[Note: This chapter, and all others in this book, are excerpted from The End of Our Century by Francois Masson, written in 1979-80. It was transcribed from French into English by David Michael Steinberg in 1981 and a publisher was never found. It was finally edited, updated and published on the Internet by David Wilcock in 2001.]

This chapter, perhaps the most important in terms of scientific research, will prove that Marial apparitions do not occur randomly, but are part of a plan of spiritual education of humanity and appear when the time is ripe.

This study will begin with the best known of the apparitions, Fatima in Portugal. The author is not trying to cast doubt on their truth nor to deny their deep spiritual implications, but he will try to view the apparitions with the eye of a modern man without being influenced either by the distorted interpretations of religiosity verging on bigotry or by a skepticism all too simplistic.

In this chapter we will rely as much as possible on facts observed by outside witnesses, and will only quote the seers’ statements when it becomes necessary in order to grasp the whole story. The facts observed at Fatima are extraordinary enough in themselves without contradictory theological interpretations.

The three children of Fatima did not get the Marial message at one time. During the latter part of 1916 they saw three preparatory apparitions of an angel calling itself the Angel of Peace, the Angel of Portugal. Here is their description of these first contacts.

The children had just had their lunch and were playing with pebbles when “a strong gust of wind made them look up. They saw taking shape in the air and coming toward them a fair white cloud in human form, looking like a snow statue that the sun made transparent as crystal.”

This apparition said, “Fear not; I am the Angel of Peace,” and urged them to pray for peace. Remember that in 1916 Portugal entered the war on the side of the Allies. This apparition reappeared twice.

The first observation to note, which will recur during all the subsequent apparitions, is the white cloud which was seen by countless witnesses in 1917.

The first manifestation of the Virgin Mary was unexpected and came on May 13, 1917. Two lightning flashes in a cloudless sky surprised the children and they saw a beautiful lady who seemed to be standing on the leafy branches of a little green oak. She asked them to come there again for six months, on the 13th of each month.

The next apparition did occur on June 13, 1917, and the first other witnesses saw the lightning flash that signaled each appearance. At this time the lady told the children a Secret.

The third apparition took place July 13, 1917 in front of 4500 or 5000 people. During this one, the most important (together with the last, on October 13), the Holy Virgin reaffirmed the great secret which, by the Pope’s permission, was later disclosed — but only in part.

Here is what we know to date:

Text 18: “Continue to come on the 13th of each month. In October I will tell you who I am, where I went, and I shall work a great miracle for all to see that they may believe.”

 

Text 22: “The war is nearing its end but if men do not stop offending the Lord, in the reign of Pius XI a worse one will begin.

When you see the night lit up by an unknown light, know that it is the great sign God gives you that the punishment of the world is at hand by war, famine and persecution of the Holy Father.”

Historians agree that World War II really began with the war in Spain, the first military clash between fascism and communism, and this was during the reign of Pius XI.

Text 23: “To prevent it I shall come to ask the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and communions of reparation every Saturday.”

Text 24: “If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not she will spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church.

Many of the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have a lot to suffer, several nations will be crushed. Portugal will keep the dogma of the faith, etc.”

The “etc.” is very important; it stands for the undisclosed part of the secret. Pope John XXIII forbade the complete publication of the text, saying that the last part was only about the papacy.

Text 25: “But finally my Immaculate Heart will triumph, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, she will be converted, and the world will be granted a time of peace.”

We note that Portugal, despite its recent revolutions, has kept the dogma of the faith. This pope will suffer a lot — could this mean John Paul II, this pope from the East who strives to reestablish freedom in the Communist countries?

As for the part kept secret, John XXIII did not a1low it to be divulged in 1960 as planned. And yet that very year, the serious German review of foreign affairs, Neues Europa, revealed that Pope John XXIII had communicated the complete contents to the world leaders — Kennedy, Krushchev and MacMillan.

Despite the subsequent denials, one thing stands out; Krushchev’s son-in-law had an audience with the Pope.

At the first visitation, the virgin set the date of the others on the 13th of each month. The one scheduled for August 13, 1917 could not materialize because the children had been arrested. “Freethinkers” were in power in the Portuguese government and the notoriety of Fatima was not to their liking.

