A LOOK AT TESTS THAT SAY THE VISIONARIES OF MEDJUGORJE ARE SEEING SOMETHING

The book we will be sifting through is called Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at Medjugorje.  It was written by Fr Rene Laurentin and Professor Henri Joyeux of the University of Montepellier. It was published by Veritas, Dublin in 1987. The book says that the apparitions of Jesus' mother to the visionaries of Medjugorje since 1981 are real and definitely beyond anything natural and so possibly miraculous.
 
Page 35, “The visionaries’ gaze converges on the same well-located spot. We have not been able to secure the evidence that would pin-point the spot geometrically.”
 
The exact same spot. There is something very suspect here. One would visually fix on her left eye and another at the right eye if there were a woman before them. Why don’t they gaze at the hands or mouth? They are just looking at a spot on the wall that they had agreed upon. There is a cross on the wall and there are other items that they could agree to look at. The quote assumes they looked at precisely the same pinpoint. Quite an assumption! There is a big difference between getting the right spot or the right pinpoint.
 
When the book says they look at the same spot and then that it could not verify where this spot would be on the wall it shows it is not being scientific for how do the authors know they are looking at the same spot? It is easy for people to look the one direction but harder for them to look at the exact same spot. The spot should have been pinpointed and then the Lady asked to move to see if they could still look at the same spot on an unblemished wall.

The Lady starts the Our Father as she goes and then they all say aloud, “Who art in Heaven”, at the same time and recite the rest. There are techniques for measuring time in your own mind to manage this. It is impossible that they will all say it at the exact same time so signalling is still possible. It is hard to be sure if they all said it at the one time. You can only look at one face at a time. They say it slowly and with concentration and with her gone they can’t start at exactly the same time. When one voices the first syllable the rest start.
 
They raise their eyes and heads as the Virgin ascends (page 36). The first person to move could be signalling the other to follow suit by doing so. When they will raise their heads at different rates one person starting it off would not be noticed. There were no screens placed between the visionaries. In conjuring and mind-reading tricks similar and better feats are easily accomplished.

The children said they see the Lady as a real person and not as a vision (page 16). A test was done to see if a card in front of their eyes affected their seeing the apparition. Page 72: “The screening test does not impair the vision, therefore the normal visual pathways are not used.” The screening test was putting a card in front of the eyes of the witnesses during the apparition so that they could be asked later if it interfered with their seeing her. They said it did not. If so, then what are they looking at with their eyes? Why would God want it to look as if they were seeing with their normal eyes? There is some lie here. If God lets them act as if they can see through their normal eyes when they can see through cards then he is not reliable and he can’t be doing an unnecessary miracle just so that it will be verified when the Virgin gave the thumbs down for the touch test.

It is a fact that the card was useless for it was too small anyway.

As a test to pick up what Vicka was saying in her voice that the human ear could not pick up (page 76) the apparition came and went before the apparatus had time to give a good interpretation. Vicka did not want it to be found that she was not talking at all but just moving her lips. Even more telling is that the Virgin was to deliver a message and she did not but said that the apparatus was not needed and then she left. The expected message was not given until the day after. If all this is not suspicious then what is? The Virgin would not cancel what she had promised to avoid a test that would do her or nobody else any harm.
 
And a stapedium for testing the inner ear conveniently fell out of Ivan’s ear when he knelt at the start of his vision. It would have been inserted better than that so it must have been deliberate. Some oil in the ear would make it fall out easier. Why was it not put in again? The testers must have wanted it to come out. Ivan might have hoped this would happen and that was why he knelt so fast to try and budge it.
 
The ecstasy is characterised by alpha brain waves. Alpha is associated with relaxation and expectation. When you are paying attention you are in beta (page 73). New Age religion promotes methods of putting yourself in alpha. Silva Mind Control is chiefly concerned with using alpha as is Laurie Cabot’s Science of Witchcraft Tradition. It says that counting backwards and relaxing put you in alpha. If the children were not paying attention to Mary they were not seeing her. They could not have been talking to her for when you think or use the intellect you snap out of alpha.

Make no mistake that Laurentin is not a scientist and Joyeux has been disgraced as a fraud and a quack.
 
The conclusion of the "experts" is that the apparitions were “scientifically inexplicable” (page 74). That judgment was based on believing the visionaries. So it was not scientific for science is for facts and hard evidence and not faith or testimony. The only inexplicable thing might be the children doing things at the same time as if prompted by Mary. But that does not prove that they really see her or see anything. The authors are too anxious to verify the apparitions.