Can collective hallucinations or hysteria explain miracles?

Charcot and the Salpêtrière: a historical category

In the 1870s and 1880s, Jean-Martin Charcot held public "clinical lessons" at the Salpêtrière hospital, in which patients reproduced, under hypnosis, convulsive seizures and spectacular bodily phenomena — paralysis, anaesthesia, contractures. The word "hysteria" then became a full-fledged medical category, before Sigmund Freud offered a psychoanalytic reading of it: an intrapsychic conflict expressed symbolically by the body^[7]. This framework made it possible to file attitudes, ecstasies, stigmata, and penances under a single label, systematically attributing to them a repressed or guilt-laden sexual origin.

The reality of functional disorders is documented by contemporary neurology; this does not, however, validate every old psychoanalytic interpretation of their causes^[8]. The problem is a slippage in method that Cuvelier describes precisely: one starts from a spectacular symptom — an ecstasy, a bleeding, a paralysis — and infers a diagnosis of personality, without having studied that personality over time. Cuvelier sets out the traits that such a diagnosis should then find:

"This personality is marked by unbridled egocentrism, theatricality accompanied by relatively poor emotion, stereotyped and changeable in its expression." — André Cuvelier, preface, in Ennemond Boniface, Thérèse Neumann, la crucifiée de Konnersreuth devant l'histoire et la science, P. Lethielleux, 1979, p. 10^[9]

This description makes it possible to examine the coherence of the personality diagnoses invoked in old controversies: were the alleged traits actually observed? It does not, however, constitute a modern test for functional neurological disorder: this is inferred neither from theatrical character nor from its absence. Its diagnosis rests on positive clinical signs, sought at examination^[10].

Functional disorders and collective symptoms: current distinctions

The old categories of "hysteria" and "pithiatism" do not map onto current diagnoses. Functional neurological disorder refers to motor or sensory symptoms that are genuinely experienced, whose functional character is recognised by positive signs on clinical examination. Normal test results are not enough to diagnose it; nor is an unusual presentation. Contemporary neurological reviews distinguish this disorder from intentional malingering and do not make a personality profile a diagnostic condition^[11]. Stress may be among the risk factors, but its absence does not rule out the disorder^[12].

Mass psychogenic illness, for its part, concerns the spread of symptoms within a group. In the survey published by Timothy F. Jones and colleagues on a Tennessee high school, a smell reminiscent of gasoline precedes headaches, nausea, dizziness, and breathing difficulties in November 1998: 80 students and 19 staff members go to the emergency room; 38 people spend the night in hospital. The investigations find no medical or environmental explanation for the reported symptoms^[13]. This file documents collective ailments; it does not study a miracle or the independent observation of a supernatural object.

One therefore cannot draw from this study a universal impossibility of shared perceptual errors. The relevant question is more precise: what mechanism is proposed, and which part of the file does it explain? A contagion of symptoms, a convergence of narratives, and the presence of a material sample must be examined separately. It is this distinction that the rest of the article puts to the test.

The common expression "collective hallucination" actually covers very different mechanisms, and the first methodological mistake is to treat them as one and the same explanation. Aimé Michel draws the decisive distinction concerning the witnesses of a mystical ecstasy:

"These witnesses can no doubt be mistaken in the same way as the mystic himself, if such is the case (let us remember that we begin from a position of doubt). But even if this is so, their illusion is that of ordinary men and women, the very one we would experience (or see through) if we were in their place." — Aimé Michel, Métanoïa. Phénomènes physiques du mysticisme, Albin Michel, 1986, p. 21^[14]

He goes on to clarify: "their illusion, if illusion there is, falls among ours, those of ordinary psychology, and we can talk about it knowing what we are talking about"^[15]. In other words, one must distinguish three questions, not two camps:

A robust case must be tested at all three levels separately. The heart of the medical objection against Thérèse Neumann concerns level 1; the accusation of collective "suggestion" concerns level 2; the instant healings, the blood analysed in the laboratory, or the hand sealed inside a crystal globe belong to level 3. Confusing these three planes — for instance, by thinking that a possible disorder of the subject would suffice to disqualify an independent laboratory analysis — is the most frequent error in the debate.

Boniface states the same principle from the other end of the reasoning, in a sentence that should discipline the whole discussion:

"After all, the mystical state would be just as compatible with hysteria as myopia or tuberculosis. A miracle, if it occurs, can very well take place in the middle of a hysterical crisis, without losing its transcendent character." — Ennemond Boniface, Thérèse Neumann, la crucifiée de Konnersreuth devant l'histoire et la science, P. Lethielleux, 1979, p. 145^[16]

In other words, even an exact diagnosis at level 1 would not be enough to settle level 3: a psychological explanation must explain the precise fact — the healing, the measurement, the sample — and not merely put a label on the personality of the person reporting it.

A 1920 certificate that will haunt the entire case

The case of Thérèse Neumann allows us to follow, over nearly fifty years, the birth, the career, and finally the disavowal of a diagnosis. A peasant woman from the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria, in 1918 she is the victim of an accident during a barn fire, followed by falls, blindness, and partial paralyses^[17]. On 27 February 1920, Dr Seidl signs, countersigned by three colleagues — Gœbel, Franck, and Hitzelsberger — a certificate bearing the diagnosis "severe hysteria with blindness and partial paralysis", intended for the accident insurance body of Regensburg, the Unfallberufsgenossenschaft, in order to obtain a disability pension for the family^[18][19]. This medical certificate, intended for an administrative procedure, will later be invoked in the controversy over hysteria — even though the mystical phenomena (stigmata, ecstasies, inedia) will not appear until six years later, starting in 1926.

