In April of this year, on the eve of my 27th birthday, I received a direct message that would drastically alter the course of the rest of my year. Normally, one would expect a preemptive “Happy Birthday” message followed by a few exclamation points and perhaps a cake emoji. This was far from it.

The message was a link to an unlisted YouTube video entitled, “A Story, Don’t Share.” Its sender? Joe Schmid. I had known of Joe’s work for years, as have most with any knowledge of analytic philosophy of religion. A doctoral student of philosophy at Princeton University, Joe Schmid had quickly ascended the ranks as a titan of his industry. By his early 20s, the young adult had already published academic books, countless peer-reviewed articles, and online material engaging in the most formidable arguments for and against the existence of God. Joe was proudly a self-described agnostic. If anyone knew how to steelman theistic and atheistic arguments with full dignity, one would be challenged to find a better candidate than Joe. He was, bar none, amongst the most well-respected and intellectually honest thinkers currently engaged in the God debate.

Joe Schmid had never truly shaken my faith in Christian theism. Arguments can only do so much to undo decades of psychological priming that comes with an evangelical Christian upbringing. But Joe convinced me that theism, and especially Christianity, would forever remain an open question. He was the living proof that one could remain an intellectually justified agnostic. Even when sorting through every argument for and against God’s existence, we seem to be left at a draw.

Or so I thought.

I clicked on the link, curious as to why Joe would be so cautious to only share this information with a select group of people. I had my own suspicions. I had been in on-and-off conversations with the Princeton philosopher over the last few years, primarily discussing my research niche of modern miracle claims. Most philosophers in this field have written off the Argument from Miracles without further misgivings, but Joe was always eager to talk about the subject with me in private. My impression was that he took the argument more seriously than most of his colleagues, albeit with appropriate caution and reservation. Despite our differences, we understood that the other person was not credulous.

These conversations continued during my first in-person meeting with the 25-year-old philosopher during the epically titled Greatest Philosophy of Religion Conference of All Time at Purdue University in September 2025. Here I learned that Joe Schmid was 1) slightly taller than me whenever he made the effort not to slouch, and 2) that he was just as pleasant in-person as his online persona. Whoever recommended that one should “never meet your heroes” clearly has never been to a philosophy of religion conference. Equally as cordial were my other online-turned-in-person acquaintances like Matthew Adelstine and Noah McKay, amongst many others.

Shortly after this conference, Joe had implied to me (in secrecy) that he was leaning towards theism. The reservation in his tone was obvious. At best, I expected Joe to perhaps come around to some generic form of theism. As I stared at the embedded video link, I surmised that Joe may have wanted to update me that his credence in theism was now around 50% or higher.

This was the understatement of the year. As I absorbed the over two hours of video content, it became increasingly apparent to me that Joe had gone far further than I had ever anticipated. He was now a theist…a Christian theist and…a Catholic? I was in genuine shock. This was the same man who had dedicated hundreds of hours critiquing the Thomistic metaphysics of renowned Catholic philosophers and popular-level apologists like Trent Horn. Just a year earlier, Joe had cited some of my material in his cumilitive case against Catholicism. Suffice to say, such matieral has not aged well for either of us. This online acquaintance had now become a brother in Christ. I am slighlty embarrassed to confess that I began to welt tears towards the video’s conclusion. Joe had, in his own words, “submitted his intellect and will to Rome and the church that Jesus Christ established.” I unfortunately do not have the time or stamina to relay Joe’s full story here. By the time you are reading this, he has already released several videos painstakingly laying out his thought process on his own conversion.

The Cognitive Dissonance Begins

My reaction was truly bittersweet. On the one hand, I was obviously ecstatic that the internet’s most notorious agnostic had done a full 180-degree cycle and had reverted back to the Catholicism of his youth. I was even more surprised, and truly humbled, to know that I had played at least a cursory role in all of this. Make no mistake, Joe has gone to great lengths to acknowledge the dozens of influences that impacted this decision, no less from candidates far greater than I, like Cameron Bertuzzi, Jimmy Akin, Suan Sonna, Noah McKay, Matthieu Lavagna, Ethan Muse, and a plethora of others. But I had not anticipated that our hours upon hours of dialogue on miracles would contribute to such a radical departure from the young agnostic I had come to know and respect. If someone as intelligent and honest as Joe Schmid was thoroughly convinced that the case for Christian theism was strong (incredibly strong), then that should have serious implications for anyone exploring the subject with an open mind and an open heart.

But then there was the other side of the coin that continued to pester me. Joe’s decision had been largely influenced by miracle claims that seemed to explicitly vindicate Catholicism. I was all too familiar with such accounts. It would be impossible to study miracles in depth without stumbling across some of the best documented cases on record, such as the healings associated with Our Lady of Lourdes or the intercession of Catholic saints. Marian apparitions at Lourdes, Fatima, Zeitoun, and elsewhere had long put me in an uncomfortable position as an evangelical: Marian dogmas involving Our Lady’s assumption, Immaculate Conception, and veneration seemed evidentially compelling. And this just scratches the surface. What should a non-denominational evangelical do with purported Eucharistic miracles if their authenticity were granted? The reality was that, while I was excited that the evidence for Christian theism still had force, the barrels of the gun were pointed in my direction. This was ammunition against my own non-Catholic presuppositions.

I was unsure if there existed a purgatory; nevertheless, the next few months were the closest thing to a purgatorial cleansing that I ever wish to endure. The cognitive dissonance was mounting. The irony that was not lost on me: the same evidence that I had used to persuade Joe of theism had now come back to torment me. For the first time in recent memory, I began to suffer from a serious case of ecclesial anxiety. The fear of hell became a thorn in my side whose pricks continued to bleed me out. I had, for the longest time, been convinced that all major sects of Christianity were legitimate avenues to salvation. But the Catholicism of Joe Schmid was much bleaker: for those who knowingly, deliberately, and culpably reject the Catholic Church, their damnation becomes all but inevitable.

My continued private conversations with Joe made these mounting fears so much worse. One night, the Catholic convert was more persistent than normal. Not in a manner that was hostile or rude, but stern and with genuine love:

Joe: “Caleb, you accept the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes, right?”

Caleb: ”I suppose so. I accept the healing miracles associated with it, so it would be rather strange to believe the cures were real, but the apparition was illegitimate.”

Joe: “Our Lady claimed at Lourdes that she was the Immaculate Conception. Do you accept that dogma?”

Caleb: [Long pause] I don’t know, Joe. I just don’t.

Joe: What do you mean you don’t know? Mary herself literally claimed this about herself! My friend, you are making God out to be a deceiver.”

The back and forth continued for some time. I had my own apologetics to try to evade this question. One can devise clever reconstructions of accommodationist theories where miracles are branched through different denominations. But I knew deep down that these harmonizations were ad hoc. These alternative theories made miracles, clear signs from God, theological obscurities that could only be interpreted through highly educated philosophers. If miracles cannot be straightforward to their audience, they fail as signs to the faithful.1

One could, if properly convinced, choose to reject Our Lady’s claims at face value in favor of something far more cryptic. Perhaps “I Am the Immaculate Conception” need not mean that Mary was literally conceived without sin. But is it worth the risk? Pope Piux XII would declare ex cathedra (infallibly) in 1950 that those who knowingly rejected the Marian dogmas put their salvation in grave danger,2

It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

I was no longer invincibly ignorant. I was staring down the barrel of several Marian apparitions who directly confirmed dogmas that, should I reject them with the evidence available to me, could separate me from God forever. May God have mercy on my soul.

Seeking Salvation

More than anything else, Joe Schmid’s conversion became a mirror held up to my own face. In my eyes, this former agnostic was now a better Christian than I. Seeing the sincerity and radical transformation in Joe’s life exposed my own shortcomings. I was a bad Christian. I was a hypocrite. While I enjoyed an online presence defending Christianity on various platforms, my personal life remained marred with unrepentant sin. My prayer life was virtually non-existent. I spent more time consuming pornography in a given week than I did reading Scripture. I continued seeking out strange flesh to curtail my carnal appetites.3 While I would have never admitted it at the time, I harbored resentment towards God for allowing these thorns of my own sexuality to unrelentingly pierce my flesh.4 On top of all of this shame, my pride consumed me and my research. I realized that my public work had never been ad maiorem Dei gloriam, but rather, ad Maiorem meam gloriam. I had crafted Christ in my own image, a Saivor who looked at my sins with minimal conviction. The Evangelical Jesus had been smelted into my own personal Golden Calf.5

So I did what any sinner in need of forgiveness should do. I got on my knees and prayed. As an evangelical, I could not go to a priest for absolution of my offenses against God. But I did the next best thing: I underwent my own examination of conscience, writing down every sin I could remember and begging for Our Lord’s forgiveness. I began to pray the rosary, not because I believed the Virgin Mary could hear my requests, but because I felt like it couldn’t hurt to try.

I was blessed to meet Joe Schmid in person again in July of 2026. Our week consisted of jointly interviewing the world-renowned exorcist Fr. Vincent Lampert, grabbing lunch (Joe’s vegan meals tasted better than I expected), and debating theology and philosophy while hiking. That Sunday, I would attend my first weekend Mass with Joe Schmid before ending the day by watching the World Cup.

That brings us to the present day. As I write this, my head is still buzzing with questions. I remain uncertain as ever on many of my own convictions. Truth so often alludes. But more than anything else, more than the online attention, more than the carnal pleasures, and more than my own insecurities, I just want to be a better Christian. And so, with great reluctance, I have decided to give my Evangelical faith a great reappraisal. Whatever the future holds, I hope to one day traverse the pearly gates on the other side of eternity. And I hope to see my friend Joe Schmid standing beside me on heaven’s clouds.

I have had the fear of God instilled into me by the Internet’s most renowned (former) agnostic. God bless you, Joe Schmid. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. (Luke 16:31)

Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? (Acts 26:8)

The following is excerpted from my 2024 Academia paper, “Ex Mortis: Does God Still Raise the Dead?.” Several arguments have been updated and expounded upon. Like the resurrection case discussed in this piece, I have taken something old and given it new life.

……

There is perhaps no thought more sobering than the realization of one’s mortality. The inevitability of death is a reality that, whether we like it or not, is indiscriminate. It is this homogeneity that has led virtually every culture to devise a theory of the afterlife. For Christians, Jesus Christ’s resurrection is the template by which other believers will be raised (Rom. 6:5; 1 Cor. 15:12-58). Of course, resurrection in this life was not exclusive to Jesus; according to the Bible, others were temporarily raised from the dead by Old Testament prophets (1 Kgs 17:17–22; 2 Kgs 4:18–37, 13:20), the New Testament apostles (Acts 9:36–42; 20:7–12; cf. Rev. 11:7-1), and through the command of Christ Himself (Mk. 5:35-43; Lk. 7:11-17; Jn. 11:38–44).

Contemporary resurrection accounts, at least those analogous to the tales of figures raised after very long periods of time, are hard to come by nowadays. I cover several examples in my 2024 paper, though I admit that even many of those cases stand on relatively sketchy pillars of evidence.1

However, one particular case continues to compel me. It remains notable for its relatively recent occurrence, its medical documentation, first-hand witness testimony, photographs, and video footage. Many have dubbed this man a “modern-day Lazarus,” since, like the Biblical character, he was dead for three separate days of the week (roughly 40 hours in total). To my knowledge, it remains the only case in which a resuscitation was said to follow the partial embalming of the corpse.

I. Raised on the Third Day

On November 30th, 2001, Nigerian pastor Daniel Ekechukwu sustained life-threatening injuries when his 1981 Mercedes slammed into a cement abutment.2 He had not been wearing a seatbelt at the time, a mistake he soon realized when the crash caused his chest and abdomen to slam into the steering wheel, crushing many of his organs and causing him to cough up blood profusely. Accompanying him in the passenger’s side was his friend Kingsley Iruka, who would witness the gruesome spectacle:3

The impact threw [Kingsley] against the windshield on the opposite side of the car…He looked across the car at Daniel and was aghast. The impact of the steering column against Daniel’s chest had caused severe internal damage. He was bleeding from the nose and barely conscious. Soon, he began vomiting copious amounts of blood.

The crash victim was immediately rushed to St. Charles’s Borromeo Hospital near the Nigerian city of Onitsha. His wife Nneka was told of the accident and soon arrived at the hospital to see her dying husband. Daniel told Nneka that he wanted to be transferred to Umezuruike Hospital in the town of Owerri because it is where their family physician Dr. Misereke practiced. The doctors at St. Charles warned against this due to Owerri being nearly 50 miles away, but after continual persistence, the woman was allowed to call an ambulance on the condition that she signed a waiver absolving St. Charles from any liability if Daniel were to succumb to his injuries. A published statement from the hospital confirms this detail and reads as follows,4

The ambulance eventually arrived. Unfortunately, the lack of available blood transfusions during the ride to the hospital caused Daniel to slip into unconsciousness and become limp in front of his grieving wife. The woman was unable to contact Dr. Misereke at the Umezuruike hospital, seeking instead immediate care at the Federal Medical Center in Owerri. Two hospital staff, consisting of the facility’s doctor and an accompanying nurse, could not pick up a pulse using a stethoscope and informed Nneka that her husband was now deceased. Nneka continued to deny this prognosis and rebelliously transported Daniel’s corpse to St. Eunice’s clinic in Owerri in a final attempt to save him. It was here that Daniel Ekechukwu would legally be pronounced dead on arrival on the night of November 30th, 2001, at 11:30 pm. From what can be made of the handwriting, the death certificate (Figure 1) reads as follows:

Patient brought in dead at about 11:30 pm. Chest: No chest movements. No breath found. Pulse N.I. Heart Found N.I. Eyes dilated and fixed. Demise. Plan for removal to the mortuary.

Death was certified by the clinic’s lead physician, Dr. Josse Annebunwa, who asserted with great confidence the certification of death:5

I was told that he was involved in a motor accident in Onitsha. When I examined him, I looked at the chest and there were no respiratory movements. I listened with the stethoscope and there were no sounds of breathing. I searched the heart and cardiovascular system, but there were no sounds. The patient had no pulse. I looked at the eyes - the pupils in his eyes were fixed and dilated. I just made the impression right away that the patient was dead and that he should be removed to the mortuary.

After death was confirmed that Friday night, Nneka had the ambulance take the body of Daniel to his original home village in Amaimo as per Nigerian tradition. Lawrence Ekechukwa Ikugpe was distraught to see the fresh corpse of his son lying stiffly in the ambulance. Neighbors from surrounding houses came out to see the cadaver, mourning this local tragedy while attempting to comfort Daniel’s bereaved family.

Records then indicate that the cadaver was transported and admitted into the nearby General Hospital Mortuary in Ikeduru at around 1:00 AM Saturday, December 1st (Figure 2). Lawrence Ikupe paid the staff 1,000 Naira (a little over two U.S. dollars) to proceed with the embalming procedure. The mortician at the facility, Barlington Manu, had a solid reputation among the locals of Amaimo and was saddened to see the body of a once-beloved pastor brought to the mortuary.

Given that the building lacked storage freezers, Barlington carried out the usual procedure: the pulse was once again checked with a stethoscope to verify the declaration of death, then the corpse was given approximately six to seven injections of a 5mL pre-embalmment formaldehyde mixture between the hands and feet (Figure 3).6 The fingers and toes then curled up, indicating muscle fixation and possible coagulation of tissue proteins. Barlington described the process during subsequent interviews,7

He was brought [to the mortuary] by the father and the wife. There was no life in him, no heartbeat, not any kind of sign of breathing. I checked all around the body and everything was stiff. That is what gave us the conviction to start our embalming procedure. I sent him into the second room and put him on the last slab...[My assistant and I] started getting ready for the funeral. We treated the body with chemicals, which we injected with a needle into the skin. We supported the nose with cotton swabs [to prevent insects from filling the cavities], and placed it in the coffin.

An incision was then prepared on the body’s thigh to drain the femoral artery; however, this was halted due to the mortician feeling a force of resistance. He described this sensation as being electrical, leaving his hand numb and making it difficult to continue with the procedure. Mr. Manu believed that he had felt similar forces associated with African occultism and suspected that Daniel had been involved in some form of shamanism (especially given that Daniel’s father was known locally as the village witch doctor). The worker attempted to finish the embalming process a few hours later, but was startled by the sound of disembodied voices singing hymns throughout the facility and the face of corpse radiating like that of an angel,8

I would say it was a stubborn corpse. It rejected most of my treatment, but surprisingly, did not decompose. From the very first day we took it in, we heard hymns throughout the night. Each time I entered the morgue, the singing stopped. When I tried to return to my room, the singing would start all over again. I had to warn the family to remove the corpse from my morgue, or I would have to deal with it with my special power [charms]. Dan Eke’s body was disturbing my peace of mind.

Things were no less strange back at the Ekechukwu residence. Early Saturday morning, Nneka had stumbled across Hebrews 11:35, which she interpreted to mean that God would raise Daniel from the dead, “Women received their dead to life again.” Her convictions were strengthened further when she and Lawrence (Daniel’s father) arrived to pick up the body from the mortuary hours later. Barlington gave the money back to Lawrence and stated that he could not finish the embalming process due to all of the ethereal phenomena surrounding the body. Lawrence, being an animist, suspected that Daniel’s body was not dead and was under a voodoo spell, though this mystic idea was quickly abandoned after several incantations yielded no results.

A final portent came that night when Nneka dreamed that her husband was still alive, his spirit telling her that he was not dead and that he ought not to be buried. This convinced the woman that God could raise Daniel from the dead, just as he did Lazarus, and so she planned to take the body to the famed German missionary Reinhard Bonnke. Bonnke’s ministry was well-known in the area for its healing crusades that led to countless African conversions to the Christian faith.

The following Sunday, December 2nd, Nneka and some relatives dressed the body in traditional grave clothes (Figures 4 and 5), a difficult task to accomplish given the stiffness of the corpse from rigor mortis. Though Lawrence Ikugpe wanted to have the body fully embalmed and buried, the widow negotiated with him to let her take Daniel’s corpse to Bonnke’s church where prayer for his resurrection would be attempted. Both agreed to bury the body if such an effort ended up failing. With this deal in place, the body was laid in an unsealed casket and hauled to Grace of God Mission Church in Onitsha around 1:00 pm, where Bonnke was in the process of preaching.

