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Signs on the Earth. Deciphering the Message of Marian Apparitions, UFO Encounters, and Crop Circles ( Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2005). Footnotes deleted.

A Global Net of the Mothers of Christ

Our 12 examples of the geomantic context of Virgin Mary apparitions suggests that in each case the apparitional presence sets down into a pre-existing energy feature of the Earth's visionary geography, either a site already recognized as sacred or one made so by the visitation. Given the vast history of the Earth, it is also quite likely that many of the Marian apparition sites were once, long ago, numinous and recognized as such, and then over time forgotten.

Over the course of the Marian apparitions of the last 2,000 years, the Virgin has appeared and charged the landscape with numinosity in an increasing diversity of cultures, many of which are not Catholic, although they may have small communities of practitioners in this faith. Further, the apparitions in recent decades have been accelerating in locales far distant from the power center of Catholicism, Rome, and its major outposts, countries such as France and Spain. Significant apparitions have been registered and cultic followings have emerged in India, Brazil, Vietnam, China, Ukraine, Egypt, Japan, Korea, Rwanda, Syria, Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Philippines, Israel, Lebanon, Bosnia, and others.

We could look at this in terms of the phenomenal evangelistic spread of Catholicism through its holy figure, the Virgin Mary. But we could also look at it geomantically and consider the planetary effect of these hundreds of apparitions.

First, there is the infusion of the Marian energy from the hundreds of Marian pedestals into the Earth as a whole, living organism. Think of it as hundreds of acupuncture needles implanted across the Earth's skin. Second, you have the different flavors and filters of the Marian energy because of the differentiation of geomantic interfaces across the Earth. You have the Marian energy under domes, with dragons, golden eggs, landscape zodiacs, and others.

So this celestial energy is being infused into the Earth in these two ways, and it's all happening behind the outer surface of Catholic dogma, ritual, and belief. In other words, regardless of what the visionaries report Mary said, or even did, there is this steady, wordless geomantic global suffusion happening. I say suffusion because after the infusion from the apparitions, the geomantic terrain of the Earth is subtly changed, suffused with the Marian presence. The Earth's visionary geography is the carrier for this suffusion, the interface between the Marian spirituality and the planetary terrestrial consciousness.

Just because a Marian apparition, or infusion, happened hundreds of years ago, such as 1051 in Walsingham, England, or in 1531 at Tepeyac Hill, Mexico, does not mean its impact has waned or its energy dissipated. Those sites were merely early ones on a long list of planned apparitional infusions. The plan assumed an additive and cumulative effect from all the apparitions over time.

It also postulated an end-time, that is, a time when the apparitions would stop. Some of the Virgin Mary visionaries, such as at Fatima, Garabandal, and Medjugorje, have quoted Mary as saying an end would come to the appearances and would be marked by certain specific signs and events. We can reasonably assume that the completion of the Marian apparitional timetable will coincide with the Marian infusions into the Earth reaching a maximum, desired level.

It could be argued that the time schedule for the Marian apparitions has been the entire Piscean Age, an astrological window lasting about 2,100 years, ending sometime in the 21 st century with the advent of the Aquarian Age. Another view popular among Marian devotees is that her continuing, and escalating apparitional calendar is part of a "pattern of divine activity in the ‘last days' immediately preceding the Second Coming of Christ."

Catholics tend to see the Marian apparitions as a evidence of a divinely appointed plan to history, a kind of preplanned apocalypse, in which the Virgin Mary has been assigned a pivotal role by God, involving intercession, intervention, and mercy. They also see her as the chief adversary of the monolithic Devil, or Satan, in the End Times. The increasing incidence of Marian appearances and her conspicuous interventions in history, this view holds, are signs that the "last days" are upon us and a new Marian Age is imminent.

It's also intriguing to note that as far as we can tell the Marian apparitions are a relatively recent event on the Earth, happening only since the advent of the Christ. This may seem overly obvious, since how could the Virgin Mary return if she hadn't first been the embodied mother of the Christ on Earth, but not if you take it out of the Catholic theological context. The spiritual being (s) who is the Virgin Mary may have appeared on Earth before, possibly many times, and influenced many people, but not in this guise or with this long-range intention.

It all changed with the Christ incarnation, after which the apparitions assumed a new objective, almost an urgency. As I'll explain in the next chapter, some metaphysical authorities, such as Rudolf Steiner, propose that with the Christ incarnation, the Mystery revelations, once interior, secret, and very arcane, were turned inside out and made public, even, in the long-term, democratized, made available to many. So if the Mystery initiations underwent this profound change, then all the supporting figures would have new roles too.

All of this is happening beyond the control of the Catholic Church. From a geomantic viewpoint, it is irrelevant whether the Vatican ratifies a Marian apparition as authentic, such as at Lourdes, or suspect, such as at Lipa, Philippines (1949), knowledge of which was suppressed for decades, or Necedah, Wisconsin (1949), which was repudiated by Church officials, or many of the other recent sitings about which the Church has not yet ruled. The infusions happen anyway.

I say it's beyond the Church's control to mean it cannot enforce its theological interpretation of the Virgin Mary on a transcendental event. Obviously, it can't stop the Virgin Mary from showing up around the world.

Of course, it can, and often does, invalidate or discredit or simply resist apparitions for a long time (Bernadette Soubirous' at Lourdes) then acknowledge them, or vilify them, discount, discourage, or ignore them. As the statistics show, only a small percentage of reported apparitions get approved by the Vatican. Even more problematic for theological control is that in some notable cases (Garabandal, Necedah, Fatima, Medjugorje, and others), the reported Marian messages have made critical remarks about the clergy and the Catholic Church.

