In the most publicized European apparitions of Mary, the seers have reported receiving personal or prophetic secrets from the apparition. In contrast to these famous accounts, contemporary private visions of Mary reveal an absence of secrets, supporting the hypothesis that secrets are associated with encounters that are revealed to others, and which come under public scrutiny. Analyzing the phenomenon of secrets from a psychological standpoint, the authors hypothesize that apparitional secrets function 1) psychodynamically as a way of preserving a separate sense of identity, and 2) systemically as a natural consequence of the seer's mediating position between the vision and the public. The authors then examine the acceptance the phenomenon of the apparitional secret by the Church and the laity, and observe that Mary’s alleged bestowal of secrets upon the seers mirrors the story of God’s dependence upon the biblical Mary.

Keywords: Marian apparitions, secrecy, systems theory, psychodynamic theory


    The modern era of Marian apparitions commenced in Europe during the middle 1800s, but anecdotal reports of encountering the mother of Jesus are by no means a recent development. Since the first century, there have been over 21,000 documented cases (Ashton & Ashton, 1989).
    Many well-known religious figures reported private visions of the mother of Jesus prior to the era of the major European apparitions. According to Gregory of Nyssa, Mary appeared to Gregory the Wonderworker in the third century. Accompanied by the apostle John, she reportedly appeared in the night, more than life-size, surrounded by light "as if a brilliant torch had been lit. In the vision, Mary told John to make the mystery of the true faith known to Gregory. John was heard to consent because "such was her wish" (O’Carroll, 1982, p. 124).
    Centuries later, on returning to England from the Crusades in 1241, St. Simon Stock––the leader of the Carmelite Order––experienced a vision of Mary now well-known to Roman Catholics. He had been praying to the Virgin for relief from the oppression the Carmelites were facing from the more established religious orders in England. In his vision, Mary apparently told Simon that anyone wearing the brown Carmelite habit at death would gain immunity from eternal fire. Simon’s vision, once publicized, greatly enhanced the status of his order and aroused public interest in wearing the protective garment. Since then, countless people have worn a small piece of brown wool––known as the brown scapular––as a visible sign of their devotion to Mary and her protection.
    In spite of Mary's reported appearances to such individuals over the centuries, the apparitions and visions seen by early saints "were incidental features in the lives whose legends they embellished: It was the saint who was the object of the cult” (Blackbourn, 1993, p. 9). Because the church treated the encounter as secondary to the saint’s religious life, neither the visions nor the miracles frequently associated with them became the focus of widespread devotion.
    It is commonly believed that Mary’s appearances to ordinary people began in the early 1800s. However, apparitions of Mary occurred in earlier times among the laity, as well. Christian (1996) investigated the incidence of apparitions in Spain during the 15th century and found that numerous well-documented apparitions had been reported by ordinary people. Not surprisingly, the Church became concerned about the independent authority implicitly conferred by apparitional phenomena. While Church authorities did not dispute the fact of private revelation, it vigorously suppressed the public disclosure of such revelation because of the social power conferred by the meditating role, and the potential conflict of the alleged dispensation with Church doctrines.     
    Starting with the apparition in La Salette, France in 1846, the emphasis began to shift onto the messages conveyed by the apparitions, and to the miraculous events that took place around the apparitions. This shift may have occurred because the messages included statements about the world as a whole, and because the church and the public were hesitant to erect a cult around the recipients of these new apparitions, who were mostly women and uneducated children. Indeed, the modern practice of focusing on the content of the vision rather than the recipient served to diminish somewhat the importance of the visionaries themselves in the most acclaimed modern apparitions of Mary.
    Many of the books concerning the Marian apparitions reflect an uncritical appraisal of the apparitional phenomena, the messages conveyed, and the healings or “prodigies” associated with the apparition sites (Ashton and Ashton, 1989; Delany, 1960; Varghese, 2000). In commenting on Varghese’s book as an example of this genre, Britt (2002) notes that it lacks a consideration of “even the most minimal cultural and historical context.” However, a few scholarly works (Blackbourn, 1993; Christian, 1996; Zimdars-Swartz, 1991) have analyzed the social and political contexts in which Marian apparitions have arisen, and explored the complex relationships between the visionaries, the apparition, the local populace, political authorities, and the Church. Looking at an apparition in the context in which it occurs, while maintaining a neutral stance regarding its alleged supernatural origins, provides an altogether different level of analysis than the one taken by authors of popular works who are largely motivated to spread the good news: It reveals how apparitional phenomena may emerge, in part, to satisfy the complex needs of the seers, the Church, and the public, and how such phenomena can change over time under the pressures of competing interests.  Along these lines, we believe that a focus on the psychological factors––a dimension heretofore overlooked by previous researchers –– can provide a fuller understanding of various apparitional features. In this paper, we specifically analyze the phenomenon of the apparitional secret, and hypothesize from the perspective of psychodynamic theory that this phenomenon has arisen, at least in part, as a way for the seers to preserve a sense of independent identity and power in a context that minimizes their importance and personal needs. We also hypothesize from the standpoint of systems theory that the perception or fact of secrecy arises naturally in any triangular relationship in which a seeker can only communicate with, or gain access to higher power through a mediating agent.