Church security did not allow them to bring the casket into the sanctuary for fear that a bomb could be hidden inside (terrorist attacks were a major concern at the time). After some coercion, the agents would remove the cotton swabs from the cadaver’s nose and tear through its clothes to search its cavities for any detonation devices. The body was then transported to the church’s basement, where it was removed from the coffin and placed on a table. The grave shirt, emaciated from the officer’s strip search, was discarded. By this point, Daniel’s body was suffering from rigor mortis and was extremely stiff and difficult to move, with witnesses noting that removal from the casket was a hassle.

With the accompaniment of two staff pastors, Lawrence Onyeka and Luke Ibekwe, Nneka began to pray over Daniel’s body. Gradually, the chest of the corpse began to move up and down in belated breaths around 3:00 pm. By this time, Pastor Bonnke had finished his service and had already left the church building, unaware of the resuscitation efforts taking place in the basement below.

Following Bonnke’s departure, word spread to attendees that an attempted resurrection was occurring. A flood of excited believers dispersed into the basement to see Daniel, who now began to appear more lively. A camcorder was brought out during this time and recorded color returning to the corpse and Danie’s breaths becoming more pronounced (Figure 6). Witnesses massaging the body noticed heat beginning to return, eventually followed by a detectable heartbeat as the limbs slowly lost their austerity. Rapid eye movement was then observed from underneath the eyelids as labored breaths became more pronounced. The footage then shows witnesses slowly swaying the head back and forth to relieve stiffness in the neck and restore blood flow.

The miracle would be completed sometime around 5:15 pm when Daniel would sneeze and jump to his feet. Those present did not hesitate to embrace him with joyful tears in their eyes as they praised God for bringing their companion back from the dead. Many of them later recalled having to hold their noses due to the smell of embalming fluid still present in Daniel’s veins.

Daniel Ekeuckwu was now fully conscious but appeared confused and non-verbal. His facial expressions gave the impression of a dazed state, seemingly unable to recognize everyone who surrounded him. Fearing Daniel had received brain damage or would soon slip back into unconsciousness, attendees immediately provided the resurrected pastor with hydration and a chair to rest in (Figure 7). Fans were provided to prevent overheating. After several minutes, Daniel eventually inquired, “Where’s my file?”, most likely a request for a pin and paper to record the memories he had incurred while deceased. Other sources imply that Daniel’s first words were not questions but were commands, requesting those around him to fetch him water to drink.9

The man was then asked if he felt any pain from the accident. He replied that he did not feel pain in his chest or head (where his body had slammed into the steering wheel), but that he was still extremely sore in his limbs and muscles. All visible scars and wounds from the initial accident had disappeared with one exception: Daniel’s tongue remained jet black from the dried blood left over from the hemoptysis observed two days prior. Color to the tongue would return within a few hours when the man’s salivary glands regained function.

Daniel’s recovery, while remarkable, was marked by a period of convalescence. That Sunday, Daniel returned home to rest and hydrate. By the following two days, the man attempted to walk unsupported, a task made difficult due to his toes remaining curled from the formaldehyde injections (the smell of which continued to linger around his body for several days). A near-full recovery was achieved that Thursday when the man regained full mobility and cognitive function.

Local news outlets were quick to cover the story. Six days following the miracle, a Nigerian newspaper headlined the titillating story.10

On arrival at the church, the corpse was kept at the empty children[’s] department to avoid scaring away the congregation who may cause [a] stampede on seeing the corpse. The bereaved family...suddenly...heard noise from the coffin and without hesitation opened it. The stifled hands and legs were seen moving, and breathing was noticed. This prompted the family to retreat in fear but came back when his eyes were opened.

- The Post Express, December 8, 2001.

Other periodicals derived similar testimonies,11

In the meeting hall, Daniel was laid down on two tables and the congregation began to pray. After a while no one could believe [what was happening]; Daniel’s chest moved just like a [living] man would breathe! The pastors assisting Bonnke [who was not present] massaged Daniel’s arms and neck. As people screamed, Daniel opened up his eyes, sat up, and leaned on a nearby person. He had been dead for three days, lying in an oxygen-free coffin for several hours, and his body was full of artillery chemicals. [Danie said][that he] remembered everything [he] saw when [he] was dead.

-Translation from a Finnish article entitled “Daniel Oli Ruumishuonen”

Though he had little involvement in the original miracle, Bonnke and his ministry would publish a video testimonial in the following months detailing the event extensively. The film presents interviews with the testimony of Daniel and Nneka, alongside the relevant doctors and morticians involved with the initial pronouncement of death. Local pastors Lawrence Onyeka and Luke Ibekwe testified on camera to having helped the widow remove the body from the casket and massaged it as it began to regain life.

It is from this documentary that we learn what Daniel Ekechukwu saw while “dead.” The pastor goes into much detail describing what can be considered a near-death experience (NDE) consistent with traditional Christian theology. The pastor claims to have been surrounded by tall angels while dying in the ambulance, eventually leaving his body to be shown the beauty of heaven, where he would encounter Father Abraham. Daniel was then horrified to witness hell, depicted as a fiery pit with countless souls confessing their sins in agonized screams. It is here that Daniel felt a strong conviction from his past sins, particularly the arguments he shared with Nneka immediately before the accident that had escalated to the point of physical violence against her. Daniel then repented to God of his sins, finding himself awake and disoriented when he eventually came back to life at Grace of God Missions’ Church on December 2nd.

Daniel Ekechukwu has continued to maintain this testimony in later public appearances, seeing himself as a vessel for God’s mercy and as a messenger to warn unbelievers to repent. This message has been quite effective; even Daniel’s father, an animist and witch doctor, would end up converting to Christianity following his son’s resurrection. As far as I am aware, the Nigerian pastor remains alive and in good health to this day.

Since the widespread release of Bonnke’s documentary, a number of journalists, investigators, and pastors have sought to examine the primary documentation for themselves. Pastor David Servant would publish a series of online articles on the incident following a series of interviews he conducted with the resurrected man in September 2002, which were then further verified by Ede Samuel (Daniel’s friend and personal assistant) and Uche Chikezie (Daniel’s public relations director) for the sake of accuracy. In their 2008 book, God Sent Me Back: The Astonishing True Story of a Pastor Who Was Raised From the Dead, authors Bisi Daniels and Isaac Achor preface their work by noting their firsthand interactions with most of the witnesses involved in Daniel’s death, partial embalming, and resurrection. They constantly reiterate the consistency found amongst all who were interviewed:12

Writing a story that risks putting one’s reputation on the line and the effrontery of investigating God, called for action. My colleague, Isaac, and I set out to interview...Rev. Dan Ekechukwu and his wife Nneka for the book. During interviews that lasted more than 3 days, we discovered a thread of truth worth investigating...

Encouraged by these deductions, we set out to explore all the settings of the miracle. There was undeniable proof of the accident at St. Charles Borromeo Hospital in Onitsha where he was first taken but prematurely discharged at the insistence of his wife. The hospital corroborated [to us] the fact that he had been admitted. They even admitted the controversy of having to discharge a patient in such a terrible state of health to his wife, who wanted him out of the hospital...The Umezurike Hospital in Owerri verified that Dan was a patient. The story was also confirmed at St. Eunice Clinic in Owerri where Dan was finally confirmed to dead. Witnesses at Amaimo, including his parents, told a consistent story... Another convincing piece of evidence was discovered at Ikeduru Community Hospital mortuary. Both the official records of the dead and the mortician told the same story.

Even with the wealth of evidence, we subjected the story to the scrutiny of reasonable third parties. They included: Yvette Moyse of London and Andrew Masade, a veteran journalist, writer, and critic in Lagos who both edited parts of the story [for the book].... And photographer and journalist Aoiri Obaigbo, [who] queried the story at every point of the investigation to ensure we were not misled.

In all, the reported facts of the case would indicate that Daniel Eckuckwu underwent an extranormal resurrection from the dead. Daniel had been pronounced dead at 11:30 pm on Friday, November 30th, and was raised back to life around 5:15 pm on Sunday, December 2nd, a total of around 42 hours. One may think that all of these individual lines of evidence converge to form one of the most interesting miracle claims in modern history.

II: Exhuming Alternative Explanations

Naturally, a case as incredible and exceptional as Daniel’s would bring with it quite a bit of controversy. Though many believers were all too willing to accept the event at face value as sure-fire substantiation of their faith, several alternative theories have been proposed by dissenters. Among the loudest critics was Nigeria’s chapter director for the Center of Inquiry, Leo Igwe,13 whose objections would be parroted by later online commentators.

If Daniel Ekechukwu was not raised by the power of God, what alternatives do we have to work with?

Explanation #1: Deliberate Hoax

The first reaction among the faithless was to dismiss the incident as a staged fraud, a publicity stunt by Bonnke’s ministry to promote his African crusades and make money off selling a story.14 Sub-Saharan Africa is notorious for its reputation of scandal-ridden pastors who fake miracles for monetary gain.15 Many of the details of the story are simply too fantastic: how convenient is it that Nneka was told to visit Bonnke’s church to raise her husband from the dead? Are we to believe that witnesses just so happened to have a camcorder on them just in time to record segments of the resurrection?

The motive is not difficult to guess. All one needs to do is observe the lucrative nature of the miracle’s publicity through its documentary, which gained worldwide attention and sold for $35 per unit. I have no doubt that the story spiraled Bonnke’s ministry, already worth millions of dollars, into an even brighter spotlight than it had already been before. It almost certainly raised the number of donations his ministry received. Skeptics were quick to deduce this conclusion,16

Rev Daniel Ekechukwu’s ‘back from the dead’ story is a hoax drummed up by some smart and control freak ministers in Nigeria to delude the world. ‘Raised from the Dead’ is a typical case of a 21st Century resurrection scam. It is sad and unfortunate that Rev. Bonnke and his ministry are marketing this piece of Christian skullduggery to promote their mission in Africa. What a shame.

While the prior probability of the hoax theory is quite high, there is no direct evidence to support it. There are, in fact, serious defeaters to its plausibility when looking at the particulars of this case.

Firstly, the original story of Bonnke’s involvement in the miracle is minimal at best. Recall that the minister was not even present for the event in question and only heard about it after the fact when his associate pastors showed him the footage from the camcorder. A staged miracle meant to promote Bonnke would likely have made him a more central piece to the healing, perhaps depicting the German evangelist dramatically raising the body on a stage in the presence of the congregation. Craig Keener rightly argues that this point acts as evidence against the hoax hypothesis:17

Bonnke does not claim to have been present at the time of the raising, which militates against the suspicion raised by some Western internet critics that he may have staged the raising...a deliberate fabrication by Bonnke’s ministry would more plausibly have had Bonnke present for the raising.

This would especially make sense given that Nneka’s vision on December 1st explicitly prophesied that Reinhard Bonnke would be the one to raise Daniel from the dead, a prediction that at best was only fulfilled indirectly according to the official story. If Nneka had been in cahoots with Bonnke to stage this incident, it is inexplicable as to why his involvement was not more prominent. It is obvious that Pastor Bonnke took credit for the story after the fact, but the original details in question point against the conclusion of a deliberate hoax on his behalf.

We must also ask why a faux miracle would have been staged as occurring gradually, with Daniel slowly regaining consciousness over several hours and being largely incapacitated until his recovery over multiple days. An instantaneous recovery with Daniel jumping up from his coffin would have been far more eye-catching and theatrical to a crowd wanting to see a supernatural miracle. Other hoaxed resurrections from this region preserved the spectacle for this very reason (see the South African example below).

Recall that a great many witnesses have attested to both the pronouncement of death and the resurrection firsthand, including the medical officials who are cited by name. It seems unlikely that all of these individuals are paid stooges; equally, it would have been safer for an invented story to keep the doctors involved anonymous so as not to put their professional reputations on the line. Yet we are given the full names of the doctors, morticians, and medical facilities (of which there are at least five) involved in this miracle, none of which have come forward to contest the details of the case when it received international publication. If the earlier quote from Bisi Daniels and Isaac Achor is anything to go by, all of the hospitals corroborated the details when interviewed by outside parties.

Contrast Daniel’s resurrection with a more recent case from 2019. A viral video shows South African pastor Alph Lukau raising a man named Eliot from a coffin in front of an excited crowd. This story quickly gained widespread ridicule when coworkers of Elliot pointed out that he had been in normal health in the days leading up to his “death” and that the man was using a pseudonym. Local funeral homes came forward to note that they had never provided Elliot’s family with a coffin and that they had never treated his corpse, deeming the video to be a demonstrable hoax. All of these points, along with the fact that Elliot had shown no signs of decomposition and was subtly breathing on camera, proved Pastor Lukau had faked the miracle. The case was widely rejected by South African news agencies, and the pastor’s ministry ended up being legally charged with fraud after being sued by local funeral companies. Other cases of fraudulent African miracles have been exposed quite decisively when the parties involved decided to speak out.18

In scientific terms, consider these to be our “control group.” These details are what we should expect had Daniel’s resurrection been a similar act of chicanery, yet this is not what we observe. As far as I have researched this subject, no witnesses ever came forward to expose Bonnke, and the relevant doctors and medical institutions stuck with the published story. Hence, we see that Leo Igwe, a journalist for Skeptic magazine, was unable to find any direct evidence of deliberate fraud during his 2002 investigation. Even in reaching a negative conclusion, Igwe does not deny that the witnesses seemed sincere, even if he considered their testimony “all based on fear, superstition, occultism, and spiritual nonsense.”19 But credulity is incompatible with outright fraud. One must choose between the two options. If this were a hoax, most of the medical facilities and corresponding witnesses would probably have been none the wiser.

One would think that, given the widespread attention and scrutiny applied to the case when it was first reported worldwide, chinks would begin to show up in the evangelist’s armor. Instead, we find the opposite: even some 20 years later, no smoking gun has been found. Its smoke remains extinguished.

Explanation #2: A Contradictory Story

A common criticism has been found in the various discrepancies reported throughout different versions of the story. Details differ between accounts as to the time of the car accident, the timeline of which hospitals were visited, whether or not the body was fully embalmed, whether the coffin was sealed air-tight, the chronology of when Daniel began to show vital signs during the resurrection, among many others. One website, aptly titled Deception Church has gone as far as to make a chart to catalog each contradiction between every published account of the miracle. Such exclusivities make the story too implausible to believe.

Of the criticisms centered around the Ekechukwu resurrection case, this is perhaps the most underwhelming. I have been left unimpressed with these apparent contradictions. Most of these distinctions are hardly problematic and can be quite easily harmonized without much interpretive acrobatics.20 Others are perhaps based on Western misunderstandings of African culture21 or Nigerian medical practice.22 Some apologists have taken the effort to publish lengthy replies to each contradiction systematically. Memory is often demonstrably fallible, especially given high-intensity situations such as car accidents, and so it is to be expected that secondary details would be recalled inaccurately.23 This is the rule when it comes to eyewitness testimony, not the exception. The primary details of the case remain uncontroversial nonetheless. As one commentator rightly remarks,

[The alleged contradictions] shows [sic] just the sort of minor variation one might expect if the story was genuine rather than the false organized attempt at deception this must be if it is not.

Explanation #3: Premature Declaration of Death

A final consideration: could it be that most, if not all, of the parties involved were sincere but mistaken? Premature pronouncement of death is not as uncommon as we would like to think, and so it does not escape the imagination that Daniel may have been mistaken for dead after the accident. This so-called “Lazarus Syndrome,” in which a patient is revived despite initially being pronounced dead, remains rare, but not so rare as to preclude other examples from being published in the medical literature. Daniel was not attached to equipment at the time, and thus his cardiac arrest could not be verified through an EEG. Death was instead declared based on stiffness, pupil dilation, discoloration, and the lack of a pulse. This would make his “death” likely subject to human error. Critics have pointed out the rather sketchy reputation of some of the medical facilities involved in this incident,24

Daniel was not admitted at the Federal Medical Centre in Owerri or at any other reputable hospital in the city. It was only at a backstreet hospital that he was confirmed dead…St Eunice Hospital [where the death certificate was signed] was a roadside clinic noted for shady medical practices.

One can also poke holes in the moritcian’s credibility. Barlington Manu was certainly a highly superstitious man and would elsewhere testify to seeing corpses raised from their coffins—and then put back to sleep—through tribal incantations. Then there is his purported lack of competency as a medical administrator,25

Mr. Manu is not a formally trained mortician. He dropped out of school and lacks basic knowledge of medical science. Like most morticians in Nigeria, he learnt to embalm corpses using the traditional method, which is an admixture of herbs and occultic rituals. But, nowadays, Mr. Manu said he mixes some chemicals [ie formaldehyde] to produce the concoctions he uses for embalmment.

Supposing we accept the general shadiness of the medical facilities involved, one may propose that clear mistakes were made. Daniel’s “corpse” may have been more alive than what was incompetently declared by his physicians. Could Daniel Ekechukwu fall into the list of those who have spontaneously revived through Lazarus Syndrome?

Almost certainly not. The details of the case likely preclude this: along with four different medics agreeing that Daniel was dead, he undoubtedly remained incapacitated for over 40 hours. This is a far cry from other documented cases of autoresuscitation that tend to occur only within a few minutes to a few hours after recovery efforts have ceased. It would far outstrip the current record for recovery after clinical death, held by an American woman who came back to life after 17 hours of cardiac arrest. Unlike most other cases of autoresuscitation, Daniel Ekechukwu’s resurrection occurred in the absence of attempted CPR efforts, only transpiring following intercessory prayer and massaging the hands and legs of the body.

The issue of Daniel’s oxygen intake would also be difficult to address. No permanent neurological damage was incurred despite no detectable breathing for nearly two full days. In other successful resuscitation cases, permanent brain injury remains very common.26 The cynic could push back and argue that Daniel had still been breathing following his accident, albeit in a manner too faint to detect without proper medical devices. Unfortunately, this hypothesis is withered in reviewing the photos of the corpse in conjunction with the testimony of the mortician, both indicating that the mouth was closed and cotton balls were placed in the cadaver’s nostrils as was standard procedure. This would make any remaining breaths taken through the nose or mouth next to impossible without obvious detection.

