Let us consider a different case. By energy conversion a terrestrial prophet sends his (trained) mental antennae into the other world. He 'sees' events that can only occur in the future, because they have not happened in past history (as known or experienced by the prophet). In other words, the mediumistic visionary does not learn what day is to be ticked off in red on the calendar. He has only one chance of giving a more precise 'message', namely if he has 'seen' the event in such detail that he can work out the approximate deadline for it. But there is one thing that even the cleverest and best trained prophet cannot do: prevent the event he has 'seen'! If it were not programmed for the indefinable future, an otherworldly conscious energy could not have transmitted it and a terrestrial energy could not have

'seen' it. It would be old hat if events which have been in the history books for years were communicated.

Does not this physical and metaphysical hypothesis explain quite plausibly why messages received in

'visions' proclaim and warn of coming events, but can never prevent them? Does not that also clarify why prophetic and visionary messages are often so obscure, 'mysterious' and ambiguous? With their present conscious energy, seers and prophets do perceive future events, but they cannot 'evaluate' them - except in the form of obscure predictions and unverifiable prophecies.

The last book in the New Testament is The Revelation of St. John the Divine. It is the book of a visionary. The prophet sees images of environmental pollution, aircraft, helicopters, nuclear explosions, etc. He uses his own words to reproduce these visions as he received them in communications from conscious energies:

... and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up ... and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea ... and the third part of the waters became wormwood (radioactive?) ...

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 ....