The Marian apparitions are a source of contradiction and uneasiness for Catholic clergy, especially when the supernatural is thereby made visible, says Mariologist Rene Laurentin. "The clergy, true to its tradition, does not welcome an apparition as good tidings. They see it as a rather unsavoury event." Their first reaction is to look immediately for the flaw and seek to "cover up, suppress or limit the impact of the unusual phenomenon." Institutional church authority tends to feel itself and its power structure "under attack" by apparitions.

There is such a thick layer of interpretive Catholic dogma about all the Marian apparitions, those credited and those denied, as well as miracles, locutions, withheld secrets, and apocalypticism, that viewing the sites geomantically - by definition, outside a Christian filter - sometimes seems the only way to get a clear, unbiased look at what is going on through these sites.

From a geomantic viewpoint, the moment the Virgin Mary "touches down," grounds her energy at a site through a visionary's seeing her (itself a grounding event), then the Earth has one more Marian infusion point. What Mary says, or doesn't, how much her appearance, recommendations, and prophecies are in accord with Church dogma is of less consequence than the fact that she infused a given site, even if it's seemingly only somebody's backyard.

It's easier to get a perspective on the Marian apparition phenomena outside the confines of Catholic doctrine. She is not returning to hundreds of planetary sites merely to confirm and validate Church theology, though sometimes this happens. As Mariologist Rene Laurentin sensibly explains, an apparition, even without Church recognition or sanction, can be salutary to the faithful. It helps one recall, convert, "actualise the gospel" reinsert it into our current times as a living testament. Marian apparitions are "tangible signs, in proclaiming the immediacy, the presence, the familiarity and the power of the gospel," he says, and we ought to "welcome them joyfully as God's grace."

Even so, there is no obligation for higher spiritual realities to conform to our traditional descriptions and models. They can change and adapt to changed historical and social circumstances, such as our present time. The traditional molds may be outmoded and even counter-productive today, almost two millennia after the Christ incarnation. From the viewpoint of the spiritual world, the Marian apparitions have their own agenda, intention, calendar, start and finish points, and meaning. All of that may well be different from our enculturated and theological expectations. Maybe they're here to overthrow it.

In most cases, the Virgin Mary touches down once at a given site (once in the sense of a specific time period, even if it spans many months) then does not return. Then the Marian infusion remains as a psychically detectable spiritual atmosphere at that site in which visitors may immerse themselves and which is strengthened over times by the positive attitudes and beliefs of those visitors….

Bear in mind, when seen globally, you're adding spiritual energy to a system at a rate it can assimilate it without being overwhelmed. The pace of Marian apparitions - infusions - has accelerated greatly since the 1940s, which should tell us our collective ability to assimilate this high energy infusion is growing too. It also suggests that the phenomena of Marian apparitions is building towards some culmination or defining moment or critical mass.

Here's a psychic impression I had recently while considering the latter: Upon the Earth, seen from a distance in space, there are hundreds of navy-bluish pedestals upon which a humanlike figure of light stands, her arms outstretched, as if receiving or giving something to the world, or both in one gesture. Yet she seems expectant, awaiting something, ready for it. In other places new blue pedestals with the celestial feminine figure upon it are emerging from out of the Earth, like seeds rapidly sprouting into plants seen in time-lapse photography.

What is Mary waiting for? She's awaiting the birth of the Christ Child.

Not the only, unique Child; that's already happened. The one in us.

The hundreds of Virgin Mary pedestals (they are also like pillars) are linked, as if the outstretched arms are holding up a translucent webbing, a global net. It is not a netting in a physical or even energetic sense; rather it is a uniformity of expectation, a prepared place. The navy blue Virgin Mary pedestals are "like a net of mothers, fishing for the Christ infant in the etheric seas that surround the planet, their hands raised in readiness."

The multiplication of the Marian tableau into hundreds of copies is part of a planet-wide preparation for the gradual manifestation of the Christ Child. You could see this as a descent of the Christ from the ethers around the planet, a kind of Second Coming, or as the mass birthing of the Christ Child from within humanity throughout world cultures, one person at a time.

But the imminent birth of the Christ Child will not be a mere repetition of the first one 2,000 years ago. There will not be only one, but thousands, and eventually, many millions, one for, and in, each human living on the Earth.

It will be a Second Coming of the Christ, but not in the literal way we've been led by Christian theology to expect. St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673-1716), a French Marianist, said Mary was in the background in the first Christ event, but in the Second Coming she would be prominent, he suggested. Mary's God-appointed powers would be especially noticeable in the final days of the Devil's reign over humanity, he said. Perhaps he had it right when he wrote that through Mary "Jesus Christ may be known, loved, and served." The acceleration of apparitions would be the sign that this knowing was to start.

The only qualification I make to de Montfort's prediction is that this time the adoration of the Christ will be an internal event. We will watch with validation as a new body of consciousness mothered by Mary gestates within us. Christ did it once and one only for the planet and humanity; he showed us how. Now, in the second coming, we each do it ourselves, but inside ourselves. The goal is not to rebirth ourselves as Christians, but as individual faces of the Christ.

The global net of the Mothers of Christ is in place, ready to receive the newborn infant - the Christ awareness born in individual humans. From this psychic-geomantic viewpoint, Catholic dogma about the Virgin Mary is less important than the energetic reality of her multiplied presence around Earth.

Globally, we have hundreds of Marian-infused sites and annually millions of people making pilgrimages to these places hoping to touch that infusion. In many cases, people think the outer events and phenomena are what is central, that the Virgin Mary appeared here and caused miracles of the sun or heavenly roses to appear, but that's just the window-dressing to draw people to the site and hold their attention while they absorb the infusion like a rare, healing air.

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