Even if the man had somehow still been alive that Friday night, he would have presumably succumbed to his injuries soon enough. It is not clear how the effects of the severe internal bleeding incurred from the accident would have been remitted in the absence of hospitalization, especially given that no blood transfusions were administered. The little information we have from the first clinic Daniel was admitted to, St. Charles’s Borremo Hospital, noted that the discharge was “against medical advice” and required a liability form. This seems, at least to me, to strongly indicate that the injuries sustained by the car crash victim were serious and potentially life-threatening enough to warrant hospitalization. How the pastor’s untreated injuries managed to disappear at the time of his resurrection escapes me.

More important is the injection of a formaldehyde mixture into his fingers and toes before the attempted embalming. Even if Barlington Manu is not a world-class mortician, the most primitive applications of formaldehyde would still pose a serious risk to Daniel’s still-living body. Any remaining signs of life would have almost certainly been snubbed from the toxins of the embalming fluid if immediate medical intervention had not been provided.27 Our best-case scenario would be that the sites of injection (fingers and toes) would have quickly necrosed and probably required amputation. Lest we forget the witness testimonies claiming that the odor of the embalming mixture still lingered several days after the resurrection.

Here is another consideration, though less decisive than those above. In reviewing the testimonies and photos of Daniel’s purported corpse, it appears obvious that the cadaver is clearly discolored and darker compared to the revivified pastor seen in the later footage (Figure 9). Perhaps this is simply due to the lighting or effects of the camera, but it is certainly consistent with the body becoming discolored from early stages of decomposition, hypoxia, and/or partial embalming.

Sprinkle in the multiple testimonies of the body being stiff (indicating rigor mortis), and one can be relatively confident that Daniel was not merely comatose:

• “I checked all around the body and everything was stiff.” (Barlington Manu)28

• “When I touched him from head to toe, it was like touching a stock [dried] fish. And his hands were like this [puts arms and hands firmly to the side].” (Pastor Onekwa)29

• The father [of Daniel] interrupted my announcement and said ‘Although he is [now] breathing, his body is still [stiff] like iron.’” (Pastor Dr. Paul Nwachkwu Sr.)30

A final contention still stands. Even if all of this were naturally surmountable, we are left with the quite remarkable phenomenon that surrounded the Nigerian cadaver. Are we really to suppose that Daniel’s resuscitation sans medical intervention just so happened to follow his wife having the very strange conviction that he would be returned to life? If so, the timing is impeccable. Is it merely a coincidence that the body was said by at least one witness to have been accompanied by a heavy transfiguration and angelic serenades? Remarkable coincidences do happen from time to time, but enough accretive coincidences will point to intention over chance.

The resurrection of Daniel Ekechukwu leaves us with a case that has no precedent. It is difficult, if not impossible, to find any other modern analogy of a full recovery following nearly two days of pronounced clinical death in combination with formaldehyde injections. Natural attempts to explain the great many testimonies to this miracle are, unlike the corpse of the Nigerian pastor, dead on arrival.

III. Theological Considerations

Skeptical interpretations of Daniel Ekechukwu’s resurrection have been found quite wanting. We must, however, be careful not to favor hypotheses involving the supernatural purely out of the explanatory failure of skeptical alternatives. The Christian interpretation of Daniel’s miracles is equally open to critique.

Glimpses of the Afterlife

Some believers will put this fact aside and oppose the “miracle” on theological grounds. Many may interpret verses like Lk. 16:26-31 and Heb. 9:27-28 to be de facto declarations that no one may return from death. Of course, such a reading is in apparent conflict with the numerous stories in the New Testament and early Church history that narrate accounts of the dead raised back to life through the power of the Holy Spirit. One may speak of these as near-death experiences (NDEs), where witnesses claim to see glimpses of the afterlife but return to earth before they fully “go into the light” and “pass on to the other side” of existence. The same applies to our African protagonist: Daniel claimed to witness heaven and hell without fully crossing over to the afterlife.

Most problematic is Daniel Ekechukwu’s detailed testimony of his NDE. Here, some theologians will be quite uncomfortable. The witness described a post-mortem experience quite consistent with a literal reading of the New Testament: heaven, according to Daniel Ekechukwu, is a beautiful city paved with gold and shining light (Rev. 21:20-23), filled with mansions (too massive to perceive in full) that were prepared by Christ for believers on earth (Jn. 14:2-4), and surrounded by plants and organisms that continually praise God (Lk. 19:40; Rev. 5:13). Heaven was said to be populated by a multitude of individuals clothed in white with a transfigured appearance, believed to be the souls of the righteous (Rev. 7:9-17). The vision likewise consisted of seeing heavenly figures such as angels, even involving interactions with Old Testament patriarchs like Abraham, in a manner very much reminiscent of Lk. 19:22-23. Daniel’s description of angels as large humanoid beings with wings is far more in line with popular depictions of divine messengers in media than it is corresponsive to the ancient Jewish understanding of angels.31

Just as Daniel’s vision of heaven is fabulously literal in its Biblicism, so also is his witness of hell equally garish. The hell described by Daniel Ekechukwu is one of pure darkness and seemingly endless torment. We are given a description of hell as enclosed by literal gates (cf. Matt. 16:18) and occupied by a multitude of all ethnicities suffering in the complete absence of light whilst emitting deafening screams. The pastor notes that each of these victims agonized in what appeared to be their own personally designed torment, seemingly “covered in flesh but lacking blood” and suffered “as if on fire, but without visible flames”. More disturbing are the cyclical punishments described in hell: many were seen eating their flesh, forced to then immediately vomit up their remains and consume their flesh again and again, forever and ever. This was interpreted as African occultists being punished in hell for ritualistically eating human flesh while on earth (cf. Deu. 28:54-57). Daniel was told by the angelic guardian that he would have landed himself in hell for his abuse and resentment towards his wife, an outcome avoided after Daniel pleaded for forgiveness and repentance of his sins.

Theologically, this story has its holes. While one can debate what exactly an “intermediate state” entails for believers, most Orthodox views hold the judgment of the righteous and unrighteous to be a future event rather than a current reality for those who are dead at this moment. Even if this were ignored, Daniel’s view of eternal conscious torment (ECT) would isolate many sects of Christianity that hold to alternative models of hell, such as annihilationism or universalism.32 Even more conservative denominations that uphold a view of ECT will typically take a more reserved approach and claim that the suffering in hell is derived from isolation, regret, and psychological torment more so than literal fire.33 It was not until the Medieval period that art depicting hell as a blazing torture chamber became mainstream.34 It must be admitted that Daniel’s conception of hell is far more reminiscent of a literal reading of the Book of Revelation and Dante Alighieri’s Inferno than of the “isolation model” many theologians accept. The inclusion of a tour of hell is itself a rarity in the near-death experience literature, as the vast majority of reported cases include positive and comforting descriptions of the afterlife. Heavenly experiences are the norm, with hell experiences being an interesting but faint outlier.35

We must further ask why Daniel was spared the hellish fate that would have otherwise been reserved for him. Though the man describes hell as repetitive personal torture of the unbelievers, Daniel himself manages to escape this outcome merely through confessional repentance in front of the angel. This seems to imply that, contra Hebrews 9:27, hell includes some form of post-mortem opportunity for the damned. If this is so, why ought we think that Daniel is correct in saying that hell is eternal for its inhabitants? If Daniel Ekechukwu can escape eternal punishment through sincere repentance, what is to stop all sinners filled with regret from doing the same?

Such literal visuals will not be overly surprising to those who have studied near-death phenomena with any depth. Near-death experiences are notorious for frequently incorporating elements contingent on the cultural milieu of the experiencer. Hindus tend to see Hindu gods during their NDEs, Catholics often see Jesus or the Virgin Mary, etc.36 Daniel Ekechukwu saw imagery in confirmation of his Christian religious expectations. Is this evidence of the story being a product of Daniel’s subconscious rather than objective reality? One cannot say for sure.

However, many point out that NDEs are often described and interpreted using cultural imagery and language available to the individual, not as an example of hallucination, but rather as evidence of the fallibility of human memory to properly recall such experiences.37 Given the strong evidence available that suggests memory can be contaminated by personal bias, one cannot appeal to cultural inconsistencies in NDEs as evidence for their illegitimacy.38 Indeed, many NDE accounts involve the viewer noting the experience as “indescribable” and forced to resort to analogies to convey to others what they saw.39 All of this could imply that, even if we were to grant that Daniel Ekechukwu was supernaturally raised from the dead, we need not take his description of the afterlife at face value.

This explanation does not sit well with me. Though appeals to other NDE cases are helpful, our analogies can only go so far. As we have seen, the extranormal nature of Daniel’s resurrection outperforms any comparatively mundane case of resuscitation that most NDEs are associated with. The former is a far better candidate for a supernatural miracle than the latter. For the God of the universe to reverse entropy and resurrect a corpse, only to then fumble the ball by allowing false memory and cultural bias to get in the way of Daniel’s public testimony of his NDE, is unimaginable. If Christians are to take Jesus’s resurrection as divine vindication for Christ’s claims of Messiahship and divinity (Rom.1:4), should we not just as fervently accept that the resurrection of Daniel Ekechukwu was performed to give legitimacy to his claims of seeing the afterlife?

Vindication of Christianity?

Suppose Daniel’s raising truly was a miracle performed by God. What would be the implications? It is a rather strange view to hold that God would go to the effort of performing such a public miracle without the desire that it would carry with it the appearance of vindication (the Good Lord does not have a habit of raising fresh corpses on a whim).

Sources mention that Daniel’s testimony not only gave further notoriety to Bonnke’s ministry, but was also directly associated with the conversion of many African pagans to Christianity. Daniel claims that his father, a well-known village witch doctor, converted to the Christian faith immediately upon his resurrection from the dead. This was also the case for 50 “witches” who allegedly converted to the pastor’s religion after hearing his testimony during a crusade in Vienna. One can only guess how many more people across the globe were converted by the miracle, given the widespread distribution of Bonnke’s documentary and the many media outlets that gave the story a platform.

For many Christians, the resurrection of Daniel Ekechukwu acts as a modern-day analogy to the miracles in the Book of Acts, serving as evangelistic demonstrations to vindicate the Gospel message to unreached hearers. Daniel holds to this interpretation; the pastor claims that during his NDE, he was explicitly told by the angel that his resurrection was meant to serve as a sign for the world, to call for repentance and forgiveness before the coming judgment of Christ.

If this miracle serves to bolster Christian theism, what denomination of Christendom gets the Lord’s stamp of approval? Reinhard Bonnke was a Pentecostal evangelist, belonging to the largest growing sect of Christianity in human history. Pentacostalism’s expansion globally cannot be separated from the innumerable faith healings and purported wonders associated with its theology. If Daniel is right to say that the angel gave both himself and Bonnke a commission to spread the Gospel, what exactly are the contents of said Gospel?

In recent discourses on miracles across Substack, particularly those spearheaded by Ethan Muse, most debates surround Catholic-specific wonders involving the Eucharist, Marian apparitions, saintly intercession, etc. Such theological tenets do not sit well with most Pentecostal Christians. If Daniel’s resurrection is only meant to vindicate creedal Christianity without endorsing the particularities of Pentecostalism, why was this not made more clear? Supposing that the Catholics have it right that Roman miracles vindicate Catholic exclusivism, it becomes inexplicable as to why God would help grow a sect of Christianity that the Vatican would label as schismatic and heretical. Had Reinhard Bonnke been performing miracles and preaching Pentecostal theology in the Middle Ages, he certainly would have been labelled a heretic, a witch, and potentially have been excommunicated or even executed. So then why would God perform such a dramatic miracle in the context of his ministry? For the Catholic bound to the dogma of extra ecclesiam nulla salus (no salvation outside the Church), Bonnke and his followers are brethren in Christ in grave error; if they are saved at all, it is only by their invincible ignorance that they will escape the fires of hell.40

What then of Daniel Ekeuckwu’s NDE and the Gospel proclamation that followed it? If the Nigerian pastor really saw heaven and hell, why not the Catholic purgatory? If anything, Daniel’s second chance at life seems to directly violate the Catholic doctrine of particular judgement, which precludes any sense of post-mortem opportunity for the damned. Why would the angelic tour guide leave out the importance of submitting to Rome, keeping the sacraments, and praying for saintly intercession if such tenets play a key role in the Catholic understanding of salvation and Christian unity? If God is not guilty of outright deception, He can at least be accused of a potential lie of omission. Can one be the author of miracles without simultaneously being the author of religious confusion (cf. 1 Cor. 14:33)?

Make no mistake, I do not intend to blaspheme by insinuating that the Lord’s miracles appear, at least to most laymen, deceptive (Rom. 3:4). But I confess my anxiety and uncertainty with the whole endeavor. If miracles can only be properly interpreted through the guise of highly trained theologians and philosophers, then such signs lose their primary appeal for the rest of us. A Nigerian peasant who saw Daniel Ekechukwu raised before their eyes cannot be faulted for believing that the Christian Pentecostal prayers evoked in the process were legitimate. Nor can the Roman Catholic be considered ignorant for taking seriously the commissions of a Marian apparition. Few have time to examine the miracle claims of every religion, let alone every major sect of Christianity. We are left with more questions than answers.

Coda

Resurrection from the dead remains among the most controversial of miracle claims. In the handful of cases where near-sureness of death can be had, both the skeptic and the believer will be left with startling implications.

Ultimately, the believer and the skeptic are uncertain of what the afterlife, if it exists, holds. One is free to take their view of heaven and hell on the faith and the authority of Scripture or dogma, but it seems obvious that credible accounts of afterlife experiences have at least some role to play in the conversation. The hell described by Daniel Ekechukwu is one of unimaginable suffering, bitterness, and psychological affliction. If there is even a slim chance that it exists, one should play their cards very carefully to avoid it at all costs.

The alternative is equally as horrifying. A world with no afterlife and no ultimate resurrection is a reality with innumerable tragedies and undefeated evil. The lives of billions who die with unfulfilled dreams, having endured gratuitous suffering with no ultimate compensation, would be wasted potential. The thought of absolute personal annihilation following our last breath is perhaps the only thing scarier than eternal hell. It is a world where death takes the final victory lap.

Does the resurrection of Daniel Ekechukwu serve as proof of the afterlife? One can only hope, so long as they end up on the right side of eternity.

Not unlike the cripple in Mark’s narrative, Frank Brown (pseudonym) had endured the paralyzing effects of cerebral palsy for his entire life. Along with having mobility issues from his foot turning inward, the patient had suffered from spastic hemiplegia that had progressively withered away the tendons in his right hand.1 This would leave his appendage perpetually closed in a clenched fist, with limited functional use of his fingers (Figure 1). This deformity had been managed with a splint, though Frank admits that this was largely ineffective in undoing the decades of muscle atrophy and spasticity.

At the age of 60, Frank was admitted into the Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) at Morriston Hospital in Swansea, South Wales, to surgically treat a case of bowel cancer. Though the initial operation was without complications, the man’s health declined five days following the surgery when he was taken out of his hospital bed at the recommendation of his attending nurse. His respiratory rate rapidly decreased, and the patient slipped into unconsciousness. After 30 minutes of resuscitation, Frank was able to move his limbs but could not respond to verbal commands. Full consciousness was regained approximately three hours later.

Immediately following his recovery, Frank would recount to the hospital staff that he had undergone an out-of-body experience where he had witnessed the doctors attempting to revive him. He also claimed to have seen his deceased father and mother-in-law during this experience, accompanied by a bearded man wearing a white shirt who, in the patient’s words, was “probably Jesus.” Jesus told the man that he “wasn’t ready yet” and “needed to go back” to earthly life.2

Frank would then be interviewed by Dr. Penny Sartori, a well-known researcher of near-death experiences (NDEs). Sartori was able to verify that the patient’s descriptions of the resuscitation process had all been extremely accurate, despite the man showing no indication of consciousness and having both eyes dilated at the time of resuscitation. It was during this interview that Frank inadvertently mentioned a particularly striking detail,3

When I came back down [to my body] I could open my hand...[The left] hand has always been strong but this hand [right] used to be like this [fist clenched and contracted under]. All my life, for 60 years, my arm has always been like this; I could never open it....only a little bit. My father used to say, “The monkey is in the cage.” Now I can open it...Even my sister was surprised about my hand. I’ve got cerebral palsy and my hand used to be like this; now I can open it. It feels a bit tight, but I do open it...Since the experience...I can do everything with it, all the cooking...Also, what I noticed since I came home, I used to turn my foot in; I can’t understand this, but I don’t do that anymore. I’m walking straight as a die, don’t know why; I’ve got taller - not taller, but I walk straighter.

This was highly unusual, especially since lifelong upper limb deformities of this kind tend not to rapidly disappear on their own. Sartori consulted Frank’s physiotherapy records, which indicated that he had not received any treatment for his right hand during his post-opt recovery. His physical therapist noted that the muscle tone on the right hand appeared normal when Frank was discharged from the hospital, though the medic was unable to account for this sudden change. In their judgement, “the hand should not have been able to open without an operation to release the tendons that had been in a contracted position for 60 years. No such operation had been performed.”4

Frank’s story would be written up in a 2006 case report published in the Journal for Near Death Studies, a peer-reviewed publication affiliated with the University of Virginia (Figure 2). The authors of the study seemed equally impressed and befuddled as to why Frank’s withered hand regained muscle mass immediately following his alleged tour of heaven and encounter with “Jesus”:

The fact that he was able to open his previously contracted hand defies explanation5...The healed hand remains inexplicable as there is no known mechanism for how a hand that had permanently shortened tendons due to spastic hemiparesis from birth has been able to open fully. This development is something that should not be physiologically possible and something the patient stated he had not been able to do before. This entire matter was also supported in a signed statement from his sister...This study confirms that cases of interest that cannot be dismissed or ignored can be captured during a prospective study.6

Two more follow-up interviews with Frank, the last of which occurred five years following the NDE, demonstrated that his hand and gait had remained normal. This account is truly remarkable. Sartori’s judgment seems justified in this case: Frank’s healing “should not be physiologically possible” given what we know about muscle atrophy and nervous spasticity.7

But while Frank managed to have his story told in a peer-reviewed medical journal, most are not so lucky. For every Frank Brown, there are a million others who claim to have been healed miraculously through prayer, religious pilgrimage, spiritual experiences, and the like. Why then are such medical miracles, despite being common in Christian anecdotes, so rarely ever published in mainstream medicine?