The Phenomenon of Secrets
    In the most publicized Marian apparitions of the last 150 years, the embodiment of higher power has reportedly conveyed secrets to the visionaries. These secrets have been comprised of confidential personal messages, or prophecies that have to be withheld until some later time, or a combination of both. In La Salette, France in 1846, cowherds Melanie Calvat and Maximim Giraud claimed to have received both personal and prophetic information that the lady in their vision asked them not to reveal. A decade later in 1858, Bernadette of Lourdes reported having received confidential messages over the course of 18 separate encounters, but in spite of the pressure to reveal them, she insisted that the messages were for her alone and never disclosed them. Then in 1917, the Fatima apparitions produced three famous prophetic secrets that were turned over to the papacy. Two of the secrets were revealed in 1942, and the third secret was finally revealed by the Vatican in 2000. The apparitions at Garabandal, Spain (1961-63) and Medjugorje, Yugoslavia (1981-present) have both laid out a sequence of warnings and chastisements, but the exact time frame for these events remains unrevealed. In the case of Medjugorje, the apparition has also communicated a series of 10 secrets to each of the six young visionaries according to a different time schedule.
The First Apparitional Secrets
    Cowherds Melanie Calvat and Maximim Guiraud of La Salette were the first visionaries in the era of modern apparitions who allegedly received during their single encounter. While tending their cattle, the children reportedly witnessed the presence of a beautiful woman who spoke with them about God’s displeasure with his people. The woman cited recent crop failures as an example of his punishment, and warned of famine and further hardships unless the world repented.
    At first, the public accepted the children’s account at face value. But in time, some people seized upon the idea that the woman––whom they identified as the Blessed Mother without the children's help––must have said more. When the children were asked if she had told them more, they initially refused to comment, but eventually admitted that the woman had given them messages that they were told not to reveal.
     The La Sallette seers claimed that the woman had spoken privately to each of them; thus neither child was able to confirm nor deny what the lady had revealed to the other.  Some of what she told them was personal and some of it pertained to future events of general interest. Historians now find it difficult to assess how much importance the children themselves originally attributed to these private messages. Further, there is some speculation that the secrets grew more elaborate as the public's interest in them increased. Regardless, one should keep in mind that the La Salette secrets established a precedent that carried over to subsequent apparitions. 
    Obviously, whatever takes place in a visionary experience becomes privileged information, if for no other reason because one can know of it only through the visionary's willing disclosure. Given the private nature of such experiences, suspicions may naturally arise about the possibility of withheld information. This is how the speculation about Mary's secrets rose to such a fever pitch at La Salette: The public's desire to know more and the Church's authority collided with the visionaries' loyalty to their private experiences. A predictable escalation of tensions naturally ensued.
    It is easy to understand why the public might suspect that there could be more to the story. For, the purported messages communicated by the apparitions have never ventured very far from familiar biblical passages. As Pelletier (1971) says about Mary's messages, "the spoken message in its essential parts is never more than a reminder of the gospel, of things that we already know or should know (p. 89)." Consequently, an understandable escalation of mistrust naturally ensues between the seers––who alone experience the manifestation––and the public, who may not believe that Mary would manifest only to reiterate familiar spiritual truths.
Visions that Never Become Public
    It is perhaps significant that the public became aware of the La Salette secrets only after pressuring the children for more information. Similarly, Bernadette of Lourdes began receiving secrets during the third apparition, after the public and the Church had been made aware of the phenomenon.  Bernadette did not even hear the woman speak during the first two appearances, nor did she make any effort to indentify the young woman. This tolerance of ambiguity among La Salette and Lourdes visionaries stands in stark contrast to the public’s demand for specific and thorough information. 
There is anecdotal evidence that supports the hypothesis that secrets become part of an apparition's message only once the fact of the encounter has been shared with others. In a study conducted of modern visions and dreams of Mary (Sparrow, 1997; 2002), the respondents––all of whom were of adult age when they shared their visions with the researcher even though many of the experiences occurred during childhood––were interviewed  by letter, phone, or in-person about their experiences with the understanding that their identities would remain confidential. Many of the accounts bear striking similarities to the famous historic encounters.
