Yesterday, Nephilim theorist L. A. Marzulli announced that he had discovered the smoking gun proving that the apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917 was actually the work of Satan as part of a carefully orchestrated plot involving the Catholic Church, UFOs, and demons. The announcement coincides with the beginning of his publicity campaign for Fatima 2: Electric Boogaloo, er, Fatima 2: Strange Phenomenon, a new documentary he is selling to evangelical Christians. I don’t really have the energy to give this story a massive and suggestive buildup before undercutting the argument. Suffice it to say that in May 1917 three Portuguese children claimed to see a female figure that they called the Lady of the Rosary, who imparted to them supposed secrets. Five months later, thousands gathered to see a miracle performed by the Lady. Many, but not all, of those gathered claimed to have seen something happen to the sun, though few agreed as to what they saw. Marzulli goes back to that first apparition on May 13, 1917 and believes he can prove Satan was behind it. Although Marzulli calls his film “groundbreaking” and only hints in a roundabout way that this information came from elsewhere, it is not original to him, nor is it new. He is adapting claims made by Joaquim Fernandes and Fina D'Armada in their book Celestial Secrets, which is an ancient astronaut text (it was endorsed by Jim Marrs, who wrote the foreword) claiming Fatima as a UFO event. As always, there is less than meets the eye. Let’s look at a couple of the claims. First, let’s examine the claim from Marzulli that psychics in league with Satan announced the Fatima miracles before they occurred: Remember too that a group of mediums had received a message using the occult means of automatic writing stating that something wondrous would happen in Portugal on May 13. They published this in several papers! ![]() Well… The story isn’t quite as clear as all that. On May 10, 1917, an occult group ran a classified add bearing the code 135917 and stating “Do not forget the happy day when our martyrdom shall end. The war they bring us shall conclude.” This appears to be a “prophecy” of the supped imminent end of the Great War. The numerical code is interpreted as referring to 13 May 1917, though this is not necessarily the case. Either way, the war did not end then but continued until November 11, 1918. A second notice, from a different occult group, took the form of a letter to the editor from a pseudonymous “Antonio” and ran on May 13 under the heading “The War and Spiritualism.” It read, in my translation:
This was one of dozens or even hundreds of predictions about the war that were published in European papers of the era, of note only because it mentions the same day as the Fatima apparition, even though on the surface if has little relationship to it. The argument is that the Portuguese kids couldn’t have known about these newspaper ads because they couldn’t read and therefore couldn’t have chosen the date for their apparition based on what their friends and family were already expecting to happen. That’s a stretch. The Portuguese authors also dismiss the idea that the two newspaper pieces are related by alleging that the two psychic groups were unrelated. But does that really mean that the two groups of Spiritualists in the same city never communicated with one another? That’s another stretch, especially since the letter of Antonio mentions the date being shared by various Spiritualist groups. And there is also the even more probable solution that the date is merely a coincidence. To this is added a 1974 claim that automatic writing produced by Carlos Calderon in one of these spiritualist groups stands behind the claim and are its source. The relevant lines of the message read this way in the translation in common circulation: The day 13th of May shall be a day of great joy for all the good spirits of the world. Have faith and be good. Ego Sum Charitas. Thou shall always have thy friends at thy side, who will guide thee and help thee on thy work. Ego Sum Charitas. The brilliant light of the Morning Star shall light thy way. So, basically, some guy generates an “automatic” message, the psychic friends network in Portugal starts spreading it around, and whether by intention or coincidence the kids claim to see an entity on the appointed day and time. There are plenty of non-supernatural ways to parse that order of events.
But it’s interesting to note that “the brilliant light of the Morning Star” shades into something different by the time we get to apparition time. Marzulli makes much of the so-called “fourth witness” of Fatima, who saw a blond androgynous child running about and flying in the air. “There’s another important fact to consider and it is this; there are no blond-haired children in Portugal,” Marzulli said. Leaving aside the fact that it was 1917 when international travel wasn’t exactly unheard of, about one in five Portuguese is a natural blond. It’s kind of racists to stereotype a whole country as swarthy dark Latins. Anyway, Marzulli goes on: “We also discovered that only one day before the May 13th apparition in Fatima another entity appeared to a shepherd-boy telling the boy not to be afraid. This entity identified itself as The Bright Morning Star. We are told in scripture who this refers to and it’s another name for Lucifer.” According to Celestial Secrets, there were actually many different sightings in the area in 1916 and 1917 of blond angels, including one without a head (!) and one around whom rocks fell from the sky. You could read this as build up to Mary’s appearance, but more likely it points to a cultural expectation of angelic appearance that created the conditions for many different people to fantasize similar religious apparitions. Interestingly, the earliest version has the figure as a person in a white sheet, and only later does it become an angel in glowing robes as different people remix the story for “new” sightings. But on to the Morning Star. Note that the Spiritualists didn’t say that they were communicating with Lucifer, the Latin name of the Morning Star. Indeed, the Scriptures don’t really call Satan the Morning Star. That’s a gloss on the prophecy of Isaiah (14:12), which wasn’t originally written of Satan, and doesn’t actually use the Hebrew word for Venus as the morning star. It literally says “shining one.” Instead, the Scriptures do tell us who the Morning Star will be in the End of Days: “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16, NIV). Notice the exact wording used by the Spiritualists and by the apparition. The angels in general are also called morning stars in Job 38:6-7. So, a plain reading of the text pretty much shows that there isn’t anything Satanic going on here, but rather the people who were imagining encounters with angels knew their Bible better than Marzulli. During World War I, people thought they were living through the End of Days. It is no surprise that some started to see Revelation enacted around them.
