Erich Von Daniken Miracles of the Gods
Foreword
This is a book I had to write from the heart. I've been carrying it around inside me for ten years, ever since my first visit to Lourdes, that vast caravanserai where hope, despair and commercialism thrive side by side. I was haunted by the images and dirges I had seen and heard there.
While I was following the trail of my astronaut gods through the five continents, I made a point of visiting every accessible visionary shrine. How alike they all were in essence! It became increasingly clear to me that the phenomenon of visions is something that concerns us all. I did not forget my space- travelling gods, but there are some books that ripen like autumn fruit.
What are the people who seem to be predisposed to have visions really like?
Are they psychologically unbalanced religious fanatics?
Are their 'miracles' simply an attempt to ingratiate them- selves with the Christian churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church, that accept their wonders as 'genuine'?
Did the dogmas of the Catholic Church, which also play a vital role in visions, originate by divine inspiration?
Are we really supposed to believe that God's word, the last Court of Appeal when authoritative Christian judgments are-delivered, is inspired by the Holy Ghost?
Are the multifarious miracles which undoubtedly happen at places of pilgrimage delusions or selfdelusions?
Is there a broad basis of medical and scientific fact behind these miracles which makes them credible and explicable?
While mountains of documentary material were piling up, while I was making special journeys to places of pilgrimage while I was rummaging in many of the world's great libraries, a deluge of questions assailed me. As I am not by nature the sort of person who can believe, in the good oldfashioned way, but want to know what can be explained by our god-given reason without appealing to an anonymous and much-abused Holy Ghost, I set to work. I set to work as a curious labourer in God's vineyard, as someone who considers God too exalted an arbiter to be constantly invoking him in support of his arguments.
After studying visions for years, I think I can say fairly safely that this is the first compendium of its kind. Consequently some questions remain open to discussion, but I hope that in the future competent scholars and ecclesiastical courts, too, will accept my researches into the cause and effect of the vast and complicated field of miracles and visions to rectify frankly and honestly the false conceptions that are still in circulation.
I should like to thank Dr. Robert Kehl, Zurich, most sincerely for many suggestions and for his special help when he acted as guest author for one section. Dr. Kehl first studied theology, but later switched to law and political science. His legal commentaries are in daily use by Swiss lawyers and he has made a name for himself with important works on moral theology, among many others.
At the same time I should like to express my thanks to the thirty-two publishers who are going to arrange for the worldwide publication of this book.
Inside Cover Blurb
Visions are real, they do exist.
Visions arise in intelligent brains.
Every intelligent brain has the prerequisites for creating visions.
The impulse for producing visions is of extraterrestrial origin.
To establish my hypothesis of the visit of extraterrestrial beings to our globe I drew a great deal of information from mythology. This store of knowledge from the old chronicles is fascinating because it preserved for mankind Facts with implications whose meaning and significance the writer could not recognize in his time. As far as contacts between terrestrial and extraterrestrial beings are concerned, mythology is a treasure trove with more than a little importance.
Extraterrestrials visited this and other solar systems, and on the planets that seemed suitable, they left behind scions 'in their own image'. Certain groups of these descendants have an advantage over us: they tamed, developed, and trained the 'brain, the monster' better than we have done. These preferred students or overripe intelligences are sending energetic thought impulses to us, the brothers and sisters of the same heritage. These impulses are intended to stimulate and enlarge our consciousness.
A few 'chosen people' -I do not mean religious personalities - have always found access to the wonderful unconscious, from which they evoked visionary great discoveries.
Chapter One - Visions - Do They Exist?
Unfortunately I have never witnessed a vision. Not one of the 12,000 saints has ever said so much as
'Good day' to me, but since I was first at Lourdes ten years ago I have realized that the phenomenon of visions is something that concerns us all. I saw people in ecstasy, I heard their doleful plaints, and observed endless suffering. I was disgusted by the exploitation of credulous creatures. I saw no miracles. 125 years ago a fourteen-year-old girl saw visions at Lourdes: today five million pilgrims visit her shrine year after year. 'Lourdes' stands as an example for hundreds and thousands of places of pilgrimage where miracles are 'performed' under much the same conditions.
