Preliminary research into the Miracle of the Sun. No, not that one. The Buddhist one from the 90s.

An appeal for help and collaboration.

If you’re reading this post, I assume you’re already more or less up to date with the Fatima Sun Miracle discourse. If not¹, Scott Alexander’s 30,000 word post on the topic and the follow up should get you up to speed.

The very, very short version is that in 1917, a bunch of Portuguese peasant children told a bunch of Portuguese peasants that the Virgin Mary was going to work a big miracle at a particular place, on a particular day. A big crowd gathered on a rainy, overcast morning to see what would happen. Indeed, at about noon, the sun started to display very unusual behavior in full view of tens of thousands, including skeptics. As witnesses report, the sun danced in the sky. It changed colors, revolved like a wheel of fire, and at times threatened to fall to earth. The people were able to gaze at the sun for minutes on end without pain.

Catholics and some other Christians believe that this was a divine miracle which proves, or at least very strongly suggests, the veracity of Catholicism, or at least of Christianity in general. The rest of us don’t.

At the moment, I think skeptics and believers have reached something of an impasse on the topic. Scott provided some suggestive but incomplete evidence that certain aspects of the miracle resembled visual phenomena produced by staring at the sun too long in certain atmospheric conditions. Similarities were also drawn with an episode during the Iranian Revolution when Ayatollah Khomeini’s face appeared in the moon, as well as with UFO sightings and the “Fire Kasina” practice of some Buddhists.

I think enough was there to persuade myself and most other skeptics that, besides other issues with the Fatima story, there is probably a better explanation for the episode than the action of Jehovah and/or the Virgin Mary.

But other Catholic sun miracles followed on the heels of the first, such as those in Lubbock in 1988, or more recently in Nigeria, in 2017. So a strangeness remains. If the Fatima miracle is, as I and other skeptics believe, some form of illusion created by staring into the sun primed with certain religious expectations, does it only manifest in these particular, Catholic, Marian circumstances? Was Fatima “patient zero,” from which all other sun miracles descend?

And despite some suggestive parallels, no one was able to dig up an exact parallel to the Miracle of the Sun, except for those other Catholic sun miracles.

But thanks to a mutual of mine, I believe I may have found just such a parallel.

Earlier today, I made a post about the purported miracles of the Hindu mystic Sathya Sai Baba. My mutual, Sophia in the Shell left a comment, mentioning an obscure 1998 incident in Thailand known as “the Day of the Crystal Sun” (อัศจรรย์ตะวันแก้ว) which she had heard about on a Buddhist podcast.

She linked this Guardian article from 1999. A year earlier, on September 6 1998, tens of thousands of worshippers at the controversial Dhammakaya Buddhist temple in Bangkok purportedly witnessed some kind of miracle in the sky. The article mentions it offhandedly,

Worshippers at the temple even claim they have seen a miracle several times since last August in which the sun became smaller and smaller 'until it was just part of a much bigger image that formed around it, a spinning crystal in a monk's stomach,' explains temple employee Nattaya Chaisawad, who has a masters degree from an American university.

Naturally, this reminded us of Fatima. I was intrigued and decided to dig a little deeper. There appears to be very, very little on the Dhammakaya sun miracle on the Anglophone internet. But I found this article, which touches on it in the context of the controversy the Dhammakaya sect has apparently engendered in Thailand over its supposed commercialization of Buddhist practice.

Here is the important bit, apparently excerpted from an article in The Nation which I’ve not yet been able to find:

During the event, the sun became like a drawing. It was easy to look at it without protecting ones eyes, she said. Then, the image of Luang Phor War Paknam slowly emerged, his saffron robe appearing first. It was not a dream. It was a real experience.²

Now doesn’t that sound familiar?

I plugged the term Sophia gave me (อัศจรรย์ตะวันแก้ว) into google, starting machine translating pages, and was kinda blown away. Unless I’ve missed something big, this appears to be in every respect a perfect Buddhist analogue to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima.