If the children could have been convicted of fraud, everything would have been fine, but they stuck to their story. Don’t forget that this was August 1917, with rebellion everywhere, especially in the armed forces, not only in Russia, but in France, Germany and Italy. The Portuguese authorities, not knowing how such an affair might turn out, wanted to nip it in the bud.

And yet the aborted appearance of August 13, 1917, ironically, had even more repercussions despite the absence of the little visionaries. In fact, 18,000 people showed up that day at the appointed spot — believers and skeptics.

The crowd was disappointed and grew angry upon hearing of the children’s arrest. But the repetition of the same uncanny phenomena that had accompanied the previous visits drew everyone’s attention to the oak tree where the image usually appeared. First a loud explosion was heard, seeming to come from the tree itself.

Then the witnesses saw the flash which usually preceded the appearance of the Lady to the children. The sun grew dinner and the air was filled with magnificent colors.

Meanwhile a fine white cloud came to rest on the tree whose branches bent slightly under the weight. This cloud remained about ten minutes, then finally rose and disappeared in the sky.

This extraordinary manifestation, on August 13, 1917, really contains the best evidence on these events, since the children were in prison and the 18,000 witnesses could observe the tangible facts at their leisure without being distracted by the children in ecstasy.

The unexplained and repeated phenomena are: a cloud or globe of light, a flash and an explosion, and especially the luminous aura around these things, dimming of the sun and the magnificent atmosphere with colors never seen before. This last phenomenon is reported by all trustworthy persons who have lived through a UFO encounter.

Sunday, August 19, 1917, while the freethinkers were organizing a counter-demonstration at Fatima, the Lady appeared unannounced to the little seers as they were tending their flock at Valinhos, a place called “The Valley,” where the virgin had never before appeared. She told the children to persevere and again promised a great sign on October 13.

We now come to September 13, 1917. This time 30,000 people observed that exactly at noon, in a cloudless sky, the blazing sun of that bright day began to lose its light, until the stars became visible. Again the air took on a golden color and the crowd, humbled by the sight, contemplated this prodigy in silence.

The vicar general of Leiria, the capital of the diocese that includes Fatima, was incognito among the spectators. He described what he saw:

“Not a cloud in the sky. I look up and examine the heavens. My friend says to me in a snide way: “You too, you re starting to look,” and to my great surprise I see clearly and distinctly a globe of light moving from east to west, gliding slowly and majestically through space.

My friend turned to look and was lucky enough to behold the same unexpected and startling sight. Then we saw a thin mist form around the tree and — miracle –from the open sky began to rain flowers which evaporated before reaching the ground.”

 

Here is a new story — white flowers, more prosaically described by UFO observers as gelatinous filaments which dissolve rapidly.

The series of apparitions ended, as promised by the Virgin Mary, on the great day of October 13, 1917. It started under bad auspices: the sky was overcast and it was raining heavily. But that didn’t prevent the arrival of 70,000 to 90,000 people, all awaiting the celestial sign promised by the Holy Virgin.

Their patience was rewarded, for they all saw a grandiose and unforgettable sight. Here is a witness’s report:

“Suddenly the clouds were torn apart, uncovering a great expanse of blue and in this vast cloudless space we saw the sun at its zenith.

But, strangely, although not veiled by any cloud, it was brilliant but not dazzling — we could stare at it without blinking.

Suddenly the sun trembled, shook, made brusque movements and finally began to spin dizzily like a wheel of fire, throwing in all directions enormous jets of light — green, blue, violet, etc.

After about four minutes the sun stopped for a moment, then resumed its fantastic motion and its magical dance of light: After a short rest the sun once more began its show, more colorful than ever: During the whole spectacle the crowd stood transfixed and entranced.

Then came the terrifying, dizzying fall of the sun, the climax of the miracle. Yes, in the middle of its wild dance, the sun detached itself from the firmament and zigzagging from side to side, dived at the crazed multitude, looking as if it would strike the earth.

A loud clamor arose from the crowd, composed of cries of fear and prayers, which were suddenly stilled when the sun halted in its headlong fall and climbed back to its place, zigzagging as before.”

 

Now here are the same facts related by Dr. Almeida Garret, professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Coimbra, who writes:

“I was a little over 100 meters away… The rain was pouring down on our heads and streaming down our clothes, we were soaked to the skin. Finally it was 2 o’clock (noon by the sun). A moment earlier the sun had come out from behind the thick cloud curtain. All eyes were raised to it as if pulled by a magnet.

