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1.0 out of 5 stars
THE LADY OF THE CARRASQUEIRA, August 28, 2009
"Celestial Secrets : The Hidden History of the Fatima Incident" is the 2nd volume of a trilogy of books (in English) whose primary author is Portuguese professor/writer Joachim Fernandes, with some volumes co-authored by writer Fina D'Armada. These two authors have been among Portugal's most prominent resident UFOlogists for close to the last 30 years. The other books of the trilogy series are "Heavenly Lights: the Apparitions of Fatima and the UFO Phenomenon" and "Fatima Revisited : The Apparition Phenomenon in Ufology, Psychology and Science". These books represent the relatively recent English translations of the authors' long-term traditional work in this UFO/Fatima area, with additional material from other authors, editors and translators.
The primary sponsor, editor and main promoter of this trilogy for the American market is the highly controversial amateur scientist, Ufologist Andrew D. Basiago. He is heavily involved in various writings about "Uncovering the Cover-ups", including NASA, so it is no surprise to find him to be the main driving force behind the scenes in this "Fatima Uncovered" enterprise in America.
The core theme of all 3 Volumes is to seek to make the case that the well known Fatima, Portugal visionary events of 1917, were in reality a prime example of a visit to Earth by extraterrestrials in UFOs in that year. This requires going up against the Catholic Church that heavily supports and promulgates these events as none other than religious apparitions of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. The authors and promoters strive to buildup interest and credibility for this particular book series by highlighting their visit to the Fatima archives in 1978 and copiously displaying all of their meticulously detailed research activity.
A brief summary of these Fatima apparition reports: there were reported to be 6 major apparitions by a beautiful young lady on a small holm-oak tree (Carrasqueira) purported to be witnessed by 3 very young shepherd children, Lucia 10, Francisco 9 and Jacinta 7, beginning on May 13, 1917 and ending on October 13, 1917. The children reported that the lady announced on the final visit that she was "The Lady of the Rosary", known by Catholics worldwide to be none other than the Virgin Mary herself. This last visit climaxed with a 15 minute series of totally unusual cosmic and solar phenomena, that has come to be known as the "Miracle of the Sun", and was reportedly witnessed by approx. 70,000 people, up to 40 miles away. This great crowd was drawn to the site by the prior July's 13th's prediction by the children that the lady said that she would perform a miracle on Oct 13th.
The prime tool used by the writers to try to convince the reader of their research prowess is the description of their visit to the secured Fatima Shrine archives in 1978, where they viewed the largely unknown personal notes of the local priests of that time, who interviewed the children. However, since then the Shrine has produced several volumes of this same archived Fatima documentation itself and the first one was published in 1992 titled "Documentacao Critica de Fatima: Volume I, Interrogatorios aos Videntes - 1917". (Interrogations of the Seers). The writers use this same Volume I often as a reference for their own viewpoints in "C.S." and I also have a copy of this particular Volume I in my own possession, that I will refer to in the remaining text as "Documentation...Vol I" .
In an attempt to make their case that the Fatima events actually represented UFO visits, the writers have accused the Catholic Church of using manipulative and conspiratorial conduct to promulgate a false message of these apparitions, but they do not make a convincing case due to the lack of evidence. However, unfortunately and most deplorably they have fashioned their prime weapon to be one of openly impugning the moral character of the heavenly figure herself. This is done mainly by using a few of the female seers' descriptions of the vision found in the archived priestly notes, that indicate the lady wearing a skirt that went to the knees.
The writers have seized onto this knee-length skirt issue like a pit-bull and as the centerpiece of their calumnious attack on the lady of the visions' assumed religious origins. They can hardly be interviewed about their UFO/Fatima activity without quickly taking cheap-shots on the knee-length skirt issue, using this as a sort of "smoking gun", pried out by their so-called "meticulous" research. The writers describe it as a scandalous fashion worse than used by ladies of the night. ("C.S". p. 151). The writers have now made room for their UFO borne extraterrestrial figure to come onto center stage.
Regretfully, I am forced to spend considerable time on this skirt-length issue, because of the writers' unending focus on it and their using most of a whole chapter on it, in # 2 "The Secret of the Sanctuary".
