Apparition Fever by Tine Van Osselaer - 9780228024729

McGill-Queen's University Press

Apparition FeverObserving the Virgin Mary in Belgium\nAuthor(s): Tine Van Osselaer\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, Canada\nImprint: McGill-Queen's University Press\nISBN-13: 9780228024729, 978-0228024729\nSynopsis\nIn the early 1930s, a wave of Marian apparitions cases in which visionaries reported seeing and receiving messages from the Virgin Mary swept over Belgium. With over forty apparition sites and hundreds of visionaries, the Belgian apparitions, often attended by crowds of onlookers, were unrivalled in scope and complexity, and they confronted Catholics and others with a question: How do you decide what you believe?\n\n Apparition Fever explores the Belgian apparitions from initial reports to the eventual recognition of two episodes in the 1940s. It shows how knowledge was formed at all levels among the bystanders attending the sites, to the medical experts who studied the visionaries, and the clerical authorities who evaluated the authentic.