Divine vision: Sanctuary draws faithful to apparition of Mary

David A. Maurer / Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: June 9, 2007

Whether it's simply the power of suggestion or something infinitely more is a matter left up to individuals to decide.

According to Charles Cannon, spiritual director of the Synchronicity Foundation in Nelson County, an apparition has been making itself known to visitors on a daily basis since last August. He refers to the apparition as the Blessed Mother and says she is more than the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus.

"She refers to herself as the Divine Feminine, the Divine Mother, the Blessed Mother, not just Mother Mary," Cannon said recently before going to the nearby site where the visitations are said to be occurring.

"She is the divine consciousness - the essence of all those forms. What is amazing here is that so many people are seeing her, hearing her, smelling the fragrance [roses and gardenias].

"Her basic message, which she says every time she appears is, 'I appear that you might know the truth of who you are and what life is.' Then she goes on to say, 'Life is divine, you are alive, you are divine, all and everything is divine.'

"So the message is one of awakening to that holistic truth that God is not something that is separate from you, but is rather part and parcel of you and lives within the shrine of your own heart, and that's the greatest temple. It's a beautiful message, and it's amazing how many people resonate with that message."

When asked how he felt the alleged Nelson County visitations might rank among other Marian apparitions through the ages, Cannon said it was too soon to tell. What he feels is particularly significant about the local appearances is where they're taking place.

"This is a nonsectarian, spiritual community that's dedicated to the cutting edge of modern spirituality," said Cannon, an ordained monk of the Vedic tradition of India. "[It's] not aligned with any specific religious tradition.

"I think these are very important messages that surround this apparition and will have a bearing on who is able to participate and get beyond their indoctrinated religious beliefs and open to the Divine Mother in ways that maybe are outside their religious beliefs.

"So it's going to be challenging and controversial, I would expect, and a stretch for a lot of people, because you have to go beyond religious conditioning and open up to this miracle that is happening, and then have your own experience of it and see for yourself."

Marian apparitions date back nearly 2,000 years. Two of the most familiar apparition sites are in Lourdes, France, and Fatima, Portugal.

In recent years the well-publicized events in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, have aroused much interest. There, the Blessed Virgin Mary is said to have appeared numerous times to six children. People from around the world continue to make pilgrimages to the site, and many report seeing amazing phenomena, such as silver rosary chains turning golden in color.

Cannon claims to have been visited regularly by the Blessed Mother since he was 3 years old. He was living in Syracuse, N.Y., when he says he first saw the apparition.

"I came out of sleep in the middle of the night, and there was this sort of luminous presence at the end of my bed," the 62-year-old monk said. "There was a very golden light and a very ethereal vibration or presence.

"As I lay there looking at it, it increased its luminosity and within that golden light came what appeared like a neon kind of outline of the feminine form. That was accompanied by a blue- and rose-colored light.

"She stood there looking at me with one hand raised with the palm facing me. I could smell the most incredible fragrance of roses and gardenias. She stayed for quite a while just standing there gazing at me.

"That's how she slowly began to introduce herself to me. Then regularly thereafter, up to the present time, she has continued to appear to me in that apparitional manifestation and guides me."

Wonderful blessing

Cannon told his mother about the appearance and, as a devout Catholic, she called it a wonderful blessing. He said the Blessed Mother then told him not to tell anyone else about the visits. He now reasons that was because most people would negate or invalidate the visits in some way and confuse him.

"Toward the time I was 7 or 8, I began unfolding the message that I definitely had a role to play," said Cannon, who spent 12 years in India studying with Muktananda, an Indian guru. "She always used to say that I had a role to play that would be transformative to many people.

"Of course, I didn't understand exactly what that was, and she didn't give any details. But as I went along and got closer to puberty, she began to teach me more in terms of her not being just the Blessed Mother of Christianity or Catholicism, but being the one in the many.

"That she was not confined to any particular religious representation of her, but had appeared as all the divine feminine forms of all the religious traditions and yet remained beyond them all."

Alan Scherr, vice president of the Nelson foundation, has been associated with Cannon for 12 years. He said when Cannon was still young the Blessed Mother told him that she would begin making public manifestations after he turned 60.

Scherr says he has seen the apparition regularly and in a variety of different experiences.

The foundation offers free escorted tours of the apparition site, usually on Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Visitors are taken to a wooded glen, where a large statue of the Virgin Mary is located beneath a gazebo. Nearby is a roofed, open-air shelter with benches from where people can observe.