Yes, it is true that in a few locations of the "Documentation...Vol I", local priests' personal interview notes do mention a skirt described by the female seers as going down to the knees. However, the majority of the archived personal notes' descriptions mention the skirt/dress length to be between from middle of the leg (below the shin) and down to the ankles or down to the feet, over the course of the very many apparition interviews. However, these other more numerous (and less attention getting) skirt/dress length descriptions that are also found in the same archived personal notes of the priests, are conveniently ignored in "C.S.", by its writers.
Using deceptive references to the publication "Documentation...Vol I", the writers have employed fabrication, the obvious omission of counterpoint information from the same context, and employing the selective "cherry-picking" of key phrases out of context, from these now published priests' personal notes. Mind you, this is the same source used by the writers to support their own controversial viewpoints.
An example of deception by omission is taken from p. 25 of "Documentation...Vol I". Here in the personal notes of Father Ferreira, (the same notes that had earlier had a knee length skirt). Father describes Lucia as saying that during the last vision of the lady near the Sun, she had worn a white and long skirt that went down to the feet. However, this entry is left ignored by the writers as they continue to overlook anything other than their poison-pen knee-length skirt, the least mentioned one of the private notes. Interestingly, this entry also illustrates that there were obviously some slight differences in perception by the seers of the lady's physical appearance from one apparition venue to another.
An example of removing key phrases out of the referenced context is found on p.153 of "C.S." in the first paragraph, which also appears in "Documentation...Vol I" on p. 66. There in Canon (Father) Formigao's private notes, he is shown musing that Jacinta affirms that Our Lady's dress fell only to the knees. Very significantly, the writers then cleverly removed the next few sentences from that same paragraph, before continuing on. The removed phrases are where Father says that Lucia and Jacinta have declared that it (the dress) goes down next to the ankles. Father goes on to remark about a point of confusion on the part of the children?, especially the youngest. (Jacinta). This counterpoint information of the same paragraph was completely left out of "C.S." (Ask any policeman or detective about sincere eyewitnesses giving confusing, conflicting testimony. It happens...all the time. I know, I work with them).
Also, contrary to the writers' data on p.151 of "C.S.", that is also referenced to be found in the "Documentation...Vol I", there is no entry in Father Lacerda's rough notes of any knee-length anything. This is an example of the writers' total fixation on this issue and a resorting to "piling on" to drive their point home. Is there a lawyer's hand in this?
It is possible to only reasonably speculate as to why the least mentioned of the skirt/dress descriptions of the notes do say a knee-length skirt. First, the initial visits were described to be of a young lady the size of a young neighborhood girl known as Virginia (11 or 12 years old). The later apparitions were thought to be more of a young woman the size of a 15 to 18 year old. Were there communications problems between the children and priests?. Also, the vision on the holm-oak tree was only a short distance away from the children's eyes, and it was elevated above them for an unusual visual angle of perception. The visions' light was also reported to be so blinding to the eyes, that they had to turn away often to regain their natural vision. These factors could explain some of the children's other differences in appearance testimony such as the lady's use of earrings, wearing of stockings or not, and etc.
The time spent on my discussing this knee-length skirt issue is unfortunate, but I felt that because of its constant use in cheap-shots by the writers and its being repeated over and over in the many internet blogs, websites and anti-Fatima books, it had to be dealt with at some length.
Sadly, these writers have also made extensive use of free association in their logical case to support all of their UFO theories. Against the Church and the visions they have employed a form of classical sophistic argument method where a few kernels of truth are wrapped up with distortions, misleading statements and the selective use of out-of-context phrases from a legitimate reference source. This produces a clever, deceiving story package disguised as a serious research effort, but in the final analysis it has only produced a sloppy, overwrought and fallacious product...
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Documetation of Nephalim contact, September 1, 2008
Celestial Secrets gives a well documented version of contact with non-humans from an unpopular position. It is a secular compilation, and that's okay for me because I think this book adds enough useful information to a larger issue of study. I think anyone seeking truth will like this book.
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10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The First Scrutiny, December 1, 2007
This book truly is the first "scrutiny" of Fatima, and its time is overdue for "scrutiny" of such events is a condition demanded by the Roman Catholic Church. and was not done in the case of Fatima.
