The Zeitoun events from the perspective of the MPI

Wow, Doug, we were just talking about it and there it is.

One concern I have is I think some of the photos used in blog part 5 are actually paintings or drawings of the photos. I'll have to check up on the site where I first saw them because for along time I thought they were photos but they were drawings. (Not of all of them, just a few.)

This is one:
zeitun12.jpg

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/zeitun12.jpg
Image of the apparition of the Holy Virgin in a great halo of light,
as seen and painted by Mr. Adeeb Naguib from the Ministry of Tourism.
(The Ouellet blog doesn't specify this.)

This is the more unfortunate one. Because it's probably the best-looking and it appears on zeitun-eg.org as a real picture:
zeitoun6.jpg

With this tag underneath: Another photo of the transfiguration of our Lady in Her full body
over the church named after Her in Zeitoun, Egypt.


But if you go to this page, you see the paper article where it was taken and it's told that it was drawn:
zeitun200212.jpg

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/
 
Interesting, thanks for posting.

The extension of the MPI to large scale events (such as the Zeitoun apparitions) is based on the assumption that collective psychokinetic is the fundamental element behind the anomaly.

If that's the case shouldn't we expect to see many more of these "mass PK" effects all over the world? For example at large sport events? Rock concerts? Mass protests like the "Arab spring"... Or at the "Hajj", the large yearly pilgrimage at the Mecca. The crowd there can reach 3 million people, that would probably be able to create massive effects.

From a parasociological and parapsychological perspective, the fact that the events did not unfold as a typical RSPK is not an invalidation of the MPI.
This sounds a little bit forced. I don't find MPI to be a very convincing explanation.

my 2c,
cheers
 
Good work, Ian. However, I wonder if Dr. Labib Shenouda's drawing is in reality an enhancement of an original photo. In any case, I think it's a damned shame that no qualified parapsychologists (that I'm aware of) were able to visit Zeitoun when the frequency and duration of the apparitions were at their height.

An unsourced and somewhat credulous account of the apparitions that I've come across claims that people who tried to take photos of the apparitions often found themselves immobilized, and thus prevented from doing so:

In the early hours of April 13, Wagih Rizk Matta, a photographer, succeeded in photographing the vision for the first time – overcoming an inexplicable sensation of immobility which prevented the vast majority of people from operating their cameras. Having taken the pictures, he then became aware of being completely healed from an old injury to his arm! (Doctors confirmed his miraculous healing.)
And:
Those who saw her features the clearest report a youthful, healthy-looking, beautiful lady with beautiful eyes, hair, and hands. At the time of her visits, most people became transfixed in wonder, amazement, or a state of ecstacy to the degree that all actions became impossible. Arms and fingers could not move to adjust cameras or take pictures.

http://www.maryscenter.net/Marian Sites/ZEITOUN 1968.htm

Maybe there's some truth to the claim. After all, it seems clear that many thousands of people did witness some sort of recurring apparition, yet good photographic evidence is mostly lacking.

Doug
 
The extension of the MPI to large scale events (such as the Zeitoun apparitions) is based on the assumption that collective psychokinetic is the fundamental element behind the anomaly.

If that's the case shouldn't we expect to see many more of these "mass PK" effects all over the world? For example at large sport events? Rock concerts? Mass protests like the "Arab spring"... Or at the "Hajj", the large yearly pilgrimage at the Mecca. The crowd there can reach 3 million people, that would probably be able to create massive effects.

Thanks, Bucky, but I think the unconscious group production of PK effects is more complicated than you imply. In the Zeitoun case there was a beleaguered minority of the Egyptian population, many of whom no doubt prayed fervently for help from Mary, and believed it would come. The intention of a Marian apparition, might have taken decades to form in the collective unconscious of the Copts.

To speculate further, the collectively-formed intention might have been psychokinetically manifested into consensus reality by Father Constantine Moussa, who worked at the Church of St. Mary (where the apparitions took place). I can't find the reference now, but years ago I read that he was intensely devoted to Mary, as have been many Catholic saints associated with miracles. And in the article I linked to in my previous post, it was stated that:
The Virgin Mary first appeared privately to the priest of St. Mary’s church, Father Constantine Moussa. On one evening she appeared in the church on the steps by the altar. When she spoke to him, he fainted and fell to the floor. Being a humble man who did not wish to draw any attention to himself, he did not reveal this visitation until just before he died in 1984. He revealed to the Chairman of the Papal Committee that the Virgin Mary had described the nature of her impending visit with him and had told him, “Be ready!” Little did he know that millions would be coming to this church to see her.

Anyway, at the moment I'm inclined to believe my speculations that Father Moussa was the focal person in the case, and that he was somehow able to tap into the collective unconscious aspirations of his people, and create the apparitions, at least initially. Perhaps a true group effect occurred after he got the ball rolling.

Doug
 
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This isn't a subject area I've looked into, but Trancestate's explanation interests me. I went on holiday earlier this year to Bolsena, Italy. One of the members of the group I was on the holiday with was a recently retired CofE... Vicar (I think), we got talking about this sort of stuff from his perspective.

He told me an intriguing story, about another vicar colleague of his, who had given his sermon from the pulpit as usual. After the service a few of his parishioners came up to him and mentioned they had been very unhappy at with what he had said during his sermon.

