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The apparitions of

GARABANDAL

BY
F. SANCHEZ-VENTURA Y PASCUAL

Chapter Two

THE STORY BEGINS

Page 44

L. to R.: Loly, Conchita, Jacinta, and Maria-Cruz
in ecstasy photographed in July 1961

But, if one of them lost her state of ecstasy, she disappeared from the field of vision of the others, as though the rapture were a stage and one of the visionaries had gone off into the wings. Their insensitivity to pain seems to have been complete. Tests were made, such as pricking them hard, but they brought no reaction whatsoever. When they suddenly fell to their knees, they crashed to the ground with tremendous force, but showed not the slightest sign of pain. One totally reliable eye-witness was deeply impressed on one occasion, when Mary Loly fell and hit her head on the edge of a step. The step in question was made of cement. The noise of the jarring blow was spine-chilling. "The bystanders", says the eyewitness, "smothered a scream of horror, but the child remained calmly sitting on the floor, smiling and chatting happily with the Virgin. When she came out of her, rapture, they asked whether she had felt the blow. She could recall nothing. She said that it had perhaps been the cause of a sensation which she noticed at one point, like painless pins and needles, all over. On examination, however, her head was seen to have a large bump where it had struck the step."

   In other words, when the visionary was in a state of total ecstasy, she was absolutely impervious to pain.

   "The most painful pin-pricks, the roughest shaking, even burns and so on, are quite incapable of arousing them from their rapture. Their eyes often move, but only in order to follow the divine vision with a vivacity that seems to enlarge them considerably. They do not perceive any material contact at all, as can be ascertained by

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