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Volume 13: Number 3: Article 5
An Unusual Case of Stigmatization
Marco Margnelli, Centro Studi e Ricerche sulla Psicofisiologia
degli Stati di Coscienza, Via Villoresi 5, 20143 Milano, Italy
The case presented is a several-month study of the stigmatization
of a 70-year old woman, Anna Maria T. Stigmatization, the spontaneous
appearance on a person's body of Christ's wounds on the Cross, is a
well-known phenomenon among Catholics, while in this century it has
also appeared in Protestants. The phenomenon has long been considered
mysterious and miraculous. After first excluding the possibility of
fraud, several elements of Anna Maria's stigmata were verified in an
effort to sustain the hypothesis of a psychogenic genesis. The author
made a study of the form, dimensions, localization and anatomo-pathological
features of the stigma, and tests were carried out on the autonomical
nervous activity of Anna Maria's hands. The results indicated a very
circumscribed vasomotor increased activity in the area where the stigmata
lay. Anna Maria T. also underwent a psycodiagnostic evaluation to assess
her mental state and from the results of the basic tests (i.e.,
MMPI and Rorshach) no elements were found that could indicate any psycho-pathological
problem. Combining these elements with the circumstances in which the
stigmatic marks manifested themselves the first time and reappear each
month, no elements were found that could indicate with which mechanisms
a mental image (i.e., the figure of Christ on the Cross) could
be transferred to Anna Maria's body, i.e., no elements able to
demonstrate the psychosomatic hypothesis of stigmata.
Keywords: religious stigmatization, autonomic nervous activity, auto
suggestion, psychosomatic hypothesis
FULL TEXT:
An Unusual Case of Stigmatization
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