Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH: Visualisation of the unseen

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Visualisation of the unseen

What we 'see' today, therefore, are the creation of painters of 500-600 years ago who had a fertile mind and an unbridled imagination. They imagined all this in their brain and then transferred their thoughts to canvas and/or walls and ceilings.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

You have probably read the news of the 'appearance' of the Virgin Mary at the Sime Darby Medical Centre in Subang Jaya a few days ago. I find it quite amusing that Christians all over the world have ‘seen’ Jesus Christ and/or his mother ‘appear’ from time to time.

Actually, until about 500-600 years ago, Christians had no notion of what Jesus or Mary looked like. Then, during the Early Renaissance period in France from 1385-1520 and the High Renaissance period in Italy from 1475-1525, Christians began to visualise what they could not visualise before that.

The people who can be attributed (or blamed) for this would be the Renaissance painters such as Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Hieronymus Bosch, Jacobus de Voragine, etc. (about 70-80 in all from all over Europe).

Some of their famous paintings are The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, Lamentation of Christ by Mantegna, Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo, The Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden, Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca, Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald, Melun Diptych (Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels) by Jean Fouquet, and so on.

Basically, these painters of 500-600 years ago gave Christendom a visualisation of what God, Jesus, Mary, Satan, the Angels, etc., looked like. Before that there was no visualisation of what could be considered ‘divine beings’.

Today, what we ‘see’ is what those people of 500-600 years ago ‘saw’. But did they actually see all this or was this merely a figment of their imagination? I suppose my ‘image’ of Prophet Muhammad, King Arthur, Merlin the Magician, Robin Hood, etc., would be as accurate as those Renaissance painters of 500-600 years ago.

If I was a painter (and I am not) and I was commissioned by the church to paint the walls and ceilings of cathedrals and churches, I would probably use the images below as my guide. The Virgin Mary would look like a woman from her region and not like a Hollywood actress while Jesus would not be a tall, handsome, blue-eyed, blonde man but someone like Yasser Arafat, as he would most likely have looked like.

The mind is a very powerful thing and you can certainly be made to see what does not exist if you can condition the mind with centuries of brainwashing. I wonder how many of those painters were actually atheists who did not believe in God. Yet they could influence us into seeing what they themselves did not believe in.

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Virgin Mary image draws Catholics to hospital

(The Malaysian Insider) - Catholic Malaysians have been flocking to the Sime Darby Medical Centre in Subang Jaya to catch a glimpse of an image that has appeared on one of its windows said to resemble the image of the Virgin Mary, The Sunday Star reported today.

The mysterious image of the figure revered by Catholics who believe Mary to be the mother of Jesus Christ was reported to have been spotted a few days ago on a window pane at the hospital.

The image has been captured on camera and spread on Facebook. Yesterday, a group largely composed of Catholics visited the medical centre and sung hymns and prayed before the image.

“It is so wonderful that our Mother has come to us in a hospital, where many of the sick are crying out for her help,” Janet Tong, 45, told the English-language newspaper.

Sheree Rao, a businessman who was present at the hospital, reportedly said the image could not be seen from the inside of the window.

“I touched the glass, thinking it could be paint or something else. But there was nothing,’’ the 21-year-old was reported as saying.

A 20-year-old student, Nicole Jo Pereira, said she thinks it’s a sign for people to practise good deeds.

The hospital authorities and the editor of the The Herald, Malaysia’s sole Catholic newspaper have declined to give their comments, The Sunday Star reported.

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Awestruck by Virgin Mary image

(The Star) - An image of what seems to be the Blessed Virgin Mary on a window at the Sime Darby Medical Centre (SDMC) here is drawing crowds.

A large group of people, mostly Catholics, gathered below the area at the new wing of the hospital yesterday, lighting candles, singing hymns and reciting prayers.

Traffic was heavy around the vicinity, with even tourist buses pulling up by the roadside.

Secretary Janet Tong, 45, described the apparition as “amazing”.

“It is so wonderful that our Mother has come to us in a hospital, where many of the sick are crying out for her help,” she said.

Several claimed the colour and position of the image also changed.

Businessman Sheree Rao, 21, who went up inside to get a close look at the window, said the image was only visible from the outside.

“I touched the glass, thinking it could be paint or something else. But there was nothing,’’ he added.

Student Nicole Jo Pereira, 20, said she believed the image was a call for people to do good deeds.

Teacher Kenneth Fong, 27, said he was sure of an image on the window. “But whether it’s from God, I don’t know.”

Photographs of the image, believed to have appeared several days ago, have gone viral on Facebook.

Access to the window from inside the building has been restricted by the hospital.

A hospital official declined to comment on the matter.

Catholic newsletter The Herald editor Rev Father Lawrence Andrew said the Catholic Church would withhold official comment until the image had been tested and verified by theologians and church authorities.

Catholics believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus Christ, is the Mother of God.

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