Marian Apparitions - Medugorje

In 1981, Six Youths, Called Visionaries, Saw the Blessed Mother

Mar 4, 2009

They were given extensive scientific tests. Pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon, and theophany, a religious one, had been proposed to explain the events.

Marian apparitions are occurrences in which the Virgin Mary is allegedly to have mystically appeared to one or more persons, usually Christian and most often Catholics, in various geographical locations.

Medugorje Marian Apparition

Medugorje is a small Catholic Parish in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Mary has been reportedly appearing to six Croat youths.

On June 24, 1981, at about 6:00 p.m., six young parishioners from Medjugorje saw an apparition on the mountain. It was a white form with a child in her arms. Four of them were drawn to the mountain the next day and saw the apparition again. They recognized her as Our Lady and created the group of Medjugorje visionaries. They prayed with and talked to her. From that time on, whether they were together or alone, they saw her.

The young visionaries reportedly received messages from the Marian apparition, primarily on five major topics:

Messages From the Virgin Mary

Only one of the messages has been made public. Mary promised to leave a permanent, supernatural, visible sign on the mountain where she first appeared.

When all ten secrets have been revealed to each, Mary said that she would stop appearing and three warnings will be given to the world. The sign on the mountain will appear after the warnings are given and will usher in many healings and conversions.

A French and Italian team of experts, consisting of seventeen psychiatrists, medical doctors, natural scientists and theologians, medically and scientifically investigated the child visionaries.

There were a series of neurological tests with EEGs and EKGs to examine the internal reactions of the visionaries and the interaction of their seeing, hearing, cardiac, and cerebral reactions before, during, and after the reported apparitions. They concluded was that the perceived object was external to the visionaries. The testers excluded any external chicanery or mutual agreement between them.

Other prestigious European scientific groups investigated the case and came to the same conclusion.

There were also no signs of pathology and no stress other than appropriate for the visionaries’ experience.

Marian Apparitions - Pareidolia and Theophany

Pareidolia is a type of misperception or illusion that involves a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as a distinct or clear image. It could be seeing a face in burnt toast. This phenomenon provides a psychological explanation for many alleged delusions based on sense perception.

Pareidolia has also been used to try to explain cryptids, like Bigfoot, UFOs and ETs sightings.

Theophany refers to the appearance of a deity to humans or to a divine disclosure. This term, when applied to the Judeo/Christian tradition, refers to the manifestation of God to humans.

Some Christian theologians interpret “the angel of the Lord,” who appears in the Old Testament, to be the pre-incarnate Christ, Jesus, before his manifestation into human form. The angel, Gabriel, told Mary she would the mother of the son of God. Angels told the shepherds about the good news.

Pareidolia is a valid occurrence. People look at the clouds and tell each other the images they perceived.

There are pictures on the Internet that evidence pareidolia. This occurrence doesn’t explain the Marian apparitions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as there was communication accompanying the sightings that could not be accounted for with this theory.

Theophany is simply a deity revealing her- or himself to humans. In this case, the deity or saint is the Blessed Mother Mary.

In 1989, Pope John Paul II spoke to a group of Italian physicians dedicated to making scientific and medical studies on the visionaries. The Pope said that the world lost its sense of the supernatural, but many were still searching for it and could find it in Medjugorje.

The copyright of the article Marian Apparitions - Medugorje in Mysterious Places is owned by Jill Stefko . Permission to republish Marian Apparitions - Medugorje in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.