Mother Mary

 

It makes no difference in what state a complex is formed whether in every-day life, in sleep, trance, dissociated personality, subconscious states, or hypnosis—they are or may be equally firmly organized and conserved, and they are Conserved, whether we can voluntarily recall the experiences or not. Whether they are to be come organized depends upon the mode and conditions under which “the impression is made upon the mind or nervous system, but, once organized, they are conserved and become a part of our personality.”

Henry S. Munro, M.D. Handbook of Suggestive Therapeutics Applied Hypnotism Psychic Science , 1917.

 This is the story of how the terrorism of a mother's love, in this case the "love" of the Virgin Mary for mankind, is no less cruel and traumatizing than 9/11. And I speak of this abuse because it was not only rampant in my family growing up, but because not speaking about it in order to keep the peace in my family - which I did for decades -  is part of the trauma response of such abuse, the same way children and the parents of children molested by Catholic priests did not talk about such sexual abuse in order to "keep the peace" within their own families and religious congregations as well. Doing this, however, not only disrespects your own boundaries and experiences and therefore your own personal truth, it also enables such abuse to metastasize while forcing us to alienate us from our own emotions. 

This then is not a story of parental abuse or accusations, since my parents were merely doing the best they could with what information they had been given by the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), but of the Catholic Church's direct responsibility for its psychological and emotional abuse. That abuse comes from the RCCs continual promotion of beliefs in both Marion apparitions and the apocalyptic visions such apparitions have always been used to promote as perfectly righteous and necessary to appease the blood-lust of the brand of God the RCC sells to its parishioners. 

One of my brothers, who later became a Catholic priest selling to parents such emotionally toxic ideas, and one of my sisters who tried to indoctrinate her own children with such poison, claim to have "seen" the Virgin Mary descending from the clouds (as if heaven is a place in the clouds) in Conyers, Georgia back in the early 1990s. Both are adamantly convinced that their "apparition" was  infallibility true, even as they equally insist that every other person's experience of the same sort of "apparition" concerning any other figure other than Mary, is always false. And when either of them are asked to explain why they feel so "infallible" in claiming their experience is true and others are not, they simply explain that they have "faith" that this is the case. And how can you argue with that, right?  

Above is an actual photograph of what my brother and sister insist they saw, and also insist was 100% real. Dare to doubt them and they begin flailing about like Reagan MacNeil reacting to the belief she'd been sprinkled with holy water in "The Exorcist." Notice that the image looks exactly like the little lawn statues Catholics put in their gardens, several of which we kept in our home and in both the front and back yard. This no doubt contributed to how my siblings were so keen to know exactly who and what it was floating out of the sky that day. Notice too that the image reflects a woman more of European heritage far more than that of a woman from the Middle East. Why her robes are not flowing, looking instead like they are made out of solid plaster like those lawn statues, never bothers my siblings or any other "believers" in the slightest.  

Their claims were the result of a father who had been seduced with beliefs that the end of the world was near, because Mary was said to be appearing around the world, from Japan to Europe to North and South America. Once Dad heard Mary was appearing in Conyers, he jumped at the chance to prove that all of his decisions in life were about to be vindicated, rented a van, and carted as many of his children down to the farm where the appearances where alleged to be taking place as were willing to go along for the ride. My mother and I opted not to go, with my Mom, and ardent Catholic to her dying day, telling my father, "if Mary has something to tell me, she knows where I live." And my two siblings, who likewise jumped at the chance to see what my father had lived his whole life so obsessed over, have been addicted to their "belief" that God revealed to them - and them alone, not my Dad or anyone else in our family - the Mother of God, in order to convince them they were special, at least in God's eyes anyway (or maybe just my Dad's).

It was the quote from Henry S. Munro above that led me to think about claims made by Catholics that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, was appearing around the world, and how such claims, which are always about the "faithful" being saved from her apocalyptic predictions about God's coming "righteous" wrath, have impacted people - including my own family - just like any other form of terrorism. She's apparently been doing this for roughly a thousand years or so, even though the story of Lazarus and the rich man illustrated that God would never send messengers because, as Lazarus tells the rich man who asked him to visit his family to warn them of the hell that awaits them (ya know, like Ebeneezer Scrooge  and those three ghosts of Christmas), "they have the prophets to teach them that." Nor does it explain why such "believers" are always looking for such "evidence" to support their "faith" which they claim needs to evidence in the first place.  

