Medjugorje and the Supernatural

Since June 1981, six young Croatians in Medjugorje have reported daily apparitions of the Virgin Mary, bringing messages they say are from heaven. Throughout history, people have described extraordinary religious experiences—apparitions, visions, stigmata, healings, and afterlife encounters—often interpreted as supernatural. Scholars have frequently reduced such experiences, including those of mystics like Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, and Teresa of Avila, to natural or psychopathological categories such as hysteria, hallucination, delusion, epilepsy, psychosis, unconscious processes, or fraud.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In June 1981, six young Croatians in the village of Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia, reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them. The Medjugorje visionaries say that the Virgin Mary has returned every day since then, bringing them important messages from heaven to convey to the world. Throughout history, people have reported encountering extraordinary religious experiences—apparitions of the Virgin Mary, visions of Jesus Christ, weeping statues and icons, the stigmata, physical healings and miracles, and experiences of the afterlife—and interpreted them as supernatural in origin. Scholars have often tried to reinterpret such experiences, including those described by the great mystics of history like Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, and Teresa of Avila, into natural or psychopathological categories, such as hysteria, hallucination, delusion, epileptic seizures, psychosis, the workings of the unconscious mind, or fraud. Are such reductionist explanations valid? Over the past three decades the Medjugorje visionaries have been subjected to extensive medical, psychological, and scientific examination, even while undergoing their visionary experiences. Daniel Maria Klimek argues that the case of Medjugorje affords a rare opportunity to understand a deeper dimension of extraordinary religious phenomena. Klimek concludes that the scientific studies in Medjugorje make a significant contribution in challenging a history of reductionism in scholarship on extraordinary religious experiences, the science pointing to something “more” in the experiences of the visionaries.