Where Are All the Miracles?

It is often suggested that, if the evidence for miracle cures were truly compelling, it would be expected that such cases would be published in mainstream scientific journals. If these instances cannot stand the scrutiny of peer review, then they ought to be dismissed as nothing more than uncorroborated anecdotes.

I am not persuaded. Indeed, this argument remains toothless for a myriad of reasons. As we shall see below, there are no less than several dozen instances of “miracle cures” published in scientific journals, both mainstream and fringe, over the last century. To claim otherwise is to plead ignorance of the publicly available data.

Still, it is a legitimate question to ask why such cases are not more well-known or frequently cited. Their impact within medicine is negligible at best and nonexistent at worst. I will argue that the rarity of “medical miracles” in the mainstream literature is due to the following triptych of considerations:

1. There is a large selection bias in mainstream publications that prioritizes pharmaceutical development over case reports and unreplicable anomalies.

2. Doctors frequently exclude references to the patient’s religious experiences within medical records and journal articles, leading to many false negatives getting published.

3. Academic stigma invites derision for anyone publishing defenses of faith healing.

Following my defense of each of these points, I will provide the reader with a select bibliography of miracle case reports that have passed the gauntlet of academic peer review and publication.

I. Selection Bias

Medical journals are primarily motivated by the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, in which illnesses are studied so that drugs and treatments can be developed and sold to the public. Such a sentiment creates significant selection bias in terms of which studies are funded and published.8 This is especially true with case reports, which are statistically less likely to be cited and may hamper a journal’s impact factor.9 Case reports of anomalous remissions after prayer are typically useless for pharmaceutical development, unless a mechanism can be unearthed and replicated in future drug trials. But such a mechanism defeats the point of any so-called “miracle.” As an alternative medicine advocate noted,10

The particular problem with case histories of remission is that no one knows what to do with them. In order for a given case to be published by medical journals, it needs to fit into an established theoretical context. But there is no theory yet, and context is created only by write-ups in medical journals. The question becomes, ‘How does medicine communally decide what gets studied and reviewed?’ Or to put it another way, ‘What is an acceptable level of mystery?’

Singular religious anomalies that seem to contradict our immunological models simply do not generate much interest from most major medical journals.

If this is true, then one should not furrow their brow at the fact that the only organizations interested in funding and studying faith healing are those that have a pre-established interest in finding a correlation between prayer and recovery. Scientific attempts to document inexplicable recoveries in a religious context began with the Catholic Church in the 18th century, when Prospero Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV) set forth the standard for scientific inquiry into miracles that has survived in Catholic practice to this very day. In most cases, current candidates for Catholic sainthood typically require at least two “miracles” at their intercession. These nearly always involve unexplained cures that must receive review from a panel of doctors in Rome before any declaration of a miracle can be authorized. The primary physicians of the miracle recipient are permitted to publish the documentation in scientific journals, but this often does not happen due to logistical reasons:11

[During the canonization process] the physicians agree not to discuss the miracle cases with outsiders. They are permitted to write them up in medical journals, but not until the cause has been completed and acted upon by the Pope. Since this may take a year and often longer, the consultants rarely bother to publish anything on them at all. Despite these restrictions…several members of the [Vatican medical guild] are quite willing to discuss their work.

Once in a blue moon, a case of this kind will manage to receive official publication. This has been seen with canonization case reports published in Catholic bio-ethical journals like The Linacre Quarterly.12 Most significant was the work of Jacalyn Duffin, a medical historian who remains one of the leading authorities on the subject of canonization cures. Duffin’s genesis began decades ago when the Vatican brought her in as a consultant for a leukemia cure associated with Canada’s first saint, Marguerite Bourgeoys (Figure 3). Deeply fascinated by the process, Duffin (a self-identified atheist) would go on to gain access to five centuries’ worth of case files and would produce her research in two tomes published by Oxford University Press.13

Protestant Christianity, while a bit late to this trend, would take a note from the Vatican’s playbook by using the Lambertini Criteria to document their own cases of alleged healing. The second half of the 20th century would see a plethora of books containing excerpts of medical records in support of cures from various Pentecostal evangelists like Benny Hinn,14 Mahesh Chavda,15 Reinhardt Bonnke,16 and Kathryn Kuhlman.17 Kuhlman was especially renowned for her advocacy of collecting medical documentation for her cures. Dr. Richard Casdorph’s 1976 book Miracles: A Doctor Says Yes! would cover 10 cases associated with Kuhlman’s ministry, supplying the reader with photocopies of the patient’s X-Rays, brain scans, and the other evidence to vindicate the evangelist’s claims to heal organic illness (Figure 4). Casdorph’s book would receive informal peer review from nine other consultant physicians, including specialists and department heads.18

Prayer research of the 2010s was spearheaded by the Global Medical Research Institute (GMRI), debuting with a pilot study in the Southern Medical Journal showing a strong correlation between Christian prayer and functional acuity in blind and deaf villagers in rural Mozambique.19 While the study was preliminary and lacked strong controls, GMRI has since put more emphasis on publishing case reports involving instantaneous and remarkable instances of faith healing in severely disabled individuals. This includes an immediate cure of legal blindness from juvenile macular degeneration,20 an instantaneous return of function to a paralyzed stomach from idiopathic gastroparesis,21 and a rapid recovery of severe symptoms in a child with a congenital genetic disorder.22

None of this is to say that there are no secular institutions that have dipped their toes into the pool of prayer research. One of the most recent examples involved a case series of six different journal articles, including a doctoral dissertation, published through Vrije University, wherein dozens of instances of remarkable cures were recorded in religious contexts.23 The most impressive of these was an instantaneous and long-lasting remission of Parkinson’s Disease (90% resolution of symptoms) that occurred during a 2012 Easter Sunday service.24 But these publications are, by and large, dominated by religiously adjacent organizations that are motivated to find a positive outcome for prayer’s effect on health. Bias may be a real concern here, but this prejudice goes both ways (see below). Partiality alone is not enough to dismiss data. One has to review each case on its own merits and methods.

II. False Negatives and Unmentioned Prayer

Prayer remains extremely common when petitioning for the sick.25 Even among the non-religious, over 40% report praying on at least a monthly basis.26 The prevalence of prayer creates a new problem: it becomes difficult, perhaps virtually impossible, to properly rule out potential background prayers that may have been given by the patient, a patient’s loved one, or even a caring stranger. Studies on the efficacy of distant prayer are well aware of this problem.27 One particularly renowned experiment from 2006 found a slightly negative correlation between prayer and recovery, but conceded that the control group could have received outside prayers,28

We did not request that subjects alter any plans for family, friends, and/or members of their religious institutions to pray for them, because to do so would have been unethical and impractical. At enrollment, most subjects did expect to receive prayers from others regardless of their participation in the study. We also recognize that subjects may have prayed for themselves. Thus, our study subjects may have been exposed to a large amount of non–study prayer, and this could have made it more difficult to detect the effects of prayer provided by the intercessors.

With prayer studies, we are potentially left with a significant number of false negatives where prayer was used by the patient, but was nevertheless deprived of mention by the study’s authors. Recoveries widely perceived as divine “miracles” have thus been reported in journals but are not distinguished as occurring within a religious context.

The October 2000 edition of the Hawaiian Medical Journal documented a medically remarkable case of sudden remission of liposarcoma (cancer of fat cells), the explanation of which remained elusive.29 The elderly patient had visited her dermatologist in 1996 due to a 3cm lump on her left buttock. While the doctor originally believed this to be a benign hematoma, the mass grew to 12 cm x 7cm and was surgically removed in January 1998. Pathology indicated the mass to be a high-grade pleomorphic liposarcoma that was considered aggressive. Further surgery was done to remove additional portions of the gluteal muscle. The patient then underwent temporary radiation therapy as a safe measure.

By September 1998, a chest X-ray indicated three new masses in her lungs (1 cm in left lung, 3.5 cm in the left hilum, and 3cm in the right lung), with one of these tumors biopsied as metastatic liposarcoma on September 17th (Figure 5). It was evident that her cancer had not only returned, but had rapidly spread to her chest cavity and lungs (Figure 6, left). Given the cancer’s aggressive metastasis, no treatments were offered and the patient was sent home with only a few months of life expectancy.

Contrary to all expectations, the patient returned to her doctor only two weeks later on October 2nd, reporting much better health. Chest X-Rays indicated a regression of her pulmonary tumors, with follow-up scans in November and December proving continued shrinkage in the size of these masses. By May 1999, no signs of cancer remained in the lungs (Figure 6, right). For good measure, further scans in August 1999 and August 2000 continued to show the patient remaining in remission. The published case study emphasized the peculiarity of this remission, especially in the absence of treatment: “The evidence for spontaneous regression in this case is convincing. Histologically proven lung metastases disappeared with no therapy at all.”30

This case study is certainly a bizarre medical anomaly.31 Pleomorphic liposarcomas are extremely aggressive and difficult to treat; while other forms of cancer can go into spontaneous remission on rare occasions, regressions of these types of liposarcomas are virtually unheard of at this stage.32 But while rife with medical details, the Hawaiian Medical Journal article does not tell the full story.

The cancer patient, 69-year-old Audrey Toguchi, had been told her condition was inoperable and that she had only a few months to live. After the prognosis worsened in late September, Audrey would trek to visit the Hawaiian tomb of Fr. Damien de Veuster, where she petitioned for the deceased priest to intercede for her healing. She reported immediately feeling better following the pilgrimage. Her next oncologist visit within that fortnight showed the early stages of cancer remission.

The editors of the Hawaiian Medical Journal did not mention that the Vatican was investigating the miracle for the potential canonization of Fr. de Veuster, nor did they feel the need to describe the patient’s prayers for healing that she attributed to her cure. Though prayer was instrumental in Rome’s inquiry and in the patient’s personal experience, it was considered incidental and ultimately irrelevant to the journal authors. Had one not known the unsaid religious context of this case, it could be seen as a highly atypical case of spontaneous cancer remission and nothing more.

In other instances, details of prayer are mentioned in medical journals only incidentally. A case report published in the fall 2018 edition of The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease recounts the remarkable cure of Eben Alexander from a severe case of meningitis caused by Escherichia coli bacteria.33 The patient had gone into a coma followed by septic shock with no improvement over five days. The survival rate was estimated at 3%, and even then, permanent brain damage was inevitable. In light of his doctors declaring the prognosis to be “dismal,” several strangers gathered around the patient’s bed and prayed for his recovery. Within 24 hours of the religious intervention, Eben inexplicably regained consciousness, showing delirium but rapidly improving with only minor inhibition of motor function. Follow-up tests two months later found all signs of neurological impairment absent, with the patient having made a “complete and remarkable recovery.” As of writing, Eben Alexander remains in normal health over 15 years later.

This cure, especially in the absence of any permanent neurological impediment, is astounding and otherwise unprecedented in the literature.34 As the study authors observed,35

Patients with Gram-negative bacterial meningitis have a high rate of neurological complications...however, this patient [Eben Alexander] attained full neurological recovery within 2 months, which is remarkable and rare. This recovery is particularly striking in light of the poor prognostic signs, including descent into coma within 3 hours of symptom onset....

To our knowledge, this is the first medical record review of a case of severe meningoencephalitis associated with a near-death experience. This is particularly relevant because of the specific and devastating effect of meningoencephalitis on the neocortex, compared with cardiac arrest and other more common conditions associated with near-death experiences.

Although this is one of the few instances where recovery following prayer was noted within a published case report, it was introduced by mere happenstance. The detail was mentioned to corroborate Alexander’s near-death experience that occurred during his coma, where the patient claimed to have floated out of his body and witnessed the praying individuals surrounding his bed. While the authors of the study see this as evidence that Alexander maintained some sense of conscious awareness in his comatose state, they do not make a direct causal relationship between the prayers and his recovery soon afterward. Had it not been for this accidental reference to communal prayer, the reader would have otherwise had no knowledge that Eben Alexander’s healing occurred within a religiously charged context.

Replacing Miracles With Anomalies

This trend may be much more common than one might expect. It appears that, more often than not, miracles and religious association are generally replaced by appeals to mystery and scientific anomaly. The first documented case of spontaneous remission of neonatal fibrosarcoma noted a surprising regression of tumors on an infant’s arm. Before and after X-Rays clearly showed reduced swelling and the reversal of bone erosion (Figure 7).36 But the published paper failed to observe that the gradual cure had occurred after the patient attended a conference led by the British healing evangelist John Wimber.37

The healing of 63-year-old Muriel Bourne-Mullen from metastasized hepatocellular carcinoma (late-stage liver cancer) was likewise published in a 1990 journal on gut health, where it was confirmed that her remission was complete and occurred in the absence of any treatment.38 An ultrasound indicated that the large mass on her liver, which had spread to her lungs and shortened her life expectancy (mean expectancy at six months), was inexplicably replaced with scar tissue during follow-up hospital visits (Figure 8). Scans also proved that the tumors had left her lungs. This case study was noted as highly unusual, as complete remissions of liver cancer at this stage remain remarkably rare. But the journal saw no need to mention the fact that the dramatic regression of the tumors began shortly after Muriel had sought a cure through various religious intercessors. In interviews, Muriel noted her Catholic upbringing and relayed how she had prayed incessantly to the Virgin Mary and other saints for a cure to her life-threatening cancer. She had even sought distant healing from her husband’s co-worker, who practiced Eastern forms of spiritual medicine. By the time of her next visit with her oncologist, she was not only still alive, but also asymptomatic and had gained about 6lbs back in weight.

None of Muriel’s spiritual therapies received even a passing reference in the published paper. As one commentator would later go on to critique,39

[The cure of] Muriel was written up, but her actual story disappears between the lines of her medical report. In the journal...[the] case unfolds with no more charm than the blunt prosody of its title...There is no mention [in the paper] of Muriel’s spiritual experiences and beliefs, or of the fervent prayers that fit no therapeutic schema.

Just as mainstream medical journals tend to dissuade mention of prayer in correlation with unexplained recovery, one finds equal silence in the patient’s own medical records. A 52-year-old woman (“Bethany”) suffered for five years from a progressively worsening autoimmune disorder diagnosed as autonomic neuropathy. Thermal regulation became more difficult to manage, and the patient would begin to lose muscle strength to the point where she required a walker. Hospice workers considered the condition terminal and estimated that the patient had less than six months left to live. In desperation, Bethany sought prayer on April 29th, 2010, from an associate minister affiliated with the healing evangelist Randy Clark. Both pain and prior food intolerance disappeared within the same day and were followed by a near-complete functional recovery.

Her neurologist conceded in an examination in 2011 that “her symptoms have resolved almost completely” and that they were “at a loss to explain why exactly this has occurred”. The same physician hypothesized that this may have been due to some ill-understood form of spontaneous remission, as seen in other kinds of autoimmune disorders. Nowhere in Bethany’s records did her doctor take into account the prayer service that immediately preceded her symptom resolution (Figure 9).40

Time and time again, doctors will often infer natural causes even when a patient directly attributes their recovery to miraculous intervention. Ray Jackson would be admitted to Duke Medical Center in December 1972 for hematuria (blood in urine). An X-Ray found an abnormal tumor in his left kidney, diagnosed as hypernephroma. The organ would be surgically removed a day later and was biopsied as a metastasized adenocarcinoma. By February 1974, concerns were raised when Ray developed a large sore on his finger that required immediate amputation. Biopsies of the severed digit verified that his cancer had returned and had traveled throughout his bloodstream. Bone scans in April 1974 confirmed the doctors’ worst fears: the disease had spread throughout his body and was rapidly deteriorating his bones (Figure 10). Ray was given a daily prescription for 30mg of Provera (hormone therapy) for pain management and was scheduled to return to the facility the following week for chemotherapy. Doctors made it clear that this treatment was only palliative: even with intervention, the cancer was in such a progressive stage that the patient was not expected to survive into the next year.41

Seeing that his life was in jeopardy, Ray took a step of faith by flying to Florida to attend a healing conference on April 28th, 1974. On May 1st, Ray would return to the facility reporting normal health and an absence of pain. Scans indicated no change in oncology, but, for reasons that continue to elude, his physicians agreed to forego any radiation therapy and only continued the prescription of Provera until the end of the year. An X-Ray examination in October 1974 found the cancer to be completely absent. Per his radiology records, “he went to some religious revival and his pain disappeared… [since then], healing of the previously described metastasis focus [is observed] on the left ischium. No other metastatic foci are identified.”42

Ray’s doctors seemed to have different interpretations of the event. Some medical records mentioned that the remission had begun following the patient’s faith healing experience,43

Within one week on initiating Provera therapy and following a religious experience in Florida…all pain subsided and irridaton therapy which had been planned for the left ischium was not given. Since then he has felt quite well without pain, cough, shortness of breath, weight loss, or intercurrent illness.

This sentiment does not seem to have been shared by everyone. During follow-up examinations in May and November 1975, a hematologist at Duke University Medical Center seemed to discount the religious elements of Ray’s cure,44

Careful review of the chest X-Ray showed no abnormalities and the chemistry survey was quite healthy as well. There was no abnormality of liver function, renal function, or of the blood calcium. We can only assume that the neoplasm is in remission, whatever the reason. [His primary physician] told me that he suggested resumption of the Provera compound [discontinued since 12/31/74]. It certainly isn’t mandatory although its administration coincided with a remarkable resolution in bone pain and stabilization of the bone scan.

The latter report seems to chalk up the spontaneous remission to mystery, tentatively suggesting that the palliative Provera hormone therapy may have been a factor in this “remarkable resolution” of late-stage cancer. This is highly unlikely; while the hormone treatment may have contributed in part to the patient’s improved health, the medical science strongly suggests that this cannot plausibly tell the whole story.45 Even more remarkable is the fact that Ray’s remission would be lifelong: the man lived another 41 years cancer-free until his death from natural causes in 2015.46 The vast majority of patients in Ray’s situation who underwent palliative care still died within 2 to 3 years of diagnosis.47

Whether Ray Jackson was cured by God or Provera, the point remains evident. Doctors are often unsure of how to incorporate their patients’ perspectives on faith when writing up case reports. Even when physicians have been made aware of their patients’ testimonies, speculations on natural mechanisms will typically wind up in the official medical records. References to prayer are less likely to make the final cut. The reason such “miracle” case studies have predominantly been exclusive to fringe journals is not that the medical evidence was inferior; rather, these publications are far more likely to include details about intercessory prayer that would have otherwise been omitted from a mainstream journal.

