Christian Gospels. Mary (so the story goes) was destined to become the mother of Christ. God infused her soul with grace at the moment of conception in the womb of her mother, St Anne, which freed her from the consequences of Original Sin—hence the 'Immaculate Conception'. The early church patriarchs, believing that God could not be born of woman, discouraged worship of the Mother-figure. Constantine I forbade the worship of Mary and ordered
all goddess temples destroyed.

By the eleventh century she had become more popular than Jesus, and was hailed as the saviour of humankind. The great Gothic cathedrals built to honour her still stand today. The 'undefiled virgin' was raised from the dead by Jesus and assumed into heaven as a live woman. The Assumption became an article of faith in 1950.

Devotion to Mary is part of Catholic liturgical life, and the studies and doctrines associated with her are collectively called 'Mariology'.

Marian apparitions—the appearance or manifestation of the BVM have been reported hundreds of times over the centuries along with other paranormal phenomena such as brilliant lights, spinning suns, burning bushes, weeping statues and so on. Percipients identify the apparition, usually in the form of a luminous woman, as Mary, If and when she speaks, foretells of apocalyptic disasters, and that the reign of the Antichrist is imminent, urging people to repent, pray and do penance. Although Catholic dogma states that apparitions are not ghosts it accepts that the phenomena are permitted by God. In some cases the apparition asks for churches and shrines to be built to her, and where the apparitions have been deemed authentic by Church authorities it is to these sites millions flock in search of miraculous cures.

Guadalupe, or more precisely the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe, is a Roman Catholic church situated at Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo just north of Mexico City. It is Mexico's chief religious centre to which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world come each year to worship and pray for miracles. The two principal objects of veneration are 'a miraculous cloth' and a portrait 'not made with hands'.

As told in the sixteenth-century Nican Mopohua, ('an account') (Henderson 1979a.), In 1531, Aztec peasant Juan Diego, a recent convert to Christianity, heard a voice calling, 'Juanito.' Then at the foot of a hill named Tepeyac, he came across an apparition of a young girl radiant in a golden mist, who identified herself as 'the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God' and said, 'I wish that a temple be created here quickly, so that I may therein exhibit and give all my love, compassion, help and protection, because I am your merciful mother ...' She also instructed the peasant to hasten to the palace of the Bishop of Mexico and say, 'that manifest my great desire, that here on this plain a temple be built to me ...' Bishop Juan Zumarraga was unconvinced and asked for a sign. Reporting back to the Virgin, Juan was told to gather some flowers, wrap them in his mantle, and take them to the doubting priest.

Granted another audience, he unfolded the cloth and when the flowers were scattered on the floor they formed a drawing of the precious image of the ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God. The Bishop then placed the cloth in his private chapel 'until the temple dedicated to the Queen of Tepeyac was erected where Juan Diego has seen her.' (Callero, in Smith 1983. pp. 121-135).

Many of the events in the legend can be correlated with stories in the bible—a luminescent holy personage on a mountain (Matt. 17:2), a divine command to build a temple (Exod. 25:8), the sending of a messenger to persuade a doubter (Exod. 3:18-19) , the invoking of tangible 'signs' to convince a disbeliever (John 2025-30) and so on.

There is some doubt about the authenticity of the legend. Historian Jacques Lafaye (1976) suggests it was borrowed from an earlier Spanish legend in which the Virgin appeared to a shepherd and led him to discover a statue of her.

A second apparition resulted in a painted image, supposedly miraculous, that became known as the Virgin of Guadalupe. It is now housed in the New Basilica; the second, built on the site of an earlier church and finished in 1709, became dangerous owing to the sinking of its foundations.

There is much to cast doubt on the authenticity of the legend. A detailed study of the portrait for instance, discloses a remarkable similarity to a Spanish painting by Bonanat Zaoritza housed in the Museo do Arte de Cataluna in Barcelona, right down to 'the brooch at the throat' (Callahan. 1981, The Tilma under Infra-red Radiation p.10). This painting precedes the Virgin of Guadalupe by nearly a century. Also the obvious elements of religious dogma in statements supposedly made by the apparition, and the similarity to the Spanish legend.

The 'miracles' undoubtedly helped the propagation of Christianity (an estimated eight million Indian converts from 1532 to 1538 (Smith 1983, The Image of Guadalupe: Myth or Miracle. pp, 10-11), one of the main purposes of Spanish imperialism. Given that Bishop Juan de Zumarraga was the chief organiser of the church in Mexico it would not be stretching the truth to suggest that the whole business was a pious fraud.

Lourdes would probably be the first name to spring to mind if you were asked to name a famous shrine. Situated southwest of Toulouse in southern France, it attracts some three million pilgrims annually, among them fifty thousand or so sick or disabled seeking a miraculous cure.

It came to prominence in 1858, when Bernadette Soubirous, a deeply pious, poorly educated and asthmatic young girl of 14, the eldest child of a poverty-stricken devout Catholic family, was out gathering firewood with her sisters on a cold winter's day. She heard a noise like a gust of wind, looked up and saw a soft glow in the grotto in a cliff face.

