- 66 - In regards to the controlling spirit and the instigator of most apparitions, one could ascertain through research that one was dealing with a Franciscan monk and later the General of this religious order called Vincentius Coronelli, who lived during the 17th century. He explained the motivation for his lengthy and sensational activity thus: “I asked the Almightiness, during a time when the world was in the grip of severe materialism, if I could come back here in order to furnish evidence of a hereafter. Days will come when you will need all of your strength. Work on my behalf. You can complete the things that I taught centuries ago, but was unable to complete.” A circle of people assembled around Mrs. Silbert and they met on a regular basis. A rapporteur, the engineer Rudolf Sekanek writes (21, P. 76): “Mr. W., a high railway official and an ardent follower, was an only child. His parent fulfilled his every wish. He was idolatrously loved, particularly by his elderly mother. They lived in beautiful harmony and there were no differences of opinion. But in regards to Silbert, she couldn’t understand her son. She thought that the devil had his hands with these apparitions and she couldn’t be persuaded by her son to at least attend one single meeting. Mr. W. asked Nell to persuade her just the once to attend. Nell assured Mr. W. that his mother would attend when the time was right and that she would then also believe. W. now didn’t turn up at the meetings for quite some time and one assumed it was because of his mother. But he was actually severely ill and one heard shortly after through the papers that he had died. He soon after announced his presence at the meetings and all his pleas where solely to help his mother, because she had been absolutely inconsolable since his death, so that he feared the worst. Mrs. Silbert didn’t know his mother at all and nobody from the circle either. A 60 years old lady always visited Mrs. Silbert after a visit to the grave of a friend at the St. Peters Cemetery in order to have a little rest and to chat for a while. When she turned up one day she asked whether she could bring a friend inside, a lady she had run into at the cemetery and who waited on the steps outside. – Mrs. Silbert agreed. The lady was asked to come inside and one could see that she was affected by deep sorrow. Greetings were exchanged but no names were mentioned and the conversation was about irrelevant things. Gentle knocks on the table could be heard after a while. But Mrs. Silbert behaved as if she had not heard anything and raised her voice to drown out the knocking. But this didn’t help because the knocking became louder. Mrs. Silbert looked at the stranger to see if she would say anything, but it seemed that she hadn’t noticed anything, because she sat there quietly and looked at the floor. He face was covered with a black veil. The knocking became louder and louder and the regularity indicated a dictation was about to happen. Mrs. Silbert could now no longer keep this from the stranger. The dictation came to an end and the knocking stopped. The words were separated from one another and the meaning was deciphered. Mrs. Silbert shook her head. The lady however seemed to understand their meaning and asked to read on: ‘… do not carry out the things that you plan to do today. You will not achieve your aim doing so and you will only distance yourself further away from me because your soul will take a different path.’ The lady quickly got up and ran to a corner of the room and began to bitterly cry. Mrs. Silbert couldn’t cope with this and she was utterly confused because she couldn’t find an explanation for the message and for the sadness of this lady. The lady then turned around, lifted the veil from her face and with a tearful voice said: ‘I understand this message very well, it only concerns me. I am the mother of W. who has died.’ Mrs. Silbert was speechless. Mrs. W. calmed down and sat down again, she sighted and explained: The death of her son had robbed her of her will to live. Her grief was too much to bear. Time couldn’t heal her wounds. Even after three months, she felt as devastated as she had felt on the day
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