I too tried to stare at it and it looked like a disc with sharp edges, luminous and lucent but not dazzling. I heard people around me compare it to a disc of dull silver, but the comparison did not seem apt. It shone with a clear and changing color like the luster of a pearl.

It did not look anything like the moon at night. It had neither the color nor the markings. You could call it a burnished wheel cut from the nacre of a shell. This is not a cliche’ of poesy; thus my eyes saw it.

Nor could you confuse it with the sun shining through a slight fog. There was no trace of fog, and anyway the sun was not opaque, diffused, or veiled, but shone clearly in its center and at Its rim: This resplendent color-splashed disc seemed to move dizzily.

It was not the twinkling of a star. It was spinning, whirling rapidly…

Suddenly a great outcry burst from the whole crowd. The sun, retaining its rotary notion, left the heavens and dove at the Earth for a few terrifying moments.

All the phenomena I have reported and described I observed personally, coolly, calmly, with no emotional upset. I leave to others the job of explaining or interpreting them.”

 

Now here are the same facts related by other observers at distances often and 50 kilometers:

The first witness, who later became the missionary Father I.L. Pereira, relates this amazing event as follows:

“I was nine years old and I was at the primary school of my village, on a hill 10 or 11 kilometers from Fatima. Around noon we heard shouts from passersby. Our teacher ran out into the plaza and we followed her. People were crying and pointing to the sun. It was the great miracle.”

 

Second witness, reported by academician Marques da Cruz: The brilliant Portuguese poet Alfonso Lopes Vieira saw the phenomenon from the balcony of his house in Sao Pedro de Muel, 50 kilometers from Fatima. He stated:

“On October 13, 1917, I had completely forgotten the prediction of the three little shepherds, and I was surprised and delighted by a really dazzling show staged in Heaven, for which I was lucky to get a balcony seat.”

 

Add to all this the odd fact that all the spectators, although completely soaked by the rain, as Professor Garett remarked, were surprised to find their clothes completely dry when the phenomenon ended — and yet, it lasted only about 15 minutes.

Everyone reported this and it makes the events of that day even stranger, if possible.

FACTS ESTABLISHED AND THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THIS SERIES OF APPARITIONS

What can we conclude from all this? First, the certainty that the facts observed by tens of thousands of witnesses constitute a tangible reality. Mass hysteria is in this case too simplistic an explanation.

At Fatima we can say that for the first tine in history, superior beings chose to reveal their existence and their power to all mankind.

If men were less attached to material things and especially less imbued with their trivial knowledge, they would have understood that grand lesson. That would have spared us the ideological and armed confrontations that followed the First World war and whose end is not yet in sight.

Since the end of world War II, as everyone knows, UFO sightings have multiplied, meeting with quasi-general skepticism, despite the statements of perfectly honest witnesses and even a number of encounters on the ground.

Of late, however, there seems to be an evolution: the tacit acceptance of these facts is making headway, especially among the youth. Soon the vast majority will take for granted the existence of superior beings and will expect their arrival.

And it will come, rest assured — and will be the striking confirmation of Fatima, bringing a deep change in beliefs, and revolutions in all political structures.

But first men will suffer the consequences of their intolerance and lack of charity for their neighbor, in a series of wars both cold and hot! We must simply wait patiently for the end of these tribulations, expecting the fulfillment of Nostradamus’ promise:

The year 1999 seven month

From heaven will come a great King of terror

Before after Mars to rule by happiness.
 

Let’s recapitulate the facts common to all the apparitions: lightning at the start of the visions, explosion seeming to come from the spot where the luminous globe or cloud rested, majestic arrival of said globe or cloud from the east and its departure afterward toward the west, rain of white filaments that some spectators called a rain of white flowers…

The main phenomenon that all viewers repeat is the sun losing its brightness, the air turning yellow — this last point accompanied by details that could not be invented: at the same time “you could see stars in the sky…”

If you study the serious reports on UFO encounters, you find the change in solar intensity and the gold or bronze color of the atmosphere are constant and usually the fall of white filaments is also present.

But while the UFO reports depend on two or three witnesses, often questionable, at Fatima these phenomena were reported by tens of thousands of witnesses, including personages like Professor Garrett from the Science College at Cointra, the academician Marques da Cruz, the freethinking journalist Avelino d’Almeida, writer Leopoldo Nunes and many other personalities of the literary, artistic and scientific world — a cast of characters that the UFOlogists have failed to provide.