 Such claims raises the question of not only whether any of these claims may be in anyway true, but even if they are, why the hell she keeps showing up, like Elvis or a Yeti or a chupacabra, but never to everyone she claims her apparitions are directly intended to save from such an apocalypse. Or does she only care to save those who obediently "believe" in the brand of Christianity she is acting like a door-to-door salesmen for, and to hell with everyone else? Those who believe such apparitions are real, the vast majority of whom did not have first hand experiences with such apparitions, then expect that believers in others religions or none at all must accept them as true as well, or suffer the consequences of failing to do so - just like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah

Think about that. This is like calling a doctor that will speak, never to you directly, but only through your neighbor, or in the case of spiritual diseases, only through a priest. And whenever you ask the neighbor why the doctor refuses to speak with you directly, they reply "It's a mystery, for sure! But that doesn't mean I'm wrong when I tell you he did, and if you want to survive, in this life and the next, you'll believe that as much as I do!"  

As Bertrand Russell pointed out, however, "From a scientific point of view, we can make no distinction between the man who eats little and sees heaven and the man who drinks much and sees snakes. Each is in an abnormal physical condition, and therefore has abnormal perceptions. Normal perceptions, since they have to be useful in the struggle for life, must have some correspondence with fact; but in abnormal perceptions there is no reason to expect such correspondence, and their testimony, therefore, cannot outweigh that of normal perception."  Religion and Science (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 188.

So what are Marian apparitions?  According to Wikipedia,

A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by Mary the mother of Jesus, or a series of related such appearances during a period of time.  In 2007, experts in such apparitions presented the Dictionary of Apparitions of the Virgin Mary, a 1,600-page listing more than 2,400 claims of people who alleged to have seen Mary over the centuries, as well as the consequences of such announcements. Only 15 of these have been officially recognized by the  Roman Catholic Church.

Believers consider such apparitions to be real and objective interventions of divine power, rather than subjective experiences generated by the perceiving individuals, even in cases where the apparition is reportedly seen by only some, not all, of the people present at the event's location.

Marian apparitions are considered by believers to be expressions of Mary's ongoing motherly care for the church. The understood purpose of each apparition is to draw attention to some aspect of the Christian message, given the needs of a particular time and place. Apparitions are often accompanied by other alleged supernatural phenomena, such as medical cures. However, such miraculous events are not considered the purpose of Marian apparitions, but are alleged to exist primarily to validate and draw attention to the message. (But again, this is always done in the most indirect way possible, even though the Bible illustrates that God was much more willing to interact with humanity more directly on the whole prior to Jesus, and is now only talking to some of humanity, who are often fighting about he said and she said.

 This raises the question, of course, of how did they recognize what and who they saw as Mary, the Mother of Christ, having never met her? Surely she didn’t sit for a portrait to be painted of her that still exists to this day, as if the little statues people have on their lawns is as infallible in its depiction of what Mary looked like and wore (which she apparently wore every single day of her entire life) as the Christian believes their Bible is inerrant and their interpretation of that Bible is "infallible." 

 How do people who see such a vision, who are always Catholic to begin with (which is necessary because other Christian faiths do not venerate her nearly as much as Catholics do, who see her as a co-mediatrix with Jesus, for all "grace" flows through her) so automatically know it was Mary, and not  Isis, Aphrodite, Cleopatra, or even Mary Magdalene?

As one woman wrote online of growing up with such experiences, "Yes, I was terrified of all of that stuff and, of course, all the end-of-times horror. When I think back to how young I was it boggles my mind. I was expected to be able to handle that shit at ten years old? But I didn’t have to worry if I didn’t sin, so no problem! Except EVERY FUCKING THING was a sin. And I knew god didn’t always protect his followers. I’d seen the artwork of the martyrs and the news and knew that Christians were thrown to lions. I knew I had no guarantees and that it was up to god’s divine plan, and that plan looked incredibly fucked up to me. I used to pray, “And please let your will for me not be murder or rape. Please don’t want that for me.”

I had a similar experience with such claims, which my father and then my family became completely addicted to. After all, Jesus's suffering and death only proved that God preferred to see the suffering of innocence more than the suffering of the guilty, which was merely a Christian spin on the ancient traditions of sacrificing virgins to the God, with Jesus being said to have been born of a virgin. 

Why are both of my siblings so convinced that Mary revealed herself to them and them alone in our family? Well, maybe because such a "belief" allows them to also "believe" they've been given by God the same kind of "divine revelation" and "special knowledge" that God gave to prophets and saints in the Old Testament and the New.  Of course, the only explanation they have for "why did God show only you such knowledge and no one else, especially if the whole point was to save everyone from the fires of hell? Doing so means everyone has to simply trust that your own powers of discernment are more "infallible" than every other people who has ever lived! How does that make sense?" is "I don't know, it's a mystery but you damn well better believe it as much as I do or they'll be hell to pay!"