    In one, a little girl experienced a plastic statue of Mary coming to life as she danced in front of it.
The little girl kept the experience private in order to preserve its special place in her private world.  Her impulse to keep the experience to herself provides some indication of what seers might initially experience before the phenomenon becomes a matter of public record. It is as if the intimacy created by the vision suffices to offset the need to know more.
    In another vision, a school teacher reported a vision that resembled the first appearance of Mary at Fatima, where the three children saw her in the midst of an orb of light hovering over an evergreen tree.
I was on the edge of a cornfield just at the entrance to a forest . . . I felt a presence just above me, so I raised my eyes . . . There was an incredible buzzing sound, and I was intensely aware of the rapid vibrations of absolutely everything. It was as if everything was vibrating at a very high speed.
The Function of Secrets
    It is clear from the historical record that the development of secrets in the best-known apparitions of Mary coincided with increasing pressure on pre-adolescent or adolescent visionaries to reveal whatever they had experienced.  When examined from a psychodynamic standpoint, as well as from a relational orientation, the phenomenon of secrets may have arisen as a way to preserve a sense of individuality and power in response to the invasive inquiry of the people around them, as well as to perpetuate the visionary's essential mediating role in the apparition.
    Secrets in the process of individuation.  The first apparitional secrets at La Sallette occurred in a context that may have prompted the adolescent visionaries to resort to secrecy as a as a way to preserve their privacy and their influence, independent of whether the apparition also entrusted them with secrets. Margolis (1966, 1974) has addressed the importance of secrecy from a psychodynamic orientation, and concludes that secrecy is necessary for the development of the self.  Coppolillo, Horton, and Haller (1981) consider secrecy from a relational perspective by suggesting that managing "the amount that one reveals of his secret inner self to another person is one vehicle for achieving and managing varying degrees of intimacy" (p.81).  While Margolis' theoretical work focuses on the psychodynamic dimensions of secrecy, he does describe a "snowballing" effect that can take place whenever a child faces increasing pressure to reveal a secret: 
    The result is a kind of self-perpetuating or 'snowballing' so that as one's sense of individuality becomes more firmly established he also becomes aware of the ability, right, and need to keep more secrets, be more of an individual and more self-determining (1966, p. 518).
This reference to excessive, "self-perpetuating" secrecy illustrates the two prevailing views of secrecy. Frijns, et. al acknowledge that “functional” secrecy, or the ability "to regulate the self strategically in response to relational goals and demands . . ." (p. 146)  is considered a necessary part of normal development. But they go on to say that excessive secrecy becomes dysfunctional because "it lacks the flexibility to respond adequately to situational demands" (p. 146). Given the extreme social pressures imposed upon apparitional visionaries, healthy privacy could have feasibly given way to excessive secrecy and embellishment. Blackbourn's examination (1993) of apparitional hoax in Marpingen, Germany reveals how frabrication and embellishment can quickly expand into a full-blown hoax with little or no basis in authentic religious experience.
    Secrets as a function of triangular relationships. While secrecy can be seen as a normal  outgrowth of a young person's need to secure a nascent sense of self, or as dysfunctional when it becomes excessive, another way to understand the apparitional secret is through the paradigmatic lens of systems theory. That is, secrecy can be seen as a function interpersonal relationship process and structure, rather than merely a consequence of internal, psychodynamic forces. From this standpoint, a secret inevitably implies three parties: the bestower, the confidant, and the excluded party or parties, and thus is always a function of a triangular relationship. A triangle––considered a stable but usually unhealthy structure in human relationships (Bowen, 1978; Guerin, et al., 1996)––arises when one person turns to the a third party because of the unwillingness or inability to communicate directly with someone from whom the supplicant is distanced or estranged.. Turning to a surrogate usually leads to the disenfrancisement of the person who is left out of the loop. Under increasing pressure from disenfrancised parties, confidential information may be guarded even more assiduously out of a desire to protect the intimacy of the newfound relationship. Such escalation was evident at La Salette,  and again at Fatima––where the seers successfully resisted threats from the local magistrate to have them thrown into a pot of boiling oil if they did not reveal the secrets that Mary had allegedly given them.