'I put my hand in my pocket, and I found my rosary there, I wanted to make the sign of the cross ... I couldn't raise my hand to my forehead. The Vision made the sign of the cross. Then I tried a second time and I could. As soon as I made the sign of the cross, the fearful shock I felt disappeared. I knelt down and said my rosary in the presence of the beautiful lady. The vision fingered the beads of her own rosary, but she did not move her lips. When I finished my rosary, she signed for me to approach but I did not dare. Then she disappeared.'

Oddly enough, this passage is tantamount to Bernadette confessing that she did not see what she claimed to have seen. The apparition according to the girl 'fingered the beads of her own rosary', yet the practice was not adopted until the 3rd century by Eastern Christian monks. Although the origin of the rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not certain, it has been associated with St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order in the early 13th century. It was not until 1520 however, that Pope Leo X gave the rosary official approbation. As the BVM predates the custom by centuries, what Bernadette saw, other than a possible combination of early morning mist, shadows and a shaft of sunlight, could hardly have been the apparition as described. In my opinion, for what it's worth, we have a case of conditioned expectation—the subject perceives that which conforms to their own subjective experiences and associations. Of course I may be wrong, maybe there's a supermarket in heaven where one can purchase accoutrements. After all, it would appear that bible classes are available as are language lessons, how else would the BVM be able to quote verbatim from the Bible compiled centuries after her death and in every language and dialect to boot. However, I digress.

At first Bernadette was not believed, but after claiming to have seen the 'white lady' thirteen times between February 18 and March 2, 1858, she told the parish priest that her white lady had instructed her to allow people to approach the grotto and that a chapel must be built there. (Familiar ring to the story?) The priest (as you might guess) demanded a miraculous sign before he would believe her. On Bernadette's next visit to the grotto the BVM obliged by revealing that she was 'The Immaculate Conception'.

This was sufficient to convince the Church, and a newly discovered spring near the grotto rumoured to have miraculous healing powers became the destination of pilgrims from all over the world. Bernadette became a nun and died in 1879 at the age of thirty-five. She was beatified in 1925, and canonised in 1933.

A medical team composed in the main of French Catholic doctors, the International Medical Committee (CMIL) at Lourdes, are cautious and painstaking in their investigation of alleged miracle cures, as a consequence, only sixty-five cures have been accepted as miraculous by the Catholic Church out of the estimated two million sick pilgrims who have visited the shrine since 1858, hardly indicative of a statistical link between Lourdes and cures. One of those not cured was Bernadette herself. An early victim of cholera, she suffered from asthma all her life and died of a tubercular knee.

It was reported in 1995 that the 'miraculous waters' of the spring were polluted and causing sickness. 'Holy water' is now brought to the site in bottles.

Fatima, situated in central Portugal, has since 1917 been one of the world's great Marian shrines. Three Portuguese peasant children—Lucia dos Santos aged nine, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto aged six and eight respectively, were tending their sheep, and following a flash of lightning reportedly saw a beautiful young girl who said that she had come from heaven and identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. The news of the vision spread and crowds of the faithful and curious accompanied the children whenever the vision visited them.

On October 13, 1917, an estimated crowd of seventy thousand people gathered at Fatima and witnessed a 'miraculous solar phenomenon' in which the sun seemed to swivel and emit coloured rays, now referred to as the celebrated 'Dance of the Sun'. This phenomenon has allegedly been repeated elsewhere in places such as Medjugorje and Agoo. World-famous atheist Professor S.J. Ayer's explanation of this phenomenon is cited by John Cornwell in his book, Powers of Darkness Powers of Light, (1991, p.17). Asked whether it would satisfy Ayer's criterion of evidence for the truth of the statement that more than one hundred thousand people claimed to have seen the sun spinning and falling to earth he replied, 'No, for the simple reason that the phenomenon was reported nowhere else in the world, so we must conclude that the sun stayed in its proper place and that one hundred thousand people were subject to some sort of mass hallucination.” Continuing the story, the Lady is supposed to have entrusted the children, particularly Lucia, with secrets which were passed to the Vatican, and believed to be prophecies of apocalyptical disasters. The Pope is supposed to have collapsed with horror.

Fatima International puts out a monthly newsletter full of warnings about the approaching fulfilment of the Apocalyptic prophecies and the coming of the antichrist who, it would appear, must be on the slow boat to China—St. Louis de Montfort, promoter of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, stated unequivocally that the world was moving remorselessly into that terrifying period of human history known as the 'Reign of the Antichrist'—back in 1711.

Medjugorje, a small mountain parish in what was Yugoslavia, rose to world prominence in 1981 when the Blessed Virgin Mary is alleged to have appeared to six young people—Ivanka, Mirjana, Vicka, Ivan, Marija and Jakov and, like the children at Fatima, she gave them 'secrets' and countless messages. Among the messages (exactly what one would expect—straight from the pulpit)—Faith in God and in the supernatural; Commitment to God ... turn away from sin ... repent; regular Mass, monthly confession, daily rosary and dedication to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and fasting,—bread and water on Fridays. Nothing profound, the usual exhortations, a repetition of the same old traditional Catholic dogma, and an urging to conform to established Church rituals.