Here is a 2017 article from the Thai news website Matichon, a retrospective on the miracle:

At about 5:30 PM,

After the unanimous chanting of, “We are the conquerors! Closing the core! Dedicating our lives to building the Great Dhammakaya Pagoda! Chitang Me! Chitang Me! Chitang Me!”,  the presiding monk instructed the devotees to sit down. However, a large group of devotees to the east remained standing and chanted loudly, claiming to have seen a large image of Luang Por Wat Pak Nam filling the sky. Within his body, the sun rotated in beautiful colors, without any heat or irritation to the eyes....

Here’s one of the eyewitness accounts:

“The sun I saw at that moment radiated colors unlike anything I’d ever seen in my life. The colors shifted as if the sun was moving back and forth. There was a pinkish glow all around, then it changed to blue, then to a purplish-indigo color. And then, it looked like the entire image of Luang Pho Sod, in golden color, in the sky. It was as if the sun was a crystal ball inside his stomach. The sun’s light shifted again and again. I was so happy. I turned to the people next to me and said, ‘Look at the sun! Look at the sun with me!’ Many people who saw it stood and watched, waving flags. I was moved to tears… I’m a science student, and you can’t truly understand something like this unless you experience it yourself…”.

Compare to the testimony of Almeida Lopes at Fatima in 1917:

The hour approaches, and behold, as if by magic, the rain stops, the sun breaks through the dense, black clouds and reveals itself with its luminous rays, which quickly take on the colors of yellow, red, and green, turning the objects that were under its influence the same colors; and soon loses its brightness and colors—able to be seen with the naked eye without hurting the eyes—and takes on a dizzying rotation, seeming to fall toward the earth. And while observing these wonders, all the people are in loud exclamations. This lasted, at most, about five minutes, then returned to its normal state.

Apparently, the miracle happened again…in October, just like Fatima. Here’s another testimony:

The sun rotated around itself, and lights flickered around the sphere quite frequently. Pink light radiated outwards over a wide area around the sun, creating a beautiful sight. The colors changed constantly to gold, blue, and orange, unlike the sun halos we usually see. Suddenly, an image of Luang Por Sod of Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen, in a meditative posture, appeared as a golden statue in the sky above the Maha Dhammakaya Chedi. A sphere resembling the sun rotated around the center of his abdomen, and a very large, transparent crystal ball surrounded the image of Luang Por. At the same time, the images of hundreds of monks meditating around the Dhammakaya Chedi changed to a beautiful pink color.

After about 20 minutes, everything returned to normal. The sun, which had been pleasantly and comfortably visible to the naked eye just moments before, became blindingly bright and unbearable, forcing us to avert our gaze as usual, even though the atmosphere had cooled down and the sun was about to set.

These events unfolded before hundreds of thousands of people who had gathered to pray around the Maha Dhammakaya Pagoda. Many people had joyful expressions, and tears welled up in their eyes unknowingly. Upon asking those around me, I found that most had seen similar things, and each described them differently. Only a few said they saw nothing. My family and I returned home filled with immense joy.

Everything from Fatima is paralleled here. The spinning sun, the changing colors, the ability to gaze without pain, even the sight of holy figures. The Buddhist holy man Luang Pho Sod was observed by some sitting in the sun, just as at Fatima and other Catholic sun miracles, some saw the Virgin holding the Infant Christ, or the entire Holy Family. Compare the testimony of Maria dos Prazeres at Fatima:

Near me there was a man and a lady who were looking at the sun through binoculars and who were saying that they saw a ladder near the sun and that Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus were there.

The only thing I haven’t seen yet is the miraculous drying.

At Fatima, a priest refused to believe what he was seeing even as he witnessed it, and as he saw the eerie red light of the spinning sun reflected on the crowd, asked if everyone was wearing red scarves:

Taking his eyes off the sun, he saw the people a very bright red color; and he exclaimed: "Oh, gentlemen, how the people are all red!" And the priest replied: "Are they red scarves?" To which he remarked: "How can that be? So they had all agreed to have red scarves on their backs?!" Then the people appeared the color of gold. The sun's rotational movements were not visible to them.

Unless this is a translation error, even this effect was mirrored at Dhammakaya:

Ms. Suwannee described the scene she witnessed as a true heavenly miracle, a breathtakingly beautiful sight that was beyond words. She then offered a prayer, asking for sufficient funds to complete the construction of the Maha Dhammakaya Pagoda and for the unwavering determination to encourage others to participate in the merit-making. During her prayer, tears flowed uncontrollably, a moment of profound joy that she would never forget—the second such experience since the miraculous event on September 6th.

