Religious Miracles with Michael Grosso

Michael Grosso, PhD, is author of The Man Who Could Fly: St. Joseph of Copertino and the Mystery of Levitation. He also edited and wrote commentary for Wings of Ecstasy: Dominico Bernini's Vita of St. Joseph of Copertino (1772). His other books include The Millennium Myth: Love and Death and the End of Time, Final Choice: Death or Transcendence?, Soulmaking: Uncommon Paths to Self Understanding and Smile of the Universe: Miracles in an Age of Disbelief.

Here he describes a variety of paranormal events that have been reported to occur in a religious context. These include statues or images that weep or bleed, instantaneous healings, apparitions of the madonna, levitation, and Hindu puja offerings of milk that disappear. He argues that such events are often so well-attested, often with photographs and scientific corroboration, that it is reasonable to assume that they actually did occur. They are on the same spectrum as paranormal events that occur outside of a religious context.

I actually have been meaning to read my copy of Smile of the Universe, will post some content from that work in this thread.

Here [Grosso] acknowledges that the term "Mind At Large" originated with Aldous Huxley, who employed it to explain the many phenomena experienced under the influence of the psychedelic drug, mescaline. Grosso points out that it also offers a working explanation for the empirical data of parapsychology, as well as the many documented reports concerning religious miracles. He points out that Mind At Large differs from the concept of a deity.

I don't think we should necessarily close the door on the concept of deities, after all there might be such beings. Using a kind of "Super Psi" explanation for all miracles seems to be stretching things a bit IMO...

Michael Grosso, PhD, is author...[see above for biography/bibliography]

Here he points out that numerous pathways exist by which individuals come into a dialogical relationship with what is sometimes called the subconscious, spirit, higher consciousness, or transcendent realty. He describes the southern USA practice of snake handling and drinking poisonous substances as one such example. The visions of Joan of Arc that led a teenage girl to command an army represent another example. The discussion also focuses on mediumship and channeling.

A Miracle 70,000 People Saw: the Movie

M. Grosso

But then “the crowd saw the clouds separate like two vast curtains rolled apart, and the sun appear between them in the clear blue.”  Lucia is said to have cried out, “Look at the sun!” What the crowd then saw was “something stupendous, unheard of, almost apocalyptic.  The sun stood forth in the clear zenith like a great silver disk (and began to spin). . . Madly gyrating in this manner three times, the fiery orb seemed to tremble, to shudder, and then to plunge precipitately, in a mighty zigzag , toward the crowd.” (See W. T. Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima)
 
Witnesses fell to their knees in awe and wonder, colored lights flashed, the air warmed and the drenched crowd and countryside was suddenly dry. After a few minutes the orb reversed course and rose back up into the sky with the same zigzag motion and disappeared into the sun. Skeptical reporters for major newspapers  wrote up detailed accounts of the prodigy, which was witnessed by people miles away who reported unexplained healings.
 
None of this is covered in Pontecorvo’s film, although a scene of strange light effects is used but for the sake of esthetics, not for the scientific challenge it poses.  Now consider a further detail that adds to the mystery.  The “sun” is several times described as a “disk” and its terrifying descent toward the crowds and its ascent  back up the sky is described in terms of a “zigzag” motion. John Keel and Jacques Vallee have noted the trademark zigzag motion of the Fatima sun dance phenomenon, which is characteristic of the way UFOs travel in space.
 
I myself had ocular proof of this zigzag phenomenon. On April 23, 1971, I (and two others) witnessed a light form signal us from the dome of our Lady of Pompei in Greenwich Village, and then take off, and in a fraction of a second I watched it zigzag north toward the Empire State Building where it vanished.