How can we explain this mystery, the 'perception of divine grace in man', to use the Catholic vocabulary?
It always begins with individuals or small groups of people having a vision of members of the Holy Family - in the Christian west mainly Mary, mother of Jesus, one of the archangels, or even Jesus Christ or God the Father in person. The apparitions seen in visions are not neutral. Those who appear do not come as mere observers, all smiles and blessings - they tell men what they may and what they must do and what they are strictly forbidden to do. All personified visions assert that they are envoys from heaven and divine messengers with the power to save, redeem and even to destroy mankind.
They interfere with religious and political affairs, they infiltrate and dominate the brains of mass assemblies.
I went on pursuing my astronaut gods, but I could not forget the deep impression Lourdes made on me.
I collected 'official' publications and pamphlets about visions of the sort offered for sale at the pilgrimage shrines which spring up where visions have been seen. In every case arid in every place individual visionaries or small groups of them unleash an unending sequence of processions, whether the Church has already recognized the 'miracle', forbidden it or merely tolerated it in silence. 'The Church gives its blessing to what it cannot prevent' (Kurt Tucholsky). The human longing to believe in miracles is always stronger than any prohibition.
A few years ago a representative public opinion poll was held in West Germany and Berlin. 53 per cent of the people questioned believed in miracles and visions, 36 per cent did not and 11 per cent did not know. I assume that those results were not solely representative of Western Germany and the inhabitants who were questioned. There are countries, especially Catholic ones, where the percentage of those who believe in miracles is much higher.
In what primitive soil does this belief flourish? What obviously timeless force makes it thrive?
Independently of space and time and culture? Untouched by the kind and quality of the different religions?
In order to understand the phenomenon at all, you have to get to know the 'visionaries', places and circumstances involved. So at the beginning of this account I am giving detailed sketches of some astonishing cases of visions which have all the essential characteristics of such miracles.
The event which made Montichiari, five miles south of Brescia, Italy, an attraction took place in the spring of 1947.
A young nurse called Pierina Gilli saw a beautiful lady in a violet dress floating in the air in the hospital Chapel The stranger was weeping. Three swords stuck out of her breast but not a drop of blood flowed. The mysterious apparition said in a mournful voice: 'Prayer, sacrifice, penance.'
The pious Miss Pierina was perplexed. Was it a ghost? Were her eyes and her reason deceiving her?
Or had she, the simple Pierina, had a 'genuine' vision? At first she kept the extraordinary experience to herself.
On 13th July, 1947, the miracle was repeated. This time the beautiful unknown was dressed in white and there were no horrible swords, but she was adorned with three roses, one white, one red and one yellow, which again protruded from her breast. Pierina was frightened and asked: 'Who are you?' The lady smiled and answered: 'I am the mother of Jesus and the mother of all .... Every year I want 13th July to be observed in honour of the "mysterious rose" (Rosa Mystica) .... ' (1) Slowly the vision faded.
The miraculous apparition was repeated on 22nd October, and on 16th and 22nd November, 1947, in the village church. On these occasions the strange lady answered a number of Pierina's questions. The last of these encounters was especially dramatic because the stranger solemnly promised to reappear at noon on 8th December in the village church.
The news of Pierina's strange experiences had long ago spread beyond Montichiari until the whole of Lombardy knew about them. So it was not really surprising that on 8th December several thousand people travelled there, filling the church to bursting point and blocking the streets. It took quite an effort to drag the main character in the drama, Pierina Gilli, through the wall of humanity into the church. She knelt down in the middle of the nave on the spot where she had on three occasions met the beautiful lady, whom the people had long since christened the 'Blessed Virgin'. She began to say the rosary together with the crowded congregation of believers and curiosity-seekers. Suddenly she cried out: 'Oh, the Madonna!'
There was dead silence. No one could see anything, or rather, some people were not quite sure whether they could make something out or not. At all events, everyone fixed their eyes on Pierina so as not to miss the conversation between their countrywoman and the Blessed Virgin. Information was passed on to the expectant crowd outside the church in brief hasty whispers.
Pierina saw the Blessed Virgin, so the story goes, on a high snow-white staircase, once again adorned with white, yellow and red roses. With an otherworldly smile the lady proclaimed: 'I am the Immaculate Conception. I am Mary of Grace, mother of my divine son Jesus Christ.'