    Triangular relationships also occur in the spiritual life whenever an individual serves constructively as a bridge between a seeker and higher power (Sparrow, 2008). Because the division between humanity and the divine is considered an ontological, rather than psychological, fact in post-Augustinian Christianity, Sparrow observes that meditators such as Jesus and Mary tend to become permanent, rather than transitional figures in the spiritual life, and thus tend to be elevated to divine or semi-divine status, thus increasing the perceived gulf between humanity and God. As the division becomes increasingly exaggerated, the psychological and spiritual need of the individual calls for the erection of new mediators with whom the laity can easily relate. Most of European apparitions have arisen in areas of religious and/or political unrest, in which the status of the usual social structure, and the function of traditional sacerdotal agents, have been undermined by war, racial strife, or religious persecution. Consequently, the apparitional messages and secrets seem to offer an alternative avenue to communion with higher power that is outside the sanctioned religious rituals and political prohibitions. The seers thus occupy a fresh mediating role between a deprived laiety and a vision that offers a new dispensation that addresses the needs of the populace.
    One might think that an adolescent under pressure to reveal the full details of the apparitional event would gladly unburden himself or herself rather than suffer continual pressure from the Church and community. But the seers have shown remarkable resolve in protecting the secrets from untimely disclosure. As Zimdars-Swartz (1991) says,
When people become convinced that a seer harbors secrets, speculation about their nature and content becomes inevitable, and the seer is pressed for anything and everything that might be of public relevance. Indeed, the seer's ability to withstand such pressure has often been understood as evidence of the authenticity of an apparition (p. 135).
    Even Melanie and Maximim of La Sallette, who reportedly exhibited obvious weaknesses of character, demonstrated uncharacteristic strength of mind whenever they were interviewed about their encounter with Mary. This may seem remarkable given the pressures they faced––but there were benefits in protecting the presumed secrets. First, the vision provided a source of comfort that had been previously lacking in their lives. Most of the seers––including the La Salette visionaries––had been subjected to emotional loss and extreme hardship prior to the Mary’s appearance to them. Blackbourn (1993) notes that “dependent or outsider status, as much as sheer poverty, are the recurrent themes in the lives of the visionaries. To these we should add the experience of emotional vulnerability resulting from bereavement or fractured family circumstances (p.190).” He goes on point out that the relationship with the apparition was, for most of the major visionaries, the first time they’d experienced such profound comfort and love. Thus, it is easy to understand why the visionaries wished to protect the uniqueness of their relationships with the apparitional being. But regardless of the specific motives, the context of increasing pressure precipitated what, from the standpoint of modern theorizing, represented an escalating resistance, or "snowballing" (Margolis, 1966, p. 518) resolve to keep the apparitional secrets from public scrutiny.
    Another benefit of keeping secrets has to do with the social power that they confer Margolis, 1966, p. 18). If the apparition had only given them a message to deliver, then their importance may have been short-lived. But in keeping secrets, the visionary’s influence is effectively preserved until the secrets are revealed, or the public’s interest subsides.
     Ultimately the La Salette seers recorded their secrets and sent them in sealed envelopes to the Pope Pius IX. Maximim was clearly relieved to be rid of the secrets, saying "One no longer has any need to ask me anything, one can ask the Pope." His relief was echoed by Conchita of Garabandal over a hundred years later when she expressed relief that the apparitions had finally ended, and that her spiritual life was no longer on public display: "I prefer to have the locutions [auditory experiences of divine presence] to the apparitions, because in the locutions I have her within me. Oh, what happiness when I have the Blessed Virgin within me! (Blackbourn, 1993, p. 6)." In reference to the stress that the Fatima seers experienced, Zimdars-Swartz (1991) says, "It is clear that they . . . suffered great physical and emotional strain as great numbers of people intruded on their formerly very private world (p. 88)."
    The relief expressed by the apparitional seers in unburdening themselves of the final secrets corresponds to research findings that indicate that keeping secrets results in very little positive consequence for the secret-bearer over time. While learning to keep secrets seems to be part of normal development (Margolis, 1966, 1974; Peskin, 1992; Pipe and Goodman, 1991), research into the effects of maintaining secrecy from parents over time (Frijns, Finkenauer, Vermulst, and Rutger, 2005) indicates that a persistent, high degree of secrecy contributed to an atmosphere of mistrust between parent and child, leads to the child's isolation, and is correlated with an adolescent's poor sense of well being, increased problem behavior, and decreased self control (p. 146).
     By the time that Melanie and Maximum recorded the La Salette secrets, the secrets may have been altered or embellished. Melanie, in particular, was accused of embellishing the "authentic secret" with popular ideas that occurred to her before she finally wrote down her full account. While she emphatically denied the charge, many people who believed in the authenticity of the La Salette apparition were relieved when church authorities declared that the mission of the seers had ended.
