Marian Apparitions in Cultural Contexts provides an analysis of collective phenomena, specifically mass visions of the Virgin Mary, from a psychoanalytical perspective. It draws from Jung’s compensation theoretical model with the aim of merging depth-psychology and historical material from the Zeitoun case. Offering an original interpretation of this phenomenon from a Jungian psychological perspective, the book provides stimulating insights to any person interested in these supernatural events, whether general readers with active curiosity or scholars with broad intellectual interests. A review of the literature points to a prevailing socio-political approach to examining visions of the Virgin Mary, while a psychoanalytical approach is generally lacking. Musso draws from Jung’s compensation theoretical model in Flying Saucers with the aim of merging depth-psychology and historical material. Common themes and symbols are extracted and interpreted from the empirical material and analyzed along with Egyptian social and political data. The book concludes with a discussion on how depth psychological principles grounded in empirical and historical material could be applied in order to explicate cases of mass visions. An original interdisciplinary exploration of cultural phenomena, Marian Apparitions in Cultural Contexts will be of value to academics and students in the fields of psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, political science, and religious studies. This book will also be of interest among Jungian scholars and practitioners in applications of depth psychology to cultural phenomena.

This book examines women’s relationship to the Virgin Mary in two different cultural and religious contexts, and compares how these relationships have been analyzed and explained on a theological and a sociological level. The figure of the Virgin Mary is a divisive one in our modern culture. To some, she appears to be a symbol of religious oppression, while to others, she is a constant comfort and even an inspiration towards empowerment. Drawing on the author’s own ethnographic research among Catholic Costa Rican women and Orthodox Finnish women, this study relates their experiences with Mary to the folklore and popular religion materials present in each culture. The book combines not only different social and religious frameworks but also takes a critical look at ways in which feminists have (mis)interpreted the meaning of Mary for women. It therefore combines theological and ethnographic methods in order to create a feminist Marian theology that is particularly attentive to women’s lived religious practices and theological thinking. This study provides a unique ethnographically informed insight into women’s religious interactions with Mary. As such, it will be of great interest to those researching in religious studies and theology, gender studies, Latin American studies, anthropology of religion, and folklore studies.

This book concerns the politics of religion as expressed through apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Dzhublyk in Transcarpathian Ukraine. The analysis provides insights into the present position of Transcarpathia in regional, Ukrainewide, and European struggles for identity and political belonging. The way in which the apparitions site has been conceived and managed raises questions concerning the fate of religious communities during and after socialism, the significance of national projects for religious organizations, and the politics of religious management in a situation in which local religious commitments are relatively strong and religious organizations are relatively weak. The analysis contributes to the ethnography and history of this particular region and of the post-socialist world in general. The changing status of the apparition site over the years allows investigation of the questions concerning authority, legitimacy, and power in religious organizations, especially in relation to management of religious experiences.

This groundbreaking book looks at the major approved Marian apparitions of the last five centuries and relates them to important historical moments: the Reformation, the French and Russian Revolutions, the rise of Nazism. These Marian apparitions, and particularly Fatima, are not historically unimportant events, but rather follow a preordained plan: they have a crucial role in helping us to see how the modern world, with all its problems, has developed. Donal Foley makes clear the fascinating and intriguing connections between Marian apparitions and the Scriptural types of Mary found in the Bible, a crucial element in the theology and exegesis of the early Church Fathers. By understanding these biblical types and their symbolism we see that each of the apparitions has a much greater significance for both the Church and the modern world than has generally been recognised. Here is a convincing demonstration that the future of the Church, and the papacy, is intimately bound up with a proper understanding of the role of Mary: there will only be true peace in the world when her message is accepted and lived. If you thought you really understood how the modern world developed, and the role and meaning of Marian apparitions, then this book will make you think again. 'Donal Foley has written a book with an extraordinary message.' Aidan Nichols, O.P.

The Virgin Mary continues to attract devotees to her images and shrines. In Moved by Mary, anthropologists, geographers and historians explore how people and groups around the world identify and join with Mary in their struggle against social injustice, and how others mobilize Mary to impose ideas and rules and legitimize acts of violence and suppression. Far from an outdated practice of little relevance to the modern world, Marian pilgrimage expresses the deep and urgent concerns of a wide range of people. With examples of Marian pilgrimages from all over the world, Moved by Mary explores the ways in which men and women of different ages and religious, political, social-economic and ethnic backgrounds empower themselves to deal with modern-day issues with Mary ́s help. The ethnographic cases reveal the cultural and devotional variation of Marian pilgrimage, but also global similarities. Collectively, the contributors to Moved by Mary show how in many places religion dramatically suffuses everyday life.

One hardly known but fascinating aspect of the Cold War was the use of the holy Virgin Mary as a warrior against atheist ideologies. After the Second World War, there was a remarkable rise in the West of religiously inflected rhetoric against what was characterised as “godless communism”. The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church not only urged their followers to resist socialism, but along with many prominent Catholic laity and activist movements they marshaled the support of Catholics into a spiritual holy war. In this book renowned experts address a variety of grassroots and Church initiatives related to Marian politics, the hausse of Marian apparitions during the Cold War period, and the present-day revival of Marian devotional culture. By identifying and analysing the militant side of Mary in the Cold War context on a global scale for the first time, Cold War Mary will attract readers interested in religious history, history of the Cold War, and twentieth-century international history.