Mother Shipton: A Glimpse of the Truth

"On page after page after page regarding Mother Shipton, you will find repeated 'facts' from a very early account of her life created at a time when all sorts of fantastic stories were being concocted about 'witches'. Unfortunately, these things have been repeated for so very long that their dubious origins have been obscured." 

~ Susan Larison Danz, creator of MotherShipton.com

 

 

What do we really know about legendary 16th century prophetess Mother Shipton? Why are so many inaccurate stories propagated about her?  

In a recent episode of The Frontier Beyond Fear broadcast, host Susan Larison Danz shared some of her research from her 15+ year The Prophetess Legacy project and viewable on her website MotherShipton.com.  

Listen to the episode Mother Shipton: A Glimpse of the Truth on your favorite podcasting platform: 

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Audacy 

 

Historical Mother Shipton drawing in the Public Domain.

 

Repetition is Not Verification

“A lie can travel half way around the world 

 while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

 ~ Mark Twain

 

 

As this blog reawakens, perhaps there is no more important topic than addressing the repetition of information about Mother Shipton, information which is not verifiable - and even patently false.  Often this is unintentional, as so much unverifiable information about Mother Shipton has been propagating for centuries, it is very difficult to discern with accuracy.  This started well before the internet era, though the time in which we live exacerbates the problem.

The website MotherShipton.com (originally ShiptonProphecy.com) exists to approach the questions we must face in as balanced a fashion as possible, using the most reliable sources available.  It has also become its own research endeavor in the nearly 15 years it has existed, exploring new ideas based on the clues that can be observed.

Many stories about Mother Shipton are highly entertaining to share, and that is why they have been repeated, the repetition gifting them with the appearance of authenticity.  Many of these stories originated in the days when people enjoyed reading fantastic stories about "witches".  Is that where you would like to place your trust?  The only authentic aspect of these stories (which have many variations) is people have chosen to share and (sometimes) believe them.  Some of these stories are fun, and it's OK to share fun stories, but if we really want to know what might be true, that is a different focus.

The FAQs page on MotherShipton.com is a helpful place to start.

This post contains a historic drawing associated with stories about Mother Shipton.

This Blog is Awakening . . .

After many years, with content directed instead to MotherShipton.com, this blog is coming to life.  

More soon . . .

Lighting the Path

Feeling the utterly unnecessary urge to explain the huge stack of books in my arms, I told the librarian at the counter last summer that I was writing a book.  I hoped to finish by Winter.

Obviously accustomed to warding off the locals, she whipped out a mantra about not being able to take most new books into her little library, even from authors nearby.  I hadn't asked.  I didn't care.  I told her it really didn't matter to me. 

And then she said something rather unexpected and deep, a knowing look in her eyes:  "Have you fallen out of love with your book yet?"

Speechless, I can't remember what I said in response.

Yet the weight of her words remained.  Long after the weight of those books.  I carried the weight of those words for several weeks.  I carry their weight in this moment.

As anyone stopping by this blog knows, this project has been a long time in development, with many promises and pauses in between.

Have I fallen out of love?  Obviously...yes...

I used to only talk about Mother Shipton at events (and not about other prophetesses)...until I began to realize much of what has been written about her is false (see Facing the Forgeries).

As I said months ago, I finally had to come to terms with the truth.

Fallen out of love?  I'd say so.  I all but omitted Mother Shipton from my Expo presentations when I used to dedicate the entire hour.

And then it happened last summer.  An unannounced gift, the web domain name MotherShipton.com magically fell into my hands.  So did all the related names (.org, .net, .info, you name it).  They all came to me effortlessly, without even asking, without even looking, without even giving it a thought.  And of course they arrived by Design.

And so I have a responsibility.

I must be true to the words I choose to write...for her sake...for the memory of the real Mother Shipton...as truthful, open and balanced as I can possibly be, on the very site that bears her name.

Meanwhile, it's not the first roadblock I've encountered, as "The Prophetess Legacy" project goes far beyond Mother Shipton.

"Have you fallen out of love with your book yet?"  The words hang upon my heart.

Yes, I have fallen out of love.  I have fallen out of love with the darkness.

When you take it upon yourself to study prophecy, you had better be prepared (I wasn't).  It is brutal.  It is bloody.  It is graphic. It is death, destruction and damnation in just about every imaginable way. 

Do I want to write a book filled with blood and death?  Obviously...No.

I would call that definitely falling out of love with a book, a book so very heavy it fell into the abyss.

But what about the Love?  And the Light?  Ah, yes, they do exist in prophecy.  And in fact, perhaps that is precisely the point.

So what kind of book exactly is re-emerging in my hands?  What kind of web site and blog?  Let me just say none of it will be what I expected...

And I'm writing here, right now, in this very moment.  That's a good sign.

My last Expo presentation a few weeks ago had the most raptly attentive audience yet.  I didn't focus on the darkness at all.  I focused on the Light.

