An example of interaction with higher beings on a sattvic level is provided by the events that occurred in 1917 in Fatima, Portugal. These events centered on a series of revelations made to three children named Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta by a divine personage whom they understood to be the Virgin Mary. The revelations occurred on the 13th of the month for six successive months in a natural amphitheater called the Cova da Iria, near the town of Fatima. Here we will not be concerned with the theological content of the revelations (which, as far as it goes, is compatible with the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness), but will focus on the evidence they provide for the existence of higher-dimensional realms.
The revelations were made in the presence of the three children and a large throng of onlookers, which increased greatly from month to month as news spread. The actual visions of the beautiful divine personage could be seen only by the three children, and so our knowledge of these visions is limited to their testimony. However, during the revelations there occurred related phenomena that were witnessed by large numbers of people.
These phenomena included the appearance of a glowing, globe-shaped vehicle and the occurrence of a shower of rose petals that vanished upon touching the ground. One witness, Mgr. J. Quaresma, described the appearance of the globe on July 13, 1917, as follows:
To my surprise, I see clearly and distinctly a globe of light advancing from east to west, gliding slowly and majestically through the air…. Suddenly the globe with its extraordinary light vanished, but near us a little girl of about ten continues to cry joyfully, “I still see it! I still see it! Now it is going down!” [FJ, p. 46].
He reports that after the events,
My friend, full of enthusiasm, went from group to group … asking people what they had seen. The persons asked came from the most varied social classes and all unanimously affirmed the reality of the phenomena which we ourselves had observed [FJ, p. 47].
During one of the revelations, the child Lucia had requested that a miracle be shown so that people who could not see the divine lady would believe in the reality of what was happening. She was told that this would occur on the 13th of October, and she immediately communicated this to others.
On this date it is estimated that a crowd of some 70,000 people congregated in the vicinity of the Cova da Iria in anticipation of the predicted miracle. The day was overcast and rainy, and the crowd huddled under umbrellas in the midst of a sea of mud. Suddenly, the clouds parted, and an astonishing solar display began to unfold. We will describe this in the words of some of the witnesses.
Dr. Formigao, a professor at the seminary at Santarem:
As if like a bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its zenith appeared in all its splendour. It began to revolve vertiginously on its axis, like the most magnificent firewheel that could be imagined, taking on all the colours of the rainbow and sending forth multi-coloured flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect. This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times, lasted for about ten minutes. The immense multitude, overcome by the evidence of such a tremendous prodigy, threw themselves on their knees [FJ, p. 63].
Dr. Joseph Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University:
The sun’s disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body, for it spun round on itself in a mad whirl, when suddenly a clamour was heard from all the people. The sun, whirling, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was terrible [FJ, p. 62].
Similar testimony was given by large numbers of people, both from the crowd at the Cova da Iria and from a surrounding area measuring about 20 by 30 miles. The presence of confirming witnesses over such a large area suggests that the phenomena cannot be explained as the result of crowd hysteria. The absence of reports from a wider area and the complete absence of reports from scientific observatories suggest that the phenomena were local to the region of Fatima. It would seem either that remarkable atmospheric phenomena were arranged by an intelligent agency at a time announced specifically in advance, or that coordinated hallucinations in thousands of people were similarly arranged at this time. By either interpretation, it is hard to fit these phenomena into the framework of modern science. They do, however, fit naturally into the multidimensional, hierarchical cosmos of the Vedic literature.
At this point we should briefly summarize the conclusions of this chapter. The Vedic literature maintains that we live in a hierarchically structured universe occupied by 400,000 species of humanlike form and some 8,000,000 nonhuman species. These living beings inhabit a graded system of worlds such as Bhū-maṇḍala, which possess variegated geographical features. The thesis of this book is that these worlds are literally real, even though they are almost entirely inaccessible to ordinary human senses. We have tried to relate this idea to modern mathematical thought by describing the universe as a multidimensional system.
We can ask, If this description of the universe is correct, then is there anything that humans could expect to observe that would tend to corroborate it? First of all, we could not expect to readily see the demigods, for human beings generally do not have the karmic qualifications required for this. (See Section 6.c.1.) This means that we also cannot expect to gain access to the regions where the demigods are active, such as the slopes of Mount Meru, since this would surely entail being able to see the demigods themselves.
We might expect to interact with beings lower than the demigods but slightly higher than ourselves in the cosmic hierarchy. However, since these beings are higher than ourselves, we could not expect to fully control these interactions. We might expect that they would have access to us but that we would not have access to them or their abodes.
The beings between humans and demigods range from powerful types of ghosts to demonic entities such as Yakṣas and Rākṣasas, and to more attractive beings such as Vidyādharas, Cāraṇas, Siddhas, and Gandharvas. Interactions with these various beings might take various forms, depending on their own interests and on our level of consciousness. These interactions are likely to involve mystic powers, since these beings are all well-endowed with such powers. They must involve higher-dimensional transformations, because the abodes of these beings are invisible to our senses. They may also involve remarkable flying machines, since such machines are often ascribed to these beings in the Vedic literature.
We propose that these ideas about what we might expect to see in the Vedic universe are consistent with the evidence provided by psychical phenomena, UFO reports, folklore, and reports of miracles. This broad body of evidence is consistent with the Vedic world picture. However, none of this evidence is compatible with modern science, and all of it is rejected by the scientific community. We suggest that the Vedic world view is broadly supported by empirical evidence, but this evidence can never be respectable until the Vedic world view itself is restored to a respectable status.
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