The Spiritualist newspaper > No.393, March 5th 1880

116
THE SPIEITUALIST.
APPARITIONS AND LUMINOUS PHENOMENA.
Sir, —You recently directed tlie attention of the readers j i
of The Spiritualist, to the apparitions of the Virgin j1
Mary, and to the alleged miraculous cures at the most l(
significantly named village of Knock, in Ireland. I K
take the liberty of forwarding by this post a copy of i|
to-day’s Manchester Guardian, in which you will find a <
description of the state of things the correspondent |<
found there on his recent visit, and his comments D
thereon, and I judge thereby that he has read the j<
wish you expressed to have the phenomena investi- o
gated. However, from his statement it would seem j)
that with the most ardent faith, there are some failures j<
to effect cures of such diseases as blindness. I am not o
surprised at this, with such a motley crowd of people j)
always on the spot, and each devotee exercising his or K
her physical, mental, and perhaps in some instances |>
mesmeric powers, for the healing of the particular j<
malady from which each was suffering.
Some few months after my beginning to investigate j)
Spiritualism, myself and a few others had held a j(
stance at a friend’s house, which I was the last to leave, o
It was a fine summer evening, about a quarter past j)
ten o’clock, and light enough for objects to be dis- K
tinctly seen, I had only gone a few yards up the j)
street, when my attention was attracted by a singular !(
appearance which seemed to come through the broken o
window of an empty house on my left hand. When it j)
reached the footpath, I found the figure to be shaped K
somewhat like a dog, white and cloud-like, which \)
quickly rose higher and higher, and finally assumed ;)
the figure of a woman dressed in a beautifully flowing \(
white robe.
The figure walked on the left-hand side, crossed over |(
in a diagonal direction to the other side of the street, K
then vanished through another empty house, passing
quite out of sight.
The apparition was the only one I have ever seen, j)
The figure was that of my mother; to be mistaken was k
impossible. Her majestic carriage, finely formed K
figure, and unequalled walk were as distinctly visible i)
as in real life.
Whilst I was carefully noting this, to me, strange K
and extraordinary phenomenon, my movements were j)
being watched by a man and his wife, who were j(
standing and talking together on the foot-path, opposite | S
my friend’s house ; they were carefully noticing a most !?
strange appearance on the door, and called me quickly, K
to look at it.
The door shone like the summer sun on plate glass, K
and we became alarmed, for we thought it was on fire, j)
and we caused our friends to re-open it before the i)
family went to bed, in order to satisfy ourselves that K
all was right in the house. The radiantly shining I)
door gradually assumed its natural appearance on being j (
opened.
The phenomenon was seen by myself and two other j)
disinterested witnesses. The poor earnest Irish devotee j(
will seek in vain for the re-appearance of the heavenly K
phenomena amongst the earthly stones and mortar of j)
the primitive temple at Knock. Those who have gone |(
on a pilgrimage, miracle seeking, ought to remember j>
that only one Enoch is recorded as having walked with ; r
God; and only one Elijah, centuries afterwards, was I)
permitted to enter the fiery chariot and ascend into the !)
region of the infinite. Delta.
Hyde, near Manchester, February 23rd, 1880.
Mr. E. W. Wallis, the trance medium, has recently ?
by his public addresses, been stirring up interest in |s
Spiritualism in the south-west of England. n
March 5, 1880.
THE APPARITION OE THE VIRGIN MARY
IN COUNTY MAYO.
(From the “ Manchester Guardian,” February 23rd, i880).
After I had seen what I could of the immediate
Westport district, I availed myself of the railway to
make a short excursion to Knock, a name which must
be familiar to your readers as the scene of the recent
alleged apparition of the Virgin Mary. Wherever
I went in Mayo and Connemara I had heard stories
of the miracles performed at Knock, and had conceived
a strong desire to see the place for myself—not at all
to trouble myself with “ investigation ” into the
appearance, which could only be done by one accurately
acquainted with the place and the witnesses, if worth
doing at all—but to see the demeanour of the people.
I had to drive half a dozen miles from Claremorris to
reach the place, which is situated in the midst of an
almost level tract of bog land of the dismall est des¬
cription, and excites a natural surprise as to how the
village could ever have come into existence at all on so
forlorn and desolate a spot. The all-important chapel,
on the west end of which the figures of the Virgin
Mary, St. John, and St. Joseph are said to have been
seen one evening about six weeks ago, is the first
object one sees as the car tops the crest of the little
hill immediately above the villege. It is an ordinary
building enough, of the usual cruciform shape, with
a tolerable tower. The place was black with people.
Even at some distance you could see them kneeling
and standing about the churchyard and pressing in
and out of the chapel. Coming near the centre
of attraction, the car went at a foot’s pace, for the
narrow country road was lined with stalls for the sale
of eatables, and any empty spaces were filled up with
vehicles and pedestrians. I made my way at first into
the chapel, which was packed. The people were
kneeling in every direction, many of them on the clay
floor, which was full of large holes, owing to the
scraping away of the soil by specially enthusiastic
devotees, and there was a hum of prayer. All who
could get near enough were saying their devotions
before a little shrine, where stood an image of the
Virgin, with the two hands upraised to the level of the
shoulders, much as she is said to have been seen on
the wall of the chapel outside. After squeezing my
way through the crowd with some difficulty, I went
round to the western front, where the vision is supposed
to have been seen. I found the whole of the wall
boarded up to a height of eight feet with solid planking.
If this precaution had not been taken the wall would
have been down before this, as the people first scraped
away the plaster, then the mortar, and were finally
attacking the large stones of which the chapel is built.
Round the corner on the south side a number of men
were busily at work upon the plaster with penknives,
and that side too will have to be boarded up before
long. The plaster is mainly used for the eyes, whether
to cure total or partial blindness, or merely for the
ophthalmia which is common in the district, I will
leave it for greater authorities than myself to determine.
A “ patriotic ” Irish print which has given a full, true,
and particular account of the Knock miracles, narrates
a case of a beautiful little girl, previously blind of one
eye, whom her mother had brought at great expense
from Liverpool, and who, after nine days’ stay at
Knock, had the sight of her eye restored. It so
happened, however, that I came across a substantial
farmer’s wife—such, at least, I took her to be—of
Castlerea, who told me that she had travelled in the
train with this very lady on her return from Knock.
The lady, who could think of nothing but her child,