The vicar was perplexed by this, because there was nothing in his sermon which could have caused them to come to such an opinion. His parishioners related what they had heard him say. The vicar denied saying any such thing, so he read his sermon to them again, and once again they were shocked at what he was saying to them. Totally confused by this point, the vicar passed his written sermon over to them, and asked them to read it for themselves. At which point the parishioners expressed surprise, because they could find nothing in the sermon that matched with what they had heard.

The vicar I was on holiday with claimed that his colleague and congregation eventually discovered that there was one woman in the congregation who was somehow affecting what the rest of the congregation were hearing, changing the meaning of what the vicar was saying.

Now I don't know if this is true, but it was certainly a strange story, and it popped into my head after reading Trancestates post.
 
I find the idea of the collective unconscious very fascinating but over the years I have seen it played as a wild card for all sorts of phenomena: ufo's, alien encounters, religious apparitions, stigmata, physical mediumship ... the whole lot.

While I understand the connection between the personal "unconscious" (although it's a placeholder for lots of things) and poltergeist phenomena I fail to see the direct connection with most of the other phenomena mentioned in the previous paragraph. Unless I am missing something poltergeists are very chaotic, uncontrolled bursts of psychic energy (for lack of better words) that can sometimes be caused by the living and other times on discarnate entities.

Is there any convincing evidence that well organized and interactive phenomena such as ufo contact or religious apparitions can be reduced to collectively-formed intention?

Also, and please forgive the nitpicking, the Jungian concept of "collective unconscious" had to do with how we humans organize experiences, so I am not sure where the concept of collective unconscious PK is coming from exactly? Maybe it's a mix with esoteric concepts of tulpas and thought forms?
 
Good work, Ian. However, I wonder if Dr. Labib Shenouda's drawing is in reality an enhancement of an original photo. In any case, I think it's a damned shame that no qualified parapsychologists (that I'm aware of) were able to visit Zeitoun when the frequency and duration of the apparitions were at their height.
On the description under the photo, it says "drawn from his memory".

I think these are actual photos:
zeitoun2.jpg


zeitoun8.jpg


In any event, I'm still impressed by the overall collection of the photographs and the reports on the event. I too feel it's a great shame that no parapsychologists went over - especially that it happened over so long a period. (And too bad nobody filmed it!) Maybe because it's in Egypt, in the Arabic world, and not much news was made about it at the time outside of Egypt?
 
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Thanks, Bucky, but I think the unconscious group production of PK effects is more complicated than you imply. In the Zeitoun case there was a beleaguered minority of the Egyptian population, many of whom no doubt prayed fervently for help from Mary, and believed it would come. The intention of a Marian apparition, might have taken decades to form in the collective unconscious of the Copts.
I'm not sure I'm on board with the CU concept, but this is interesting, Doug.

The Copts also had this apparition at Assiut in 2000 and 2001. I'm not aware of any good photographs but this video shows a light "figure" descending and appearing (at 00:19) and the crowd starting to cheer.

Some described "doves" again at Assiut:
asdoves.jpg

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/assiut_witness.htm

Here's a video about Zeitoun and the witnesses:

I first got interested about Zeitoun when I read NDEr Ned Dougherty's Fast Lane to Heaven. I forget if it was during the NDE itself, or in the visions he had afterwards, or both, but he received a message to go to Egypt related to the "Lady of Light" he encountered. You can read about it here:
http://davecoop.net/zeitoun.htm
This points to the possibility of a (spiritual) cause not related to PK or the CU.
 
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The Copts also had this apparition at Assiut in 2000 and 2001. I'm not aware of any good photographs but this video shows a light "figure" descending and appearing (at 00:19) and the crowd starting to cheer.

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/assiut_witness.htm

Thanks Ian. Here's a great video of the "light show" at Assiut:

Apparition of virgin. Mary,s lights over st.Mark Coptic church in asyout egypt y.2000.flv

I think it's a copy of an older video that may no longer exist. I believe the original was used to create the following video, in which the non-flashing parts have been edited out:

sant mary in assiut

Years ago I downloaded both videos with the idea of reducing them to individual frames. Since the flashes seem to originate at so many locations on the church and in various combinations with other flashes, my hope was to record each unique flash and its frequency. I wanted to demonstrate the unlikelihood of the flashes being caused by human-created lights, since too many of them would be required to generate the effects seen in the videos. It would be pretty hard to set up so many lights without people noticing. Alas, the software I was using was not up to the task.

Doug
 
Doug, I'm like many of those commentators on those youtube videos: I can't see where "She's" supposed to be! :D Are the flashing lights the phenomena itself, or is the figure in there somewhere?

Here is an article with purported pictures of the "doves" and the Mary figure at Assiut:
http://www.zeitun-eg.org/watani_international.htm

Ian, I think the flashing lights are part of the phenomenon. I found this in an eyewitness account:

Flying doves continued with the bursts of light for a couple of hours then lights only continued for the rest of the night till the dawn.

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/assiut_witness.htm

Although the account refers to events taking place a few days after the flashing phenomenon recorded in the video I posted earlier, I don't think it's a stretch to assume a similar pattern: sightings of Mary and/or luminescent birds coupled with light flashes, followed by light flashes only, which dissipate as dawn approaches.

Doug
 
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