Then she turned to look at the Mahadhammakaya Pagoda where the monks and novices were sitting. She saw that all the monks and novices were dressed in pink.

Here’s yet another testimony, recorded in Rachelle M. Scotte’s book, Nirvana for Sale:

The ray colours alternated between white, pink, and gold. My hair stood on end and I had an indescribable feeling of great happiness. My body seemed light and as if it were expanding. I had no control over my feelings, tears streamed from my eyes. Th e more I tried to calm myself down, the more I broke into tears. Th ey were tears of happiness indeed, a happiness which I could not put into words. When I looked up at the Cetiya and the Sangha, they were bathed in changing lights of the sun; pink, violet and gold. Nearly all the spectators there cried with happiness. Th e event continued around half an hour and it definitely put me out of doubt about the “miracle” I had heard about on August 30th³

Here’s a forum post by some annoyed skeptic insisting the whole thing is an optical illusion being taken advantage of by religious hucksters, and making fun of all the dupes burning their eyeballs out by staring at the sun.

Oh, and it was even raining:

Around 5:30 PM, after the prayer ceremony at the Mahadhammakaya Pagoda, heavy rain fell. The sky was dark and cloudy, and the sun was setting. As I was walking through the rain to get into my car to go home , I saw a clear, glass-like orb, transparent enough to see the clouds behind it, directly over the sun.

Compare the Fatima witnesses who described the sight as like looking through glass.

But of course, just as at Fatima, there were a handful who saw nothing:

Oh! A Miracle. They viewed this miracle differently than I did. The more I looked, the more my eyes hurt. I did not see any of what the others saw. Even my friend saw the event as the others saw it.’

Here’s a YouTube video of the miracle (or one of them, anyway). Turn on CC and compare to say, Medjugorje:

I could actually feel myself getting a little disoriented the more I read. It really seems too perfect, almost like it was written as an intentional riff on Fatima and other Catholic sun miracles. But it really does seem to have been a real event. The Temple has faced accusations of preying on gullible pilgrims, and there have even been conspiracy theories about lasers, but as far as I can tell no one is claiming this didn’t happen, that these people didn’t really claim to have seen this miracle.

I wish I could have waited longer and made a much more detailed, careful effort post. But I banged this out quickly. Unfortunately, my research is already hitting a dead end because the vast, vast majority of information appears to be in Thai only (and much of it is probably not even digitized), and I don’t even know where to begin.

So this post is more than anything an appeal for help. Anyone who has any leads, who reads/speaks Thai, who might even know someone who witnessed this. Does this still happen? Can anybody dig up any contemporary newspaper reports?

Incredibly, this appears to have been completely missed in the first round of discourse last fall. I checked and double-checked both Ethan and Scott’s posts and the comments to see if anyone mentioned it, and I am quite sure that nobody did.

As far as I can tell, until Sophia left that comment on my essay, this forum post from 2010⁴ is literally the only time on the Anglophone internet that Dhammakaya and Fatima have ever been connected.

I still feel a little disoriented and part of me still feels like it’s too sureal, and it won’t pan out because it’s just too crazy, but if it does, it might be first real advance in Fatimology in a century.⁵ It might represent an “uncontaminated” sun miracle. The Christian population of Thailand is tiny, and I think it is highly unlikely the vast majority of people in the crowd were aware of the Fatima apparition.

It may very well provide strong supporting evidence for Scott Alexander’s theory that it represents a strange, rare, but reproducible phenomenon, which occurs in crowds charged with religious expectation, and perhaps only under certain atmospheric conditions.

Seriously, help me out. I feel like I’m digging for treasure with a blindfold.

1. And if not, why are you even here?

2. “Doing the Business of Faith: The Capitalistic DhammakayaMovement and the Spiritually-Thirsty Thai Middle Class Movement and the Spiritually-Thirsty Thai Middle Class”, pg. 20

3. Nirvana For Sale, pg. 120

4. Seriously, double-thanks to Sophia in the Shell. She should get the real credit for making this connection.

5. Well, except Scott’s post lol