30 Comments
Jim
4/5/2018 11:22:25 am
Wait, your telling me that Lucifer means morning star, and the morning star is Venus, wouldn't that make those who revere Venus devil worshipers ?,,,,,,,I can use that.
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Joe Scales
4/5/2018 11:37:48 am
Come now Jim. It's the crescent Venus that is revered by the Templars, et al. Not the dark bits...
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Lucifer
4/5/2018 12:45:53 pm
Come now! I think we can all agree that the fun lies in the dark bits.
Jim
4/5/2018 04:43:04 pm
That's right, I forgot that the Templars knew about the crescent of Venus before Galileo discovered it in 1610.
Americanegro
4/6/2018 11:50:43 am
Shirley you mean before Galileo invented the telescope? The crescent can be seen by the naked eye of someone with really good vision.
Jim
4/6/2018 01:22:23 pm
America can be seen with the naked eye, yet both the Vikings and Columbus discovered it, among other people.
Jim
4/7/2018 06:33:49 pm
The old Wolteresque defense "I'm right because I said so", could you try any harder to misinterpret everything I said ?
Jim
4/9/2018 12:53:30 am
Here is one of the better photos I have seen of the crescent Venus.
Bob Jase
4/5/2018 01:00:20 pm
But Mary was still responsible for the Immaculate Reception, right?
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Tommy Moore
4/13/2018 11:57:50 pm
Actually Aliens made French Fuqua crash into Jack Tatum - then froze the ball in midair with invisible beams - just in time for Franco to catch the ball before it hit the turf
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Ken
4/5/2018 01:31:16 pm
And Satan was responsible for the Immaculate Deception. Satan and Donald Trump.
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Machala
4/5/2018 02:52:26 pm
" And there is also the even more probable solution that the date is merely a coincidence..."
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Jim
4/5/2018 04:24:46 pm
Oh, Marzulli's not done with you folks down there yet. He recently posted a video pleading for surgeons, chiropractors etc. to come and join his crackerjack team of forensic buttplugs. He has laid a honeytrap whereby you will receive free of charge, his recent book and video that should be entitled "How Not To Conduct a Scientific Investigation".
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Cesar
4/5/2018 05:22:14 pm
Roberto Bellarmino (1542-1621) was canonized in 1930 and his feast day was 13 May till the reform of 1969, when it was transfered to 17 September, the day he died.
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John the Hesychast
4/5/2018 06:30:25 pm
No comment.
Machala
4/5/2018 11:08:40 pm
Cesar,
Americanegro
4/5/2018 04:25:35 pm
"Jason, as one who does not believe in 'coincidence...'"
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orlando romero
4/8/2018 12:53:15 pm
Galileo did not invent the telescope. The telescope and other eye pieces were brought to Western Europe by the the Italian expeditions to the Far East (the Polo brothers, etc. ) along with the noodle...!
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Luke
4/5/2018 06:03:36 pm
One paragraph in and Sympathy for the Devil comes on the radio, coincidence?
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Lucifer
4/5/2018 06:24:09 pm
Note that a lot of the backing vocals is my favorite son Keith. Now tell us Luke, what is it you most deeply desire?
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Luke
4/5/2018 06:30:54 pm
A puppy?
Shane Sullivan
4/5/2018 11:40:03 pm
Lucifer, I have a question: Why is the weather here in the midwest so crappy? Haven't I given you enough blood? Why haven't you kept up your end of the bargain?
Lucifer
4/6/2018 11:58:43 am
Because you didn't vote for Hilary. She's my personal bitch. Those times she fell down? Who do you think was yanking the leash?
An Anonymous Nerd
4/5/2018 06:19:19 pm
To make this claim stick, he'd have to preclude other explanations. (I'll leave aside his having to show that this evil entity actually exists, and that such an entity would care that much about this time and place that it'd do such a thing.)
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I am a gunn at risk
4/7/2018 01:04:56 pm
Demons are real! Satan is real! All the weird stuff I believe in is real! Christ, man! You weren't there man! Morgellons is the final test before the Rapture! Killshot!
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Cesar
4/5/2018 08:46:53 pm
Historian Mircea Eliade wrote about the “terror of History”:
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Jim
4/5/2018 11:15:02 pm
What I don't get about Marzulli is why do the various ministries let him speak to their congregations ? They have built their cash cow group of followers, only to let a fox in the henhouse, raiding their collection plate. What do they get out of it ?
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Americanegro
4/7/2018 01:07:13 pm
Have I taught you nothing? Asses in seats, therefore wallets.
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Riley V
4/6/2018 07:48:46 pm
I think it was Jehovah’s Witnesses, all the way down.
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Erickson
4/6/2018 10:03:47 pm
Marzulli overlooked the obvious. The morning star is Venus, and is it any coincidence that Orthon, the space being that George Adamski met, came from Venus. Since Orthon was the typical blond Nordic type of alien, then it also could be true that the blond who flew in the air was also from Venus. And Venusian scout ships could have easily caused atmospheric disturbances, so that the report of the sun moving backwards is easy explained. Once the link between Fatima and Venusian flying saucers is accepted, there is little wonder why Adamski - who once founded the Royal Order of Tibet - became a contactee.
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