Basil Venitis points out miracles, scams,and hoaxes succeed because they exploit powerful psychological processes. These processes are the very ones that have enabled humans to survive and create art and technology, but also trasform Homo sapiens into Homo suckers.
In Taranto of Southern Italy, one of Debora Moscogiuri's statues of the Virgin Mary allegedly drip olive oil. Sealed containers, such as small bottles or jars, left in the proximity of the statue are later found to be partially filled with oil. These had been tied with ribbons, taped, sealed with wax, and placed inside plastic bags.
When testing psychic claimants, it is sometimes necessary to allow the subject to take some target material away from the laboratory in order to try and obtain a psychic effect on it in his home. Until a short time ago, the importance of using foolproof containers when conducting this kind of experiment was not fully recognized.
Venitists Joe Nickell and Luigi Garlaschelli point out that preparing fool-proof containers (e.g., bags, envelopes, or boxes), which do not allow the subject access to the item contained inside, has always been a challenge. However, preventing access to the item (e.g., by placing it in a steel safe) is probably not as important as making sure that the container is tamper-evident, meaning it is prepared in such a way that any improper attempt to open it can be easily detected.
Nickel and Garlaschelli gave Moscogiuri ten fool-proof tubes. When they got their tubes back, they examined them during a videotaped meeting attended by many experts and journalists. Afterward, all participants signed a statement of the results. It turned out that one of the ten tubes (number 3) was missing; tubes 1, 2, and 7 were intact and did not contain any liquid; tube 4 had a broken tip that had produced a small gap, but no liquid was present; and tubes 6, 8, and 10 contained a yellow viscous liquid.
A comparison with the photographs of the originals showed that the tips had been melted and resealed. The shapes of the tips were clearly different. One of the tubes had been tampered with on the side, and the glass was deformed, leaving a large bubble. One tip was also slightly cracked. It was quite apparent that some crude tampering had occurred, which was indicative not of a miracle but, on the contrary, of some sort of fraud carried out by somebody in Moscogiuri's group.
Venitis points out the Holy Light is a hoax that occurs every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Holy Saturday, the day preceding Orthodox Easter. Criticism dates at least to the days of Islamic rule of Jerusalem, but the hoax is encouraged by Israel, because of the significant revenue it brings to Jerusalem. The culrpit, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, recites a specific prayer, puts off his robes and enters alone into the sepulcher to perform the chemical hoax. The congregants subsequently chant Kyrie eleison(Lord, have mercy) until the 33 sensitive candles tied together ignite chemically inside the alleged tomb chamber of Jesus.
Nickell traveled to Toronto to investigate a weeping icon in a Greek Orthodox church. In front of a dozen television, newspaper, and radio reporters, Nickell collected samples of the tears for Toronto police lab analysis. The police termed the icon a fraud and concluded that the substance of the tears was olive oil. Last fall, over 20,000 people visited the church to witness the pseudomiracle, donating an estimated two million dollars. The priest of the church has been accused of perpetrating the hoax and stealing the money from the church's coffers.
Basil Venitis, an Athenian orator, points out the Shroud of Turin had first appeared in about 1355 at a small church in Lirey, France. According to a bishop's report written in 1389 to the Avignon pope, Clement VII, an artist admitted he had cunningly painted the image of the crucified Christ on the cloth. Stylistic and iconographic elements corroborate a medieval artistic origin. So do modern carbon-14 tests, which yielded a date range of circa 1260—1390, consistent with the time of the reported forger's confession. Famed microanalyst Walter C. McCrone had previously determined that the image had been rendered by an artist using red ocher and vermilion tempera paint.
Venitis notes Charlatan Saint Padre Pio's stigmata started with carbolic-acid misuse! Pio and some of the other friars at San Giovanni Rotondo were administering injections to boys who were ill with influenza. Alcohol not being available, an exhausted doctor left carbolic acid to be used for sterilizing needles and injection sites, while neglecteing to tell the friars it had to be diluted. As a result, Pio and another friar were left with angry red spots on their hands. Not only Padre Pio continued inducing his stigmata with acid, he also misused funds and had sex with female parishioners in the confessional. The founder of the Catholic university hospital in Rome branded Pio an ignorant and self-mutilating psychopath who exploited people's credulity.
Basil Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, points out three brats at Fatima of Portugal hoodwinked about conversations with Pseudovirgin Mary! The Fatima pseudomiracle has been described in many very different ways. Some claimed that the sun spun pinwheel-like with colored streamers, while others maintained that it danced.
Most likely, there was a combination of factors at Fatima, including optical effects and meteorological phenomena, such as the sun being seen through thin clouds, causing it to appear as a silver disc. Other possibilities include an alteration in the density of the passing clouds, causing the sun's image to alternately brighten and dim and so seem to advance and recede, and dust or moisture droplets in the atmosphere refracting the sunlight and thus imparting a variety of colors.
The effects of suggestion were also likely involved, since devout spectators had come to the Fatima site fully expecting some miraculous event, had their gaze dramatically directed at the sun by Lucia, and excitedly discussed and compared their perceptions in a way almost certain to foster psychological contagion. Even Lucia's own mother declared that her precocious daughter was nothing but a fake who was leading half the world astray with pseudomiracles and pseudoapparitions of Virgin Mary!
Venitis muses the Holy Grail is an imaginary cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, which clergy hoodwink to possess miraculous powers. Some Britons claim Joseph of Arimathea received the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sent it with his followers to Great Britain. Some Spaniards created an unholy myth that Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ's blood while interring him, and he sent it to Spain.
The unholy quest for the Holy Grail makes up an important segment of Arthurian myths. The myth combines Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers. Hundred unholy cathedrals all over Europe hoodwink the faithful, displaying hundred variations of the Holy Grail! These fake grails do not belong to cathedrals, but to museums of hoaxes. Holy Grail hoax is the perfect unholy tool for fleecing Christians, writing fiction, and producing movies.
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