And they say this, even though they admit they would never accept such testimony as proof of the reality of Isis or Aphrodite, and then insist they are not using a double standard - which is the real miracle that such apparitions produce. 

As a user named Kvartar pointed out of such apparitions: "I was fascinated with them in my tweens so I read books on Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje. The most disturbing part for me was the supposed message. Specifically, my children, hurt and sacrifice because Jesus is very offended. Also, they supposedly saw visions of hell and purgatory as the punishment for sins. I was terrified I would see the devil as those kids." 

Fatima

Consider the Fatima example. In both Catholic churches and Catholic schools, children are taught this apparition was as real as their God. And of course children believe this just as readily as they believe in Santa Clause and the tooth fairy and monsters in the closet or under the bed. 

It happened in Fatima, Portugal, a highly Catholic city at the time, in 1917. But not to everyone, like Jesus did when he came to Jerusalem, but to only three children, in the mountains or in a field or something. As another person online expressed about being taught such an idea to be "true":

"And we believed it or I did until I read years later that the oldest child had asked Mary what happened to her brother Francisco who had died at seven.

Mary told her Francisco was in purgatory atoning for his sins.

Seven years old.

For his sins.

And the Catholic Church wonders why no one believes the fairy tales they tell."

As Joe Nickell points out in "The Real Secrets of Fatima" (https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2009/11/22164423/p14.pdf), to understand those apparitions requires first understanding something about those claiming they were having them.  At Fatima, Mary appeared to 9 year-old Francisco, his 7-year-old sister, Jacinta and their 10 year-old cousin Lucia.But why show up to children, and only three children at that, rather than anyone else? This is like God warning Mary and Joseph about the coming "Massacre of the Innocent" because King Herod feared a baby named Jesus, but never telling anyone else, let alone stopping Herod from exercising his "free will" to do so by giving him a heart attack or irritable bowel syndrome or even just low-self esteem or courage not to be so afraid. As Nickell explains:

"Those who believe in the Fatima “miracle” also cite certain predictions the apparition allegedly made to Lucia, one being that Jacinta and Francisco would soon die. Both did soon succumb to influenza: Francisco in 1919 and Jacinta the following year. However, Zimdars- Swartz observes, “much of what devotees today accept as the content of the apparition comes from four memoirs written by Lucia in the convent [where she later resided] between 1935 and 1941, many years after the series of
experiences that constitute the apparition event” (Zimdars-Swartz 1991, 68).

 Indeed, Lucia recorded her first “prediction” of the children’s deaths in 1927—several years after the fact! As to the other predictions, they were supposedly part of three secrets that had been delivered to Lucia by the apparition on July 13, 1917 (Gruner1997, 290–291). Lucia’s Third Memoir gave the first secret as a vision of hell. 

The second secret was a statement that World War I would end, “but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI” (who was pope from 1922 to 1939).
However, since the Third Memoir was penned in August 1941, the so-called predictions were actually written after the fact (Zimdars-Swartz 1991, 198–199)."

Notice however the effect of such predictions being made AFTER the fact have on those who feel they are right to "believe" they truly came before? It colors the horrors of the events that followed, in this case World War II, as being God's righteous punishment for our refusal to "cease offending God." 

 From Fatima to Medjugorje to Conyers, Georgia

By accepting Fatima to be evidence of God warning his children of his coming wrath, which so often comes in the form of turning us violently on each other, when Mary began appearing in Medjugorje in the 1980 also warning about a coming apocalypse, of God's righteous wrath, my father got caught up in it like a fish, hook, line, and sinker!

 

My Dad was as devout a Catholic as there ever was. Really. No one every prayed or read more books about God, especially the Roman Catholic conceptions of such an abstract idea, than my Dad. He spent nearly ever day of his life working at a religious book store, from which he spent nearly every night of his life reading about God from the books he brought home from work. Our whole house was like a warehouse for all of the Christian books that my Dad's bookstore were trying to get rid of. So they'd put them on sale, and my father couldn't resist buying them! For him, in the pages of each and every one of those books were the secrets and insights into God that would finally free him from the fears he had suffered from his whole life - especially the fear of being as rejected by his God and Mary his Holy Mother, as he was by his own father, who worshiped the ground his wife walked on, and his mother, who told him he was a mistake, and she never wanted him.  That only began to change when he began to "ape" the Catholic beliefs and behaviors of his parents, who effectively disowned my Dad's elder brother when he decided he no longer believed in Catholicism, and mostly because his mom and dad were crummy parents who just choose to "believe" they're great parents - just like the Duggars!

