“Wales Under Supernatural Power” was the headline that appeared in the English press in the winter of 1904-1905. The main sensation of those years was the mysterious lights that accompanied the preacher Mary Jones from Aegrin.
Religious revival
At the beginning of the last century, technically in Wales, everyone was Christians, but representatives of traditional movements remained in the minority. The Welsh (the population of Wales) considered Catholicism and Protestantism to be the religions of the oppressive Anglo-Saxons, preferring less common sects and trends. Puritans, Methodists, and Baptists found a fertile flock in Wales.
The Methodists do not consider official ordination to the priesthood to be important. Any member of the community can take on his responsibilities. In 1904, a young Methodist, former coal miner, Evan Roberts, began giving public sermons. He spoke with such passion and conviction that the audience fell into religious ecstasy.
Evan insisted that he did not prepare sermons in advance, but spoke "under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." All over the province, after listening to his speeches, people began to repent of their sins, stop drinking, smoking and swearing. Alcohol sales in Wales have almost halved. Sport also fell victim to a religious revival, with rugby and football players dropping their teams and going to pray. The horses in the mines have ceased to understand the commands of the drivers because the workers have stopped swearing!
The news of the religious revival reached Egrin. This village of 54 inhabitants did not have its own priest - only a chapel in which any member of the Methodist community could take over the leadership of the church service.
Mary Jones realized that her time had come. Mary, 38, was a well-to-do farmer, but wealth and a successful marriage are not a guarantee of happiness. Her son died in 1893, then her sister died. Grief led Mary to seek God.
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Not long before the revival began, Jones came across a book by the priest Charles Sheldon, "In His Footsteps." It described how a real Christian should live surrounded by temptations. The book made a strong impression on Mary.
“I know of no better example of a deep religious conviction that suppresses natural human passions,” Howell Priest Elvet Lewis wrote of Mrs Jones. "The victory of spirit over flesh literally transformed it."
Mary wanted to convince all people to follow her example.
Visions and Lights
In early December 1904, Jones prayed, asking God to convert her neighbors to her faith. According to her, Jesus appeared to her in a vision and blessed her to preach.
During the prayer meeting in the chapel, she first expressed in words what was hidden in her heart. The sermon amazed the peasants, who did not expect a stream of eloquence from the silent, withdrawn woman. However, the matter was not limited to words. An arc flashed over the chapel, like a misty rainbow. One end of it rested against the sea, and the other - into the top of the mountain, pouring soft light onto the roof of the building. When the arc went out, a star of unusual brightness and magnitude lit up in the sky.
Mrs Jones herself and her neighbors realized that luminous phenomena were directly related to sermons. All residents watched bright balls and rays. Soon the majority of Egrin's peasants converted to her faith.
Mary sincerely thought that the balls appear where those who need her spiritual help live.
“She noticed the fire hovering over the houses at the top of the hill, and was puzzled, thinking that there were no more unconverted ones,” Howell Lewis wrote from her. “But one day a Methodist priest told her that an old woman lived in one of those houses who had not yet taken the path of Christ. "Oh, those lights must be because of her," she replied. Mrs. Jones visited her home, and the old woman became one of 51 converts in those wonderful two weeks."
Over time, news of heavenly lights and sermons went beyond the village. Mary began to be invited to perform elsewhere. The phenomena of light followed her as if tied down, causing a general stir.
“Typically, the 'star' appears almost strictly in the south and disappears when strange lights appear," wrote local journalist Berna Gwynf Evans. that she does not leave the house if they do not appear. Otherwise, no household chores or a thunderstorm, no matter how strong, can stop her. Only twice did the "star" or lights appear over the chapel Mary chose for the service and every time the sermon came out unsuccessful."
Journalist's story
On January 31, 1905, Beria Evans watched the lights in the presence of eyewitnesses. His story first appeared in the Barmouth Advertiser.
