Erich Daniken - Miracles of the Gods

and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed ... (Chap. 8).

And they (the locusts) had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle .... And they had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails .... And ... I saw the horses ... and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone ...' (Chap. 9).

Is it not crystal clear why John wrote his very accurate descriptions in his own words using his world of ideas? He did not know our modern technical vocabulary. It is stimulating to learn that the atomic physicist Bernhard Philberth [16] has written a modern interpretation of revelation. The only disturbing thing about his technological exegesis is that he always appeals to God in a highly personal fashion for all the prophetic-cum-apocalyptic explanations. That brushes me up the wrong way. I just don't like it when people offer God, the last and highest instance of being, as an explanation for everything, when the goal can also be reached using reason.

It is much the same with the explanation of somnambulist phenomena: the time when they were interpreted plays an important part.

The poet Justinus Kerner (1786-1862) was the centre of the Swabian School of Poets. Many of his poems figured in school-books for generations, many of them achieved the popularity of folk songs.

Justinus Kerner, a doctor, devoted himself to a special field of research, the supernatural. He kept a diary of his observations with scientific precision. For many years his special subject was Friederike Hauffe, the wife of a tradesman. He recorded her somnambulist phenomena in the two-volumed work Die Seherin von Prevorst. I possess the first edition of 1829, and so do not have to refer to extracts from Kerner's work in scientific publications, which often quote him.

Friederike Hauffe came from the village of Prevorst near the Wurttemberg town of Lowenstein, in a mountainous district, whose inhabitants, says Kerner, were open to sidereal and magnetic influences.

Father Hauffe was a gamekeeper. Friederike was brought up 'simply and naturally'. Never spoiled, she grew up to be a 'blooming, vivacious' child. Whereas her brothers and sisters were bothered by apparitions this peculiarity was not found in Friederike, but she did develop a power of foretelling the future that was announced to her in dreams. She became the 'wife of a tradesman', had children and led a bourgeois existence, but her emotional life became so intense that 'she heard and felt everything over the greatest distances'. She could no longer bear the light. Once when an ecclesiastical relative opened the window shutters at midday, she fell into a cramp that lasted for three days.

About this time, she felt that a spirit only visible to her magnetized her at seven o'clock every evening for seven days in succession. It happened with three fingers which the spirit spread out like rays.

(Presumably preparation by and first traces of otherworldly conscious energies.)

Put into a deep sleep by this spiritual magnetism, she stated that 'she could only be kept alive through magnetization'. In this state, Kerner relates, she saw behind every person who came near her another person, 'also with a human figure, but floating as in ecstasy'. (A phenomenon that many visionaries describe in the same way.)

'I must confess,' writes the doctor, 'that at the time I still shared the views of the world and their lies about her, so that I advised her not to pay any attention to her long lasting sleep-waking state.' On 25th November, 1826, Kerner took Mrs. Hauffe into his house 'completely wasted away ... and incapable of lying down'. He told her that he did not take any notice of what she said in her sleep, and that the somnambulistic state which had lasted so long to the despair of her relatives must finally come to a stop.

At Mama Rosas San Damiano

'Mama Rosa is obviously successful in her work The south wall of the farm is covered with votive

tablets saying 'Mary has helped' The messages of thanks are written in all languages known to me

Even without the Church's official blessing, Mama Rosa seems to be on good terms with miracles.

Bruno Cornacchiola a tram-conductor, had visions of Mary in this grotto near Tre Fontane, Rome in

1947 It is a popular and successful place of pilgrimage — the votive tablets prove it!

5 May, 1974 A visit to the clairvoyant Jeane Dixon in Washington, D.C.

This is how little Conchita experienced the miracle of the Host at Carabandal.

Processions of the cross bearing pilgrims wind through the fields of Heroldsbach in spite of the

ecclesiastical ban.

Heroldsbach a quiet Bavarian village.

'The biggest visionary shrine in the world', a grotesque record.

This is surely the first photograph ever of a vision of Mary An Egyptian reporter snapped the nebulous

figure which floated above the Coptic Church near Cairo on 12 April, 1968 The authenticity and value

of this picture have not been investigated.

After many weeks of medical and psychic treatment Kerner asked her while she was in deep sleep whether she felt

'that a repeated and controlled magnetic treatment could still save her. She replied she could not give an answer to that until she had received seven magnetic strokes at seven o'clock the next evening ....

(Had another worldly conscious energy notified her?) .... The seven magnetic strokes she received had the result that the next morning to her great surprise, for she herself did not know how it happened, she could sit up easily in bed and felt far stronger than after all the remedies tried hitherto.'

Kerner introduced a regular magnetic treatment (*) by strokes from the temples down to the epigastrium.

Mrs. H was in such a deep somnambulistic life owing to my magnetic treatment that she was never in the waking state even when she seemed to be so. Admittedly she was more awake than other men, for it is strange not to call this state, which is actually the most vivid wakefulness, awake, but she was in the state of inwardness.

There are no dates in the relevant literature about the visionary's inner state. Friederike Hauffe put on record: It often seems to me as if I am outside myself, I float above my body and then I also think above my body. But it is by no means an unpleasant feeling because I am still conscious of my body. If only my soul was more closely attached to the 'nerve spirit' (!), then it would also bind itself closer to the nerves, but the bones of my nerve spirit becomes looser and looser.

Mrs. Hauffe could also see parts of the body in magnetic sleep: Once ... apparently in the waking state Mrs. H's eyes closed and she could not open them. She said she saw a sun moving slowly in the region of the stomach and she only wished she could open her eyes so as not to see the sun any longer. She had this vision of a sun slowly moving in the region of the solar plexus quite often later. Mrs. H said about it: I've already said that I see the point like a small sun from which small rays emerge, yet the more I concentrate on it the more wakeful I become ....

----

[*] The slightest electric current creates a magnetic field. In a straight conductor (handles) the lines of force form concentric circles.

---- For years Kerner noted down many examples of clairvoyance and seeing the future; they related to a large circle of people both known and unknown. Every statement was checked with the many doctors whom Kerner consulted, 'All the experiments and phenomena in connection with Mrs. H speak of a nerve spirit that was present in her in great intensity and became free ....'