And may I be perfectly frank in stating that I see this Fatima episode far more simplistically than the authors. I see it in part as a case of "peasant cunning" that later evolved under Jesuit supervision into the more formalized school of thought known as "casuistry" first promulgated by rabbinical scholars and the Jesuits in the 17th Century.
But the real culprits in my opinion are certain prelates of the Church in Portugal and even in Rome itself who while allowing the building of a Fatima basilica and allowing worship to take place at this "shrine" before the scrutiny was over... or even begun, ignored the numerous glaring inconsistencies in the testimony, especially the obvious sign of false apparition found in the length of the skirt, for the testimony of the children elicited by the priests assigned to question the children, showed that this "vision's" skirt was described by the children as "below the middle of the leg" and "knee-length", far too short both then and now for she who is both Full of Grace and the Mother of God. This was not only reported by the authors who have scrutinized the historical record directly from the official Shrine archives, but was reported earlier by Fr. John DeMarchi in 1947 who wrote more than one book about Fatima (with imprimatur) that contained some of the transcripts of the children's responses.
In other words, from the beginning, and early on it was obvious to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the Catholic religion, and knowledge of the "rules" about what constitutes an apparition "worthy of belief", that this apparition was absolutely and without question, false.
I had read in one of the tomes on Fatima entitled The Whole Truth About Fatima that one of the members of the canonical committee assigned to scrutinize Fatima disclosed that the members never at any time sat down together to discuss any of the issues raised by the factual evidence in the entire 8 year period that the committee was in place. And in reading this scrutinizer's complaint, one has to wonder whether this particular scrutinizer had any actual knowledge about the length of the skirt and of the other glaring inconsistencies found in the testimony before such testimony was "transformed" by an adult Sr. Lucia as well as her "spiritual directors." At the end of the 8 years, this canonist scrutinizer, who never had an opportunity to do his job, states that Canon Formigao came to the other committee members for their approval at the end of their 8 years of idleness, and they, acting no better than compliant wives, signed the prepared approval handed to them.
It goes without saying that while I am incompetent to explore the areas the authors explore, i.e. ufology, I find the factual similarities between the events at Fatima and other "UFO" experiences to be disturbing enough because when viewed within the framework of the Catholic religion, those similarities (i.e. testimony of subterranean thunder, Lucia's multiple pre-apparition visions of shrouded sheets that she saw with other children, spirals of smoke seen at the place where the vision stood, buzzing of bees or the sound of flies heard by many when the vision was allegedly speaking, all testified to by either the seers and/or many witnesses) can be construed, in Catholic parlance, as coming from, shall we say, "below."
I myself believe in miracles. I believe that Our Lord performed miracles while he walked the earth, and He is perfectly capable of performing miracles down to this very day. But as a Catholic, I would judge a miracle then or now even more harshly than any atheist because while an atheist tells us that a thing is not true unless it can be proven and maintains a certain objectivity because of this self-imposed standard, my religion also allows me the same kind of objectivism, but what he is missing, I have, which is the knowledge and love of Our Lord, and anyone who knows Our Lord and loves Our Lord, would never want to be the instrument of attaching any false thing, like a phony apparition, to Him.
And I do not fear the kind of "judgementalism" that has been made anathema today and that would otherwise restrain so many Catholics from making the following statement:
While we live in an age where the hierarchal order seems to have been completely leveled, I am still a believer in the immutable truth that such an order exists, and therefore I am still capable of pointing the finger where it belongs, which is at the captain of the ship, who in this case while they appear to be a hirelings of the worst kind, are hirelings who represent themselves to be the Church's apparent hierarchal authority in Portugal and even in Rome itself, for Fatima was an invention, a hireling's invention, containing askew prayers and visions that in some significant ways prepared the way for a new religion - a false religion, for these prayers are quoted by the hirelings of our present day to justify the new religion now firmly in place. Fatima was, in effect, a vehicle that helped lead many Catholics to loosen their grasp and understanding about something far more profound and stupendous than the "miracle of the sun."
I am looking forward to reading the authors' last volume of their trilogy of books on Fatima.
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by Jim Marrs