III. Academic Stigma

Faith healing is considered inseparable from complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a subject typically derided by most American doctors and medical institutions.48 It is for this reason that nearly half of all CAM studies are produced in journals with virtually zero impact factor and negligible appeal to the broader scientific community.49 Journals promoting CAM are frequently denounced for what critics identify are “ridiculous studies”50 that are of “poorer methodological quality”51 compared to mainstream medicine.

While it is not always admitted, the greater tension is the underlying controversy within the natural sciences about research that would implicate potential evidence for the paranormal or the miraculous.52 Many scholars of science, history, and religion will state outright that accounts of miracles automatically make a claim less credible a priori.53 Some have (dubiously) gone so far as to suggest that the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth should be called into question primarily because the narratives of his life are engulfed in miracle stories.54 We see this line of reasoning in full force with religious scholar Raphael Lataster, who would write off one biblical account in Acts 12:20-23 because it dared to mention an angel: “Given that angels are mythical creatures, this story is inherently unlikely to be historical.”55 Just as entertaining the possibility of angelic visitors is seen as absurd in post-Enlightenment scholarship, equal stigma is risked if doctors were to publish miracle case reports with the religious details intact.

This academic cynicism has been prevalent for several centuries.56 One contemporary example is seen with alleged Eucharistic miracles, where a Catholic communion host is purported to transform into literal bodily tissue. Some instances have managed publication and replication in obscure medical journals.57 But more often than not, scientists exhibit great reluctance to affiliate themselves with these cases due to potential blowback. This was the case with Dr. Susanne Hummel, forensics professor at the University of Göttingen, who declined to examine a purported Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires out of academic reluctance, “If the testing confirmed what was being claimed, namely that a communion host had become flesh or blood, then this would embarrass the university and force it to close down part of the [department].”

In a separate Eucharistic case, two forensic scientists agreed to microscopically examine a bloodied communion wafer in Sokółka, Poland, and came to a positive verdict that the substance was real cardiac tissue. Due to these shocking results, and perhaps the questionable use of methods and resources by these scientists, public backlash ensued. One skeptic group went so far as to (unfoundedly) accuse the scientists of committing a murder to retrieve the heart tissue! As a direct result of this academic repudiation and the negative press that accumulated, future Eucharistic miracle hosts in Poland were turned down for scientific examination.58 One scientist would admit this directly in an interview with French media outlets,

Not all the scientists and organizations that initially participated in this study [on the Eucharistic host] agreed to give an opinion. Many withdrew, citing various reasons after learning the origin of this sample. In the end, two organizations issued a scientific opinion…they agreed that it was myocardial [heart muscle] tissue, but when told where this fragment came from they refused to write an opinion.

This general prejudice against religiously implicative research has been demonstrated in a comprehensive study out of Oxford by sociologist Elaine Ecklund, who noted that scientists frequently feel pressured not to discuss religious or spiritual matters among their colleagues.59 Such fears of academic retaliation led to the genesis of The Archives of Scientists’ Transcendent Experiences (TASTE), a platform where credentialed scientists could anonymously submit testimonies of experiences that they believed to be paranormal, miraculous, or transcendental in nature.60 The site’s founder, parapsychologist Charles Tart, emphasized the potential academic reprisal risked by scientists who publicly confessed to these otherwise taboo experiences,61

Too often I am the first and only person they have ever spoken to about their experiences, for fear of ridicule from their colleagues and adverse, prejudicial effects on their career. Such fears have, unfortunately, too much of a basis in fact.

To endorse the supernatural is to invite ridicule. Superstitions have no place in the academic collateral that the Enlightenment has left us. Hence Dr. Richard Casdorph, in publishing his book documenting the cures of faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman, was written off by colleagues as too credulous because of his faith. This is despite the fact that Casdorph took great care in backing up his claims with relatively thorough medical records.62 The same fate befell Allen Spraggett, a journalist who also defended Kuhlman by producing medical documentation from her case studies.63 Skeptics dedicated only two sentences responding to Spraggett’s 200-page book, dismissing him as a “would-be parapsychologist” without any further comment on his arguments.64

This fear of being hounded by colleagues persists in the peer-review process. Many mainstream journals and presses may be chastised for platforming publications that could be interpreted as legitimizing the paranormal. As one Swedish prayer researcher observed,65

Many anthropologists have remarked that in the past they have had difficulty publishing research that includes these [supernatural] experiences, partly because journals deny them and partly because they are worried about not being taken seriously....When researchers want to investigate the effect of prayer or report on [cures] with detailed descriptions of how the prayer is done, there is outcry [sic] and demands that similar studies should not be published...

Examples abound. Following the 1952 healing of four-year-old Ann O’Neill of acute leukemia, which was immediately preceded by prayers to a Catholic candidate for sainthood, her doctor argued that there was no precedent for such an unexpected remission. When asked by The Washington Post why he did not publish the case in a scientific journal, his response is quite telling: “The only reason this case has not been written up is that I have been afraid to.”66 The case would instead receive publication in a Catholic-affiliated medical journal where the more “miraculous elements” were less controversial.67 Another doctor would allegedly tell his patient that, despite witnessing them receive an impossible cure of a heart condition, he could not bring himself to admit this publicly. His reasoning? It would make him “the laughing stock of the entire medical profession.”68

Among the most controversial instances was the infamous 2001 study published in the Journal of Reproductive Health, where results indicated that intercessory prayer doubled the rate of fertilization for women using in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.69 If true, these findings would be among the most dramatic and significant positive findings of prayer’s efficacy ever published in a mainstream medical journal. However, heavy criticism was directed toward the study’s convoluted methodology, potential ethical violations, and the authors' credibility.70 Backlash became so overwhelming that the journal took down the study from its website in 2004 as it had “generated more traffic than the office could handle.”71 In light of all of the outcry, the Journal of Reproductive Health would eventually reinstate the study on its website and allowed one of the paper’s authors to publish defenses of their findings in later issues.72 Later literature reviews would omit the IVF prayer study out of caution, but conceded this decision “may have been incorrect...[since we] still do not have proof that the study was bogus.”73

Neither the journal nor its associated school of Columbia University were able to come out of the IVF study reputationally unscathed. Detractors labelled the study a “fiasco” that left “a black mark on a great university.”74 Although many fair criticisms were leveled against the IVF study’s methodology, the most scathing commentators opposed the research question out of sheer principle. One of the study’s biggest critics expressed that experiments on miracles of any kind should never receive publication in a mainstream scientific journal:75

The ‘faith’ in faith healing refers to an irrational belief, unsupported by evidence, that mysterious supernatural powers can eradicate disease. Science deals with evidence, not faith....Unless replicated under strictly controlled conditions, studies claiming to have demonstrated ‘miracle’ cures belong in religious and paranormal magazines, not in scientific journals...

It is one thing to tell an audience at a tent revival that prayers yield miracle cures but quite another thing to make the same claim in a scientific journal. By doing so, faith healers cross the line into the domain of science, a domain where superstitious and supernatural claims are not taken seriously...Is it more likely that this study is flawed or fraudulent, or that the authors have demonstrated the existence of a supernatural phenomenon and thus have made perhaps the most important discovery in history?

The final line of this quote is undoubtedly a reference to David Hume’s maxim against the miraculous. No amount of testimony, even if observed in controlled conditions and published in a respectable medical journal, could ever establish that a miracle occurred.

Most journals are unwilling to receive the inevitable criticism, ridicule, and reputational sabotage entailed by platforming such studies. As a chief example, a pilot study on the positive effects of prayer on the blind and the deaf in Mozambique generated much controversy following its 2010 publication in the Southern Medical Journal (discussed above). The journal’s editor-in-chief, Ronald Hamdy, resigned from his position shortly after the paper’s publication, apparently due to the immense criticism received from the journal’s promotion of a study with potentially supernatural implications.76

Or consider Yale University Press’s 2024 book They Flew, which assessed historical accounts of levitation throughout the medieval and early modern period.77 In spite of its prestigious publisher and its highly acclaimed author, the decorated Yale historian Carlos Eire, critics wrote off the work as a “gullible new book” that was “deeply unserious” and went so far as to suggest that Eire’s approach was committing the sin of “professional dishonesty.” It is fine to study such accounts from a purely anthropological and historical perspective; however, in their eyes, the historian must not stoop so low as to actually take seriously the claims of anything remotely supernatural,

The history of the supernatural in early modernity—of miracles, witchcraft, magic—is a perfectly normal field of inquiry. What is more incompatible with seriousness is Eire’s contention that these miracles actually happened. These people flew…Just because some phenomena—a flying friar, a stigmatic and bleeding nun—couldn’t be explained didn’t mean it was God at work…

I think we’re meant to believe that these “eyewitness testimonies” suggest that Joseph, indeed, flew…To say that Joseph flew and that our understanding of the laws of physics therefore must change (how, exactly?) is to explain precisely nothing: nothing about the early modern world, nothing about our own, and nothing about the vexed relationship between the enchanted past and our disenchanted present…

If an award-winning and tenured historian like Carlos Eire cannot evade reputational tarnishment through such publications, what should we suppose about other researchers who are far less fortified in their careers? How much of a risk are they willing to take?

Whether justified or not, prejudice against claims of the paranormal remains rife among publishers in the social and natural sciences. Humans remain fickle, biased creatures enslaved to our presuppositions. Even the most educated among us have not escaped this fate of confirmation bias.

Coda

Claims of healing miracles are by no means rare. Anyone suggesting otherwise needs to get out more and explore the world. But most accounts remain just that: anecdotes, vignettes, and rumors that grow into nothing more. One cannot fathom the number of books that could have existed had we taken the time to record each and every miracle report.

Unfortunately, for most of the scientifically minded, such efforts are fruitless. Most academics have little interest in studying medical anomalies for which no profit can be made. If they are to ever make it to formal peer review, it is inevitable that such stories will be told with all sensational religious context stripped out. Today’s miracle is tomorrow’s anomaly. To take the supernatural seriously is to paint a target on one’s back, as if miracles now serve as a proverbial “Kick Me” sign for those who defend them in the literature. Miracles are not absent from medical science, but they are hidden under a pile of laicization.

Appendix

For the convenience of the reader, I have compiled a selected bibliography for every major case (within my knowledge) of a medical miracle found in the peer-reviewed literature. I have included both mainstream and alternative journals, including books published through academic presses.

Bibliography Of Medical Miracle Literature

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[Post edited on May 16th, 2026, to include a brief discussion on the Eucharistic narrative involving the Garabandal Marian apparitions]

I am not Catholic. Far from it, I was raised in an evangelical household where religious participation was exclusively low-church. My adolescence was accompanied by countless worship services with contemporary bands, high-scale production values, fog machines, and sermons that were often styled like a TED talk. I hardly gave much thought to the more traditional forms of church, the Eucharist, bishops, or the Virgin Mary.

Despite my upbringing, I have become increasingly enthralled by stories of Catholic mystics and visionaries. The Christian religion, whatever its denomination, is ultimately a faith grounded in the testimony of visionaries. One cannot have Christianity without the resurrection, and one cannot believe in Christ’s defeat of death without the witness of the New Testament (1 Cor. 15:1-19).

Ancient history is, of course, notoriously difficult to accurately reconstruct. Our sources of the risen Christ come from men writing decades after the events allegedly occurred. However credible we judge their testimony, we are forced to concede that there is so much we cannot know. We do not have the Easter witnesses in front of us to interrogate. We cannot read their body language or hear their cadence. We have no way of knowing how reliable their memories were. All we are left with are Epistles and Gospels by individuals who were promoting the faith to their readers so that they may come to believe (Lk. 1:3-4; Jn. 20:31).

But what if the testimony to the Risen Christ did not cease after the closing of the Biblical canon? What if our witnesses to the resurrection populate throughout every generation, so that the Gospel message can continue to be spread across every culture and all epochs?

Finding Parallels: The Living Christ and the Marian Apparition

Despite the Apostle Paul’s claim that he was the “last of all” to see the risen Christ (1 Cor. 15:8), we have a multiplicity of testimonies attesting to seeing Jesus alive in our own day.1 In most cases, these experiences can be described as visionary and contain mostly visual elements. Easily the most comprehensive work on the subject is Phillip Wiebe’s 1997 book Visions of Jesus, which catalogues contemporary accounts from eyewitnesses seeing, speaking with, and sometimes even being physically healed by, a Christophany.2

Christophanies, as interesting as they may be, are not our closest parallel to the Gospel resurrection encounters. Contrary to what we see in the New Testament, visions of Jesus in our day are generally brief, occur only once, and typically don’t contain any sort of deep theological message or commission. The same cannot be said for Christ’s mother. Marian apparitions, which are alleged appearances of the Virgin Mary, have exploded in frequency following the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many witnesses, typically young children, will report extensive, repeated encounters with the Blessed Virgin in group settings during these mystical experiences.3

For this article, I will be sampling some of the best attested cases over the past 150 years:

• Our Lady of Lourdes (1858): A 14-year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous would claim to see a young lady dressed in white while searching for firewood on February 11th, 1858. Despite no one else being able to see her, Bernadette would continue to visit the woman at a nearby grotto in Lourdes, France, up until July 18th of that year. Immense crowds gathered to watch the girl communicate with this mysterious figure, who eventually identified herself to Bernadette as the Immaculate Conception. The woman in white would reveal the location of a spring beneath the grotto to Bernadette, which quickly led to thousands of claims of miraculous cures from those who touched and drank the water. Lourdes remains a major pilgrimage site to this day, seeing millions of visitors annually.

• Our Lady of Fatima (1917): Three shepherd children, Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, would see a lady in white appear to them beginning on May 13th, 1917, in the rural town of Fatima, Portugal. The figure revealed herself as Our Lady of the Rosary and instructed the children to visit her at the same location on the 13th of every month until October of that year, where she promised a miracle. On October 13th, 1917, tens of thousands of curious onlookers gathered at the site where they would report a strange atmospheric phenomenon, mostly involving the sun behaving in extremely peculiar ways and creating an intense heat that instantly dried their rain-soaked clothes. Following years of investigation, the Bishop of Leiria would declare the apparitions worthy of belief on the 13th anniversary of the miracle, October 13th, 1930.

• Our Lady of Beauraing (1932-1933): On November 29th, 1932, five Catholic school children in the Belgian town of Beauraing (pronounced Bo-ron) would spot a luminous figure hovering over a bridge. They would run away in fear, but were persuaded to visit the bridge the following day, where the apparition appeared again. Further appearances would occur almost daily around a tree in their local garden, totaling 33 different encounters. The figure would identify herself as the Immaculate Conception and would reveal what appeared to be a golden heart resting on her chest. For this reason, she would come to be known alternatively as Our Lady of the Golden Heart.4

• Our Lady of Zeitoun (1968-1971): The only non-Catholic entry on this list, this apparition was first seen hovering above St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Zeitoun, Egypt (a neighborhood of Cairo) on the night of April 2nd, 1968. Locals would quickly identify this humanoid figure as the Virgin Mary due to the city’s long-standing traditions involving the Virgin. Over the next few months, these appearances on the church grew more prevalent, and crowds would gather to see the Blessed Mother. Some encounters lasted only a few seconds, others endured for hours. Investigations around the area turned up no sign of fraud or artificial projection of light. Though Our Lady never spoke, her likeness was captured by journalists through various photographs. The second half of 1968 would see these encounters begin to dissipate, with incremental appearances reported until May 29th, 1971. All in all, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, claimed to have seen the Marian apparition during this three-year period.5

It is not hard to see the general parallels between these incidents and the resurrection accounts as narrated in the New Testament. Many have made this connection,6 though several Protestant apologists have tried to downplay the extent of these analogies for the sake of making the resurrection stand out as particularly unique.7 One can always nitpick to find similarities and variations between any two accounts. But I am persuaded that these parallels form a general template that bridges the resurrection accounts with what can be studied in our modern day and age. I contend that the following 10 elements form a proper analogy between these Marian apparitions and the Biblical narrative of Easter morning:

1. Unidentified Figure With An Unexpected Initial Appearance

2. Limited Scope of Visionaries

3. Consistent Description of the Apparition’s Appearance

4. Multimodal Experiences

5. Predicted Schedule with a Rendezvous Point

6. A Commission to the Followers

7. A Hostile Reception

8. Accompanying Entities

9. Public Miracles

10. Spiritual Transformation

None of these analogies is a perfect match. Few things in history ever are. But I hope to show that an objective survey of the evidence will lead one to see that these accounts are much more similar than many give them credit for. What we do with the historicity and interpretation of the resurrection narratives may depend on how we assess modern-day experiences of the Virgin Mary.

1. Unidentified Figure With An Unexpected Initial Appearance

Though the Gospels purport that Jesus predicted His resurrection on many occasions, it is clear that the narratives depict the disciples as not expecting such an appearance to materialize. The exact timeline of the Easter appearances is discrepant between the four Gospels, but in each version, it is evident that the resurrected Jesus appears to those who were not expecting to see Him. This is especially true with the Jerusalem appearances that took place on Easter day: Jesus appears before the women disciples unannounced, whether in a group (Matt. 28:9-10) or individualized setting (Jn 20:11-18). The disciples are startled when Christ appears before them Sunday night and eats a meal with them (Lk. 24:36-42; Jn. 20:19-22). Even later witnesses, such as Paul, would purportedly see Jesus appear to him out of thin air as he is knocked off his horse while heading to Damascus (Acts 9:3-4).

In many instances, the realization of Jesus’s identity did not take place until well into the encounter, sometimes only after it had concluded. Mary Magdalene mistakes the resurrected Christ for a gardener (Jn. 20:15). Cleopas and his companion do not recognize Jesus when He walks alongside them on the Road to Emaus, only realizing His true identity after He has a meal with them (Lk. 24:15-16). In John 21, the disciples do not seem to recognize Christ on the beach shore, perhaps due to the far distance between them (Jn. 21:4). Paul has to ask the heavenly light its identity, to which it names itself as the Risen Jesus (Acts 9:5). The narratives unfortunately do not elucidate as to why this unrecognition motif is present, but it is impossible to ignore as trivial.

