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The apparitions of

GARABANDAL

BY
F. SANCHEZ-VENTURA Y PASCUAL

Chapter Eight

OTHER TESTIMONIES

Page 101

   "I found the children happy, and their parents tell me that they sleep like logs; they are especially sweet-natured, are still obedient and show a spirit of unlimited submission. So, in my view, they are still as normal as ever."

   The same doctor drew up a long medical report in October, 1962. We shall not quote it in full owing to its length and highly technical nature, but the report ends with the following conclusions:

   "1. From the pediatric and psychiatric viewpoints, the four girls have always been, and still are, quite normal.

   2. Their ecstatic trances can not be classified in any of the physiological or psychopathological patterns known today.

   3. Given the length of time that these phenomena have been occurring, if they had been due to pathological causes of any kind, easily proven symptoms would have made their appearance.

   4. Within the field of both normal and pathological child psychology, I can find no explanation whatsoever that might throw some natural light on a series of phenomena that clearly escape the bounds of the natural order."

   He sums up his opinion as follows: "Our enormous pride collapses when God confronts us with one of these dilemmas to show us how limited the possibilities of medicine are. Any attempt to explain away a phenomenon that is largely 'irrational' by purely rational means is both absurd and doomed to failure."

   In the December 1962 issue of "Gaceta Medica Espanola", the magazine of the Spanish medical profession. Dr. Antonio Castillo Lucas published an article called "Memories of last summer in the mountains of Santander, from a medical point of view". In this article, after studying everything he had seen, he wound up by saying: "I feel that we doctors should undertake a scientific study of the phenomenon, and of the attendant circumstances of isolation, heredity, consanguinity and other elements, for we consider the mental health of these little girls to be in jeopardy, what with the present atmosphere of expectation and curiosity, complicated interrogation, theorising and other psychological factors that tend to disturb their peace of mind and that of their relatives; and we consider that this situation could end in collective neurosis."

   I find this attitude quite reasonable, although the fact is that the girls live peacefully in spite of everything, and daily show their perfect mental balance.

   On February 25th, 1965, Dr. Ricardo Puncernau, a neuropsychiatrist from Barcelona, gave a lecture on "The facts of Garabandal, as seen by a doctor". In his talk, he tackled the subject from a doctor's angle.

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