"Sometimes there's a visual phenomenon, but that's not as common as other experiences I've had, which would be a sense of very deep stillness when I'm at the site," Scherr said.

"It's much deeper than when I'm meditating here. There's a special energy up there that you can feel if you're at all accustomed to this kind of thing.

"There's a very profound and subtle sense of love that happens to a lot of people."

During the early evening before Mother's Day, about 40 people joined together at the site. Cannon, with his 89-year-old mother at his side, described to the gathering what he was experiencing.

The spiritual leader began by saying that, as usual, the apparitional manifestation was beginning to the left of the area and was moving toward the location of the statue. On this occasion he said the Blessed Mother was with an entourage of saints and sages.

In a hushed yet clear voice, Cannon described the lights and colors he was seeing as he said the apparition was beginning to solidify in front of the statue. After receiving a message, which he said the Blessed Mother asked him not to reveal, he said she had a message for the others.

Cannon recited what he said he was hearing. After relating the opening introduction that he says she always begins with, he relayed the message.

"I hear the prayers and supplications of your troubled and suffering humanity," Cannon said he heard her say. "I offer you my grace and blessing. I am always with you.

"I live within the shrine of your very own heart. I am closer to you than your very breath. Be still and you will know.

"Be still and meditate with me for a few precious moments. I am here for you."

After the event concluded, Ernest Cutler remained seated and silent for several minutes. The Waynesboro man said he had been deeply moved by the experience.

"My experience today was divine love," Cutler said as he was leaving the site. "I'm extremely happy right now.

"When it was starting, I saw a fog moving slowly through the woods. Then I could smell the roses. It's a beautiful smell that I've never smelled before.

"It was magnificent. Words are limited."

Joni Raskin had traveled from her home in Charlottesville to attend the event.

"I got some visuals today," said Raskin, who has visited the site a number of times. "I saw golden light.

"It's not real vivid for me, but it's real intense kinesthetically. My first experience with the Shrine of the Heart was having her actually touch me from the inside out, and I had a healing."

Cannon says he sees the apparition clearly enough to describe her in detail.

"Her hair is light brown, I would say, but because of the light it's difficult to say," Cannon said. "Her eyes are also brown as far as I can tell.

"I can see the clothing she wears and it's kind of a classical, loose-fitting robe that goes all the way down to the feet. It's often a kind of ochre color, but it also has the blues and violets too, because it's so full of light.

"She has grace and beauty. There's a total femininity and delicateness about her that's hard to describe."

Cannon said during his teenage years the Blessed Mother encouraged him to explore other religious traditions and philosophies. As a young man he used Zen Buddhism as a gateway to comparative religions and philosophy, because of its meditative tradition.

His search for wisdom and enlightenment eventually led him to India and Muktananda. Before his death in 1982, the guru told Cannon to return to the United States and find a way to present Eastern wisdom in a context that Westerners could understand.

Synchronicity experience

Cannon and his associates created Synchronicity Foundation in 1983 as a not-for-profit, nonsectarian, spiritual educational organization. That same year they introduced the synchronicity experience.

"The synchronicity experience works by utilizing a brain-balancing technology that synchronizes the right- and left-brain hemispheres with sonic technology embedded in the soundtrack of CDs," Scherr said.

"While listening you hear music, but underneath that there's a technology that the brain hears that brings it into synchronicity. And brain synchronicity is what happens when you meditate.

"So essentially this is a technology that meditates you. It takes all the effort out and speeds the process up. The purpose is to actualize your full human potential."

Cannon has been referred to as the electronic guru and the modern mystic. The Nelson County compound is the distribution center for the series of meditation CDs, and also serves as an international retreat center and monastery.

Whether the center will become widely known for its apparitions of the Blessed Mother is anyone's guess. But Gabriele Rissmeyer feels a spiritual gathering of gentle souls is always a good thing.

"It's a powerful experience to be with people of like mind," said Rissmeyer, who lives in Afton. "And I think it's wonderful that we have places like this where people can come and have a divine experience with a divine being out of form or with other divine beings still in form.

"I can't say I saw anything today. I had a sensation of smell when he [Cannon] spoke of the roses and gardenias. I felt I smelled something other than the incense.

"And I had a sensation of warmth. I kept my eyes closed most of the time so my experience was internal.

"But I do feel there is something happening here."

Those interested in learning more about the apparitions and seeing a schedule of upcoming free tours of the site and its location can visit the foundation's Web site. It's recommended that people wanting to visit should call first at (757) 644-3400.