Boniface denounces the diagnoses of his opponents in a general formula that the discussion of the Seidl certificate obliges us to put back into context: "among the doctors who labelled Thérèse Neumann a hysteric, not one had examined her, and some had not even seen her"^[20]. This criticism targets diagnosis at a distance: reusing an old label does not replace an examination of the phenomena that have appeared since.

The retraction of the 1920 certificate

In August 1931, Seidl revisits his own diagnosis in an interview reported by Boniface:

"Note also that I lacked at the time the personal observations that would have allowed me to make an informed diagnosis. That of hysteria, moreover, in the circumstances of the day, seemed plausible." — Dr Seidl, remarks reported by Ennemond Boniface, Thérèse Neumann, la crucifiée de Konnersreuth devant l'histoire et la science, P. Lethielleux, 1979, p. 142^[21]

He adds, with a rare clinical candour: "for who knows, today, exactly what hysteria is? Whereas appendicitis, I operate on it daily"^[22]. This interview is neither official nor stenographed — Boniface himself admits as much — but it is corroborated by a letter from the interpreter-witness Fernand Remisch dated 25 January 1959^[23], and above all by a more solid piece of evidence: Seidl's sworn deposition in the Aigner-von Lama civil trial, in which he explicitly links the illness to the 1918 accident, in a young woman "notoriously known to have once been a perfectly healthy girl, extremely robust and active"^[24].

This documentary gradation — private interview, confirming letter, stenographed judicial deposition — is itself a lesson in method: not all sources are equal, and a serious case must say so honestly rather than citing whichever is most convenient.

"It is impossible to diagnose hysteria at a distance"

The most substantial testimony in the case comes from Professor Herbert Urban, director of the university neuropsychiatric clinic in Innsbruck from 1946 to 1958. A road accident gives him the opportunity, in 1953, to examine Thérèse Neumann on several occasions and to speak with her at length "after having examined her as a doctor, for her accident, [...] without her suspecting it, as a psychiatrist", as well as with her parents, two of her sisters, and several nephews^[25]. His conclusion, published in the journal Psyché in March 1954, is unambiguous:

"Be that as it may, as a professor of neuropsychiatrics, I affirm that after seriously examining Thérèse Neumann, my medical conscience obliges me to say that she is not, and never has been, a hysteric." — Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 351^[26]

Urban does not stop at a verdict of authority: he explicitly refuses to base a diagnosis on a single spectacular sign, a methodological requirement that echoes and extends that of Cuvelier:

"Sometimes they are absent, in genuine hysterics. Sometimes they are present, in subjects who are certainly not hysterics. Their presence makes the subject suspect, nothing more; it does not constitute proof of hysteria in any way."

— Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 352^[27]

And he lays down the general rule that this article takes as its guiding thread:

“In any case, what is certain is that it is impossible to diagnose hysteria at a distance, without a direct, careful and prolonged examination of the person in question.” — Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 354^[28]

On the behavioural level, Urban draws a precise counter-portrait, trait by trait, of the profile sketched by Cuvelier:

“She is indeed, above all, direct, open, frank. [...] In her, nothing artificial: no pose, no attitude, no affectation. Not a trace of vanity or even of simple feminine coquetry. No boastfulness. Not the slightest symptom of pride, or even of self-satisfaction. Above all, nothing sexualised, neither in her words, nor in her attitudes, nor in her behaviour.” — Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 353^[29]

Urban’s portrait answers the accusations of personality made in his day. It does not allow a retrospective diagnosis, nor does it on its own rule out a functional neurological disorder in the present-day sense: such a disorder is recognised by positive signs on examination, not by the modesty or frankness of the patient^[30].

Naming a disorder is not explaining a mechanism

Urban goes further still and denounces a precise circular reasoning, the one that infers hysteria from the stigmata and then claims to explain the stigmata by hysteria:

“To say, for example, that a person is hysterical because she bears the stigmata, is to admit, at one and the same time, that one knows nothing about hysteria and that one has never seen stigmata.” — Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 348^[31]

And he specifies, in his 1954 report, that even a correct diagnosis would not be enough to close the file: “even if this diagnosis were exact, this would merely amount to replacing one unknown with another”^[32]. Josef Klosa, physician-chemist, illustrates the same flaw by means of a count: Josef Hanauer’s pamphlet against Konnersreuth (1972) uses “the word ‘hystérie’ more than 200 times without specifying any further what one must really understand by this word”^[33]. A label repeated two hundred times is not a mechanism; it is, at best, a hypothesis that remains to be demonstrated at each occurrence.

Kayl in 1947: sincerity and hallucination are not mutually exclusive

The case of Kayl, in Luxembourg, provides a clinical example of this distinction. Joachim Bouflet reproduces Jean Lhermitte’s assessment of a little girl reporting apparitions in 1947. The neurologist considers her neither a liar nor a hysterical; he nevertheless offers a natural explanation of the words she hears:

“She is neither delirious, nor hysterical, and still less a simulator.” — Jean Lhermitte, cited by Joachim Bouflet, Faussaires de Dieu — Enquête, Éditions Ephata, 2024, p. 179^[34]

“The words she hears correspond, in fact, rather to hallucinations of inner language than to spatialised words.” — Jean Lhermitte, cited by Joachim Bouflet, op. cit., p. 179^[35]

Lhermitte thus distinguishes the little girl’s sincere experience from the origin of the perceptions: she may faithfully report what she undergoes without the words coming from an external voice. Bouflet links this case to an eidetic vision, that is, a particularly vivid mental image, around which the reported perceptions develop. He also specifies the ecclesiastical position: Mgr Joseph Philippe did not recognise the supernatural character of the events; he remained reserved, without issuing any express decree. This position was confirmed to him by a letter from Georges Hellinghausen dated 21 June 1997.^[36]

The case answers a false dilemma: ruling out simulation does not demonstrate an apparition, and proposing a hallucination does not amount to accusing the person of lying. A natural explanation becomes relevant when it describes the perceptions in question and their evolution; the single word “hysteria” does not provide this demonstration.