“After several hours of friendly conversation I got up to leave, but Mrs. Jones stopped me:
“You better stay to see the lights with your own eyes. It will be a shame if you leave.
We had to walk two miles to the chapel. Besides me, she was accompanied by two priests - Llewellyn Morgan, Roger Williams, and another man. Jones went outside, came back and said:
- We can't go. There are no lights yet.
After five minutes she left again and quickly returned:
- Come on. They appeared. We will have a glorious prayer meeting!
This message caused excitement among the only person among us who did not believe in the veracity of her story. We crossed the Cambrian Railway and walked along the field when Mrs. Jones pointed to the southern side of the sky.
As she spoke, we saw a blinding white light flash about two miles between us and the top of the hill. Bright sparks emanated from him in different directions, like from a huge diamond.
“It could be a lantern on a steam locomotive,” suggested our unbeliever Thomas.
“No,” Mrs. Jones said quietly, “too high for a locomotive.
At the moment when she uttered these words, the fire, as if in confirmation, made a leap towards the mountains and immediately returned to its previous position. Then, quickly picking up speed, he rushed towards us and disappeared. Then he came even closer, his light was even brighter. The fire disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.
- Wait! Mrs. Jones said quickly.
A moment later, another fire flashed high above the hilltop, illuminating the heather with blinding light. Then it disappeared, to flare up again a mile north of where it had originally appeared. The lights were seen by all five.
As we walked along the road, I saw three bright white beams crossing it. In their light, the stone wall became clearly visible - all the cracks and moss in them, as if at noon or under the beam of a searchlight.
Then a blood-red fire appeared low above the ground. It seemed to me that he was in the center of the road, right in front of us. I didn't say anything until we got to that place. The fire disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.
“Mrs Jones, if I’m not mistaken, the lights still follow you,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied calmly. - I didn’t say anything to understand if someone would see them on their own. At first there were white beams, and sometimes I see lights as blood red as you are now.
It turned out that three of our companions did not see anything. I was the only one who watched with her the last phase of the phenomenon."
Fatal ending
Tens of thousands of pilgrims came to Aegrin and other places where Mary Jones preached. Skeptics preferred not to mingle with the crowd, so as not to become victims of "mass psychosis". Both of them have seen strange lights more than once.
In Brainkrag, the church was flooded with light coming from somewhere during Mary's sermon. After the service, hundreds of people saw a ball illuminating the earth with a beam. The young miners ran to the ball, knelt under the beam and began to pray. The Daily Mirror reporter saw something similar to modern UFOs:
“Around midnight, a flickering glow filled the road at our feet without warning. It seemed to me that some large body between earth and sky suddenly opened, emitting a stream of light. Looking up, I saw something like a half-open gray oval mass with a core of white light. As I watched, it closed and everything plunged into darkness again."
Only Mary Jones was unhappy. She realized that most people do not come because of their belief in Jesus, but because they want to see the ghostly lights.
The revival soon began to decline. Evan Roberts suffered a nervous breakdown and gave up preaching. Other religious leaders followed suit. Mary Jones alone continued to preach, but her words no longer had the same power. The heavenly lights leading the woman behind them stopped lighting up.
Old chapel in Egreen, modern photo
In 1909, when her husband Richard died, Mary gave up trying to guide her compatriots on the right path. She returned to her former life, became silent, closed, almost never leaving the house. Mary passed away on January 21, 1936.
Scientists have tried to explain the lights of Aegrin by ball lightning, flocks of glowing insects, discharges of energy from tectonic faults. Their attempts were unsuccessful due to ignorance of Mary's role and her faith.
“The crowd is charged with psychic energy, and it may be that the lights hovering over it were charged from a human battery,” noted researcher of the unknown Charles Fort. - Maybe they ate it, grew and blushed, sparkling with satiety. Be that as it may, the lights disappeared with the religious revival and never reappeared in those parts.
Mikhail GERSHTEIN, magazine "Secrets of the XX century", No. 26, 2017