As for the sun’s dance, we cannot deny the truth of what these witnesses saw, although same habitual debunkers have done just that, using the old warhorse of “mass hysteria.” But it is just as sure that it was not the sun that performed these erratic gyrations, for it would have been visible over half the earth, except areas covered by clouds, and they couldn’t all be covered simultaneously.

What really happened at Fatima that day and was seen as far as 50 kilometers, in other words to the horizon, was the motion of a disc perfectly described by Professor Garrett; a disc that was neither the sun nor the moon, but had the same apparent size, and a completely alien pearly color; which executed a dance and then a zigzagging dive the sight of which marked for life all who beheld it.

A COHERENT PLAN TYING TOGETHER THE MAJOR APPARITIONS

The above outline is proof of the existence of superior beings with a logical plan whose purpose becomes clear when we compare Fatima with other sightings also indisputable, that we will describe later.

In fact, the major appearances of the Virgin Mary that took place in the past at Our Lady of Guadeloupe in Mexico, at Lourdes and the less famous one at Pontmain, have a common factor: the spiritual plea made by these apparitions came at the exact moment when mankind was on the brink of ideological wars, the worst, the longest and the most inexcusable of all.

APPARITION OF MARY OF GUADELOUPE

The first manifestation that fits in with our theory is that of the Virgin Mary at Our Lady of Guadeloupe where the higher powers left in human hands the only material proof we have of this whole class of phenomena, and which is still on display in that spot.

This happened in 1531, a pivotal year in cyclology, the year of the first religious war in Germany and the year Henry VIII decided to create the Anglican Church.

Once again, treading on what is still dangerous ground, the author is not criticizing or attacking any religious or ideological belief, but gathering facts that form a pattern and the possible reasons for them, in order to prove that the various Marial apparitions are related to a plan of salvation and protection from harm for us all.

No religion has a monopoly on true believers. Everyone who believes sincerely and remains tolerant of his neighbor’s beliefs is respectable. Only the fanatic conceit of being sole possessor of the truth is to be blamed, for it has always led men to the worst excesses and to disaster.

This sighting of 1531 thus took place at a turning point in man’s destiny, the date of the creation of the Anglican Church as well as the first Religious War, which followed the much-needed reforms of the Catholic Church that Martin Luther had preached since 1519, but, as all historians agree, were never fully carried out because of political interference in the spiritual domain.

This intrusion eventually blocked the development of a new and purified Christianity, ready for a fresh start, avoiding the massacres of the religious wars that bathed Europe in blood until 1648.

Countless times, kings and princes have intervened in an area which should not have been accessible to them. The best known example is the creation of the Anglican Church by Henry VIII after his fight with the pope over his repudiation of Catherine of Aragon so as to marry Anne Boleyn.

The acts of this Bluebeard king can hardly be cited as an example of virtue even if, by so doing, he avoided getting into the war. In Germany most of the German princes only supported Luther’s reform because of personal and material ambitions.

Thus the Reformation, just and necessary in its origin, was diverted from its purely spiritual goal by the intervention of worldly potentates on both sides of the fence.

For this year 1531 was also the date of the first ideological war between two parties, called Wars of Religious, which began in Germany and then ravaged all of the Continent until the close of the Thirty Years War in 1548.

The latter was surely the worst of all for the devastation and atrocities of all kinds that were perpetrated. The areas laid waste and practically depopulated by that war still bear the scars.

It was seeing how the Reform was used for temporal ends and the resulting perversion of its spiritual goal that kept all the great humanists of the time, Erasmus, Rabelais, Thomas More, from following Luther on the warpath.

And that is why Thomas More, Chancellor of Henry VIII, came into conflict with his king, ending in the execution of this great thinker in 1535.

To return to the vision of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, the appeal and the material sign left by the virgin Mary bore fruit in that place: during the succeeding years millions of Indians were converted and forsook their god Quetzalcoatl and his human sacrifices.

LOURDES

The apparitions of Lourdes in May and June 1858, did not include external signs as striking and unusual as those of Fatima, the spontaneous blooming of roses being closer in style to the Guadeloupe evidence; yet they caused profound repercussions in the Catholic world because of a spiritual appeal an a very high level, joined to the personality that really qualifies as “saintly” of Bernadette Soubirous.