The complete biography of Thérèse Neumann, her stigmata and her inedia are the subject of dedicated articles. Only the elements that make it possible to test the psychological hypothesis point by point are taken up here — and in particular those that Boniface’s investigation file documents with the greatest precision: direct tests of suggestibility, a named clinical examiner, and material traces independent of the witnesses’ perception.

The parish priest Naber tests rather than suggests

The most intuitive hypothesis is that of an influence exerted by Thérèse’s spiritual director, the parish priest Joseph Naber. Archbishop Josef Teodorowicz, cited by Boniface, rules it out for a verifiable reason: Naber did not possess the knowledge necessary to be the source of what Thérèse reported during her ecstasies.

“There can be no question of suggestion on the part of the parish priest Naber on the occasion of the ecstasies. He does not know Aramaic, does not possess in his library any writings relating to it, so that, in advance, one can rule out the hypothesis of any scientific influence on his part.” — Josef Teodorowicz, cited by Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 31^[37]

Better still: far from passively reinforcing Thérèse’s accounts, Naber actively puts them to the test. Teodorowicz reports that he “made Thérèse undergo various tests to find out whether she herself or the human will played no role on the occasion of these ecstasies and visions”^[38], and concludes: “Thérèse Neumann does not allow herself to be influenced”^[39]. Boniface reports attempts at contradiction that illustrate this resistance to suggestion, precisely in the state where one would expect it to be strongest:

“When, in order to catch her out, one tells her, for example, that she repeats the words of such and such a character badly, she insists, persists and sharply rebukes her interlocutor: ‘No, you listened badly to what he said,’ or ‘So you didn’t see, when he did this?’ Which proves, moreover, that she is not suggestible, and precisely in the state where one might all the more believe that she is.” — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 204^[40]

Boniface himself guards against the opposite excess: he acknowledges, citing Fr. Augustin Poulain, that memory and imagination can introduce subjective elements into the account of an authentic vision^[41][42]. The file is therefore not presented as flawless — and this is precisely what makes it credible.

An Aramaic word that no one on the spot was expecting

Another argument against learned suggestion concerns the words reported during the ecstasies. Professor Franz Wutz, an Aramaic specialist, expected for “I am thirsty” the form sachena; Thérèse reported a different word, which he recognised only after consulting his own works:

“For the word ‘I am thirsty’ the Semitists expected the term ‘sachena’; Wutz likewise; and Thérèse astonished him by telling him she had heard ‘es-che’. Back home, he found, by consulting his works, that it was a Neo-Hebrew word, also meaning ‘I am thirsty’.” — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 246^[43]

The papyrologist and orientalist Wessely draws from this the objection that gives the fact its full force: "where did Thérèse get this unexpected and perfectly correct form, 'aes che'? That is a riddle which no hypothesis of suggestion will solve"^[44]. It remains to rule out the hypothesis that Wutz unknowingly passed on this information: Wessely replies, in a Vienna lecture in January 1929, that "the words were heard by others, in the absence of Professor Wutz and even before he had known Thérèse Neumann"^[45]. Unconscious suggestion requires, at a minimum, that the information circulate from the supposed suggester to the subject; the precedence reported by Wessely therefore contradicts the precise hypothesis of learning from Wutz. It does not dispense us from examining the other possible routes of transmission, nor the linguistic identification of each utterance.

The absence of contagion among the most exposed novices

If collective fervour or imitation were enough to produce analogous phenomena, the most exposed environment — young nuns living under the same roof as an admired stigmatic — should produce at least a few cases of them. Abbess Benedicta Spiegel, who received Thérèse at the convent of Saint Walburga, draws a precise counter-argument from this:

"She pointed out to us in particular, regarding the role that these specialists would like to attribute to autosuggestion in mystical phenomena, that none of her many young nuns or novices, for whom the example of the stigmatic was yet an incomparable stimulus in their efforts towards perfection, had ever shown the slightest inclination to reproduce any of the Neumann phenomena, of which they were nevertheless extremely impressed." — Benedicta Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim, testimony reported by Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., pp. 261-262^[46]

The argument does not have the force of absolute proof — other factors, notably individual ones, may explain this absence of contagion — but it seriously weakens the model of automatic emotional contagion in an environment that is at once fervent, admiring and regularly exposed.

Herbert Urban and the counter-case of the false Thérèse Neumann

The most original contribution of the Urban file is a direct clinical comparative case. Around 1948, Urban treats in Innsbruck another patient, born Schwedler, who had taken the name of Thérèse Neumann:

"She affected a studied piety, whose very excess gave rise to suspicion. Seductive and suggestive in the highest degree, she constantly generated stories, whose sole purpose was to put her in the spotlight." — Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 354^[47]

"However, after a brief observation, I had no difficulty in unmasking her trickery, convincing her of lying and dismantling the entire fabrication, skilfully constructed. A discreet inquiry revealed, moreover, shortly afterwards, that she was an inveterate drug addict, who had been convicted several times for various fraudulent dealings." — Herbert Urban, interview reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 355^[48]

The contrast here lies in a simulation discovered by Urban and in the behaviour he describes in Thérèse Neumann. The lie demonstrated in the first case does not define the functional disorder: the two notions remain distinct^[49]. This case proves nothing about Konnersreuth in itself; it shows only that the clinical contrast invoked by the defenders of the file had a real referent, observed by the same examiner.

