Page 5, 19th March 1993

19th March 1993

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Page 5, 19th March 1993 — The prophetic tale of the Queen and the asteroid
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The prophetic tale of the Queen and the asteroid

A mystic for our times? Edward Fox on Sophia Richmond, the visionary of Cricklewood ON 21 February, the Sunday Telegraph, published a feature entitled "Visiting Miss Richmond How the Madonna Came to CricIdewood." It was a sympathetic profile of Sophia Richmond, also known as Sr Marie, a self-styled "visionary mystic", who has attracted media and public attention in recent months through a series of
bizzarre and expensive advertisements in national newspapers advertising an as yet unpublished, self-published book called "Supernatural Visions of the Madonna 19811991 London".
Her most spectacular claim is that the Virgin Mary has appeared to her in visions and told her to warn the world and the Queen in particular that they will be destroyed by an asteroid unless measures are taken to introduce a severely authoritarian programme of law and order.
She also claims that the "third secret of Fatima" has been revealed to her and that it consists of the three words "two rival Popes".
Fleet Street is usually more sceptical. Sr Marie has never met a journalist face to face, yet they have been clamouring to interview her. Sunday Telegraph editor Charles Moore sent her two faxes asking for an audience with a reporter from his paper. She turned him down, just like she turned down Ruby Wax. MTV, Carlton TV's London Tonight, The Guardian, the Sunday Times, and the Independent Magazine. She has shown a keen ability to attract attention.
She was interviewed on Today on Radio 4. She was also intrviewed on Sunday, the channel's Sunday morning religious affairs programme. The item lasted only two and a half minutes, but it made the Radio 4 switchboard light up like a Christmas tree.
"The number of calls we got was amazing." said Trevor Barnes, who interviewed her. `The response filled me with a mixture of hilarity and dismay. We hoped people would see the irony in it." But they didn't. The public's appetite for marvels of a religious kind is as strong as ever.
This is not Sophia Richmond's first taste of publicity. In Easter 1987 she announced that the Virgin would appear at St Mary Magdalen church, Peter Avenue, Willesden, 500 people attended at the appointed time.
The gathering was short of a quorum by 150, the Virgin consequently did not appear. Explaining the Virgin's nonappearance, Sophia told The Times, "Most of the congregation were put off by the priests, who don't belive in this." To publicise the event, she borrowed £7,800 from a friend, a religious sister, who later sued Richmond for the return of the money.
The book itself is a scrapbook of pictures and very little text. It contains numerous pictures of Sophia Richmond herself, and photographs of members of the Royal family — she is particularly fascinated by the Duchess of Kent) Her mystical visions include selfabsorbed poetry and fantasies of the most morbidly sentimental kind.
She seems to have been born in Poland, from which her parents fled as refugees during the second world war, bringing her with them to England where she attended a succession of convent schools. In a potted autobiography of herself, she writes, "Sophie was injured in a road accident during a convent school walk. Age 9. Suffers grotesque facial injuries.'
At 14, she becomes a "religious visionary mystic" after she "falls in love with God during a divine romance in the convent chapel." But something seems to go wrong after that: the expected entry into a religious order doesn't happen. Instead, Sophia "leads the life of a nun at home" and later, at the age of 20, "goes to settle in London to lead the life of a mystic hermit."
To the Today programme she said the Virgin Mary appeared to her clothed in gold. crowned. and seated on a throne (the conventional image of the Assumption). To me she said, "she had fine chiselled features, like a kind of Indian princess; the most exquisite sort of feminine beauty."
Why did the Virgin Mary want her to visit the Queen? "If the governments of the world don't get their act together, and do something to stop crime, and pornography, the world will be destroyed by a giant asteroid. It's on its way. The Queen is the head of the Church. and the Head of state, and she has influence on the Govemnient."
How are you going to get to her?
"The Virgin Mary will find a way."
She told the Sunday Telegraph that she has been able to pay for the. printing of the book and the advertisements through a £165,000 loan from a Polish army officer who was a friend of her uncle. Otherwise, she says, she lives on a disability allowance.
Michael Pearce, the manager of the Modem Book Company where the book is to be sold, described her as a well-dressed woman who wore a blonde wig and a lot of make-up. "She would spend about £250 £300 at a time. She would buy books on astronomy, astrology, and religion, and pay cash. The money was neatly divided into bundles of £100."
Popular and media interest notwithstanding, Fr Peter Verity of the Catholic Media Office says that Sophia Richmond's visions do not meet the Church"s criteria for visions that are "worthy of belief."




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