Now we turn to Marian apparitions. In two cases from our samples (Lourdes and Fatima), the visionaries seemed to have stumbled across the figure incidentally while performing chores outside. Bernadette described seeing uo petito damizelo (small young lady) standing near the Lourdes grotto during a hunt for firewood on February 11th, 1858. The witness had initially acted in fear when she first saw the entity veiled in white, holding out her rosary as a sign of protection. She did not know the figure’s identity despite asking multiple times in later conversations with the apparition. It was only after the 16th appearance on March 25th of that year that the woman revealed her true title, Je suis l'Immaculée conception (I am the Immaculate Conception).

Our Lady of Fatima is parallel to this encounter; on March 13th, 1917, the three shepherd children would suddenly see a bolt of lightning while they were tending to their flock. This was immediately followed by the materialization of a beautiful, radiant woman in white. The children ask where the woman came from, to which she answered that she had descended from heaven. Later interactions would have the woman identify herself to the three visionaries as Our Lady of the Rosary.

For Beauraing’s apparitions, the visionaries would first claim to see an unidentified woman floating slightly above a bridge on November 29th, 1932, moving as if she were walking along the clouds. While one of the children seemed to recognize the figure as “the Virgin,” others seemed unsure. The children would then run away in fear, but would return to the site the next day out of sheer curiosity. Some of their parents believed that a person had dressed up to scare the kids, or that it was a reflection from automobile lights. But the witnesses all agreed that “we saw something in white.” The figure would remain silent until its self-referential revelation to the kids on December 2nd, where it affirmed its identity as the Immaculate Conception. Subsequent appearances would have the figure identify itself with other titles like “The Immaculate Virgin” and the “Queen of Heaven.”

Similar is the case of Zeitoun, where the apparition was witnessed floating above the dome of a Coptic church on April 2nd, 1968. The first witness to spot the figure, a Muslim man by the name of Farouk Mohammed Atwa, believed her to be a nun who was preparing to take her own life by jumping from the dome of the building. As crowds continued to gather, many observed that her feet seemed to float just above the structure. Soon, the consensus of the crowd was that this being was the Blessed Virgin Mary, given that the church had been built in her honor and that the region had a long tradition of Marian veneration. The apparition would never speak to confirm or deny this identification as appearances continued at the church over the next few years.

In each case, the witnesses’ first encounter with these beings did not follow deep meditation or religious expectation, but rather occurred as an episode devoid of psychological predisposition. They are surprised to see the figure appear before them, frequently unsure of what they are seeing and not associating an identity with it until later on.

Contrast this with other cases of group religious experiences, where expectation was paramount to the divine being’s appearance.8 In the case of the three Mormon witnesses to the golden plates and the angel Moroni, the men were told to expect a vision and were fervently praying for an experience at the time of their encounter,9

In order to see the sacred relics, the witnesses would have to rely upon the word of God “with full purpose of heart,” and exercise faith, for they were told, “It is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them…” Joseph, Oliver, David, and Martin secluded themselves in a wooded area a short distance from the Whitmer home. Upon finding an appropriate location, the party knelt down, whereupon Joseph commenced praying in behalf of the group, followed by each of the others in turn…

An exceedingly bright light appeared and an angel stood before the other men: “In his hands he held the plates we had been praying . . . to have a view of.”

Whatever one makes of these Marian episodes and their later iterations, their genesis does not seem to be wholly caused by religious enthusiasm.10

2. Limited Scope of Visionaries

Although the Apostle Paul provides an extensive list of witnesses to the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, the Gospels consistently emphasize the 12 disciples as the main recipients of these experiences. Following Easter Sunday, the disciples alone experience Jesus repeatedly over the next month or so (Acts 1:3). The Book of Acts explicitly records the disciples as emphasizing their privileged position as witnesses, “God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses” (10:41). Post-ascension, Christophanies to witnesses like Stephen are explicitly said to be intramental and are not visible to surrounding crowds (Acts 7:55-56).

When dealing with Marian apparitions, it is almost universally the case that the actual witnesses are limited to a select group of visionaries, usually young teenagers or children.11 While all of the witnesses within the select group are able to see the figure simultaneously, adults outside the inner circle are less privy to seeing anything supernatural. Large crowds, sometimes in the hundreds or thousands, would gather to watch the visionaries communicate with the Virgin, but would not see the apparition themselves. Some commentators see this as evidence for these experiences being hallucinatory in nature,12

It is significant that not all present see the vision…Given the rarity of hallucinations, the odds that everyone in a large group of people would be in the proper frame of mind for a hallucination is certainly low…If a random sample of people under extreme stress were placed in a group, we would expect some to hallucinate and some not to. And so, if simultaneous hallucinations did occur, it is to be expected that there would be some present who would not be in the necessary frame of mind. By contrast, there seems no reason why an [objective figure] should refuse to make itself visible to all present. While it has no obligation to appear to everyone, in not doing so, it acts exactly as a hallucination would.

That being said, external parties would occasionally claim to see something unusual. During one of Bernadette’s ecstasies of the Lourdes apparition on April 7th, 1858, a physician observed that the young girl held a candle that failed to burn her despite the flames constantly licking her skin. Once she returned to her normal state of consciousness at the vision’s conclusion, she would scream in pain as the doctor intentionally placed the flame on her hand. Curious onlookers watching the Fatima visionaries would not see the Virgin herself, but did note thin pillars of smoke form in the direction where the children were gazing.13 Loud crashes, almost like thunder, were also heard by the crowds at the Fatima site on August 13th, 1917.

Even among these exclusive groups of visionaries, variations in experience are not uncommon. The shepherd children experienced the Fatima Virgin in slightly different modes: all three claimed to see her in the same way, but Lucia alone was able to communicate with her in full. This likewise rings true for Our Lady of Beauraing, where one of the children often failed to see her, despite the rest of her companions easily partaking in the experience

In seeing these details, I cannot help but be reminded of the resurrection appearance to Paul, who was the only one to fully experience Christ despite being accompanied by fellow travelers. Paul’s companions seem to perceive this event to some extent, but in a less direct manner, “The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.” (Acts 9:7, cf. 22:9; 26:13-14). We may, with less confidence, see this view alluded to in some of the resurrection appearances to the disciples, “when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted” (Matt. 28:17). Why emphasize the belief of some but the disbelief of others? Was this because only some of the disciples were able to see him?

There are some obvious exceptions. The Zeitoun apparitions were witnessed by entire crowds, not unlike what we could assume is referred to by Paul with Christ’s appearance to “over 500 brethren at once” in 1 Corinthians 15:6.14 But these outliers are perturbations to the general rule. In most cases, Christophanies and Marian apparitions are available only to a select group of viewers.

3. Consistent Description of the Apparition’s Appearance

In our small sample of Marian apparitions, it is quite surprising how consistently the Virgin’s appearance is described among each individual within the select group of witnesses.

Each version models the same general template: Mary is a young (teenage), beautiful woman who is dressed in a white robe and veil, engulfed in great radiance. In cases like Fatima, the spirit’s light was strong enough to force the children to turn their heads away to shield their eyes (cf. Paul’s blindness in Acts 9: 8-9). Along with a base of white, the apparition is consistently said to have secondary colors like blue and gold coating the tunic’s edges or accompanying her mantles and sashes. Three of these cases (Lourdes, Fatima, and Beauraing) contain mention of the apparition holding a white and gold colored rosary in her right hand. Each apparition contains visible features that differentiate it from the others in the sample (ie, Our Lady appears with slightly different clothing in Fatima compared to Lourdes, Beauraing, etc.),15 but each group of witnesses describes her appearance with close convergence (ie the Fatima visionaries all agree on Our Lady’s physical appearance). Our Lady of Zeitoun fits this general pattern as well, being a humanoid figure bathed in white radiance, but specific details on her clothing and face are less available due to the great distance between it and the onlookers. Still, many witnesses in Zeitoun claimed to make out facial features, rosaries, robes, and the like.

In comparing this with the post-ascension Christophanies in the New Testament, the parallels are hard to miss. When Jesus appears seated at the right hand of God, including the brief glimpse of heaven in the Transfiguration narrative, He is seen with great radiance and is wearing a bleached white robe (Mk 9:2-3; Acts 7:55-56; 9:3; Rev. 1:12-16). The vision of the Son of Man in Revelation 1:13 also notes Christ adorning a golden sash, not unlike the blue and golden accessories worn by some Marian apparitions.

It is possible that this consistency in descriptions could be modeled after Marian iconography that was popular at the time. Mix in some conversations between excited witnesses coupled with memory distortion and juvenile suggestibility, and the solution becomes more obvious.

Still, I am uncertain that this accounts for the full picture. In most cases of mass delusions and hysteria, large discrepancies in visual perception are the rule, not the exception.16 One only needs to compare these apparitions with those of Springheeled Jack, the Indian monkey man, or the Satanic daycare panic to see just how disparate witness testimony tends to be, especially with children. Or compare our sample with other fringe Marian apparitions that did not receive investigation or approval from the Catholic Church,17

The episode took place in the village Tilly-sur-Seulles in Normandy, France, in 1896…soon hundreds were present on each occasion...[some of the witnesses] saw Mary, [but] the child of Mme de Moulinier…saw a figure of white and believed it to be a recently deceased aunt…not everyone present saw an apparition, specifically saying that no priest who went saw anything. He also relates that those who did see Mary saw her differently, and that other things were seen besides Mary: a chapel and a luminous cloud…18A large number of witnesses also descrbied seeing other features- including saints, angels, demons, devils, and other assorted imagery which would resolve around the central apparition of hte Virgin Mary

Likewise, some details in the apparition’s appearances are highly unconventional and do not seem to be ripping off Marian iconography. The Fatima children described the apparition as having a relatively short dress, going down to her ankles or even just the knees, which was considered extremely scandalous at the time. Some went as far as to allude to the apparition as potentially demonic for this reason, believing the Virgin Mary would never appear in a manner so immodest,19

The Lady, whom she and her cousins saw, was about a meter tall and was dressed in white. The skirt was white and gold with laces running lengthwise and crisscrossing, and was short, meaning it didn't reach her feet…

Jacinta claims that the Lady's dress reaches only to her knees. Lúcia and Francisco declare that it reaches near her ankles. Is there confusion on this point among the children, especially the youngest? If not, this point becomes difficult to explain and resolve. Our Lady could evidently appear only in the most decent and modestly dressed manner. The dress should have reached down to her feet. Otherwise, setting aside the hypothesis of a mistake by the children….the opposite, I say, constitutes the most serious difficulty opposing the supernaturality of the apparition and gives rise to the fear that it is a hoax, prepared by the spirit of darkness.

In both Lourdes and Fatima, witnesses described the Blessed Virgin as very young (between 12 to 16 years old) who was quite short in stature. Our Lady of Fatima was said to be only about a meter tall (3.3 ft.). This is parallel to the earliest accounts of the diminutive Lourdes apparition,20

By her [Bernadette’s] account, the figure was very small, no bigger than her own diminutive one metre forty [approx. 4.5 ft tall] (small even by the standards of this malnourished region) and, according to early interviews, perhaps even shorter. She was also very young, and Bernadette said she resembled a local child of about twelve who appeared regularly in white costume. Occasionally Bernadette seemed unwittingly to identify with the apparition by remarking that Aquero was no bigger than herself, a statement she repeated until her death, despite the disappointment and even irritation of questioner. She initially described the apparition as a jeune fille [young girl], a description that she was forced to abandon by the onslaught of commentators who refused to accept such an unorthodox description.

This is inconsistent with most artistic interpretations of the time that depicted Mary as an adult of average height; in fact, Bernadette complained that the statues of Our Lady were “too old and too big” for this reason.21 Perhaps the children were projecting their own youth and height onto the apparition. Or, maybe the Virgin was accommodating to her audience for the sake of better communication. I will point out that the shorter height of Mary in these visions is more in line with the average height of women in 1st-century Palestine, meaning that the historical mother of Jesus would probably have measured around 4’8 tall.22 What comes from this, I do not know. But this verisimilitude is fascinating nonetheless.

4. Multimodal Experiences

Our earliest accounts of the resurrection derive from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, which states only that Christ ὤφθη (appeared) to the select group of witnesses. We are given no additional information about the nature of these appearances, how long they lasted, etc. Paul only says that he has “seen the Lord” (1 Cor. 9:1) as a revelation internal to him (Galatians 1:15-16).

The latter Gospels are much more vivid: Jesus is now tangible enough to be grabbed (Matt. 28:9; Jn. 20:17) and prodded (Jn. 20:27), engaging in lengthy dialogues with those who encounter Him. He is even able to pick up and eat food (Lk. 24:30; 41-43). Many critical commentators have naturally seen these more extravagant details as later embellishments, meant to serve as apologetics against heretical Docetists who denied the corporeal nature of the incarnation.23

Whatever one thinks about mythmaking in the Easter narratives, it is not historically implausible that eyewitnesses could report such dramatic features. Marian encounters are often reported as multisensory across the board.

a) Hearing and Conversing

In the Gospels, the risen Christ engages in both short and lengthy interactions with those whom He makes His presence known. For instance, the brief and emotional encounters with the gaggle of female disciples (Matt. 28:9-10), Mary Magdalene (Jn. 20:14-17), and the apostle Thomas (Jn. 20:26-28) contain brief instructions that foreshadow the longer interactions to come. The apparition’s comments to the children at Beauraing were of a similar nature: they contained brief, shared visual and auditory experiences between several different visionaries that seemed to occur simultaneously.

Visionaries in Lourdes and Fatima reported lengthier conversations with the spirit more analogous to what we find in the Gospels. Take for instance the extensive dialogues observed in the appearances to the Emmaus travelers (Lk. 24:13-29), Peter (Jn. 21: 15-23), and the rest of the apostles (Acts 1:6-8). Here we observe a standard question-answer exchange not unlike what was seen with the Fatima children. In his article on the Fatima apparitions, Ethan Muse notes that the large crowds present would observe Lucia answering and responding to the invisible entity, as if she were engaging in a two-sided dialogue. The crowd was only able to hear Lucia’s side of the exchange and had no access to what the apparition allegedly said. However, in comparing this third-party testimony of Lucia’s words with what the girl herself described, the accounts line up remarkably well. See the following table from Muse’s article assessing one instance of this conversation from July 13th, 1917:24

Some commentators have argued that this detail is so striking as to rule against the possibility of hallucination:25

A group conversation would be impossible if the vision was a hallucination…While expectation seems theoretically capable of accounting for collective visual hallucinations, it would not be able to give rise to a collective hallucinatory conversation. This is because, while a group of people could go expecting to see Mary, or even go expecting to hear a short statement from Mary (e.g. ‘I am the queen of the Rosary’), they could not possibly go with an entire conversation planned out in their mind. Thus, an apparition of Mary or other [vision] which carries on a group conversation would thereby prove itself to be no hallucination.

As someone who has absolutely no expertise in human psychology, I will not take a stance on the matter either way. Whether hallucinatory or veridical, the main point is that these Marian dialogues are quite comparable to what is seen in the resurrection narratives in the Bible.

b) Smelling

At Zeitoun, the apparition remained silent but produced an olfactory miracle: many witnesses noted huge clouds of incense that left a strong smell throughout the church’s perimeter. Such “odors of sanctity” remain a common motif in stories of Catholic and Orthodox saints.26 In some of the photos published by local newspapers, one can make out these giant incense clouds that surrounded the apparition as it rested on the dome of the church.

Pearl Zaki would describe her firsthand experience of seeing and smelling these plumes of incense on the night of August 18th, 1968,

At 4:00 a.m. without warning, the whole front of the church suddenly lit up in the purest of white light. We saw the Virgin Mary as a white statue, standing as if ten feet tall in the garden in front of the church…As we waited with anticipation. a thick fog-like cloud rolled in over the church and covered it completely. The sky above the domes of the church became a reddish-purple hue, and a fragrance like incense filled the air. One could reach out as if to touch it or move his hand through what seemed like a thick film of heavy air.

In the opinion of Anba Gregorious, Bishop for Higher Studies and Scientific Research of the Coptic Church, such large clouds of gas would have required millions of censers to produce, especially given that the glass windows of the church were sealed tight.27

c) Eating and Drinking

The resurrected Christ’s Easter meal is also paralleled in some Marian visions, albeit rarely. The Fatima visionaries reported that the apparition had been preceded by three distinct encounters with an angel, who had provided them with a chalice to drink from:

[The children] rose to see what was happening and beheld the Angel bearing a chalice in his left hand. Drops of Blood fell into the chalice from a Host suspended above it. Leaving the chalice and the Host suspended in the air, the Angel prostrated himself beside the children and said…[a] prayer three times…Then, rising, he gave the Host to Lucia, and the contents of the chalice to Jacinta and Francisco to drink, saying: “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, who is horribly insulted by ungrateful men! Make reparation for their crimes and console thy God.”

This context is clearly meant to be visionary in nature; indeed, no one thinks that the children would have been left with a physical chalice in their hands once the ecstasy concluded. Then again, the New Testament accounts emphasize that the raised Christ was seen eating, but there is no explicit indication that this perception was anything beyond visual. We have no way of knowing whether the meal had actually disappeared from the plate, or if the disciples had examined the remnants of bite marks left over. Per Jewish tradition, spiritual beings like angels could mimic eating without actually consuming sustenance: “Even though you saw me eat and drink, I did not eat or drink anything; what you were seeing was a vision (Tob. 12:19).”28

One final point. Though I have not delved much into its primary sources, one Marian apparition outside of our sample (Our Lady of Garabandal, Spain), includes a rather remarkable claim of the visionaries literally “eating” communion with the Virgin. The young girls would repeatedly be seen sticking out their tongues when speaking to the Virgin and her accompanying angels. According to the Spanish mystics, the angel would place an invisible Eucharist on their tongues (though the girls did not realize that the host was invisible to the observing crowds until it was brought up after the vision ended). One of the older girls within the group, Conchita Gonzalez, explained to the masses that the angel would perform a miracle on July 18th, 1962, where the host would become visible to all. The night of the spectacle, Conchita left her house a little after midnight and traveled for a block before dropping to her knees in front of the excited crowd. She then stuck out her bare tongue while slipping into ecstasy. A flashlight was placed on her mouth as witnesses describe the host materializing on her tongue before their eyes,

I was scarcely 18 inches away from her face…She kept her tongue out like that for about a minute. As I stood there- my eyes riveted to her, something incredible happened! Without moving my eyes for a fraction of a second, suddenly a neat, precise, and well-formed Host appeared iraculously on Conchita’s tongue…Her tongue was out and bare, and then all of a sudden the Host was there! I did not see how it came. It was instantaneous!…It was just there!

