THE BLEEDING MIND

TW: Self-harm/injury⁠⠀
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✋🏽STIGMATA! 🤚🏽Did you know that the rates of this phenomenon are actually increasing around the world? For modern day stigmata researchers though, is not a simple question of is it faked or real. 🔨⁠⠀
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It’s been suggested by at least one study that these supposed wounds crucifixion could be psychosomatically created. This theory is supported by instances where a traumatised survivor can re-live a painful memory via hypnotic states, and in doing so, create a skin reaction, like rope burn, as if by magic.

Others interpret it as the result of a dissociative state brought (at least in part) by fasting, where sufferers harm themselves in a religious fervour and then don’t remember doing it. 🧠⁠⠀
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For my guest on Beyond Belief this week, Ted Harrison—former religious affairs correspondent of the BBC, a first-hand expert in religious phenomena, and the author of "Stigmata: A Medieval Mystery in a Modern Age"—stigmata is likely self-induced. But that doesn’t make it any less of a genuine and fascinating religious experience. 🙏🏼⁠⠀
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The intense spectacle of it all—the awe and contagiousness of it—you can see the same affect in human behaviour everywhere from shamanic rituals to contemporary performance art. So whether we “believe” or not, the better question is: what do we have to learn from such an extreme feat? ⁠⠀
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✝️Listen to the full episode below and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts (the power of Christ compels you!) ✝️⁠⠀

The Bleeding Mind
Listen to this episode from Beyond Belief on Spotify. Follow Wonder Media Network:WebsiteInstagramTwitterFollow host Jerico Mandybur:InstagramTwitter