Fritz Gerlich's handkerchief and the Munich analysis

The Protestant journalist Fritz Gerlich had gone to Konnersreuth to, in his own words, unmask a "trickery"^[50]. On 5 and 6 April 1928, he observes Thérèse's face at about 25 centimetres, under an electric lamp, without interruption from 9.30 p.m.:

"I had observed the phenomenon by illuminating the face with an electric lamp, which I held in my left hand at a distance of about 25 centimetres, while my eyes were at roughly the same distance from her eyes. As I was observing, without stopping, since 9.30 [21.30], a preparation or an artificial addition to the bleeding of the eyes could not have escaped me." — Fritz Gerlich, observation reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 407^[51]

Gerlich does not stop at visual observation: he hands the stained handkerchief to two professors of medicine at the University of Munich.

"In the Medical Institute of the University of Munich, Professor Merkel, to whom I handed the stained handkerchief, and Professor Walcher examined this handkerchief [...] with the greatest attention. According to their explanations, the blood that soaked the handkerchief could only be human blood." — Fritz Gerlich, observation reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 407^[52]

Professor Ewald, although opposed to any supernatural reading of the file, confirms the material difficulty of repeated fraud: "the spontaneous onset of the bleeding has been observed by several doctors in an undeniable manner, even with a magnifying glass. The quantity of blood could hardly come from artificial intervention"^[53]. It is here that level 3 of the previous table — the material trace — comes into play: a collective hallucination, even shared by dozens of witnesses, does not deposit human blood, examined in a laboratory, on a handkerchief.

Healings that impose a precise chronology

Boniface reports several sudden healings. Two of his accounts invoke organic lesions, and not merely the disappearance of a functional symptom. After an appendicitis diagnosed by Seidl himself:

"The evacuation of the pus and the membrane had confirmed the diagnosis. But what surprised him perhaps even more was the instantaneous nature of the healing. For even if Thérèse had resolved her appendicitis naturally, she would still have had to undergo a convalescence all the longer in that fever and suffering had afflicted her for longer. Here, everything had happened in a few minutes." — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., pp. 157-158^[54]

As for vertebral lesions and suppurating wounds of the back: "he therefore confined himself to ascertaining the new fact: the suppurating wounds of the back were closed, the spinal column was intact, the paralysis had disappeared"^[55]. Hysteria and suggestion can, in theory, produce a reversible functional paralysis; they do not explain, by the sole effect of the diagnosis, the alleged evacuation of pus, nor the absence of convalescence after an organic infection. These descriptions are transmitted by Boniface: they report the findings attributed to Seidl, without constituting a published clinical file with analysis results and comparative examinations.

The 1927 inedia inquiry: a protocol, not an impression

A complete inquiry into the thirty-six years of alleged abstinence falls within the article devoted to the inedia of Thérèse Neumann. Only one episode is taken up here, because it directly illustrates the difference between a collective impression and a controlled protocol. In July 1927, the Bishop of Regensburg entrusts to Seidl — the very author of the 1920 certificate — the direction of a continuous surveillance entrusted to four sworn nurses from Mallersdorf, from 13 to 28 July, day and night^[56]. Dr Ewald, although presented by Boniface as a "bitter opponent of the mystical thesis", attests to the rigour of the observers:

"We certainly couldn't fool them... neither the ecstasies nor the sight of blood made them lose their heads; they stood there, impassive, camera in hand. Perfectly disciplined, they carried out Dr Seidl's instructions with the strictest punctuality." — Dr Ewald, testimony reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 184^[57]

"As far as I had knowledge of their report, it was objective, unassailable, and bore witness to the soundest critical judgement." — Dr Ewald, testimony reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 184^[58]

Boniface concludes: "through this rigorous and continuous control of 360 hours, the question of Thérèse Neumann's total abstinence has been definitively settled"^[59] — for this precise fifteen-day window, it must be specified, not for the entire thirty-six years of reported inedia described by Boniface. The value of this investigation depends on the instructions being carried out and on the reliability of the report: 360 hours of guard duty, measured volumes of water, documented samples and weighings presuppose a material protocol, not a contagion of emotion.

The Relatio of 1928: a contemporary document, not a reconstructed memory

One archival piece escapes the objection of late testimony or embellishment over the years: the diocesan Relatio commissioned by Bishop Buchberger, dated 12 October 1928 and preserved in the archives of the Diocese of Regensburg, known in three textual states — Latin manuscript, Latin typescript, German translation, all signed by the bishop^[60]. In the German version, as Boniface translates it into French, one reads concerning the attending physician:

"The physician observed no sign of hysteria [sentence absent from the Latin text]. The same physician who treated her throughout her illness and who best knows her physical and psychological constitution absolutely rules out any trickery or deception in her conduct." — Relatio of the Diocese of Regensburg, 12 October 1928, translation published by Fr. Sträter, Deutsche Tagespost, no. 33, 18 March 1975, reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., pp. 507-508^[61]

The Relatio also reports a direct examination by Father Agostino Gemelli, rector of the Catholic University of Milan, who came to Konnersreuth on 23 March and 6 April 1928^[62]: "Father Gemelli [...] affirmed that the stigmata were not artificial and were not produced by simple suggestion [...] and that no tendency to hysteria could be observed"^[63]. A clarification of method is called for here, and the article owes it to the dossier itself rather than to its defenders: this sentence about the absence of a hysterical tendency appears in the Latin manuscript, but has been struck out in the Latin typescript^[64]. This layering — three textual states not strictly identical — is critical information, not a detail to be smoothed over: it serves as a reminder that a favourable archival piece must be cited with its own internal nuances, exactly as the same rigour is demanded of unfavourable ones.