This appeal and this spirituality can still be felt in that place, despite the merchants in the temple and the modern revolution in mental attitudes.

The Lourdes apparitions came just before the appearance of A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx, wherein he presented for the first time the principles of his political theory, which he explained fully in Das Kapital and which resulted in the founding in London on September 28, 1864, of the First International.

To this rigidly atheist and materialist theory, “historical materialism,” advocating “the dictatorship of the proletariat” and the suppression of religion as “the opiate of the people” with the implicit principle of the use of force to gain acceptance, there replied in advance the appeal of the Virgin of Lourdes, with the use of prayer, belief in Christ’s teaching and brotherly love — all presented as the only hope for humanity in the face of worldly injustice.

Gandhi proved by his acts that in leading a people to freedom non-violent methods could bring results just as sure as, and more lasting than, those depending on brute force.

PONTMAIN

On January 17, 1871, in a little burg named Pontmain not far from Mont-St.-Michel in France, a vision appeared pregnant with meaning and deep symbolism.

In the course of it seven children, who came to join the to original seers as the phenomenon progressed, watched a regular silent movie in color, with the Virgin Mary as heroine. As the images continued for about three hours, the children described in chorus the scenes unfolding before their eyes with exclamations of surprise and awe that could not be faked.

Meanwhile sixty-odd adults, drawn by the rumors about this supernatural happening, saw absolutely nothing of the show.

There was, however, a significant “side effect” which will be analyzed in Chapter 5. At the time of the sighting the children became aware of a text which formed gradually beneath the image of the Virgin. It appeared on a sort of placard about 12m x 1m50 and said, in gold letters: “But pray my children God will satisfy you soon. My son lets himself be touched.”

Then the Virgin Mary, in the children’s words, “became sorrowful” (“tomba dans la tristesse”) and picking up a crucified Christ which meanwhile had appeared at her feet, she showed it to the children. The amazing and surely meaningful thing was that the cross and the Christ were bright red, “like arterial blood” as the little seers later defined it.

This apparition took place January 17, 1871, less than two months before the revolt of the Paris Commune which is still taken today as a model for world communism. It was during that revolt that Poitier wrote the revolutionary song “The Internationale.”

That rebellion of the Paris mob, a real ideological civil war, was caused, to tell the truth, by an inhuman regime set up by the big bankers, advisers to the head of the government, Adolphe Thiers.

The new regulations impoverished the workers and bankrupted the small businessmen. This was at the worst moment when the Parisian population was recovering from a siege that had caused a city-wide famine.

The extreme measures by the capitalists were quickly answered by the Marxists, goaded to action by this government decision. This class war was marked by mutual atrocities, execution of hostages and savage reprisals by the state, in line with the usual cruelty of ideological confrontations.

But eventually the Pontmain promise was kept. The civil war did not spread and after two months of rebellion France saw it end and the country enjoyed a period of unusual spirituality which resulted in the construction of the Basilica of Sacre’-Coeur in Paris.

FATIMA

In trying to prove that the higher spiritual forces have a plan of action, Fatima is a key witness. In fact, the six main visits were timed May through October 1917, the exact period of the double revolution in Russia.

The wide range of phenomena observed at Fatima during that period, plus the quantity and quality of witnesses, shows that it was all part of a deliberate plan to reveal to mankind the infinite powers of the celestial beings, in view of the unusual importance of the ideological revolution that was unfolding in Russia, where a radical change was starting whose end is not yet in sight.

In that year 1917 the Marxist philosophy took power in the largest country in the world and the practical application of Marx and Lenin’s theories was to be tested as to their strength and their oppressive capacity.

Proudhonian socialism, less sectarian, less technocratic, in a word, more human, surely would have brought the Russian people the same social advantages needed, without the Stalinist atrocities.

Yes, the historical facts that followed the Marxist takeover in Russia have really changed the face of the earth and its effects are still being felt. The new visions of the New Left only incite the doctrinaire Marxists to greater rigidity both within and without.

Yes, the stakes must have been high for the spiritual celestial powers to unveil both their existence and their capacity to intervene in earthly affairs. The incredible miracle of Fatima is truly the proof of proofs that the time is near.

Everything was done to ensure that this appeal to spiritual development through brotherly love and respect, tolerance and prayer, was known and believed by the whole world to forestall and avert the holocaust which did in fact occur and which is surely not yet over.

