Visions and prophecies and ghosts, oh my

Right now I am on a "mythology" kick: As it pertains to sociology/anthropology.

Coast to coast am is full of seers and prophets, usually new age of course.

in the meanwhile, we catholic are stuck with visionaries who the church seems more eager to shut down (e.g. Sr Faustina, the Virgin at Lipa, Medjugorje) than to actually try to keep the chaff out of the reality of what is going on. (i.e. distinguish spiritual reality from  enthusiasts, entrepeneurs, and copy cats).

And this doesn't even include words of knowledge, healings, and other pentcostal/charismatic stuff going on in a lot of churches. (The Pentecostal type of Christianity is exploding all over Asia, but there has only been a few decent and well balanced reports on this)

And of course, there are a lot of people, including believers, who have adverse reactions to anything in this realm.

Yet, I wonder...

Back in the 1980's I read about quite a few of these. Mary was all over the place, including visiting Dina in Mosul Iraq, kids in Yugoslavia, and a bunch of students in Rwanda.

All warned of chastisements, and all occurred before those areas became murderous war zones. Uh Oh.

Father Laurentin was the Catholic priest who investigated and wrote about these things in a balanced manner, but alas most of his books are in French or have to be bought.

However the Univ California press has this book that is free to read on line: Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ.

a good report that includes cultural and historical data not just religious stuff.


It is about a bunch of visions in Basque country,  back in 1930. The church squelched it down, of course, and there seems to be a bit of the usual confusion and the copycat stuff going on, but you know, like the "visions" mentioned above, it seemed to be warning about something coming that wasn't very nice: as in the Spanish civil war.

No, I don''t have visions, but we doctors have a bad joke that if the patient says they don't want to have surgery because they will die, you'd better postpone surgery because they will surely die. And when one gets a bad feeling about something, most docs recognize they'd better check twice on the problem.

however, 60 percent of American widow/widowers have heard, seen or felt their dead spouse being present. And in some cultures, visions and premonitions are considered normal.

so far, despite the anti Trumpieboy hysteria in the press, there are no non hysterical visions on the religious side about the USA that would make me worry...

Uh OH....







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