Randall Sullivan, Creator of “The Curse of Oak Island” and author of Medjugorje Book Believes He Encountered the Virgin Mary on Cross Mountain
Randall Sullivan is a former agnostic, raised by atheists, an Ivy Leaguer, and was a contributing editor to Rolling Stone for over twenty years. He is also the author of Labyrinth, and the great book about Medjugorje The Miracle Detective, the book that inspired a television show which he hosted on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Do miracles really exist? Or is there a logical explanation to the seemingly inexplicable?
Randall Sullivan is an author and journalist who, while travelling as a war correspondent in Bosnia, saw an inexplicable vision on Cross Mountain in Medjugorje during a violent thunder and lightning storm. It changed his life, and he is convinced it was a miracle. Mr. Sullivan took a moment out of his busy schedule to talk with Mystic Post about that “Inexplicable vision that changed his life”
Randall Sullivan: “The “vision” referred to is the experience I described taking place during my first climb up Cross Mountain after interviewing Medjugorje Visionary Mirjana. The interview ended in a bit of a “spat”. She basically threw me out of her house.
Finding myself with time on my hands, I headed to Cross Mountain. It was a blistering hot day. It was so hot nobody was crazy enough to climb the mountain that afternoon, so I found myself alone. Making my way up the mountain I was quickly engulfed and terrified by the strangest and most focused thunderstorm I’ve ever seen or heard about. Lighting was so intense and close I could feel the heat. I thought “well if there is a God, I guess this is my time.”
Strangely, as the storm raged, I then heard a sound of French voices singing. I continued up the mountain on very shaky legs, led by the beautiful song. I then came upon a group of nuns kneeling in the mud at a station of the cross. As they knelt the thunder and lightning continued to cascade around us. Then suddenly I felt compelled to go down on my knees to pray myself for the first time in my life.
After a few moments of prayer, I continued up the mountain with the nuns, stopping with them to pray at each station of the cross. And then on the mountaintop of Cross Mountain I was comforted by a young woman. I was not sure it was one of the nuns. The young woman then laid a cloth over my shoulders and put a hat on my head. The young woman had a special grace when I suddenly I felt this immense sense of peace.
I found myself laughing in some kind of glorious relief, The whole episode, the storm, the singing nuns, my first prayers, was overwhelming. I then closed my eyes to pray for a moment and after opening my eyes again I discovered that the sun was out, the skys had cleared, and the nuns and the young woman were nowhere to be seen.
I could not believe they were gone. I ran back down the mountain and then up again and then down again looking for the nuns, not being able to find them. I went into town asked everybody that I could or anyone at the cafes at the bottom of the mountain who had seen any group of nuns on the mountain that day. Nobody had seen the nuns.
I was then confronted by the thought that I might have hallucinated but I quickly came to a decision that I HAD seen what I had seen and that it would be like slapping away God’s hand to deny it.”
Personal life
Sullivan lives in Portland, Oregon.[20] For most of his life Sullivan identified as an atheist, but in 1995 he underwent a spiritual conversion to Catholicism while he was in Medjugorje reporting on the Bosnian War.[57] This experience was influential to his research and writing of The Miracle Detective and his co-hosting of the Oprah Winfrey Network show, Miracle Detectives.[55]
The Miracle Detective
In April 2004, Sullivan published The Miracle Detective, his book about his investigation into the apparition of ‘Our Lady of Medjugorje’ which is claimed to have appeared before six children in Medjugorgje, Bosnia, in 1981.[35] His book was not only an investigation into the history of the apparition—and how other villagers and visitors since, have had similar visions at Medjugorgje—but also about his personal experience there, where he claims he experienced a miracle.