The "Martini report" brought back to its true scope

A document regularly invoked against Thérèse Neumann is the "Martini report". Boniface disputes even its documentary nature:

"The distinctive feature of the so-called Martini report is that it never existed. In fact, there was never any report, but merely notes taken by Dr Martini during an examination, which Bishop Buchberger had requested of him, to monitor the bleeding of Thérèse Neumann's stigmata. It was the hateful Nazi physician, Dr Deutsch, who gathered these notes and presented them, in the form of a report, in his pamphlet against Archbishop Teodorowicz." — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 389^[65]

Boniface also specifies the actual duration of the observation, reduced to "a few hours, spread out, with considerable interruptions, over a single half-day", on 22 and 23 March 1928^[66], and quotes the very text attributed to Martini: "during the so-called choking fit, no objective sign of suffocation [...] on the other hand, the eyes strongly rolled upwards. The impression produced is (beyond any doubt) that of a distinctly hysterical reaction"^[67]. Boniface concludes that the observation "concerned only Thérèse Neumann's general behaviour, during a bloody ecstasy, and, more particularly, the process of the stigmatic bleedings"^[68] — a one-off impression over a half-day, not a complete examination of the dossier. This criticism of the compilation and dissemination of the notes is Boniface's, a defender of Thérèse Neumann; it is distinct from the content of the medical observation that he quotes.

An honest case file cannot simply pile up favorable counter-examples: it must confront the strongest opposing argument. On this ground, one case comes up in both books at the heart of this dossier, with two very different degrees of seriousness depending on whether one reads it in Boniface or in Aimé Michel — which is itself already a lesson in how the same fact can be presented.

The “superficial” version: the Leschler protocol according to Lhermitte

Boniface reports the case of Elisabeth K., a patient of Dr Alfred Leschler, director of the Elbingerode psychiatric clinic, subjected to four years of hypnosis and repeated suggestion:

“They wanted to compare with the stigmata of Thérèse Neumann certain alterations of the skin [...] that Doctor Alfred Leschler [...] had succeeded in making appear and disappear, by suggestion, after four years of work under hypnosis, on the hands, feet and side of one of his subjects, a wretched neuropath with a past weighed down by accidents, Elisabeth K...” — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 334^[69]

The neurologist Jean Lhermitte, quoted by Boniface, severely curtails the scope of the result:

“In reality, this girl, eminently suggestible as the simple-minded are, subjected to multiplied and very prolonged suggestions, produced swellings and redness in the regions where the stigmata were to appear. But what poor stigmata: a few epidermal fissures, microscopic suffusions of the eyelids that ceased as soon as the suggestion ended. At the third session, Elisabeth showed a few hemorrhagic points on her forehead, but 48 hours later every trace of the so-called stigmata had disappeared.” — Jean Lhermitte, quoted by Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 336^[70]

Lhermitte moreover points out the control flaw in the protocol: “by Leschler's own admission, Elisabeth was not subjected to impeccable and continuous supervision”^[71]. This version of the case, as it most often circulates in apologetic literature, thus presents a modest result: redness and superficial fissures, gone within two days, under imperfect supervision.

Wounds and tears of blood: the version reported by Aimé Michel

Aimé Michel, who refers to the same doctor under the spelling “Lechler” and to the same patient as “Élisabeth”, reports results far more spectacular than those summarized by Lhermitte:

“And as these change, the wounds appear that he orders to appear, those of the crown of thorns, then the scapular inflammation of the carrying of the cross, and even tears of blood as with Thérèse Neumann.” — Aimé Michel, Métanoïa. Phénomènes physiques du mysticisme, Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 175-176^[72]

If one takes this account as Lechler himself published it, the objection changes in nature: it is no longer about mere redness, but about a case file claiming formed wounds and tears of blood obtained by hypnosis alone — a result which, if established with the same rigor as the Neumann file, would compel a serious reconsideration of the reach of suggestion. This is the objection in its strong form, and it must be presented as such rather than waved away.

Why the Lechler case does not suffice to generalize

Two limits, one methodological and the other logical, nevertheless prevent this case from becoming a universal explanation. The first comes from Lhermitte himself, who identifies a flaw in observation:

“Having read Lechler's book carefully, he found no sentence expressly declaring that he witnessed the appearance of the stigmata. So it may well be that he did not witness it, and his case proves nothing since the hypothesis of fraud has not been ruled out.” — Jean Lhermitte, summarized by Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 176^[73]

Michel applies here, to the naturalist experimenter, exactly the same standard of proof demanded of religious case files: without attested continuous observation, fraud remains an open hypothesis. The second limit is logical, and Michel states it with a caution that deserves to be quoted in full rather than summarized:

“Lechler, for his part, did not ask himself such questions. He reports what he observed, admits that he does not understand how these astonishing things are done, and puts forward the idea that, perhaps, when one observes these same astonishing things elsewhere, they might have the same causes.” — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 181^[74]

“Perhaps” is the exact scope the case allows. Reproducing an effect by suggestion on a particularly suggestible subject, in a context that is not fully controlled, legitimately broadens the differential diagnosis available for a given case; it does not license the inference “therefore all stigmata are suggested”, still less “therefore all witnesses of mystical phenomena are hallucinating”. The fallacy of generalization — moving from one possible case to a universal explanation — is precisely the error this dossier enables us to name and avoid.

