Welcome to the Mind of a Writer

Emma de Guzman (Photo: Philippine Star)

Hat tip to Kit’s Blog for finding and posting this article and to Susan for emailing me the link!

In the ‘lying signs and wonders’ category this week is this report from Manila about a woman who claims to see ‘Mama Mary’ on a mountain called ‘Salvation’.

The ‘seer’ is Emma C. de Guzman, who, according to the report, holds healing sessions twice a year in a shrine on Mount Batulao, which pilgrims call their “Mountain of Salvation.”

According to a June 27th report at the Philippine Star:

Emma de Guzman is a poor widow with three children from Cabanatuan in Nueva Ecija and had to work initially as a domestic helper in Singapore in the early ‘80s and later in Canada as a nanny (she didn’t even know what a nanny was before she got the job).

De Guzman’s first vision, she claims, was of Jesus Christ Himself. Later, on a trip to New York with her employer, de Guzman ‘saw’ her first vision of Mary:

Emma said that the vision happened while she was at the Fatima Shrine during a trip to New York with her employer. When she returned to her home base in Canada, she says that the Blessed Mother started appearing to her repeatedly.

Emma also ‘sees’ and communicates with saints such as Bernadette, Sister Faustina, Teresa of Avila, and even St. John (Christ’s disciple and writer of the book of Revelation). It was John, de Guzman claims, who spoke to her in ancient Greek. Read the rest of this entry →

Popularity: 19% [?]

Nashi Youth Camp (TIME ONLINE)

By SHARON K. GILBERT
April 13, 2008

IN PART I of this article, we followed Russia’s religious history, pointing out the incestuous relationship between government and church. We saw how tsarist ‘king-maker’ Patriarchs ruled an uneducated peasantry through secular proxies only to be devoured by the very government they engendered.

As illustrated by Christ’s parable of the demons in Matthew, no house remains spiritually empty for long, and this is also true of Russia. In the vacuum created by the Communist rise and eventual fall, a new spirituality arose, most of it based on spirits who bear no love for Christ.

One such cult mentioned is the Rus’ Resurrecting cult, centering on Vladimir Putin as the reincarnation of both King Solomon and St. Paul. While this sect may be small in number, the core belief runs throughout Russia’s youth in a different, yet far more sinister form of worship: Nashi. Read the rest of this entry →

Popularity: 2% [?]

By SHARON K. GILBERT
April 3, 2008

WHAT DO an electrical engineer, a former policeman, and Vladimir Putin have in common? They are all three revered as icons by the wide-eyed believers of Russia’s whirlwind cult machine.

According to Russian tradition, St. Andrew first brought the message of Jesus Christ to Sythian and Greek colonies along the Black Sea (future home of the proto-Russian, medieval state of Kievan Rus’ ) in the first century AD, proclaiming that a great church would one day grow from the very spot where he literally planted a ‘cross’.

Andrew’s earliest Greek teachings soon blended with Byzantine political and spiritual influences, forged together through wars, both internal and external. Although not considered ‘infallable’ like the Catholic Pope, the Russian Orthodox church’s leader, known as The Patriarch, wielded a mighty sword in both spiritual and governmental theaters. This supreme religious leader played king maker (or tsar maker in this case) while dictating doctrine to an uneducated peasantry eager for salvation through works.

Enter Peter the Great. Read the rest of this entry →

Popularity: 2% [?]