Yes, I'd say that's a sign I'm falling back into Love.

Perhaps soon I'll take you with me...

Facing the Forgeries

The delay in getting more information out about Mother Shipton is not just about my busy schedule. The true delay has to do with coming to terms with the probable conclusion that many of the most popular and intriguing prophecies attributed to Mother Shipton are likely forgeries.

This does not negate the existence of Mother Shipton, which I feel was proven quite convincingly by historian Arnold Kellett (see the History section of ShiptonProphecy.com), but it does require intellectual integrity to honestly evaluate the likely forgery of what are some of the most fascinating words attributed to her.

Many of the prophecies in question were published in a 1995 edition of Nexus magazine (referenced here), with a statement that they were carefully transcribed 30 years previously by a woman who said she discovered them in what is now the State Library of New South Wales in Australia. Some of the prophecies published in Nexus had been previously released in the 1800's by Charles Hindley, with many new additions given in Nexus.

Historian Arnold Kellett insists the Nexus prophecies originated in "a tract issued by an extreme fundamentalist and puritanical sect in the U.S.A." in the 1930's, and I do place credence in Dr. Kellett's research. I will say, however, that if they were all written in the 1930's, then they exhibit some interesting prophetic qualities of their own, a possible case of prophetic gifts inspired by Mother Shipton, but not necessarily originating with Mother Shipton herself.

What we know with certainty is that none of these prophecies have been referenced in print prior to the 1930's, and even the tract Dr. Kellett mentions is not findable, leaving Nexus as the only source for now. Just because they have been repeated far and wide all over the internet, even on "The History Channel", doesn't mean they have been proven to be authentic. Dr. Kellett expressed his dismay at their repetition in his book Mother Shipton: Witch and Prophetess.

The likely forgeries discuss women wearing pants and cutting their hair, references to occurrences in 1926 (making it even more likely at least some were written in the 1930's), moving pictures, submarines and airplanes, and a rather detailed series of brutal End Times catastrophes (wars, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes) after Gabriel "blows his wondrous horn". They also include intriguing prophetic references to what could be meteorites, solar flares, UFOs, Indigo children and a Golden Age.

It is these latter references which make these prophecies particularly interesting if indeed they were written in the 1930's as Dr. Kellett claims. Without being able to find the evangelical tract to which Dr. Kellett refers, something I very much would like to locate, we don't yet know if what was published in Nexus contains any additions from the tract. The book Mother Shiption: The Missing Prophecies suggests that some may have originated with Miss Frances Yule in the early 1980's, who wrote other prophecies of her own as well.

I will be analyzing the mystery surrounding some of these prophecies soon in more detail on ShiptonProphecy.com, including how they relate to some interesting occurrences in history and today, as promised in my last blog entry. I will also be updating some of my conclusions regarding the Charles Hindley prophecies from the 1800's, yet another set that show a fascinating prescience, yet must be called into question as authentic Mother Shipton prophecies.

The Nexus prophecies end with Mother Shipton's alleged prediction of some day being burned at the stake. There is no record of such a death, and it's very possible she lived to a contented old age, loved and respected by her neighbors, a rare prophetess they chose to heed instead of burn.

Preview of things to come...

I know I have been seriously remiss in updating both this blog and the web site ShiptonProphecy.com. But I also have faith everything happens in perfect timing.

Did Mother Shipton (or someone forging prophecies on her behalf) predict comets or other near-Earth objects? How about earthquakes, solar flares, tsunamis and nuclear emergencies?

Could it be Mother Shipton foresaw enlightened children of the New Earth (often called Indigo, Crystal or Rainbow children)? And what was the "silver serpent" spoken of carrying an enlightened race of otherworldly visitors?

Did some of these prophecies originate from Australia, where descendants of Mother Shipton are said to have migrated? Or did they originate from a U.S. Christian group in the 1930's, as at least one historian says?

Going back in time, why was Mother Shipton revered for many years in England? Is there proof she accurately predicted the Fire of London and the Siege of York? What about other historical events?

All this and more coming soon!

"Mother Shipton Meteorite" on Public Display in Middlesbrough until March 20

"Seeing is not always believing." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Traditionally called "The Middlesbrough Meteorite", the meteorite I discussed last August in my blog entry on the controversial world-ending 1881 prophecy will be on rare public display at the Middlesbrough Dorman Museum in the United Kingdom until March 20.



[Note: Meteorite photograph originates from Wikimedia Commons, shared by the original photographer under a GNU Free Documentation License.]

The museum is celebrating the 130th anniversary of the meteorite's fall to Earth on March 14, 1881. The meteorite is not normally on public display at its regular museum home in York.

The meteorite's museum appearance is getting some higher level publicity, even highlighted in a recent BBC article.

