Coming Out of the Dark: The Miraculous Biblical Painting

COMING OUT OF THE DARK: THE MIRACULOUS BIBLICAL PAINTING

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Copyright © 2010 by the author of this book, Athalyn J. Rose The book author retains sole copyright to his/her contributions to this book.

A successful mother of 3, a teacher, and a photographic designer, Ms Rose is an accomplished artist who holds many titles and awards. She began her career as an elementary teacher. After graduating with a BS degree in Early Childhood Education, she taught elementary school for 7 years. However, she abandoned her career to pursue more creative pursuits. She picked up a camera and never put it down. In 1989, her photographic portrait graced the cover of Parade Magazine, which launched her professional career. From there she honed her unique style, with a fusion of photography, set design, and oil painting. There she found her creative drive fulfilled. However, she continued to challenge herself with an array of interesting projects. Although she had experienced the supernatural since the age of 14, she had no reason to recount her experiences in a book. But after a mind-boggling, unimaginable paranormal experience in August 1998, she was compelled to share her experience with the world. Her entry into the world of writing became important while preparing a special photograph entitled, “Coming Out of the Dark.” The events that surrounded the photograph’s creation became the body of her book. Coming Out of the Dark: The Miraculous Biblical Painting is her first book. It recounts an inexplicable event that changed her life forever. With this book she hopes to enlighten, entertain and the spread message of light and hope….


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Coming Out of the Dark: The Miraculous Biblical Painting

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Foreword

Athalyn Rose has transformed the mysteries of the "Blessed

Mother" or the "Virgin Mary" as she is commonly known by

the image that appeared within her photographic muslin

background while in her photo studio.

A well known photographer, Ms. Rose was taking a

photo that was to be added to her gallery collection. Instead,

she was given an image and a story that is not only compelling

but informative.

She breaks new ground by examining the images within

the cloth that has now become the reason for her story and this

book. A compelling and more interesting woman you will not

find in today's modern world of the spiritual experience. Many

people have been profoundly changed for the better spiritually

and psychology after reading this book and listening

to Athalyn Rose speak. She provides a deeper peace and


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understanding for all who come in contact with her and the

"image" she was sent.

Television Host, Executive Producer, Author and Broadcaster,

Margaret Wendt

margaretwendt.com

http://margaretwendt.com/�

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Introduction

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Compare the size of the main image to the size of Ms Rose. The main image is life-sized.


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This black, painted cloth is 9’ wide by 15' long and backlit. If not backlit, the cloth remains black on both sides. The white that is seen is the sunlight filtering through the muslin cloth. The images are embedded within the cloth.

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Throughout my life, I have traveled through a maze of

supernatural experiences. Some of which I have

comprehended. Others I never will comprehend. I have had

premonitions of future occurrences, seen pictures of angels in

cups who brought wonderful news, photographed entities and

orbs on film, received messages from deceased relatives and

friends, seen miracles, and seen forces physically blow doors

open. I don’t know why these things happened to me but they

started when I was 14 years old and they haven’t stopped yet.

To me, this mysterious painting is concrete evidence

that there is another true spiritual realm of existence. At first

these experiences presented themselves in the form of

messages through dreams. Then they started to come from

many different sources. I always thought of it as my

paranormal wire which was connected to a higher realm of

knowledge. Everyone has tuned into this spiritual wire at one

time or another. But on August 26, 1998, I was fine tuned. I

have experienced many supernatural occurrences, but I have

never experienced any miracle of this magnitude.

There was a miraculous occurrence that graced my life

on August 26, 1998. A life-sized apparition of the Virgin Mary

and a winged white horse appeared within a black 9’ by 15’

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painted muslin cloth. In addition to these appearances, it also

brought exquisite mysterious biblical images which were

embedded between the minute threads of the muslin cloth.

These images also brought a message and a painting of the

passages from the Book of Revelation (Rev. 19:11 - 20:3).

It’s perfectly all right to believe that this is not true, but

strangely enough, this is true. I own the cloth. If this sounds

crazy to you, can you imagine what I thought when I first saw

it?

