The claims made by apparitionists are doubted with good reason. We hear of secrets, messages, signs, dates for appearances, mysteries, and other divine matter, which everybody is supposed to believe in without question or debate.

According to apparitionists, messages received are able to be understood in plain English.

Ballinspittle in Cork is the greatest evidence of mass hysteria we know of in this country. Thousands flocked in the mid '80s, hundreds said the statue moved, and the dispensated few said they communicated.

However, for all this the crowds have faded into nothing and all one will see there today is a lonely grotto, devoid of apparitions and statements from the divine, which gets the odd pensioner to pray there like thousands of grottos around the country.

How long more are we going to indulge this type of fantasy mania, without calling in the psychiatrists and the white van?

Maurice Fitzgerald,

Shanbally,

Co Cork