It is of course not normally associated with Mother Shipton, however, something I first speculated about last year on my web site ShiptonProphecy.com in a very detailed entry near the top of the Prophecies section. This section of my web site continues to evolve (and much more slowly than I would prefer due to my multi-tasking life).

Named after the township in which it fell, the meteorite was observed and retrieved by railway workers when it arrived in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire on March 14, 1881, the precise year of the controversial prophecy some have associated with Yorkshire prophetess Mother Shipton, first appearing in print in 1862:

"The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty one"

This particular prophecy has been called into question, however, due to convincing claims that it was a forgery, claims I am currently investigating in depth, as there are some odd anomalies surrounding that entire story. You can read more about my continuing investigation on the ShiptonProphecy.com web site.

Even more mysterious, though something I approach in a rather lighthearted way, is an odd silhouette naturally etched on its face, eerily resembling a historical drawing of Mother Shipton herself.

During my recent seminar about Mother Shipton at the February Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles, I did hold up the picture showing the resemblance to Mother Shipton. It was not the primary focus of my presentation, but it was a fun and engaging exercise.

The response to the photographic parallel was actually quite favorable, an interesting test to see if others perceive the image, with some suggesting I surface this to George Noory of Coast to Coast (something I may consider after a key question I'm investigating regarding the 1881 prophecy is resolved).

If you are nearby Middlesbrough in the U.K., this is the perfect opportunity to take a look at the meteorite to see if you can observe the eerie Mother Shipton silhouette etched upon its face. This would of course completely depend on the orientation of the stone in the display, and it would also be interesting to know if lighting influenced the nuances of the original meteorite photograph in which I first observed this eerie characteristic.

I also just happened to discover a web site where you can order a replica, though I don't know how accurate it is (tempting indeed for a curious observer like me! :-).

I'll share a little bit regarding how I managed to discover that the Middlesbrough Meteorite was on display this month...

There was a story in the news over the weekend regarding a respected NASA scientist claiming to find evidence of microscopic fossilized alien life prevalent in a particular rare class of meteorite (CI1 carbonaceous chondrites).

My first thought upon reading this article was to double check the class of the Middlesbrough Meteorite. I recalled from an article published last year that this meteorite has been studied by NASA due to its rare characteristics, so I was curious if it might be of the rare class described by the NASA scientist in the latest article.


When I searched online for the meteorite, I was surprised to discover an entirely new set of stories, some quite prominently placed, regarding its public display. But I quickly discovered it is a more common class L6 chondrite, not the type likely to contain fossils.

There are clearly other characteristics of the meteorite considered unusual by NASA. In the article describing NASA's analysis of the Middlesbrough meteorite in 2010, Martin Lunn, curator of astronomy at the museum in York, described the stone as "an extremely rare type of meteorite – one of only a few examples in the world".

The recent BBC article claims "the rock is unusual in that it did not break up in the Earth's atmosphere" as the reason NASA made a 3D scan of the meteorite last year in order to facilitate robotic searches for similar rocks on Mars.

Another story on the meteorite's public display can be found in a local newspaper, one I actually emailed on a whim over the weekend, just to test the waters on potential local media interest in the Mother Shipton parallels (no reply yet :-).

You can also read about the meteorite's public display and see another photograph on the British and Irish Meteorite Society web site.

I do realize that the Mother Shipton parallels I have introduced into the public domain may be considered eclectic, highly speculative or even fringe, but one must not under-estimate Mother Shipton's uncanny ability over the centuries to entertain the public with mystery and intrigue. And the statistically unlikely "coincidences" involved here cannot be overlooked.

Even so, the quote at the beginning of this blog entry is worth heeding, particularly when evaluating an image of Mother Shipton that not everyone sees or believes.

Skeptics would say that you see what you think you want to see in such variegated etchings on the stone, though quite honestly I really wouldn't have even considered looking for Mother Shipton on the stone when I first saw it. I was more focused on the date of its arrival, that pivotal year of 1881.

And how is it that this image could be positioned so similarly to the famous historical image of Mother Shipton, with some people even observing the folds in her kerchief? (Indeed apparently that "kerchief" didn't burn up at all upon its entry into the atmosphere - Mother Shipton afficianados know of what I speak - regarding a legendary tale from long ago. ;-) ;-)

Indeed one might say there are any number of other images to be observed in the stone, from a horse to other depictions of smiling women (another quite witch-like too), even what appears like a phoenix arising from the ashes on the BBC depiction of the stone (not sure how accurate that artistic rendering may be).

Like some unearthly Rorschach test, the space stone's etchings are no doubt a creative imagination's playground. But an enjoyable exercise all the same.

Ultimately I view the perfectly oriented Mother Shipton image on the 1881 meteorite as a statistically improbable synchronistic bonus, something some of us can choose to accept as a friendly little "wink" from the cosmos (or maybe even from Mother Shipton herself :-). Mysteries such as these make life interesting.