Come and experience the journey just as it unfolded.

See just how it mysteriously happened. It's amazing. It’s truly

beyond human understanding. I only know that that day my life

and my beliefs were forever changed. While reading this

book, remember that I am not the artist who painted these

images, I am only the messenger.

The following photographs of this cloth have been

digitally enhanced through brightness and contrast only. None

of the shapes have been altered in any way.


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Acknowledgements I would like to express my love and gratitude to the

following people:

In memory of my mother, Fannie C. Jackson, who was

always my loving support throughout my entire life. Thanks to

her for always being loving and accepting but never

judgmental. Her kindness and love were her greatest attributes.

She will always be loved, cherished and missed.

Thanks to my daughter Nikko for standing by me and

never wavering in her faith, love, and trust in me. I thank her

for her emotional support, her inner strength, and her

understanding throughout this difficult and strange time in our

lives.

Thanks to Jesus and my angels for choosing me and

bestowing upon me the most beautiful supernatural painting

touched by The Almighty hand. Thanks to the loving positive

spirits and angels who flow through me and my daughter and

have made it possible for us to share this miraculous

experience with the people who are open to all miracles.

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CHAPTER 1

The Mysterious Lights

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t was late winter of 1998 in a small town in Virginia. My

townhome was located in a crowded housing

development. Directly behind my townhome, construction was

underway building new single family homes in a cul-de-sac. A

slight wooded area separated my development from the new

homes. The trees were all bare giving us a clear view of the

new houses. We could see the new street because no house had

been, as of yet, built to block our view. Only a couple of the

houses were sold. We had not met any of our new neighbors,

but soon that would change.

My daughter, Nikko, who was 13 years old at the time,

shared a bedroom with me. We slept with a fan on to diffuse

the house noises. But one night at around 2 a.m. in the

morning, the electricity went off. Then there was total silence.

At that instant, I woke up.

When I awoke I found Nikko standing at the window

peeping through the blinds looking toward the new houses

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which were under construction in the back of our house. But

what was so strange about this was that there was a blue glow

filtering into the room through the slats in the blinds. It was a

baby blue light, strong and beautiful. There was no sound of

any kind, just total stillness and an eerie blue light which

filtered through the slates in the There was no sound of any

kind, just total stillness and an eerie blue light which filtered

through the slates in the blinds.

“What’s going on Nikko?” I asked, still half asleep.

“There’s a big blue light out there. The street is lit like a

movie set would be? The whole street is bright like its daytime

or something. But I don’t see where this huge light is coming

from. It’s moving across the front of the houses. And now the

lady’s front porch light is flickering out.”

I could see how the blue light was filtering through the

blinds, but for some unusual reason, I just stayed in the bed

watching Nikko at the window.

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Shortly, I got up. Nikko and I went to the front of the

house to see if the lights were out across the street. They

weren’t. It seemed that only the electricity in our block, on our

side of the street was out.

I had no idea that Nikko still had fears about a movie

that we had seen recently, Communion. The movie was about

an alien encounter. A group of friends visited a cabin in the

woods. They lost their electricity and soon a big light appeared

from a UFO and lit up the cabin. Then a little alien appeared in

shadow at the end of the bed.

When she said that she thought that an alien would

appear, I found that very funny at that moment. I laughed. I had

no idea that the movie had affected her so negatively. Nothing

registered to me that night. I convinced her that ET was not

coming. She pulled the covers up over her head and went to

sleep.

But the next morning, we gave the experience a lot of


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thought. We wondered why we didn't investigate this. I didn't

understand why either of us didn't think to go downstairs and

onto the deck to see what was happening. It was our

questioning nature to investigate things and try to make sense

of unexplained things. Nikko and I were curious people. The

blue lights accompanied by silence didn't fit into anything that

we had known. Since there was no grand Hollywood movie

located in my backyard, it couldn't have been movie lights.

That morning I called the police and asked if anything

unusual had happened last night. I told them what we had seen.

The police laughed at me, but I knew that something did

happen. And we had to find someone in the neighborhood who

had seen it too.

