The Great Apparitions of Mary: An Examination of the Twenty-Two Supranormal Appearances

by Ingo Swann

The great apparitions of Mary, starting with Guadalupe in 1531, occur with a steady and increasing drumbeat across the decades and centuries. The places and the principals involved change, but the messages calling people to turn from lives of violence and sin and to seek repentance are remarkably similar. By focusing on the most widely known and documented appearances and presenting them in chronological order, the power of the events and the messages emerge in a powerful way. Swann shows how advances in science have placed the apparitions in a more intriguing light. One of the historic challenges concerning them was how could something which was not there be there in a way that registered on the eye mechanisms? The discovery of holography, where images that appear to be three-dimensional, having bulk, shape and mass, can be photographed, have provided an analogy that enlarges our perception of the physical laws and challenges the skeptics' verdict of hallucination.

Genres: Spirituality, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 1996

About the author

Ingo Douglas Swann

Reviews

[Kimber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ingo Swann has compiled a chronology of the major Mary apparitions/visitations in a way that objectively allows us to see for ourselves what they mean. Coming at it this way--in order--we can see the patterns, how she tends to show up, and predict major historical events such as wars and calamities.

The apparitions are as follows:

Guadalupe, Mexico (1531)
Paris, France (1830)
La Salette, France (1846)
Lourdes, France (1858)
Pontmain, France (1871)
Knock, Ireland (1879)
Tilly-sur-Seulles, France (1896)
Mantara, Lebanon (1908, 1911)
Fatima, Portugal (1917)
Beauraing, Belgium (1932, 1933)
Banneux, Belgium (1933)
Kerizen, France (1938)
Lipa, Phillipines (1948, 1949)
Necedah, Wisconsin, USA (1949)
Jerusalem, Israel (1954)
Garabandal, Spain (1961)
San Damiano, Italy (1964)
Montichiari, Italy (1947, 1966)
Zeitoun, Egypt (1968)
Bayside, Queens, New York, USA (1970)
Medjugorje, Yugoslavia (1981)
Kibeho, Rwanda (1981)

Much of what she prophesied comes true (if not all of what she has predicted) and the healings, miracles, celestial signs....hundreds of thousands of people have witnessed them.

What Mary brings is nothing short of Apocalyptic.

A familiar image of Mary: she is standing on the serpent. She is love, peace, compassion but she is also here to stomp on the evil forces. She weeps. Is sometimes stern and serious. Sometimes beautiful (not just beautiful but the most beautiful woman you could imagine). She weeps for the world. Pleads for us: repent, atone, make peace and most of all keep praying.

Peace! Peace! Peace! Be reconciled!

[Raul DaSilva]

Not having read the book, I cannot review or rate it BUT (I have actually written a book on its author, Ingo Swann, Ingo Swann, Man of Miracles) I can easily state that the mystical event of the Mary Apparition is real and exists. I had one, myself, when I was five years old. in this historic NYC hospital in, 1938, and have spoken about it publicly several times https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.co...
I knew Ingo Swann for eleven years, as a close friend, and avoided bringing up my mystical event that occurred when I was five years old. I have some rationale as to why I never brought up and discussed my own experience with Ingo. It's important to me that my experience is not seen as some kind of fraudulent event. At the time I experienced
it, it altered my life.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a great book if you are just wanting to get an overview of all of the current apparitions of Mary. I learned so much and really enjoyed it!

[Mike S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book, I was brought up Catholic, completely lost faith in the church and God as a teen, did the typical Western lifestyle but found that I had s spiritual hunger, prayed that if God was out there, that God give me a way to have a relationship that I could accept. I found that through Subud, and now appreciate the many benefits of the Christian upbringing I had.
Reading Bart Ehrman's books showed me very clearly that the Bible, while full of good advice, cannoot be taken too literally.
Reading Edgar Cayce opened my eyes about many things, and he said Mary was the twin soul of Jesus.
Reading Jane Roberts' Seth books portrayed the drama played out by them as so powerful in the human story.
For me this book was very moving, I liked the way Ingo did his research, trying to get the purest accounts into the story and avoiding as many of the variations that inevitably occur afterwards as possible.
I prayed the rosary after this and was really moved by it, something I had never done before.
I recommend this book to anyone curious about Mary.

Also I really liked this version of the Fatima apparition, it's a b&w from 1943, "the Song of Bernadette"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6zAo...

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This seemed to be what I was looking for: a book about the appearances of the Blessed Virgin that wasn't all skewered in devotional awe. I didn't want a skeptic's screed, just something with some objectivity.