To date there have been three investigative commissions into the events at Medjugorje and their communiques exhibit a cautionary quality. This has not deterred the hundreds of thousands who have now made it a place of pilgrimage and stories of miracles abound, none of which stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Commercialism was not slow off the mark: official tour guides now have to pass an exam set by the bishops, and a ninety-page quarterly magazine, The Medjugorje Sentinel keeps the faithful fully informed.

Other lesser known shrines where the BVM has allegedly appeared include Zeitoun in Cairo, where, in 1968, Muslim workmen saw a vision over a Coptic Orthodox church. Then, in April 1986, the vision reappeared over the church of St Demiana in Cairo. The worsening relations between Coptic Christians and Muslim fundamentalists at that time may have had something to do with it.

At La Salette, France, in 1846, two young children, Maximin Giraud aged eleven, and fifteen-year-old Melenia Calvat, were tending their cows when they saw 'Our Lady' weeping in a dried-up river bed. There were the usual dismal prophecies and she entrusted them with 'secrets', some of which were passed on to Pope Pius IX in 1850. It is not recorded whether he too collapsed in horror!

In 1888, thirteen-year-old Jean Bernard of Vallensages, near St. Etienne, was collecting firewood when he had a vision of a gorgeously clothed 'grande dame' wearing a golden crown on her head and standing with one foot on a lizard. She requested him to kill the lizard which he did, and then she disappeared. The vision re-appeared six days later and although accompanied by his parents only Jean saw the lady. Convinced she was the Virgin, he asked her to cure his thirteen-year-old friend who had been deaf since birth. The girl began to hear, and news of the miracle spread.

Feeling the need to authenticate the vision's identity, Jean used the two traditional tests for apparitions. He said to the vision: 'If you are the mother of the Lord, step forward. If you are the Devil, step back.' No prize for guessing which way she stepped. He then threw holy water at her, but she merely smiled—a demon would have disappeared in a puff of smoke. Scientifically controlled tests such as these leave little room for doubt!

The vision appeared on twenty occasions, urging villagers to attend more masses and repent of their wicked ways. On her final appearance the vision was asked to create a sacred spring but the miracle failed to materialise. Perhaps rosary beads are not suitable for dowsing purposes! Springs incidentally are considered to be a standard folklore item.

A church at Knock in County Mayo, Ireland, became a shrine when a tableau of the Virgin, St John the Evangelist and St Joseph appeared on its gable end in 1879. While the flat, two dimensional quality was suggestive of a lantern-slide projection it didn't stop it from becoming a famous pilgrimage site—among its visitors Pope John Paul I.

In 1880, in the grounds of Llanthony Abbey, Wales, four boys aged between nine and fifteen saw the Virgin float through a bush. On another occasion, she appeared to four people who were singing Ava Maria. The surrounding mountains rumbled and were bathed in light. Above them they said, 'a most Majestic Heavenly Form' appeared and glided into a nearby 'Holy bush' (actually wild rhubarb). Subsequently there were reports of healing connected with leaves from the bush.

Well I don't know about you dear reader but my credulity has been stretched to the limit, so let's see if we can find some common factors from which to derive a conclusion First, the visionaries' perception of an apparition they believe to be that of the Virgin Mary always conforms to what they expect to see based on statues, paintings and other religious representations with which they are familiar. No one living today has ever seen the original mother of Christ, nor is there any evidence of what she may have looked like, if indeed she ever existed. Of some things we can be sure: she never dressed in fine raiments, wore a crown, possessed rosary beads, read the Bible, or was fluent in all languages and dialects, yet she is always portrayed as young, beautiful, radiant, bathed in light, splendidly garbed, conversant with the scriptures and an accomplished linguist into the bargain.

The Virgin's utterances follow the traditional and conventional teachings of the Catholic Church, as do her directions in respect of its rituals. Like the emanations from contemporary channeled entities, profundity is conspicuous by its absence—revelations are simply restatements. Her predictions, warnings, promises of salvation, threats of perdition and need for unquestioning devotion, are all reiterations of the written scriptures; they are exactly what the pious would expect to hear from a divine messenger.

All the visionaries fall into roughly the same category—they range in age from six to sixteen years, are peasants, shepherds or simple uneducated folk, devoutly religious, and have been thoroughly indoctrinated by the Catholic Church into believing in miracles and the supernatural generally. Without exception they come from poor or deprived families, and it could be suggested that the conjuring up of the ultimate divine figure may comfort them and give them status in the eyes of others.

Young children have vivid imaginations. They fantasise, they perceive what adults do not, and love to tell 'secrets' —all the attributes of a potential seer. Given the right environment, a religious background and a suitable motive and one is well on the way to hallucinating.

The supernatural is contradicted by everything we learn from our five senses and natural laws; to 'see' and 'hear' beyond those senses and laws is the result of a subjective state based on commonplace concepts.