Nexus - 0225 - New Times Magazine-pages

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the people, rose and floated away to descend over other assemblies. Shining things, or beings, travelled about, appear- ing as white lights or balls of reddish fire. These were especially evident at the meet- ings conducted by a Mrs Mary Jones, one of the prominent leaders. It was said that one light persistently followed Mrs. Jones's carriage and could not be shaken off by abruptly tuning from one road to another. London reporters, who had been sent to Wales, at first sent back flippant stories. Then they, too, witnessed the clouds and lights. The representatives of the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror told of seeing bril- liant lights form over chapels while ser- vices were in progress, and of following them as they drifted away from these meet- ings. There were lengthy speculations on whether the appearances were objective or subjective. B. G. Evans, in his account in the London Daily News (9 February 1905), said he witnessed the lights when he was with Mrs Jones at the meetings in Egryn. "The first light," he wrote, "resembled a brilliant star emitting sparklets. All saw this. The next two were as clearly subjec- tive, being seen only-by Mrs Jones and me, though the five of us walked abreast. Three bars of clear white light crossed the road in front, from left to right, climbing up the stone wall to the right. A blood-red light, about a foot from the ground in the middle of the roadway...was the next mani- festation."' Perhaps, from human batteries, religious enthusiasm and ecstasy, under conditions as yet unknown, an outpouring of com- bined forces can be produced, a projection of psychophysical energy comparable to that found in poltergeist phenomena, but mild and harmless instead of dynamic and destructive. Light has often been associat- ed with spirit and worship. Adepts tell of an interior illumination. Certain saints are said to have been luminous at times. Christ was called the "Light of the World". "Wales in the grip of supernatural forces," headlined the Liverpool Echo on 18th January. Spreading into Scotland and England, the revival degenerated into mass hysteria. Girl clerks in stores would ignore cus- tomers and begin singing and clapping hands. Other bands of girls entered the more sedate churches and started noisy meetings of their own. Men went from shop to shop, ‘returning’ things they had not Stolen; others confessed to sins that, if true, would have meant they were human fiends. There were suicides and mental break- downs. Bands stood outside football games and theatres trying to keep people from entering; other bands roamed the streets and invaded police stations where they tried to convert the officers. Groups of women in Leeds, claiming they were directed by visions, stopped car- riages and cars and attempted to force the passengers to join them in street meetings. "Holy dancers" appeared in London. In Liverpool, riots broke out when howling revivalists slugged Catholics and stoned their homes. One man, taking a biblical passage literally, chopped his right hand off; another led a procession every night, towing his coffin behind him. "When you see one of these processions," a Liverpool Magistrate advised, "run from it as you would from a mad bull." And it was in the midst of this excite- ment that there were instances of apparent spontaneous human combustion. Mrs Thomas Cochrane, of Rosehall, Falkirk, widow of a prominent local man, was found “burned beyond recognition" in her bedroom. The body was in a chair sur- There was an exquisite twist. "Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-storey building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth storey window. "The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide." The source for this story is obscure. Several correspondents forwarded it from various odd Usenet groups. (Source: Fortean Times #79, February- March, 1995) MYSTERY LIGHTS, FIRES AND MASS HYSTERIA During the winter of 1904-1905 there was a remarkable outbreak of mysterious occurrences in many parts of Great Britain. There were reports of apparitions, haunted houses, poltergeist phenomena and uncan- ny fires. In Wales there was a great religious revival. And over the singing, shouting crowds there were luminous appearances. Glowing clouds hovered and dipped over — AMAZING MAIZE MAZE — Botswana, Africa — This intriguing glyph sequence was formed sometime in 1994 within a maize crop. It's very notable in being a rare record of a crop formation in Africa, as reported in the newsletter, UFO Afrinews. The diagram is based on a drawing made by the farmer for a Martin Chibanda from Zimbabwe, who met him by chance. Unlike standard formations, the pattern was) burned into the crop and the grapeshot appeared to have been “dug into the soil". The farmer was apparently more concerned with the loss of his crop than with the appear-} ance of the pattern! | (Source: UFO Afrinews via Lois Horowitz, as reported ip Sussex Circular #38, February 1995) 64 * NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1995 — AMAZING MAIZE MAZE —