Category: Seeing Things

This past December 17, a customer entering the Seminole Finance Corporation building in Clearwater, Florida, mentioned to employees that she had just seen something extraordinary on the south wall’s exterior reflective-glass windows. Shortly thereafter, she telephoned a local television station with her report, and, by that night and for days to come, all the Tampa …

More and more frequently, we are seeing news reports of “weeping,” “bleeding,” and otherwise animated icons and effigies. Invariably, these are either in Orthodox churches or in Catholic Churches or shrines (often in private homes)—places where there is a special emphasis on religious images. It was a per-ceived overemphasis on icon veneration, felt to represent …

Sincere seekers of reliable knowledge lost a friend when Carl Sagan died too young at sixty-two. Like all good scientists, the brilliant Cornell astronomer spent his life pursuing secrets of nature, looking for facts that can be documented, tested, and retested. Like some maturing thinkers, he decided late in life to escalate his criticism of …