As she descended the white staircase, she said to Pierina:
'Now that I have come to Montichiari I wish to be called "the mysterious rose".' When she reached the bottom step, she promised: 'Whoever prays on this tile and weeps tears of repentance will find a sure ladder to heaven and receive grace and protection through my maternal heart.'
For nineteen long years nothing happened.
As so often happens, Pierina was mocked by some and already referred to as a saint by others. After
8th December, 1947, the church of the vision was the goal of believers in miracles and people in search of a cure, for a series of miracles took place here in Montichiari, there is no doubt about that.
Pierina spent 'white Sunday' of 17th April, 1966, in the neighbouring village of Fontanelle, which is only about two miles from Montichiari. While Pierina was sitting on the steps that led to a small spring, to her complete surprise the 'mysterious rose' hovered over the surface of the water. She ordered Pierina to kiss the steps three times from top to bottom and told her to set up a crucifix to the left of the bottom step. The vision said that anyone who was sick should pray to the Lord Jesus for their sins to be forgiven and kiss the crucifix before taking water from the spring to drink.
Pierina carried out her orders.
At about 11.40 on 13th May, 1966, when about twenty people were praying with her near the spring, the 'mysterious rose' appeared again and voiced this specific wish: 'I wish a spacious basin to be made here so that the sick can immerse themselves in it.' Pierina, now on intimate terms, asked the rosebedizened lady: 'What shall we call the spring?' The lady answered: 'The spring of grace.' Pierina continued: 'What do you want to happen here at Fontanelle?' 'Works of charity for sick people who come here.' [2] With that the Blessed Virgin vanished.
The sick can be cured at this spring at Fontanelle! The message went round the countryside like wildfire: bring the sick here! Miraculous cures actually took place.
The afternoon of 8th June, 1966. More than 100 people knelt in prayer at the spring. Pierina arrived soon after three o'clock. She told the visitors to say the rosary with her. A few moments later she interrupted the prayer and cried: 'Look up at the sky!'
In addition to Pierina, some of the faithful also saw the Blessed Virgin floating over a cornfield, six metres above the spring.
Once again the lady was wearing her three roses and requested them to make hosts from the ears of corn. She instructed them that these hosts should be taken to Rome and on 13th October to Fatima.
When she had given this; instruction, the lady was about to depart when Pierina entreated her to stay a little longer. The Blessed Virgin turned round to her chosen vessel, Pierina, who relayed to her the wishes and questions of believers, priests and sick people.
The afternoon of 6th August, 1966. Over 200 people were praying at the spring. Pierina arrived at 14.
30 and once again asked everyone to say the rosary. During the fourth mystery of the rosary Pierina cried: 'Our dear lady is here!'
Prayers and conversation died away. Everyone listened as Pierina conversed with a being who was invisible to them. Asked for more detailed instructions about the home-made hosts, the 'mysterious rose' said that some of the corn should be sent to her 'beloved son, Pope Paul', so that it should be blessed in his presence. Bread rolls were to be baked with the remaining corn and distributed in Fontanelle in memory of her corning.
Since then people have hoped and prayed in Fontanelle and Montichiari. Every day and every night.
As in many places where visions have taken place.
Taken by and large, that is a classical example of a vision. A person unknown before the miraculous event sees 'something'. Confused and perplexed by the experience, he or she spreads the news and summons the faithful to the spot. Are they specially qualified people? Are they more devout than the average? Are they religious bigots? Are they extroverts? Do they want to get into the limelight?
In an attempt to answer these questions, I collected 'visions' for ten whole years. When I began I had no idea what an incredible mass of printed matter would accumulate. I have been selective, choosing characteristic cases to stand for countless others, so that I can offer explanations of the phenomena on the basis of this extensive sample.
When I say that the estimated number of visions in the Christian world alone is over 40,000 (!) you can imagine how varied the material is. Riding a bold steeplechase through history down to the present day I am going to present the reader with documented cases of visions. Not until the vast terrain has been cleared of undergrowth will it be possible to show what conclusions can be drawn, and what explanations can be offered or are theoretically conceivable.