 

My Dad was a thoughtful man, however, and did enjoy asking questions at least as much as he liked looking for answers anywhere he could think to look. Unlike most of my family today, as my Father got older, his curiosity expanded well outside the narrow plot of thinking he'd been living in his whole life. And he was genuinely fascinated by what he found when he did. But in the 1980s, he was still more than a decade shy of getting to a point where he felt comfortable enough in himself to do that. So uncomfortable in himself in the 1980s, in fact, that when Mary was said to be appearing down in Conyers, Georige, he couldn't wait to rent a van, fill with as many of us as he could, and rush down to be a part of it. Conyers in the 1980s was for Catholics what Woodstock was to hippies in the 1960s. 

 

What my father didn't live long enough to see, however, was how even the messages he believed were being conveyed to a woman named Nancy Fowler looked more like the boasting of the devil than the comforting words of a loving mother. Fowler had gone to Medjugorje after hearing that Mary was appearing there, and Mary apparently followed her home back to Conyers, like a puppy or a stray cat. As Catholic theologian Ronald L Conte Jr points out (http://www.catholicplanet.com/apparitions/false53.htm), however, "In my humble and pious opinion as a faithful Roman Catholic theologian, the messages and claimed private revelation to Nancy Fowler of Conyers, Georgia, (www.ourlovingmother.org) are false and are not from Heaven."

Conte then gives some examples:

The following messages of Nancy Fowler are supposedly from Jesus:

Message 110: “My children are all mixed up. The evil one has deceived them about love. He gives them a false love and impure love. He lures them like a fish with bait. When they are on his hook, they can't escape. They do not have freedom....The Evil One counterfeits everything. He fishes and traps men with fancy bait, and then they are hooked. He is the master of deception. He excels in pride and hatred. He glorifies only himself.... In the days ahead many will fall in My Church and they will remain down because they will not come to Me for help.”

Notice that this message sounds more like Satan boasting, than like Jesus teaching. Compare this text to the Gospel and see that the two are very different. Notice the hopelessness in this message, despite some token expressions of being able to be saved by Christ, the main message appears to be how powerful Satan is and how many are lost to him. This type of exaltation of the power of fallen angels is common in false private revelations (which mainly come from fallen angels).

Message 112 (March 26, 1991): “Satan continually seeks to destroy you.... No one, no one will succeed in battling Satan without My help. I say no one. The angels of Heaven would be helpless without My help. The saints would be helpless and, yes, even the Mother of God.”

Above are some further examples of this type of boasting about Satan. The messages make a bare mention of salvation by God, but their main theme is how powerful and, seemingly, all-present is this one mere fallen angel. Also, the idea that all the holy Angels of Heaven are helpless before one fallen angel is absurd. The number of fallen angels is far less than those who did not fall. So, in a mere battle of one group's natural powers against the other's, the holy Angels would not be helpless. Furthermore, Satan was never the greatest or most powerful angel ever created. He is the worst and most powerful of the fallen angels, as far as we know. But Scripture says that Michael and his holy angels defeat Satan and his fallen angels, therefore, it is not true that the angels of Heaven would be helpless by themselves.

Message 444: “Look at it this way, if you come to Me with half yourself distracted and half to Me, Satan can get in the half that is distracted.”

For my father (and two siblings), this kind of complete focus on ( but more like an unhealthy obsession with) Mary was like feeling it was necessary to be completely committed to playing a virtual reality video game in his head, one where he was a solider in a cosmic battle between forces of light and darkness, the playing of which released dopamine in his head and kept him distracted from how his addiction to playing such a game, which kept him working at a bookstore for not much more than today's minimum wage out of fear falling into sin at any other job, was directly responsible for forcing his own children to deliver newspapers in which he took all the money, a bit like The Story of the Little Match Girl.

 As a result, my father's addiction to Mary as a surrogate for his real mother, who told him she never wanted him, and proved it by how she ignored him for most of his life until he became as obsessively Catholic as she was, not only contributed to making it that much more difficult to connect emotionally to his own children for most of his life, but provided the perfect incentive for my two siblings to need to see Mary, in order to forge a bond with a father who had only ever forged a loving bond with his beliefs in Mary more than with them. 

The miracle of such apparitions, as such, is  how “the impression (it) made upon the mind or nervous system" of my siblings "become a part of (their) personality,” convincing them that they and they alone have special access to divine revelation in everything they think, say, or do, especially when they are casting the stones of their religious judgement at anyone who dares to use their "free will" in a way that does not conform to their own ideals of what it means to be human - which for them means "property of God" (but since God is an absentee father because of his immaterial nature, really means something more like "property of the Roman Catholic Church") - which are embodied in the Virgin Mary's willingness to be impregnated by a God, and to never have sex her whole life.