The boundary Babinski set between functional and organic

The neurologist Joseph Babinski himself tested the limits of suggestion, in conditions more controlled than Lechler's. He chose a highly suggestible patient, in whom he could provoke the classic hysterical manifestations, suggested a burn to her, then enclosed the limb in a sealed apparatus:

“I took care to imprison the limb in a silicated apparatus [...] the better to shield myself from any attempt at conscious or unconscious fraud [...] Well, forty-eight hours later, having undone the apparatus, I observed on the area under experiment neither the slightest epidermal swelling, nor even the slightest redness.” — Joseph Babinski, Principaux Travaux, Masson et Cie, 1934, pp. 479-480, reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 337^[75]

Babinski then formulates a general conclusion from his practice and his critique of earlier observations:

“I have never observed any conclusive fact of skin hemorrhage, of blebs, of bullae, of ulceration, of gangrene or of hysterical edema, and I believe that those who have reported cases of this kind have been misled by malingerers, or have attributed to hysteria what belonged to some concomitant affection.” — Joseph Babinski, reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 337^[76]

“It cannot produce vasomotor, secretory or trophic disturbances, any more than it can create, by its own powers, hemorrhages, anuria, albuminuria or fever.” — Joseph Babinski, Principaux Travaux, Masson et Cie, 1934, p. 499, reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 339^[77]

Jean Lhermitte, in his own book on mystics, sets a similar boundary between functional reaction and tissue disorganization:

“The conscious and voluntary concentration of the mind on a given object can externalize it through functional physiological reactions [...] but in no case does the 'plastic force of the idea' prove capable of generating true organic disorganizations: wounds, ulcerations, blood effusions.” — Jean Lhermitte, Mystiques et faux mystiques, Bloud et Gay, 1952, reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 344^[78]

Lhermitte adds a natural-frequency argument, often overlooked in the debate: if emotion alone were enough to produce this type of phenomenon, the great collective traumas of history should have shown it on a large scale.

“For what reason, in truth, have the profound moral pains that follow the loss of a loved one [...] or the most terror-laden upheavals we experienced during the two world wars never brought about the appearance of any phenomenon resembling, even remotely, the stigmata? And yet, we have seen hundreds of hysterics seized by the most conspicuous symptoms.” — Jean Lhermitte, op. cit., reproduced in Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., pp. 344-345^[79]

These texts set out the position of Babinski and Lhermitte, published in the 1934 and 1952 works cited by Boniface. Babinski's negative test rules out the burn suggested in this experiment; it does not demonstrate the impossibility of any bodily effect of suggestion. The question remains concrete: what mechanism explains the observed lesion, under what conditions, and with what controls? Present-day neurology, incidentally, accepts that a functional disorder may coexist with another neurological condition^[80].

Aimé Michel also examines the cases of Louise Lateau, Anne-Catherine Emmerich, Marie-Madeleine de' Pazzi, and Joseph of Copertino. They make it possible to compare material controls, the diversity of observers, and the reactions of those around them.

Louise Lateau: an experimental comparison between the alleged wound and an artificial lesion

The Belgian stigmatic Louise Lateau (1850-1883) was subjected to directly comparative tests. Doctors Lécrinier, Séverin, and Lefebvre produced, using ammonia, right next to a bleeding stigmata, an artificial wound of the same extent on the same tissues:

“We observed them carefully: the stigmatic surface continued to give blood [...] ; as for the artificial stigmata, it did not give a single drop of blood; I observed it for two and a half hours; an incoloured serous fluid oozed from it for about half an hour; then the surface dried out.” — medical report cited by Aimé Michel, Métanoïa. Phénomènes physiques du mysticisme, Albin Michel, 1986, p. 169^[81]

The second test is even more stringent: Warlomont and Duwez placed Louise Lateau's right hand in a ventilated but sealed crystal globe, with metal mesh, a glued sleeve, and wax seals. The next day, the integrity of the device was verified by a third party, Dr Crocq:

“This apparatus was perfectly intact, as we confirmed through the scrupulous examination of the seals, not one of which bore the slightest trace of damage.” [...] “The most deeply slanted bottom of the vessel held a small pool of liquid blood [...] the quantity of which did not exceed five grams.” — Dr Crocq, cited by Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 172^[82]

A collective hallucination, however shared, does not deposit liquid blood in a sealed vessel verified intact by an outside examiner. This does not prove the supernatural origin of the phenomenon — residual fraud, a spontaneous lesion, or a misdiagnosed dermatological cause remain hypotheses to be examined — but it definitively moves the debate out of the realm of purely shared perception. Michel notes in passing a flaw in the reasoning of one opponent, Pierre Janet, who proposed an explanation by fingernail pressure without noticing that it contradicted his own description of a wound on the back of the hand^[83] — a reminder that invoking a mechanism without checking that it accounts for the exact location of the fact is not a refutation.

Anne-Catherine Emmerich: a convergence that crosses camp lines

The Blessed Anne-Catherine Emmerich was examined at Dülmen by around ten doctors of different opinions and confessions. Michel cites the summary published in 1816 by the physician J.-C. Bahrens, a proponent of an explanation by “animal magnetism”:

“Finally, I must mention that the patient was observed continuously for ten consecutive days, night and day, by trusted persons, with the permission of the ecclesiastical authorities. These observers unanimously testified that nothing was done to the wounds, that the patient took nothing except water, and that there was no discharge of any kind.” — cited by Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 157^[84]

The criterion added here is that of the heterogeneity of the observing group: a post-revolutionary French administration hostile to the clergy, Catholic doctors, a Protestant doctor. A homogeneous pious contagion would poorly explain the convergence of groups with opposing institutional interests toward the same finding. This is still not proof of the supernatural — the social hypothesis must simply, here, account for a convergence between rival camps, and not merely for a shared fervour.

