What are your views about stigmatas? Are they paranormal ?

Question

I wonder if these people pray to have this happen to them...or to share in Jesus' pain..or to know what He felt. This could be an answer to a prayer. I 'm not sure they nailed him in the wrist. He might have been an exception to what they normally did.

Answer 1

The legitimate stigmatas are mind over matter most likely.  The individuals experiencing these have manipulated their own bodies by way of their mind.

Answer 2

I doubt it - it's so easy to fake.  I remember reading a book by Joe Nickel a few years ago; he investigates many paranormal events.  His conclusion was that the only possible 'real' occasion of stigmata was the original one, St. Francis, but many of the others had evidence of cuts by knives or fingernails (even bitemarks!); no one really seems to have checked out St. Francis very carefully.

Answer 3

I think it's a gift from God!

Answer 4

I suppose it depends somewhat on your definition of paranormal. For example if you consider mind-body interactions (like the placebo effect) to be paranormal then yes stigmata could be a paranormal phenomena (as an opposite placebo effect type of thing). If you consider the mind-body connection to be part of the normal human healing process then stigmata could be an opposite of the healing process or a psychosomatic illness.

(several links below)

Psiexploration

Answer 5

I seriously doubt they're real.  First of all, it only happens to people who coincidentally are really into religion, mainly Catholics.  Second, I don't believe there has been much scrutiny of those who have been afflicted.  They're usually among believers.  Third, the "wounds" appear on the hands, not the wrists where Jesus would have been hung from.

In my opinion it all adds up to religious frenzy.

Answer 6

It depends on if you consider supernatural and paranormal the same

then yes, but if you see them differently then know. It is a religious supernatural phenomena.

Answer 7

Stigmata are easily faked.  They are most popular among Catholics who put great stock in saints and official miracles and things like that.  Also the stigmata were always in the palms as is implied in the Bible, though we now know they Romans crucified between the wrist bones.  If they were truly a supernatural manifestation...don't you think God/Jesus would remember where he was nailed up?

It is not a paranormal event, and I think few were deliberate fakes, at least not all the time.  It may have started that way.  I suspect eventually they convinced themselves that it was real, or that it was Gods way for them to cut themselves.

I don't think it is possible for one to have bleeding areas appear just from a delusional psychosomatic state.  I think there is always a mechanical injury applied...whether from a long fingernail, or a foreign object.  The stigmatic however may be unaware they are injuring themselves, and really attribute it to supernatural explanation.

Answer 8

Yes it is easy to fake.

BUT when stigmata cases are studied the wounds that where once bleeding are clean again the next day without any marks of cutting or such things. I am a catholic and i am Hispanic and this happedns alot in Mexico. Most of the cases have been fake but the percentage of the real ones in mexico is 5%.

I am a true believer and it is a gift.

The thought that the wounds appear on the palms is merely because every where portraits and painted canvases portray the wounds to be on the palm and not the wrist. You have to take into consideration that Jesus of Nazareth was a very powerful and very miraculas.

Answer 9

Personally.....ehhhh maybe, but I think it is more of mind over body.  Like people who dream of getting bitten by a vampire and waking up to find red indentions or bumps on your neck.