AN EXAMINATION OF A REPORT IN THE BOOK
MIRACLES AT KNOCK BY MC PHILPIN 1880
On the night of the 21st of August 1879 the Virgin Mary flanked by St Joseph and a bishop thought to be St John the Evangelist and an altar with a lamb and cross on it allegedly appeared on the gable wall of the Parish Church of Knock for a few hours. Fifteen people witnessed the vision including a child of five (page 60, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary).
The following is based on their reports as given in the above book.
Witness statements were published in a highly altered and edited form that differed hugely from the real ones the witnesses made. That witnesses didn't do the slightest thing about the lies speaks strongly against them as honest people.
"Although some of the
witnesses have described the figures as statues,
yet they assert that those they saw were like
living beings, as their eyes and the brightness of THERE IS NOT A SINGLE TESTIMONY THAT THEY SEEMED ALIVE
their eyes ever showed. They were statue-like
only in this respect, that the figures did not THIS IS CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT THE WITNESSES
speak. It is in that respect the witnesses bear WERE SAYING THEY LOOKED LIKE GHOSTS OF STATUES.
testimony to their statue or ghost-like appearance. THE BOOK TRIES TO EXPLAIN THIS AWAY VERY UNCONVINCINGLY.
Phosphoric light is ever fitful and fluctuating, NOBODY CALLS THINGS STATUES JUST BECAUSE THEY DON'T SPEAK
like the light of a reflected moon on the
disturbed surface of a rippling lake. It is never
even nor at rest. But in the apparition there was
no rippling or ever and constant changing of light. ANOTHER LIE. THE WITNESSES SIMPLY NEVER SAID IF THIS WAS THE CASE.
The figures and likenesses that were seen were
settled
i they presented an accurate outline, andwere constant and continuous in their pose for
two hours and a half. Add to all this that the
lights were beheld at a distance of over half a ,
mile; phosphoric lights cannot be seen thirty
yards off-above all, they cannot be seen in daylight.
But this is certain: that while water is
being poured on a surface on which phosphorus
is. being rubbed, no light from it is seen. Now,
according to the testimony of the witnesses, it
was, during the whole period, pouring torrents
of rain on the gable end of the church, so much
so that all of them say what they wondered at
most, like Moses looking at the bush burning and
yet not consumed, was that the" bodies" before
them were deluged with rain, and all the while
they were not wet, nor the silvery glow that surrounded EVIDENCE WEAK THAT IT RAINED HEAVILY ALL THE TIME
them in any way lessened. The glowing
light of phosphor is yellowish; this seen on
the night of the apparition was white."