That appeal at Fatima was really a last desperate attempt by the higher forces! Despite the scope of the supernatural manifestation, the world, in the throes of war, did not become spiritual.

The prophecy of St. Malachy about Pope Benedict XV came true: Religion depopulated, and since then fate has taken its course.

The Virgin Mary’s warning at Fatima: “If Russia is not converted, she will spread her errors around the world” and indeed the whole message shows that the superior beings had few illusions about their chances of success.

[Note: In context as we prepare this for Internet publication in 2001, it is now becoming increasingly clear that the Russians have sold many different weapons systems to various rogue countries, and even now continue to do so in bold defiance of the United Nations. (DW)]

But the Virgin Mary promises us positively that eventually conversion will come and that the world will enjoy a time of peace. This fully agrees with the visions of Nostradamus and Cayce described above. All this now seems highly unlikely, especially when the Lady of Fatima says “that her Immaculate Heart will triumph” but who knows the ways of the Lord?

Let us just state that the cause of revolutions, whether in 1531, 1848, 1871 or 1917, is the hard-hearted character and thirst for earthly pleasures of the ruling class, whether temporal or ecclesiastic. But we must also note that at these times, the opposing party, no more spiritual than the other, used the same tactics, with, obviously, the results we have seen: wars, torture, destruction.

SYNTHESIS

As the reader has already seen, the various apparitions really have two common elements: a) they are unchallenged though unexplained. b) they come at every moment in history when radical ideological changes, creating passions and hates, caused ideological civil wars, the longest and most unforgivable.

Another fact which may be related to the Cayce information should be noted: Fatima, Lourdes, and Our Lady of Guadeloupe are located in places where the children of the Law of One, the law of the just, took refuge after their final departure from Atlantis. Is there a connection between this fact and the appearances in these spots?

This bundle of hypotheses should serve as a nucleus for our proof that the higher powers are following a plan of action to save or assist mankind in its crises.

Many points of this theory may be challenged, but one accepted fact stands out: These apparitions, whose reality cannot be denied, all appeal to the highest human feelings — tolerance, justice, brotherly love — and to intensive prayer, a real energy source capable of saving humanity from the insanity of ideological hate and its train of physical and moral poisons.

If, then, these visions are, as the author assumes, the manifestation of superior beings, benevolent and highly spiritual, seeking evidently the happiness of the human race. there are also phenomena of quite a different order, and reports by perfectly trustworthy people describe contacts with alien forces definitely less friendly.

In fact, we have precise evidence of this dark force. Hitler confided to Rauschning, who was governor of Danzig, that he was in contact with such beings. “The new man lives among us. He is here!” cried Hitler in a triumphant voice.

“Do you want to know more? I’ll tell you a secret: I have seen him; he is intrepid and cruel I stood in fear before him.” As he uttered these words, says Rauschning, Hitler trembled with an ecstatic fervor.

Rauschning also quotes the testimony of a person in Hitler’s entourage:

“Hitler sometimes wakes up at night crying out convulsively. He calls for help, sitting on the edge of his bed as if paralyzed. He is seized with a panic that makes him tremble so as to shake the bed. He utters, confused, incomprehensible sounds. He gasps as if he is about to suffocate.”

The same source gave Rauschning other details:

“Hitler stood in his room, tottering, looking around him wildly. “It is he! It is he! He has come,” he moaned. His lips were pale and the sweat ran down in big drops. Suddenly he pronounced meaningless numbers, words and scraps of phrases. It was horrible. He used strange words strangely put together.

Then he fell silent but his lips still moved. Then suddenly he yelled “There, there, in the corner! There he is!” He stamped on the floor and shouted. After we all assured him nothing abnormal was there, he finally calmed down.”

Hitler had a similar attack one night in Venice where he was meeting with Mussolini. His S.S. guards, thinking someone was trying to assassinate their Fuhrer, ran, guns in hand, through the halls of the Palazzo looking for the imagined criminal.

The whole world heard of this incident at the time, but no one suspected the real cause of it. All signs suggest that the time is coming when we will understand these enigmas. Our planet, a battlefield between Good and Evil since the original Sin, is fast approaching the moment of truth.

The present convulsions of humanity are preparing us, despite the trials yet to come, to conceive and accept such a revelation. That it will come is certain. The Aquarian Age will be the era of knowledge of the real nature of God.

