Apparitions ?

I wonder:

The phenomena of apparitions, so prevalent in Catholicism, once we have excluded all hysterical manifestations as well as crude manipulations for « political » purposes, or even cases where these two factors combine and feed off each other,

a hysterical manifestation can perhaps be appropriated by a more or less local organization for political purposes (conversions), expanding the client base, or commercial purposes.

What about the remaining cases?

Appearances, manifestations, and even miracles are widespread phenomena in Buddhism, Hinduism (avatars, manifestations of bodhisattvas) as well as in Islam (apparitions, miracles of saints/the prophet).

It is not so much the cases that I question, so much as a broader observation teaches that the phenomenon of manifestation/apparition/miracle is widespread well beyond the strictly Catholic framework.

What I question in these latter is the content of the accounts made up of statements uttered by the seers, who reported what they heard/saw

This content, although truly Catholic, is often not universal (a shame).

By this I mean that its reach beyond Catholic circles is very limited, precisely because of the use of strictly Catholic terminology (in the sense contrary to the original etymology). Could it then be that the words are « sincerely distorted, » that is, reported honestly and without intervention, but interpreted through the prism of the referential, cultural, current events, and dogmatic questioning of the Catholic community at the time?

The Catholic coloring of the content would occur at the moment of transcription (communication) of the terms heard, felt, perceived, seen, etc.

Another possibility, which I am considering (this one does not exclude the previous one: the stricly Catholic content of these formulations is not so much in the mouth that reports, but in the ears that hear.

The « sincere distortion » would then occur after the authentic statements, to which we rarely have access, since these are often children who are asked to confirm a version validated by the adult/authority/teacher/bishop… who puts words they know on what they hear.

Thus, what is recorded as ‘immaculate conception’ in Catholic lands could just as easily be emptiness, the original heart, principle, source, nature, in other latitudes or received by other ears formatted by the spatio-temporal coordinates that shelter them or less prey to a guardianship (more or less strictly restrictive / possibility of self-censorship) to which these people are subject.


©FJ July 2025
Recueils / Participation/