Marie-Madeleine de' Pazzi: resistance to suggestion

Aimé Michel devotes a lengthy discussion to the Florentine Carmelite Marie-Madeleine de' Pazzi (1566-1607), whose ecstasies superficially recall Charcot's clinical picture of hysteria — screams, tears, postures. Michel applies the diagnostic criterion inherited from Babinski's critique of Charcot:

“It has been known, since Babinski's critique of Charcot's experiments, that the first characteristic of the hysteric is their suggestibility. Hysterical symptoms can be brought on by suggestion and removed by counter-suggestion.” — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 131^[85]

Within this historical framework, Michel sets against the comparisons with Charcot the nun's resistance to the influences of those around her:

“If anyone was ever rebellious to every kind of suggestion, it was certainly the obstinate Catherine de' Pazzi, who, all her life long, only ever had her own way. Had she been even the slightest bit hysterical, she would certainly have greatly relieved her parents, her superiors, her confessor, and the Archbishop of Florence.” — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 131^[86]

Michel sums up the gap between description and explanation in a formula that holds for the article as a whole: “laughter, tears, screams and postures of the Passion: is that not Marie-Madeleine de' Pazzi? No doubt. All that is missing is what actually constitutes hysteria, namely suggestibility”^[87].

He finally highlights a spontaneous test, reported by her biographers: her companions and her confessor would sometimes blindfold her or plunge the room into darkness while she painted or embroidered in ecstasy, and “the saint, so they attest, carried on with her work as if nothing were amiss, without making a mistake”^[88]. This account, transmitted by Michel from the ancient biographies, describes a testing of her by those around her. It tells us about the controls reported by these texts, without providing a modern experimental protocol. Likewise, the independence of character highlighted by Michel does not constitute a test excluding a contemporary functional disorder^[89].

In terms of testimonial credibility, Michel adds a decisive criterion: the first biography of Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi appears in 1609 in Florence, under the rule of the Medici, yet it reports an episode humiliating for a Medici cardinal who became pope under the name Leo XI.

"In any other case, the documents concerning this event would be regarded as conclusive by historical criticism. The witnesses are numerous, of differing opinions, driven by contradictory passions. Some would have had an interest in disputing the facts. All say the same thing." — Aimé Michel, op. cit., pp. 120-121^[90]

Regarding this episode and its explanation, Michel writes: "have we not the right not to know? [...] we may pride ourselves on real progress when, on a given problem, we have recognised that we do not know"^[91]. He thus distinguishes the reliability of a testimony from the explanation of the reported fact.

Joseph of Copertino: observing the religious without his knowledge

The case of the Franciscan Saint Joseph of Copertino (1603-1663) adds a final criterion: that of observers of different confessions, admitted without the religious knowing of their presence. Michel cites the case of three men secretly brought to a Mass to observe the religious without his knowledge, one of them, Georg Sittig, not being a Lutheran like the other two, Johann Friedrich of Brunswick and Johann Heinrich Blume — the three asked, the next day, for a second observation^[92]. Benedict XIV sums up the judgment passed on this type of deposition:

"In this cause, eye-witnesses of unquestionable honesty bore witness to the famous elevations above the ground and the prolonged flights of the Servant of God while he was in ecstasy." — Benedict XIV, cited by Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 222^[93]

Michel finally notes a criterion of consistency too often overlooked by the collective objection: the constancy of secondary details, with no apparent edifying value, across independent accounts.

"However astonishing this may seem, levitation is therefore at once the most incredible and one of the best attested of mystical prodigies. The secondary circumstances surrounding it in the accounts, its structure as a phenomenon, are also remarkably constant." — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 224^[94]

A purely imaginary collective reconstruction should, strictly speaking, gradually drift under the effect of memory and edifying legend; it has more difficulty producing, independently, the repetition of minor and un-pious details (falling sandals, the exact position of clothing, an abrupt ending at a superior's command). The strength of this argument depends on the independence of the accounts: several texts derived from a single source do not constitute several independent observations.

The thread running through the five preceding dossiers can be formulated as an explicit protocol. Aimé Michel sums it up himself, regarding the stigmata, by rejecting both isolated testimony and the authority of a famous but non-specialist skeptic:

"A testimony is worth what the witness is worth." — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 148^[95]

"If it is a matter of stigmata, I want a doctor, a biologist, I want several, of opposing opinions, having if possible an interest in asserting that the prodigy did not take place. Even then, perhaps I will not be convinced. But at least it will seem to me that the fact deserves to be known and pondered." — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 149^[96]

This standard can be broken down into verifiable criteria, found to varying degrees in each of the dossiers examined above:

A collective hallucination must account for the simultaneous presence of several of these criteria in order to be a credible explanation, and not a convenient label. Michel finally formulates a principle that holds for both sides of the controversy, believer and sceptic alike:

"The sceptic is the one who refuses to believe without examination, not the one who believes he knows the result of an examination he refuses to make." — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 191^[97]

Perception and Materiality: Two Distinct Problems

Aimé Michel, at the end of the dossier, draws the line that separates what ordinary psychology can account for from what it cannot:

“Visions pose no scientific problem calling into question currently accepted knowledge. If they have a transcendent origin, that is not science's concern, and, in the contrary case, psychiatry and neurology provide a whole assortment of well-known and proven phenomena capable of accounting for them. As for levitation, total abstinence, etc., that is obviously quite another story.” — Aimé Michel, op. cit., p. 227^[98]

A purely inward vision can, in fact, be given an ordinary psychological or neurological explanation without raising any particular doctrinal difficulty — the Church itself has always admitted a possible subjective element in the account of an authentic vision^[99]. A hallucination, understood as perception without a corresponding object, does not by itself constitute an explanation of an analysable sample or a materially verified lesion. One must still establish the existence, origin, and preservation of the trace: an error of observation, a fraud, or a natural cause all remain to be tested. Likewise, a statement attributed to an unknown language requires linguistic verification and an inquiry into the speaker's knowledge. Michel notes, moreover, regarding an old case labelled “collective hallucination” by the neurologist Lhermitte, that the diagnosis is often asserted without any modern clinical study to support it^[100]. An event not reproducible in a laboratory, Michel insists, can nevertheless leave ordinary effects behind it, examinable after the fact by the usual methods of science^[101].