Meanwhile, for all those who question the purpose of our life, one thing seems sure: in its main lines, the future is pre-determined. For it to be otherwise man would have to detach himself totally from his instincts and earthly desires of all kinds; only on these conditions can he attain the state of awareness so well described by Gustav Meyrinck. That alone would allow him to control his fate.

As such men probably do not exist, we are all subject to external influences and our free will is limited to the choice between good and evil. This permits the destructive forces to affect, by all manner of temptations, people who are predisposed to evil. Such people’s lives follow more or less closely the route traced by destiny from their birth to their death.

Men called providential who claim to make history are really subject to their instincts, usually bad, with a good dose of paranoia, and are carrying out decisions made elsewhere, generally by means of war, bloodshed and terror, and all the other plagues that go along with them.

Besides, there are signs for those who have eyes: the most famous of these great men bore “stigmata” that the church courts of the Middle Ages would have thought diabolical.

We must not smile too much at their “superstitions;” how else explain that no condemned woman was executed if she was more than 10 weeks pregnant, for the child she carried would have received her soul, which fits the modern genetic concept that the fetus has no vital functions before 2 months? The modern laws on the interruption of pregnancy are based on that idea.

Getting back to the subject of historical leaders, here are some facts: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Peter the Great and, as we noted, Hitler, were subject to epileptic fits — what else can we call them?

Stalin was born with webbed toes and one arm shorter than the other and stiff; the latter deformity was also that of Kaiser Wilhelm II who started the war of 1914-1918. These congenital defects were also called diabolical. Talleyrand and Goebbels earned their nickname of lame devils. Genghis Kahn also limped — legend has it, from falling off a horse as a boy.

Richard III of England had several abnormalities — and the list could go on. Many philosophers and most theologians are always talking about Man’s free will and some raise it to such a point that it makes Man the navel of the universe.

That is pure sin of pride, for if Man had free will as they conceive it, he would be able to dominate all his instincts and foibles, which never happens. The only real free will left to man is to do good or evil, that is to choose brotherly love, with all that implies, or to live as an egoist.

Perfect Evil is as rare as true sainthood; most men opt for indifference, fulfilling the words of Cain: “I am not my brother’s keeper.” This basic choice affects the working out of each person’s Karma, giving him the freedom to raise or lower his higher self according to the work he accomplishes while on the earth plane.

The personal Karma of each of us conditions everything. When the spiritual level of the world rises, it brings a time of peace. When on the other hand it declines, when unrestrained selfishness, the thirst for pleasure and the domination of others gain the upper hand, mankind is on the road to crises, wars and even, in extreme cases, geological upheavals which may reduce all to chaos and require a fresh start for mankind.

Those epochs described in Revelations surely correspond to cycles of huge magnitude extending over millennia and whose existence we shall soon discover.

It is accepted that our world is always seeking a balance between two poles: positive and negative, matter and anti-matter, the Above and Below of Hermes Trismegistus, Good and Evil, God and Satan-Belial; a constant struggle between God and the Fallen Angel who wished to rival his creator.

This duality is eternal, with cycles of spiritual triumph and cycles of supremacy of the purely earthly appetites, all corresponding to the four ages of tradition, the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, where we are now.

But according to Revelations and the writings of Nostradamus, at the end of each grand cycle, whose length we still don’t know, “the agitator and promoter of martial factions by the diversity of religions” will be shut up in the deepest pit “for a time and until the end of time.”

In plain English, at the end Satan, promoter of Evil by multiplying parties and sects, and supported by armies, will be locked in the depths of Hell “for a time and until the end of time.” And if we understand Nostradamus rightly, this first time will probably come in the next century.

Some readers will perhaps label the author a utopian Manichean; the latter are easily transformed into sectarian fanatics capable of any atrocity in the name of their convictions, and paraphrasing the famous words of Pilate, “What is Truth?” They will say, “What is Good, what is Bad?”

The answer is, however, quite simple. Good consists of following the teachings of Christ or any other religion that preaches the love of one’s fellow-man. There is no other way. Such a prevailing attitude would automatically lead to happiness and perfect agreement among men. For any religion or ideology, no matter how idealist it may seem, that depends on force, oppression and dictatorship can only be bad.

For he who uses the sword will perish by the sword. All violence begets counterviolence, and any religion or ideology that relies on an army to gain control can only be, in the words of Nostradamus, the handiwork of the Evil One, who will be shut up in the deepest pit when he falls.