In the early chapters on the older apparitions, like Guadalupe and Catherine Laboure's visions in Paris, Swann is respectfully objective. As the incidents gets closer and closer to our time, he is much more willing, annoyingly so, to report from the visionaries' perspective.

Oh well. It was an easy and interesting read.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an audio bk listen.

I have more questions after listening to the historical recounting of events. I believe that they happened, but I am doubtful of their origins. My most troubling question is why are these sightings only associated with one religion/institution, the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly, the most recent incarnation of Sophia* as Mother Mary is meant for us all.

Mother Mary is thee one woman recognized (Marian) and honored in the the Quran, so why is there a lack of Islamic leaders being addressed? The Mother Mary apparition in Rwanda in the 1980s was described to be Asian, and so I wonder about Quan Yin, who is a Sophia incarnation in China...so why is there a lack of discussion of Quan Yin or China?

Why are the apparitions conscripted only to the Roman Catholic Church, whose founding by Peter was a direct challenge to Mary Magdalene? Moreover, the RCC has a history of brutality.

Further troubling is the telling of apparition in 1932 Belgium, which is contrary and lacks of empathy.

I am considering that the Mary apparitions seem more like Moses at the burning bush, full of warnings or else rather than the "good word" of the New Testament and gospels excised from the Bible by the Council at Nicea. And so I am sitting mulling the thought that these apparitions are the work of the god of the Old Testament/Torah**.

*Sophia was one of the beings coming into being with the creation of all/division of the whole into parts as both told in Conversation with God and the big bang theory.

**I do not regard the god the O.T. and N.T to be one in the same. I am not alone in this view. Further it is the tenor of the N.T. that is aligned with current supraconsciousness awaking. I am not alone in this view.

[Peter Forster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing this book clearly involved a considerable amount of work. Not only did the author include lots of interesting details about the apparitions themselves, but he also gave the context in which they occurred and subsequent events, particularly where prophesies were part of the apparition. In addition, he gave estimates of the number of witnesses, which in some cases such as that of the apparition at Zeitoun in Egypt, included hundreds of thousands of people! It is hard to dispute the author's concluding remark, "Surely it must be admitted that something truly remarkable took place at each of the great apparitions considered in this book." And the most common plea, heard from the speaking apparitions: “Pray! Pray! Pray! Pray for peace! Be reconciled!”

[Timothy D. Blythe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and worthwhile

Ingo Swann wrote an interesting and worthwhile book on 22 of the most significant Aperations of Mary. The book and the contents are well documented, covering both the historical and locational context of the apparition as well as the Seers & Witnesses and their stories.

[Joe Ochental · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hail Mary by a seer

Ingo Swann is amazing and totally objective in this review of the Mary visitations He is not Catholic and presents everything with an unbiased view This is not a Catholics only book Great read The insight about the Incas alone is shocking

[Roberta Wentworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. It would benefit from more proofreading and better editing

[Bonnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Supernatural

I was raised Roman Catholic. They taught me Jesus, when my family had no form of God. So I am grateful to them for introducing me to God. A protestant though introduced me to the bible, God's Word. God's WORD, was made flesh in the incarnation of the 2nd person of the Trinity. Yeshua/Jesus.
In the scripture God denounces speaking to the dead, or having anything to do with it. But the supernatural, is dominating the world now.
Some are dumbed down to it by the media. Some by governments, and Some by churches.
These appearances of a being claiming to be Jesus mother Mary, could be:

A) A demonic appearances by the most powerful angel created by GOD.. Lucifer. He comes as an Angel of light to deceive even the elect.
Or B)
A familiar SPIRIT sent to bind men into sin.
These appearances never use SCRIPTURE, and are against SCRIPTURE in too many instances. So I suggest when reading ,YOU compare the things the appearance says to HIS WORD.
GOD SAYS "I WILL NOT SEND THE DEAD TO THE LIVING".
He condemns divination.
This Mary may have prophesied things, but so did the witch of Endor, and the witch who followed the Apostles, AND PROPHESIED CORRECTLY..
In Revelation, John is told to "NEVER bow to a created being".
The first commandment (changed by Rome) says:
"Do not worship or bow to any being
From heaven, on earth ...or under the sea".
Only bow to THE BEING, GOD THE ALMIGHTY.

[Dkolacinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong summarization of the various apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Marianology sort of dies with Vatican II, with the subsequent loss of essential female characteristics. I suspect had this not occurred that the role of women in the Catholic Church would be much stronger today.

[Kelly Durocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful!!

[Peter A. Lio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep, insightful and incredibly thought-provoking. I leaned a lot from this book and it is truly insightful.

[Liana · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting tour of the Marian apparition phenomenon.