    Believers have understandably been reluctant to address the possibility that the apparitions and the subsequent recounting of them have been distorted by the seers' psychological needs and their exclusive mediating. Regardless, whatever the children witnessed at La Salette––or in the other major apparitions for that matter––one can be virtually assured that the apparitions became  "malleable products" (Blackbourn, 1993, p. 23) shaped by the intense pressures placed on the seers from the public and from church authorities.
The Acceptance of Secrets
    We have seen how the protection of the apparitional secret clearly supports a visionary's sense of self, and preserves his or her power as a mediator between the vision and the public, but it is also important from a religious and cultural standpoint to consider why the Church and the laity have accepted the phenomenon of secrets so uncritically. Indeed, secrets have become an expected part of any apparitional drama.
    When one tells a secret, one confers power upon, and becomes vulnerable to the other person. Unless our judgment is impaired, sharing secrets is only something that we do with our most trusted friends: We give them our secrets––and thus the power to betray us––in exchange for intimacy.  If one can believe the visionaries, the apparitional Mary has consistently depended on them to protect her most sensitive communications, much in the way that an ordinary person might depend on a close friend. Why would such an arrangement, which confers so much privilege and power upon ordinary women and children, and creates extraordinarily isolation from those around them, fail to raise more suspicion among the Church and the community of the faithful? Other aspects of the apparitions––most notably, their “supernatural” status as it is defined by Catholic doctrine (Bouflet & Boutry, 1997)––have been rigorously scrutinized by Church authorities and often found wanting. Famous apparitions such as Garabandal and Medjugorje still await the Church's final approval. In contrast, the tacit acceptance of Mary’s bestowal of secrets indicates that this aspect of the apparitional phenomenon somehow conforms to expectations, even if an apparition's status is still in question.
    Perhaps the bestowal of secrets is so readily accepted because it resonates with a familiar theme. Specifically, the role of secret bearer in modern apparitions parallels, if not reenacts Mary’s biblical role in the "secret" conception of Jesus. Indeed, Mary’s dependence on the visionary clearly mirrors God’s unprecedented dependence on her in the incarnational process. As Catherine Halkes says,
If people want to talk about dependence, they should recognize that here God made himself dependent on a human being, and the human being was responsive to God (Shillebeeckx and Halkes, 1993).
Shillebeeckx  and Halkes go on to assert that Mary––in accepting God’s invitation––was the “first of the believers of the new covenant” and the first in the Christian tradition to enter so completely into a co-creative relationship with the divine. In receiving Mary’s secrets, the apparitional seer enters into a similar kind of relationship in which he or she receives the "seed" of a new dispensation.  From thereafter, the seer must bear alone the consequences of having received the vision, and remaining true to it.
Discussion and Limitations
    Popular works concerning apparitional phenomena have focused uncritically on the content of the visions, while several scholarly works have analyzed them from sociological and historical standpoint. We have, in contrast, conducted a preliminary analysis of the apparitions from a psychodynamic and systemic orientation, hypothesizing that the phenomena of apparitional secrets can be understood as the outgrowth of 1) a psychological need to secure and preserve a sense of self apart from others; and 2) as an inevitable consequence of occupying an exclusive, mediating role in a triangular relationship. These hypotheses, while preliminary and tentative, serve to support a constructionistic orientation to religious experience which takes into consideration a wider array of factors than previously considered without necessarily challenging the contribution of other influences, nor even questioning the supernatural validity of the experience in question. While such hypothetical analyses of historic apparitions cannot be tested against emergent data, and thus offer limited value, it is nonetheless likely––given the established historical pattern––that apparitions will continue to be a perennial phenomenon. Because of this, the fuller development of a psychological perspective may not only assure a more sophisticated analysis of the ongoing exchange between the seers and the public, but may also guide those who are in a position to intervene to protect the seers from undue pressure that could distort their reporting and unnecessarily complicate their roles.
    It is, of course, impossible to determine whether the apparitional secret has a supernatural or spiritual origin, or arises solely in the psychosocial crucible comprised of family, society, culture, and the Church––or some combination thereof. While it is difficult to separate subjective from objective when it comes to such phenomena, the human drama that unfolds once secrets enter into the equation is a familiar one. While protecting a sense of personal identity and power, and securing a relationship that is distinct and personal, the secret isolates the seers from the surrounding community, and erects a relationship triangle through which seekers may gain access to higher power only through the mediating agency of the visionaries.  It is also a drama that, in many ways, mirrors the biblical account of the annunciation and subsequent trials of the mother of Jesus.



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