Meanwhile the man with a conscience can only judge things by the famous words of Christ: “By their fruits ye shall knew them”, and this test is valid for all ideologies no matter what arguments their supporters bring up.

Man being what he is, unable to reach the perfection preached by Christ, we may still achieve a little tolerance and respect between neighbors. If we add to this a little human warmth it already would have great results for mankind. All we need is to forget some of our selfish desires, and to stop thinking that the System provides everything.

It obviously cannot provide that warm human contact so necessary today. These few small sacrifices would be quickly repaid by a lessening of mutual hostility, so widespread in our time when everyone sees a potential enemy in his neighbor. Let us repeat, we are all more or less “our brother’s keeper.”

We see that the purpose of all the visits was to urge men to raise their spiritual level in order to avoid the worst calamities, and it is always the Virgin Mary, acting as the Mother of all Humanity, who appears at the critical moments to carry out that mission.

All the statements of the seers agree: like a mother she intercedes with her all-powerful son, asking him to forgive men’s faults, and again like a mother she asks her children to repent and improve.

In periods when all religion and spirituality are being destroyed, her messages become more urgent and explicit. She asks us to pray, to pray and still to pray, for she knows the strength of universal Prayer, really able to move mountains and surely able to halt the process of decline.

The role of the Virgin was clearly defined in Revelations 12:1: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

Later in this bock we will describe in detail the tilma now on view at Our Lady of Guadeloupe in Mexico, a material proof left in human hands at the time of the visitation which shows the Virgin Mary surrounded by light with her feet on a crescent noon. The little seers of Pontmain also speak of “the stars of time” — words they were unable to explain.

The Virgin Mary never judges men, she pleads with them to pray and to repent. All people should adopt the same behavior and not judge others — “Judge not, lest ye be judged” — and try to develop tolerance and brotherhood towards their neighbors.

The study of history confirms that lesson: while it is true that in 1531 interference by the temporal powers in the spiritual domain caused the endless religious wars, it is just as true that the excesses and abuses of the Catholic Church brought about the Reformation.

But that just cause would never have degenerated into an unforgivable religious war if men had not lost faith. It was the time of the Renaissance. The rediscovery of the authors of Antiquity by the religious and the humanists, combined with the abuses of the Catholic Church, sowed the seeds of doubt, and many lost the simple faith on which medieval society was founded.

With doubt came the ignoring of Christ’s teaching, “brotherly love and tolerance.” Men pooh-poohed that unenforceable law, but needing to believe in something, each sect took refuge in the proud certainty of possessing the Truth.

With mankind neatly divided into good guys and bad guys, the elect and the lost, and each party sure of being on the good side, everyone claimed the right to exterminate his neighbor.

It is the same today: the abuses of capitalism, its hardhearted attitude toward the workers, brought forth socialism whose aims are unquestionably high and worthy of consideration. But as soon as socialist theories were formed, there was conflict between the leaders.

Proudhon the humanist, a true son of the people, child of a bartender and a serving-maid, was an oxherd at the age of 8, a butler at 12, yet he developed a socialist theory based on freedom the opposite of the materialist and technocratic laws of Karl Marx, son of a Rhineland lawyer and the product of the rationalist German university system.

Unfortunately it was the latter’s theory, authoritarian and oppressive, that won out, with Lenin’s help; and we have seen what happens when ideological matters are decided by force.

Here again one party is able to convince a large sector of the population that it alone represents the good guys, which allows it to eradicate the opposition by any and all means. Stalin and Hitler are perfect examples of this idea.

The world has seen the result: the executors, solidly convinced that their party has a monopoly on reason and social justice, do not hesitate for a second to torture and exterminate their opponents. How else explain the behavior of the directors and guards in the concentration camps?

Read the reports of Jews and political prisoners in Germany. read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag: the guards, whether high or low on the ladder, always spat at them the same insult: “Enemy of the people” — therefore fit to be exploited like beasts and left to die of hunger or disease.

Luckily, this resorting to coercion and torture is being challenged more and more, in whatever land it appears: Russia or Argentina, Cambodia or Chile, and soon this attitude, bravely defended by our young intellectuals, will be adopted by the masses. That will be the spiritual mutation needed to create a better world. But first, what tribulations we will undergo!

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