Crossing the Borders of the Sacred and Profane: Holy Visions of a Clairvoyant from Hungary.

Gyöngyössy, Orsolya (2016) Crossing the Borders of the Sacred and Profane: Holy Visions of a Clairvoyant from Hungary. In: Experiencing Religion. New Approaches to Personal Religiosity. LIT Verlag, pp. 153-160. ISBN 978-3-643-90727-1

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Abstract

Visions, transcendental impulses and apparition of saints constitute a special category of religious experiences. Unlike the high-organized systems of the Church, the visionays are in a kind of religious illegality: mostly they separate themselves and keep their experiences to themselves because of the fear of incomprehension. My study is based on the stories of a Roman Catholic clairvoyant living in a middle-sized agricultural town (c.a.18.000 inhabitants) in southern Hungary. She has been having visual and auditive perceptions in the Church of Our Lady since 2003. Along the directions of Christ and the Virgin Mary she recognized her mission in the human society. The lack of the religious education and the general immoral lifestyle of today inspired her to fight for the soul of the youngsters. She used to write letters to the state services (department of education, etc.) asking for obligatory bible classes and attached religious education. Her natural modesty and silent, contemplative temperament restricts her from organising (or leading) a religious group or enunciating her experiences in a public sphere. The sacred experiences became integrated in her everyday life. For her the sacred and profane world have the same level of reality. The holy visions give her not only delightful visual experiences but mission, advices and instructions too. The only way she can express herself and share her experiences with her environment is through drawing: after a strong emotional and visual experience (which appears only in the church, during the Holy Mess) she tries to draw what normally would be undescribable by words. Only during the interviews is she forcing to put the visual expressions into words and coherent texts. The aim of my essay is to examine how these transcendental experiences change and shape the way of living and thinking of the clairvoyant. Can we recognize any influence on the people living around her? The results could bring us closer to understanding the connection between the message of visions and the convictions of this religious person.

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