That afternoon we visited our neighbor who lived

directly behind us in the new houses. We knocked on the door

and introduced ourselves as her neighbors. We told her what

we had seen and asked her if she had seen anything. Nikko

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explained how the blue light lit up the street and canvassed her

house. Our neighbor didn't even know that her lights had gone

off!

On the way home we met our neighbor, who lived two

doors down from us. She had just had a baby about three weeks

prior to that day. We asked her if she had seen anything strange

last night. She perked right up.

"Yes, last night I went down to get the bottle for my

baby about 2 a.m. My whole living room had been filled with

green light. It looked as though it was coming from under the

porch. I told my husband this morning, but he said that I was

hallucinating. I am so glad that I wasn't the only one to see

that," she said.

"Yeah," Nikko said. "I thought that it came from the

sky like a helicopter was up there or something, but I didn't

hear any sound. It wasn't the police because the lights weren't

blinking." Nikko explained.


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Nikko and I chatted for a while, and then we headed

home. This was so very strange. We couldn't explain it.

Years after this incident, Nikko and I had such

profound thoughts about that experience. The first thought was

that the colors of the light that we saw were different. Nikko

and I saw a bright blue light while she saw a bright green light.

Nikko thought that the light was coming from the direction of

the sky while she believed that the light was coming from

under the porch deck, which was her cellar. Those different

descriptions of this same incident were true to both of us. Why

did we see different things? I don't know but we did. Maybe we

were supposed to! Why would there be a question as to what

direction the light would come from? Why were our realities so

different but yet the same? Some strange phenomena appeared

with bright lights. What is so strange about this is that the

cloth which has images embedded within it was in my cellar

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which was under my porch two houses down from my

neighbor’s townhome.

Why is this incident important? I believe that the

unexplained blue light that we saw that night could possibly

have been an alien encounter. I also believe that the cloth was

embedded with the images that night. My neighbor said that

the light came from under the porch. Maybe my cellar was

visited. Who’s to say? There were no earthly explanations for

the images appearing in this cloth in this fashion. Also, there

was no explanation for the silence and the colored lights that

night!

To this day I still find it impossible to explain what

really happened that night. We still don't know the origin of

those strange, colored lights. I guess we'll never really know!


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CHAPTER 2

Guidance from

The Invisible Hand

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here was an unspoken something in the atmosphere,

just anticipation in the air, unaccountable anxiousness.

I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was certainly

there.

Like a nagging and persistent urgency from some

unknown origin, this anxiety possessed me in a bizarre way. I

knew in my heart that some-thing was coming, yet I had no

idea what it was. I also knew that I had to be ready for

whatever it was when it came.

In response to this suspense, I immersed myself in my

painting. Even though I was drowning in worries, I was aware

of an inexplicable inner peace that enabled me to concentrate

on my artistic endeavors. Improving my photography and oil

painting skills became my area of focus. Blessed with new

beautiful visions of a fantastic photographic style, I

experienced a renaissance of sorts. Before long I was able to oil

paint my own color photographs masterfully.

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So naturally, I attributed the gifts to my angels. In fact,

I never felt the presence of angels more strongly than during

that anxiety-filled period.

Tucked away in one of my old notebooks, nestled

among clippings of art reproductions, photographs,

illustrations, all inspirations for my anticipated photography,

lay a beautiful reproduction of a painting from the 1700’s by

Sir Thomas Lawrence entitled “Miss Murray”. I had found the

painting on a greeting card when I first moved to Virginia. This

card had been buried in one of my notebooks for 6 years. This

was the painting that needed to be re-created into a photograph.

This painting featured a curly-haired little girl in a

beautiful white dress with flowers in her hair, walking out

of the darkness through a yellow path with delicate rose petals

scattered at her feet.

A little girl emerging from complete darkness, the

dominating theme of victorious emergence, the painting aptly

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suggested my own life situation. I saw myself as that girl

coming out of the darkness, my burden-some toil over at last.

The blockages were now behind me.