One witness, Alejandro Damians, would begin recording on a handheld camera as the host materialized on Conchita’s tongue. His few seconds of film would later be developed to show the final moments of the miracle after the host had already manifested (shown below).

Whether this was a miracle or a convincing magic trick is not for me to say.29 I will leave it to the reader to make what they will of this purported wonder. All one must take from these examples is that we have at least a few Marian accounts that overlap quite well with what is seen in Luke and John’s Easter narratives: the apparition sharing a meal, whether spiritually or physically, with the witnesses.

d) Touching

In Luke and John, Christ is first perceived as a spirit who must prove His corporality by inviting His followers to touch Him. The tactile element is explicitly seen as a means of removing all doubt:

• Lk. 24: 37-39, “They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’”

• Jn. 20: 25-27, “But [Thomas] said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe’…Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’”

It is admittedly difficult to find any strong analogies to the Marian apparitions within our sample. Most witnesses keep their distance from Our Lady out of pious reverence and would not dare ask to touch her. That being said, one can find some parallels in expanding our sample more broadly. Catherine Laboure would claim to see Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal during a nighttime encounter on July 18th, 1830. Like Doubting Thomas and his fellow disciples, Catherine at first expressed fledgling doubts as to whether what she was seeing was real or purely internal. Her uncertainty would quickly be stripped away after she embraced the Virgin, grasping at her waist for over two hours,30

In the same instant Catherine heard a sound like the rustling of a silk dress, and, looking toward the direction of the sound, saw a lady descending the altar steps. The lady seated herself in the Director’s chair. A doubt clouded the novice’s mind. Was this really the Mother of God?…Even this did not allay all her doubts. Was the whole thing a dream, a fancy of the night? She blushed. The lady was looking at her, waiting…

She held back no more, but threw herself at Our Lady’s knee and rested her hands in Our Lady’s lap. Then she lifted her head and looked up, up, into her Mother’s eyes. Many years later she was to write with ecstatic remembrance of this moment, that it was the sweetest of her life.

Catherine’s biographer, Fr. Joseph Dirvine, concedes that this remarkable detail is unique to this apparition and is rarely found elsewhere in the Marian literature,31

The crowning touch of the personal, however, was the privilege given Catherine of kneeling at Mary’s knee and resting her hands in her lap. So great a favor has been granted to no other seer. Not to Bernadette of Lourdes: she was granted, once, to kiss the golden rose on Our Lady’s foot. Not to the children of Fatima, not even to Lucy, upon whose shoulders the desperate message for the modern world’s salvation was laid. Only to Catherine Labouré.

In reading of Catherine’s encounter, I was immediately reminded of Christ’s appearance to the female disciples in Matthew 28:9, “And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.”

Another example, of which my sources are more limited, stems from a series of Marian apparitions in post-World War II Germany in 1949 and 1950. Seven children would claim to see the Virgin appear to them in the town of Heroldsbach, in a manner that seemed beat-for-beat identical to the more famous apparitions of Fatima. The children claimed not only to have directly handled the Blessed Mother, but also alleged to have held Christ in infant form,

From Jan. 13, 1950 on, the Mother of God left her place above the birches and came regularly to the seer children. They were allowed to touch her body and hands. They could note her real presence combined with a fluent force. Furthermore, they touched and carried the Jesus Child…

None of this is to say that the meals, conversations, fondlings, or sightings that make up these encounters are genuinely veridical. There is no way to know either way. But it is indisputable that groups of people do, on occasion, report simultaneous multimodal visions that incorporate visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile elements not disanalogous from what is reported in the Gospel narratives.

5. Predicted Schedule with Rendezvous Point

In the later Gospels, the resurrection appearances are primarily placed in Jerusalem, where Christ’s manifestation occurs spontaneously and unexpectedly to those who see Him. But the bulk of our earliest traditions indicates that most of Christ’s subsequent encounters with the disciples occurred in the region of Galilee. Despite a plethora of encounters, the Galilean appearances are the only ones that are forecasted in advance by both Jesus Himself (Mk. 14:28; Matt. 28:10) and the angels proclaiming the Easter message (Mk. 16:7; Matt. 28:7). It is in Galilee where the apostles travel with the direct instruction to see the risen Christ at different locations like a mountaintop (Matt. 28:16) or beach shore (Jn 21:1).

Appearances of the Blessed Virgin likewise follow this trope of predicting the general schedule to the visionaries, indicating that the repeated appearances will be anchored at a specific rendezvous spot:

• Lourdes: Our Lady instructed that Bernadette visit her at the Grotto of Massabielle every day for the next two weeks from February 18th to March 4th, 1858. These visions would then appear less frequently at the grotto until the apparition concluded her final communication with Bernadette on March 25th. The final two appearances in April and July would only be visual in nature.

• Fatima: The Virgin first appears to the three shepherd children at noon on May 13th, 1917. She informs the children that she will continue to meet them at the same time on the 13th of every month for the next six months at the same location: the Cova da Iria (farmland owned by one of the children’s parents). Following the sixth monthly appearance, Our Lady ceased to appear.

• Beauraing: Five children would first see the Virgin Mary materialize under a bridge on November 29th, 1932. Over the next month, the apparition would routinely appear for a total of 33 times underneath a hawthorne tree in a garden owned by the children’s family. On January 1st, Our Lady informed the children that these visitations would conclude in two days. January 3rd would mark the final date of these visions.

• Zeitoun: In 1925, Tawfik Khalil Abraham would build a church following a dream of the Virgin Mary, who promised him that a miracle would occur following the site’s construction. Beginning in April 1968, dozens of appearances of the Virgin Mary were seen in the church’s perimeter, primarily on top of the structure’s dome and courtyard. These were most frequent during the first half of 1968, though sightings continued to be reported incrementally until their conclusion on May 29th, 1971.
  

The resurrection narratives have Jesus give a final goodbye to his followers after 40 days of frequently appearing to them. He ascends into heaven, promising to be with them in spirit (Acts 1:6-10). The duration of the Beauraing apparitions in particular (35 days in total) remains especially adjacent to the 40 days Christ was said to have stayed with the disciples before His ascension (Acts 1:3). One can also see the ascension narrative line up between Jesus and Our Lady of Fatima:

• Acts 1: 7-9: He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

• Fatima Apparition on May 13th, 1917: And immediately, without any fear, he asked her, “What is Your place?” And the Lady answered him, “My place is in Heaven.”…Having said that, the Lady began to rise into the air, heading east until she disappeared.32

When these visions ceased, the viewers interpreted this as Mary ascending back to heaven, where she permanently resided. Thus, each of these cases has the apparition phenomenon centered at a specific location and time range, usually communicated ahead in advance to the witnesses.

6. A Commission to the Followers

Each of the Gospel resurrection narratives presents Jesus as commissioning His followers to go and spread the Gospel to all people groups, bestowing upon them the authority and power to baptize, forgive sins, and make new disciples in His name. (Matt. 28:18-20; Lk. 24: 46-49; Jn. 20:21-23; Acts 1:8). It is clear that the resurrected Jesus had not just come to restore faith in his previously disheartened followers, but that He was now giving them a job to do: preach the good news to all.

Mary’s messages are no less direct, with three of the four cases including petitions for the children to pray the rosary, seek penance, stay faithful, and maintain good moral character. Each incarnation of the Virgin calls for distinct ethical and spiritual awakening to the cultures in which she is appearing. But Our Lady is also adamant on pilgrimage and public recognition of her work; in each instance, the Virgin explicitly instructs the viewers to build a chapel or church at the site where she is visiting so that faithful believers may visit it in reverence. This is true even with the silent apparition of Zeitoun, which was traditionally believed to have been foreshadowed by a private vision to Tawfik Khalil Abraham decades prior, where he was instructed to build a church in her honor. It was at this very church that Our Lady of Zeitoun would later make public appearances.

These commands seem to have been largely effective. The sites of each of these apparitions still attract hordes of Catholic pilgrims to this very day, sometimes with millions of annual visitors.

7. A Hostile Reception

The theologian George Campbell, in his 1762 Dissertation on Miracles, argued that the strongest claims to supernatural events are those that succeed in environments that would not be credulous or welcoming of such claims. Miracles in favor of a pre-established belief system may pass without critical evaluation or investigation, since witnesses may already be predisposed to accepting claims that bolster their strongly held convictions. But convincing hostile parties would be much more difficult. Per Campbell,

[T]hat the evidence arising from miracles performed in proof of a doctrine disbelieved, and consequently hated before, did in fact surmount that obstacle, and conquer all the opposition arising thence, is a very strong presumption in favour of that evidence…

There is the greatest disparity in this respect…betwixt the evidence of miracles performed in proof of a religion to be established, and in contradiction to opinions generally received; and the evidence of miracles performed in support of a religion already established, and in confirmation of opinions generally received.

The New Testament informs us that the disciples boldly proclaimed the resurrection in Jerusalem, the very city where Jesus had been publicly executed only a few weeks earlier. While this preaching was said to have converted thousands to the faith, equal pressure came from the Jewish authorities to silence the apostles from preaching their heretical views. Peter and John are arrested and threatened with a tribunal (Acts 4:1-22), Stephen is stoned to death by an angry mob (Acts 7:54-60), James the Just is put to death by King Herod (Acts 12:1-2), and other apostles were put in prison on multiple occasions. The persistence of the faithful to persevere despite intense persecution is some evidence of sincerity, even if not decisive.

Conversely, Marian apparitions tend to occur almost universally in cultures that are historically Catholic, or, in the case of Zeitoun, in monotheistic societies that highly revere the Virgin Mary (Orthodox Christianity, Islam, etc.). Rarely do you get cases where the Blessed Mother appears before a hostile audience. Though with the Zeitoun apparitions, there were certainly witnesses of all faith backgrounds, “The Virgin’s reported appearances were…witnessed by thousands of Christians, Muslims, Jews, people of other faiths, as well as those who identified themselves as atheists.”33

Nonetheless, pushback still arises in these cases. Even if the laity is fond of these religious experiences, the governing authorities tend to be much less sympathetic to the immense crowds and fervor that such reports bring. These apparitions tend to cluster in nations with highly anti-clerical governments and totalitarian regimes. As one social scientist observed, “Marian apparitions in the post-1789 period have been most likely to occur in settings where there is a general atmosphere of anticlericalism, political instability, and war.”34

In Zeitoun, the apparition appeared on top of a Coptic Orthodox Church, belonging to a sect of Christians who were heavily persecuted by Egypt’s Muslim majority population. The local police had originally shooed people away from the church where the apparition was seen, telling onlookers that it was merely a reflection from the street lights below. Further investigations cut off the entire power grid of the neighborhood to stop the mysterious illumination, yet the light source still remained floating above the church. The apparition became too much for the city’s infrastructure to handle, requiring neighboring buildings to be torn down to accommodate the enormous crowd sizes that filled the relatively small perimeter. Seeing that these attempts to dissuade the crowds were fruitless, the Egyptian government would eventually embrace the apparitions a few months after they had first begun, using the publicity to promote religious tourism.35

In other cases, attempts are made to forcefully stop the visionaries from continuing these public acts of ecstasy. In Beauraing, the parents of the seer children were members of Belgium’s socialist party and were greatly concerned that someone was playing a prank on their children. The adults would search the area carrying a large stick and release their dogs to attack any potential intruders. Local clergy were also highly skeptical of the children’s claims, as the Virgin’s messages to the children were extremely brief to the point of being “trite” and redundant. The superior of Beauraing’s convent school, Mother Théophile, would have a gate constructed around the hawthorne tree on December 2nd, 1932, to prevent the children or accompanying crowds from visiting the site where the Virgin repeatedly appeared. All of this was in vain. The visions and the crowds continued to manifest under the hawthorn tree.

Not unlike Beauraing, the Lourdes grotto had also been barricaded off in June 1858 by the local authorities to prevent Bernadette and her crowds from congregating there. The massive hoards of people who had gathered to watch the girl, sometimes numbering in the thousands, progressively became a public nuisance that the civil government sought to squash. The apparitions had come at a time when anti-clerical sentiment was saturated across France and public displays of religious superstitions were not tolerated. Less than two weeks after the Marian sightings had first begun, Bernadette would be arrested and interrogated by the region’s chief of police, Dominique Jacomet, who put immense pressure on her to cease these acts of sanctity. The visionary never relented.

Our Lady of Fatima would by far see the strongest opposition, occurring at a time when Portugal’s First Republic sought to crack down on religious enthusiasm that threatened the regime’s control over the populace. Fatima’s apparition brought with it heavy political implications against the socialist state of Russia, predicting the end of World War I and the advent of future European political instability. On the morning of August 13th, Fatima’s local administrator, Artur de Oliveira Santos, would arrest the three children and put them in a holding cell, demanding that they reveal the “secret” that Our Lady had disclosed to them. After they refused to budge when interrogated separately, Santos brought a large cauldron of heated oil into the station and told the young children that he would boil them alive if they continued to withhold the revelations that Our Lady had given them. The children would then be separated a second time and were (falsely) told that their companions had already been killed. Despite bringing them to tears and threatening them with death, none of the visionaries would recant.36

In each instance, organized opposition to the apparitions was present, including from governing authorities and clergy. None of this was successful in trouncing out the public’s enthusiasm for the Marian phenomenon. Nor did it dissuade the claimants from continuing the visions:37

If, at the beginning, the apparitions had fervent believers, they also met fierce detractors…a comparative study of the different apparitions shows how they marked the beginning of suffering for the children, as much from their families and their immediate environment as from those who were, in any way whatever, connected with the events…

Notwithstanding all the attacks, all the trials that these children had to undergo, the pressure exerted to make them retract their previous declarations, the snares laid to make them contradict themselves and one another, it is remarkable that they always kept to the first version they had given of the facts they had witnessed.

Psychologically, one may speak of collective victimization, where groups under intense persecution become more fervent in their joint resistance and find meaning in their suffering. Remember the Apostle Paul’s understanding of sharing in Christ’s sufferings with his Christian brethren (2 Cor. 1:5; 11:16-33; Col. 1:24). If this was true for the apostles, we have no reason to think the Marian visionaries thought any differently.

8. Accompanying Entities

None of the Gospels, save for the non-canonical Gospel of Peter, narrates the actual moment of Christ exiting the tomb. The witnesses stumble upon an empty tomb, interpreted through the kerygma preached by one or two angels who explain that Christ has been raised from the dead. The role of the angels is emphasized in each version of the resurrection story, though their mode of appearance is unclear. Luke 24:23 describes the encounter as a “vision”, but earlier Gospels make it clear that the angel’s presence at the tomb has real-world effects on physical objects (Matt. 28:2).38

In some Marian accounts, heavenly entities like angels lay the groundwork for the later apparition. This is most evident in the Fatima case, where a winged angel would visit the children on three separate occasions the year before their encounter with the Blessed Mother. In Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, the witness was led to a room by a “young child” who would introduce her to the Virgin. Such visions are perceived by the witnesses to contain just as much realism as the Marian apparitions themselves.

These heavenly hosts are not always angels. In Our Lady of Knock, a case not included within our main sample but no less interesting, contained reports of over a dozen witnesses seeing the Virgin Mary accompanied by other saints like Joseph and John the Baptist on top of an Irish church in August 1879. Given that these entities never spoke to identify themselves, it is unclear how the seers would be able to recognize or distinguish the entities from one another. Did Saint Joseph appear in a noticeably different form than Saint Thomas or Saint James? Surely this is the mind filling in the gaps.

If Knock was one strange episode, Zeitoun is a long-running series. These Marian apparitions would consistently appear on top of St. Mary’s Coptic church, accompanied by what most described as “glowing doves.” Witnesses would report these lights floating above and around the Virgin, often in formations resembling a cross.39 One may notice in these photos a resemblance to certain UFO formations like the Phoenix Lights. Doves have played a symbolic role throughout the Bible, typically indicating the presence of the Holy Spirit. By the Renaissance period, doves were a common symbol within Marian iconography to represent God’s Spirit showing favor with the Mother of God.

Whether it be angels, saints, or ghostly doves, Mary is frequently seen alongside her holy entourage. We thus need not dismiss the angelic messengers in the Easter narratives as later apologetic additions. It is possible, indeed probable, that the people of Jesus’s time truly believed they were encountering these heavenly beings. Reports of angelic encounters, regardless of their credibility, are still widespread to this very day.40

9. Public Miracles

The miracles of the resurrection did not end with the ascension of Christ into heaven. Early Christian history is inundated with reports of the apostles performing great signs and wonders. The Book of Acts details a multiplicity of accounts of the disciples being given the ability to heal the sick with a single touch, raise the dead, and punish evildoers through the power of the Holy Spirit (esp. Acts 5:1-11; 13:8-12). Paul would allude to such apostolic signs in his Epistles (2 Cor. 12:12). Although the general public had not seen the risen Jesus for themselves, they were undoubtedly witnesses to the miracles performed in His name (Acts 2:22).

a) The Lourdes Medical Bureau

In nearly every major case of Marian apparitions, claims of miraculous healings abound. This is most associated with Our Lady of Lourdes; on February 25th, 1858, the Blessed Virgin would instruct Bernadette to dig into the mud until the girl would unearth a spring. Only a few days later on March 1st, a pregnant peasant woman by the name of Catherine Latipe would kneel down to pray with Bernadette at the site. Her hand, disfigured for years from two paralyzed fingers, would suddenly straighten and regain its suppleness upon touching the water from the Lourdes spring. This would unleash a frenzy of excited pilgrims who would journey to the site to bathe in and drink the grotto’s water.41 Reports of cures became so numerous that the local bishop authorized the creation of a medical bureau to scientifically investigate each report with intense scrutiny. The bureau would go through many iterations over the next century before reaching its final form in 1954 with the establishment of the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (French acronym CMIL).