Assisi, 1948: A Perceived Movement, an Immobile Statue

The case of Assisi allows a collective impression to be directly confronted with measurements. According to the account of Réginald Omez as reproduced by Joachim Bouflet, on 10 February 1948, at 6:30 p.m., two inhabitants of Perugia, Santovecchi and Marocchini, believe they see the bronze statue of the Virgin that crowns the façade of Saint Mary of the Angels swaying. The population rushes over and shares this impression of rocking. The ecclesiastical authority requests a scientific investigation.^[102]

“They then used surveyor's telescopes: the statue was not moving.” — Réginald Omez, cited by Joachim Bouflet, Faussaires de Dieu — Enquête, Éditions Ephata, 2024, p. 150^[103]

The account details several concordant checks: surveyors fix points on the statue with a tacheometer; pendulum seismographs and spirit levels detect no movement; successive photographs taken with a telephoto lens overlap without any displacement. A photocell likewise detects no variation in light intensity. During these checks, the spectators continue to perceive a rocking motion.^[104]

The counter-test matters as much as the negative measurements: in the seminaries of Fano and Assisi, physics professors place a statuette at the centre of a ring of small lamps, at nightfall, and reproduce the impression of oscillation. Bouflet concludes that it was a collective illusion. The word is precise here: a real object exists, but its movement is misperceived; this is not necessarily a hallucination without an object.^[105]

This case shows what a documented natural explanation can be: it confronts testimony with instruments and reproduces the appearance in question. It forbids one from maintaining that a crowd can never be mistaken together. It does not, however, explain another event by simple analogy, nor a different material trace: every dossier requires the same confrontation between what is perceived and what is measured.

Prodigy and Miracle: Two Levels the Controversy Often Confuses

Boniface distinguishes the finding of an extraordinary phenomenon from its recognition as a divine sign:

“The most frequent error consists in confusing prodigy and miracle, two distinct concepts, which neither necessarily agree nor necessarily exclude one another. For many people, indeed, the miracle is whatever cannot be rationally explained — no conception could be more false.” — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 526^[106]

“This first element (transcendent material fact) is obviously necessary, but it is not sufficient to manifest a divine intervention. It constitutes only the ‘body’ of the miracle. It constitutes a ‘prodigy’, not a miracle. It is not yet a sign.” — Ennemond Boniface, op. cit., p. 527^[107]

This distinction protects against the two symmetrical extremes that this dossier allows one to avoid. On one hand, the demonstrated failure of a hysterical or suggestive explanation does not prove, by elimination, the supernatural origin of a fact: concluding “therefore it is a miracle” as soon as a psychological hypothesis fails would amount to turning ignorance into proof. On the other hand, the prior improbability one grants to the miracle does not turn an untested psychological hypothesis into an established explanation: repeating “hysteria” two hundred times, without ever examining the subject, is no more a demonstration. Between the two lies the space of real work: establish the material fact with the same rigour one would demand of any other investigation, then — only afterwards, and by a distinct route — raise the question of the religious meaning it should be given. This is exactly the articulation proposed by the ecclesial discernment of supernatural phenomena, in which any psychic alteration of the subject is only one negative criterion among several, neither sufficient nor automatic.

A diagnosis must explain the precise fact

The cases examined lead to different conclusions depending on the nature of the phenomenon. At Kayl, Lhermitte proposed a natural interpretation of the perceptions without accusing the little girl of simulation. At Assisi, the measurements reported by Omez contradict the movement perceived by the crowd. In the cases of Louise Lateau and Thérèse Neumann, the existence of bloody traces and the control arrangements shift the question toward the physical origin of the blood. One and the same formula — "collective hallucination" — does not fulfil these three explanatory functions.

The sincerity of witnesses, their competence and their diversity strengthen an investigation; they do not dispense with verifying what they observed. Conversely, diagnosing a disorder in a person is not enough to explain all the facts surrounding them. This is why accounts of experiences, their controls and their precise results carry more value than the repetition of a label.

From medical critique to the discernment of miracles

The categories of Babinski, Lhermitte, Urban or Cuvelier belong to their time. Current diagnoses rest on positive clinical signs, without equating a functional disorder with a theatrical personality or a lie^[108][109]. Historical reports too have a limited scope: fifteen days of surveillance do not cover an entire life; a report cited by one author remains distinct from a series of independent observations.

Refuting an inadequate psychological explanation therefore does not replace the recognition of a miracle. It removes an illegitimate obstacle: nothing warrants treating every extraordinary religious phenomenon as already explained by suggestion. Catholic discernment can then examine together the facts, their context and their spiritual meaning. Faith in miracles does not require denying psychological disorders; the study of such disorders does not justify ruling out the action of God in advance.^{[110][111][112]}

• Servant of God Thérèse Neumann (1898-1962) — complete biography
• The stigmata of Thérèse Neumann
• The inedia of Thérèse Neumann
• The stigmatized in the history of the Church
• Criteria for the discernment of supernatural phenomena
• What is the discernment of spirits?
• Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich
• Levitations in the lives of the saints
• Bilocations
• Saint Gemma Galgani