Why did I feel this way? Since I had been suddenly

blessed with much improved photographic skills, I was now

able to oil paint my colors photos, and design my photos from

visions I had imagined. Artistically speaking, I was at the

pinnacle of my artistic career and just knowing that, I knew

that in the right location my talents would be appreciated and

adequately monetarily compensated for the beauty and skill of

my work. For whatever reason, all of a sudden it seemed so

clear to me that it was time to re-create this painting into a

photograph. I obeyed the impulse. This experience would

change my life.


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CHAPTER 3

Executing the Plan

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ow that I had the skills to re-create the painting

as a photograph, I was anxious and determined to

do just that to symbolize my own emergence from the

darkness through fortitude, persistence, hard work, and skill.

Therefore, my re-creation of the painting would be entitled

Coming Out of the Dark.

I had already made the white lace dress, purchased the

vivid red ribbons, dyed the little ballet shoes red, and created

the flowered headdress. All that was left to do was to paint the

black backdrop with the golden path for the little girl to emerge

from the darkness.

The 9’ by 15' muslin fabric that I would use for the

backdrop had been purchased years earlier. Stored away in my

basement, the muslin fabric had been sitting in its original

plastic wrapper just like it had come from the company. To

complete the project, I would need additional items as well. I

would buy a gallon of flat black exterior house

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paint along with a couple of rollers and a small can of mustard

yellow paint for the path. After purchasing those necessary

supplies from my local home improvement store, I was ready

to complete the last step needed in preparation for my beautiful

photograph: painting, the black backdrop. I would now be

capable of re-creating this painting into a photograph.

The best place to paint my backdrop for this photograph

was on the grass in the backyard of my town home. It was late

August 1998. The neighbors were having cookouts on their

decks. They had seen me come out with my paint supplies and

muslin. Curiously, they all asked me what I was doing. I told

them of the photograph that I was developing. We made small

talk as I painted the muslin. Then, they all went back to what

they were doing, and I quietly continued to paint.

Not much thought was required in painting this

backdrop because it was simple: a mustard yellow path

emerging from a solid black backdrop. As I was painting, I

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heard a child’s voice coming from behind me from the other

end of the muslin.

“What are you doing?” the child asked.

“I’m painting a backdrop for a little girl to walk out of

the darkness.” I replied, immediately recognizing the voice as

little Kirsten, one of the neighborhood children.

“You said you were going to take my picture,” she

responded. “When are you going to take my picture?” she

asked.

“Soon,” I replied.

Then I thought to myself, Kirsten was such a pretty

little girl. She would be the perfect choice.

After I had finished painting the muslin cloth, I called

Nikko, my daughter, to help me bring the wet, painted muslin

cloth into the walk-in cellar through the sliding glass doors. In

order to do this, we had to hold it closely together to get

through the glass doors. Upon bringing the cloth inside, we


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carelessly threw it over the boxes that were piled up in the

cellar. Quite naturally, the boxes ended up with all sorts of

black paint all over them. It didn't matter because they were

just empty boxes anyway.

The backdrop spent days drying in the cellar. After two

days I brought the cloth upstairs and laid it on the living room

floor. Upon examining the cloth, I saw a few white spots which

I had missed. Once again I brought out the black paint, pulled

the cloth onto the deck this time, and painted the few little

missed specks with black paint. I knew that if I didn't paint

those tiny spots, they would appear in the photograph later.

I received permission to use Kirsten as my model.

Kirsten’s parents were pleased with the idea. With the

developmental process in its final stage, it was time for the

much anticipated photographic session. This was a photograph

that I had longed to shoot for such a long time. Instinctively, I

knew that this would be a great photograph. This would

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showcase my new unique style. This style could be found

nowhere else. After all, this photograph symbolized me coming

out of the darkness after such harsh trials and such extreme

difficulties.

For some strange reason, I knew that something was

happening. I just didn't know what, but somehow I felt that by

creating this photograph, I too would emerge from the

blackness, just as this little girl had in the painting.


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Coming Out of the Dark: The Miraculous Biblical Painting