Out of the thousands of alleged cures at the site, the CMIL has approved only 72 to date.42 Methods have become more refined over time, but generally require an illness to be verified as organic, progressive, and serious to the patient’s health and lifestyle. The cure, which typically occurs at the shrine or with the use of its water, must be instantaneous or rapid, far beyond the normal speed that would be expected within human physiology. The patient’s remission must be long-lasting, complete, and spontaneous (that is, not attributed to any effective medical interventions). The CMIL does not declare any cure a miracle; rather, it merely acts as the court of appeals to ensure that the cure has no plausible explanation within current medical knowledge. Only the church has the authority to officially declare a cure a miracle once the CMIL has cleared out any potential obstacles.

To go into the dearth of these cures would be a separate article altogether. Indeed, I have discussed specific cases from Lourdes in other publications and on multiple podcasts. I will dedicate an extensive amount of my forthcoming book to the Lourdes cures because they remain some of the best attested examples of faith healing in documented history. No shortage of medical journals has covered the enigmatic recoveries associated with the Lourdes shrine:43 “The Lourdes phenomenon, extraordinary in many respects, still awaits scientific explanation.”44

b) The Zeitoun Medical Commission

Though given less attention than Lourdes, Our Lady of Zeitoun was likewise accompanied by dozens of reports of mysterious faith healings. This would include the apparition’s foremost witness, Farouk Mohammed Atwa, who would be the first point at the apparition with his bandaged hand on April 2nd, 1968. His gangrenous finger, scheduled to be amputated the following day, was found to be healthy once the bandages were removed.45

Such accounts were so prevalent that a commission of seven physicians, appointed by the Coptic Pope of Alexandria, was established to see if any cases could be validated empirically. This panel would be run by the head professor of the Faculty of Medicine of the Ain Shams University of Cairo, Dr. Shafik Abdel-Malek. Though it is doubtless that many of these reports derive from excited pilgrims prone to psychosomatic feelings of improvement, the panel was able to confirm that a sample of cases remained genuinely medically inexplicable.46 One surgeon would testify to seeing his own patient cured instantly of an aggressive brain tumor, previously resistant to chemotherapy, following the patient’s visit to the church where he saw the Virgin of Zeitoun with his own eyes.47 Or consider this eyewitness account reported by a Coptic priest, who was caring for a breast cancer patient who had journeyed to Zeitoun for a cure,48

Before she [went] to sleep, deep sleep, she felt the Virgin coming in [to the room] with a small boy. That boy gave her a small knife, or something like that, and the Virgin told her, “I am going to remove the cancer from your breast.” The amazing thing was that [the next morning] there was no sign of any wound, or any opening, or anything. X-Ray analysis proved that she was free from cancer completely.

While there were no wounds on the woman’s body, the priest alleges that a bowl of human tissue was found lying next to her bed, as if the tumor had been surgically removed.

In a similar series of Egyptian Marian apparitions that took place a decade after Zeitoun, local newspapers continued to report medically verified instances of cures. Consider the following example,

Theresa [Soliman Youssef] had lost vision in her right eye after a tricot needle pierced this eye and injured the cornea and eye lens, causing traumatic cataract. The [six year-old] girl was unable to see using this eye; this occurred on November 17, 1984. On December 5, 1984, the child was operated upon to remove the destroyed lens in order to use an external replacement contact lens thereafter, but the right eye condition deteriorated due to a secondary purulent infection.

Theresa’s mother continues saying: “On Sunday, May 18, 1986, I took my daughter and we went to Saint Demiana church in El-Teraa El-Boolakia, Shoubra. After receiving the Holy Communion, we ascended to the church’s balcony and stood there with the crowd. And suddenly, a strong light shone from the right side of the veil of the altar. My daughter raised her hand towards the source of light, then wiped her sick eye with her palm and suddenly shouted exultantly: I can see mother... I can see mother! She could put her hand over her left (good) eye and still see with her right eye which was once blind.”

Dr. Fayez Akhnoukh, who also serves at Saint Demiana church, examined the child, tested the visual acuity of both of her eyes, and found that the girl could now see using her right eye which was healed miraculously. Father Raphael El-Anba Bishoy who was at this time helping Father Heg. Abdel Messih El-Sherbeeni, the church priest, has recorded and documented this miracle.

-Watani weekly newspaper, Sunday, June 1st, 1986, pg. 5.

c) The Beauraing Medical Commission

Our Lady of Beauraing remains the least popular among the cases of our sample, but the quality of its healing miracles is no less impressive. In 1919, Madame Mille van Laer, a 17-year-old Dutch girl, fell ill and developed significant eczema-like rashes on the inside of her thigh, perianal region, and anus.49 This was accompanied by severe migraines and frequent fevers, as well as suspected toxemia (poisoning of the blood from bacterial infection). Large ulcers and abscesses formed on the lower half of her body, primarily on her knees and calves, that caused small bits of bone matter to discharge. X-Rays verified the presence of a fistula of the cervical vertebrae and right leg, which resulted in deterioration of the bone and caused the woman to suffer from quadriplegia. A bacterial infection, suspected to be tubercular or staphylococcal in nature, was proposed alongside a suggested diagnosis of Pott’s disease. Symptoms persisted without much improvement for over a decade until suppuration of the sores abated gradually by 1930.

However, the patient’s overall condition steadily deteriorated as the pain in her bones became chronic. Large tumors visibly swelled on her neck and right leg due to profound inflammation in her bones. This caused her right leg to become twice as thick as the left and left her with extreme pain and fatigue. Her health further degenerated for the next three years, with her fever regularly ranging between 37.6 to 38 Celsius (99-102 degrees Fahrenheit). Mille van Laer was relegated to long-term hospital care in Turnhout, Belgium in 1933 where surgical intervention was initially considered, but was subsided due to being too risky. Medicated only on sedatives and general stimulants, Mille van Luaer was left without any prognosis of recovery from her unrelenting chronic illness of 14 years.50

Meanwhile, alleged visions of the Virgin Mary were reported in Beauraing, a town 120 miles south of Turnhout. Seeking a blessing from the child visionaries, Madame van Lauer would be transported to the site on a stretcher on June 23rd, 1933, where witnesses described her in a grave state, “lay[ing] motionless, seemingly close to death.”51 She would then pray the rosary with one of the Beauraing seers, nine year-old Gilberte Degeimbre. In the minutes following the prayer, van Laer was able to sit up in her stretcher without pain and eat solid food for the first time in months. While being transported back to Turnhout via ambulance, Mille van Lauer would awake to find that her inflammation and tumors had suddenly subsided. In her own words, “All signs of the illness disappeared and I could walk like everybody else.”52 Her attending physician would confirm her full remission shortly afterwards.

The Beauraing apparitions had originally been met with much cynicism from the local diocese. But this purported healing would make the religious authorities seriously reconsider whether the Virgin Mary had truly visited their Belgian town. Roughly 16 years following her cure, the Bishop of Beauraing would authorize two physicians (Dr. Eugene Picard, forensic science lecturer at the University of Louvain, and Dr. Albert Robaux, neurologist at the Institute of Beau-Vallon) to evaluate both Madam van Laer and her medical records. A full examination indicated that the patient was completely free of any tubercular illness and had not suffered a relapse in the years following her sudden recovery.

The Episcopal Commission’s final report from March 27th, 1949, concluded that Mille van Laer had most likely suffered from tubercular osteomyelitis, a bacterial disease that tends to cause excessive bone swelling and can spread to other parts of the body via the bloodstream. The condition had been progressive and with no probable outlook for improvement, “[the illness] indicated the presence of an infectious process in one whose general condition was actually getting worse.”53 The Commission describes the immediate cure on June 24th, 1933 as quite surprising,54

We concluded that this cure could not be explained in natural terms...in view of the patient’s temperament, which does not suggest nervousness or hysteria; in view of the treatment applied at the relevant times (sedative or stimulant drugs of a general nature); in view of the swiftness of the patient’s cure (one night only), a cure which must be considered complete in view of the absence of relapse over a period of sixteen years despite the heavy work she had to do throughout the was period; we state and have stated that we cannot explain in simply natural terms the disappearance of the functional impairment of the neck and leg swellings. We consider psychological factors able to account only for the sudden disappearance of the pains, and the sudden improvement in the general condition.

The last of these canonical reports, signed by the Bishop of Namur, Andre-Marie Charue, would judge the cure to be an instantaneous miracle performed on behalf of Our Lady of Beauraing:55

We acknowledge that Miss Marie Van Laer who, for sixteen years, suffered from a serious disease, deemed incurable, of a tubercular nature, or more probably staphylococcal, in the region of the cervical vertebra and in the right leg, which had progressed to the final stage, has been immediately and absolutely cured on the twenty-fourth of June, 1933, on the day after a pilgrimage made to Beauraing for the purpose of obtaining a cure....Miss Van Laer [and others]...suffered from extremely grave diseases and that they had been cured instantly, perfectly and absolutely beyond curative power in case at issue to account for these sudden unexpected changes…We have declared and do declare that the cures of Miss Van Laer and [others] are miraculous and that in view of circumstances which they have taken place, they ought to be attributed to a special intervention of God through the intercession of Our Lady of Beauraing.

Mille van Lauer would dedicate her life to the church following her cure, living out the rest of her days in a convent as a nun. She would maintain normal health without relapse until her death from natural causes in 1980.

d) The Fatima Sun Miracle

While there is no shortage of healing claims associated with Our Lady of Fatima,56 the apparition is most well-known for the supposed Miracle of the Sun that was witnessed by tens of thousands of onlookers. The apparition had first told the visionaries in July of 1917 that she would perform a miracle during her scheduled appearance in October “so that all might believe.” Given that the Virgin had routinely forecasted her appearances at noon at the Cova de Ira on the 13th of every month, the masses understood that the sign would occur under these conditions. Anticipation was high: estimates range anywhere from 30,000-100,000 people (enough to fill a football stadium) arrived at the Cova on the morning of October 13th, 1917, to see if the Blessed Mother would perform a miracle as promised. Photos and reports from that day clearly show heavy rainfall, with hordes of excited pilgrims huddling under their umbrellas as they awaited the impossible.

Around noon, the visionary children would declare that Our Lady had arrived and instructed everyone to lower their umbrellas and gaze at the sky. Tens of thousands would look up to see that the rain clouds had suddenly parted, revealing a dim silver sun that could be gazed at painlessly. Secular journalists present at the time would verify this unusual episode in the sky,57

One could see the immense crowd turning toward the sun, which appears free from all clouds and at its zenith [highest point]. The sun resembles a dull, silver plate and it is possible to look at it without the least effort. It does not burn, nor blind. It seems as if an eclipse is taking place. But then an immense clamor erupts, and one can hear the spectators who are closer, shouting: “Miracle, Miracle! A Marvel! A Marvel!”….

Miracle, as the people shouted? Natural phenomenon, as the experts say? For the moment, that does not concern me, I am only saying what I saw...The rest is a matter for Science and the Church.58

Testimonies on what happened next vary in specific details, but most present agree that the sun began to move in dramatic ways, changing colors and bathing the land in a reddish purple hue. This purple color covered the surrounding area and was seen even by those who turned their gaze away from the sun. The light would then zig-zag across the sky and spin with emitting sparkles, as if it were a firework wheel. Many witnesses noted an intense heat that seemed to cause their rain-soaked clothes to suddenly dry. Later testimonies claim that this strange light phenomenon was seen by villagers from miles away, even though they had not traveled to see the predicted miracle. The phenomenon would continue for around 10 minutes before petering out.

Much has been written on Fatima’s dancing sun. Substack alone has many thorough articles defending and critiquing the episode with excruciating detail. The case is not a slam dunk; indeed, one could debate whether other predictions made by the children about future political episodes were accurate, and one can find semi-analogous “sun miracles” in other contexts.59 Fatima’s apologists still have much of their work cut out for them.60

I have nothing new to add to this ongoing debate. All I can say with confidence is that, whether by miracle, hysteria, or some anomalous atmospheric event, the timing and scale of this event all remain remarkable. The sheer number of witnesses, including hostile journalists and natural scientists, implores us to believe that something strange was going on in the clouds that afternoon.

The prediction made by children three months in advance, down to the day and hour, in an era predating modern meteorology, is haunting. One only wonders what would have happened had the dark rain clouds continued to pour on that October afternoon. What would have been the excuse given by the seer children? Compare this with any litany of other discredited Marian apparitions where a public miracle was predicted to a pious, excited crowd of devotees, who would then abandon the movement because the miracle failed to occur,61

When, for instance, visionaries predict impressive public miracles set to occur at a particular time and place, and attract vast crowds hoping to see said miracle, in nearly every case in recorded history those vast crowds have been bitterly disappointed…The dozens of competing private Marian visionaries at Ezkioga (Basquc country, Spain) in 193I were gradually discredited in part because of just such prophetic failures: on three different successive specified dates, the tens of thousands of pilgrims who assembled on a hillside to await prophesied public wonders saw absolutely nothing.

Similarly…[is] the apparition of Pescara (1988), where the visionary Maria Fioritti and her spiritual advisor, Don Vincenzo Diodati, announced astounding celestial signs on 28th of February; despite the prohibition of the local bishop, a huge crowd assembled, only to be disappointed when no supernatural phenomena materialized.

Ten years later much the same occurred in Conyers, Georgia….The TV cameras of dozens of television stations arrived in Conyers to view the last message of the Madonna to Nancy Fowler, following which a miracle had been predicted…The fields around the sanctuary built at Convers filled with tens of thousands of worshipers, who prayed constantly, watched, and participated in the ceremonies, and waited for the sign. Nancy proclaimed the last message, the priests said the last mass of the day, but no sign appeared, no “something” occurred.

Why was Fatima’s sun miracle not a similar failure? I immediately sense parallels here with the Gospel tradition of Jesus calming a storm on command, “He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down, and it was completely calm (Mk. 4:39).” It is not impossible for storms to cease, or for the sun to take dazzling forms from time to time. But such things tend not to happen on command or through extended prediction. Coincidence may be impossible to rule out, but one only wishes that contemporary weathermen had such accuracy as the Fatima visionaries.

………..

Claims of incredible miracles surround these Marian apparitions. Though the actual appearance of the Virgin Mary is typically reserved for only a few select witnesses, these encounters are bolstered with public wonders that often leave behind objective changes in the physical health of those who journey to the apparition site. Like Christ and His disciples, one might affirm that these Marian visionaries “have been accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through [them], as you yourselves know (Acts 2:22).”

10. Spiritual Transformation

Finally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, those who encounter Marian apparitions typically report immense spiritual rejuvenation or conversion. This often takes the form of monastic life; in the cases of Lourdes and Fatima, both female visionaries would grow up to become nuns who lived a relatively quiet life in religious solitude. The same can be said for Mille van Laer, who would take on the role of a nun (Sister Pedentia) after attributing her cure to Our Lady of Beauraing. Countless Muslims would report conversions to Christianity after witnessing Our Lady of Zeitoun resting atop an Orthodox Church, in light of Egypt’s tendency to persecute Christian minorities in that period. All of these instances reveal evidence of sincerity and changed lives for those who participated in the Virgin’s visits. Even today, millions still journey to chapels in Fatima and Lourdes with the hopes of receiving their own miracles

Going back to Antiquity, Christianity became the most influential institution in all of Western civilization. One cannot adequately tell the history of the West without reference to the conversions of Paul, Peter, and the other disciples, all of whom had transformed lives after seeing the Risen Christ for themselves. All would exchange their careers for leadership roles in the early church (Gal 2:9), where they would make the resurrection of Christ central to the Gospel message.

Religious transformation does not itself vindicate the authenticity of the claims in question. People can sincerely endure paradigm shifts from delusions. But the consistent role of conversion is central to the sincerity of our witnesses.

Concluding Thoughts

I do not write this essay to determine whether or not the Virgin Mary truly appears to people, or whether Jesus of Nazareth really rose bodily from the dead. I have no dog in that fight, at least for the purposes of this article. What I hope to show is that, whatever one makes of the phenomenon of Marian apparitions, strong parallels can be drawn between these experiences and the resurrection accounts found in the Gospel narratives.

For the historian, the present is often the key to the past. One may be tempted to look at the Gospel accounts of Easter as legends contorted by oral tradition from the late 1st century. It is difficult to rule this out as a genuine historical possibility. However, in looking at Marian parallels, I am inclined to think there may be a connection often missed. The general template of these experiences shares so many overlapping features with modern apparitions as to indicate memory somewhere in the corpus of the New Testament accounts. Maybe Jesus was seen by many at once, perhaps he conversed for long periods with the disciples, and, feasibly, His followers may have even believed that they touched and ate with their risen master. Stranger things have been reported by witnesses in our day. Why not think these same mechanisms, whatever their origin, also applied to the apostles that Easter morning?

Then there is the theological question. I put my cards on the table by conceding that I, as an evangelical Christian, am perplexed by these apparitions. I am shaken to my very core. If these apparitions result from some ill-understood form of hysteria, group suggestion, social contagion, hallucination, or whatever else, how can a Christian possibly rule out such options when assessing the resurrection appearance of Christ in the Epistles and the Gospels? Surely our evidence for the Biblical accounts is far older, far more controversial, and far less confident than the extensive records of the 19th and 20th centuries. If one is a skeptic, they should be compelled to dismiss the resurrection of Christ if they find the evidence for Marian apparitions to be lackluster.

Appeals to the demonic will not be persuasive here for similar reasons. The Pharisees were condemned strongly for writing off the miracles of Christ as a psyop for Beelzebub (Mk. 3:22-30). To dismiss contrary miracles of other faiths simply because they disagree with our religious presuppositions is to close off any opportunity for genuine evidential inquiry. No religious conversions could ever happen if this principle were adhered to. So let us not evoke the Devil, lest we spot his horns poking out from the miracles that we seek to dismiss.

But what if these apparitions are genuine? What implications must that have for the average Protestant Christian? Such a question would lead to countless rabbit holes, which I lack the time to explore in this post. Perhaps the Virgin Mary will get her full vindication in a future article.

I close by saying that I continue to be fascinated by Marian apparitions, despite not having the faintest clue what to do with them. Only time will tell when Our Lady and her visions will strike next.