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Wednesday 4 April 2018 14.00 - 16.00
U-3 REL02 Deviant Devotions? Stigmatic Cults and Lived Religion in Modern Europe
PFC/03/017 Sir Peter Froggatt Centre
Network: Religion Chair: Mary Heimann
Organizers: Andrea Graus, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Tine Van Osselaer Discussant: Mary Heimann
Andrea Graus : On Deviance and Religious Cults in Fin-de-siècle France
“Deviance” is related to multiple dimensions, ranging from the criminal to the behavioural scope. According to Perrin (2014), deviance scholars rarely pay attention to religion. As this paper aims to show, religious deviance does not fall outside these other dimensions. Drawing on historical examples of French mystics and stigmatics, and ... (Show more)
“Deviance” is related to multiple dimensions, ranging from the criminal to the behavioural scope. According to Perrin (2014), deviance scholars rarely pay attention to religion. As this paper aims to show, religious deviance does not fall outside these other dimensions. Drawing on historical examples of French mystics and stigmatics, and the popular cults surrounding them, I will explore different meanings of religious deviance during the fin-de-siècle in France. Such examples include “self-styled” stigmatic and mystic women such as Catherine Filljung (1848-1915), Marie-Louise Nerbollier (1830-1908), Rosette Tamisier (1816-1899) and Marie-Julie Jahenny (1850-1941), among others (Imbert-Gourbeyre, 1894).
Taking a look at the cults built around these charismatic figures, I will identify common actions or behaviours that were labelled “out of the norm” or “deviant” by ecclesiastical and civil authorities. These included the construction of unapproved shrines, the rituals or sectarian gatherings organized by the followers, the political prophecies “received” by the stigmatic, and the means of propaganda used for the spreading of the cult. In several cases, such actions were considered criminal, and the stigmatics and – sometimes – “accidental” leaders of these groups were brought before justice. In addition, bishops and other clergymen condemned the cults, forbidding people to contact or visit the alleged mystics.
Such conflicts took place within a historical moment where “deviant behaviour”, and especially religious deviant behaviour, was a topic of great interest in the French medico-psychological milieu. Indeed, during the secularized Third Republic, a positivist and medicalized approach to the supernatural favoured the opinion of experts other than theologians; anticlerical physicians and psychiatrists among them (Maître, 1993; Pires Marques, 2010). In consequence, religious deviance took on a psychophysiological dimension, challenging not only social norms, but also “normal” human behaviour.

References:
Imbert-Gourbeyre, A., 1894. La stigmatisation. L’Extase divine et les miracles de Lourdes. Réponse aux libres-penseurs. Clermont-Ferrand: Librarie Catholique.
Maître, J., Une inconnue célèbre. La Madeleine Lebouc de Janet. Paris: Anthropos, 1993.
Perrin, R.D., ´Religious deviance’, in M. Dellwing, J.A. Kotarba and N.W. Pino, The death and resurrection of deviance. Current ideas and research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014: 152-167.
Pires Marques, T., ‘Mystique, politique et maladie mentale. Historicités croisées (France, c. 1820 - c. 1900), Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 23(2), 2010: 37-74. (Show less)

Leonardo Rossi : “Shocking Devotion”: Sensory Perception, Popular Cult and Religious Practices to Non-approved Stigmatics in Modern Italy. The Case of Palma Mattarelli d’Oria (1825-1888)
Recent research conducted in the field of sensory studies and material religion has shown the link between sensory perception and religious experiences, emphasizing the role of the senses in the production of religious concepts, cults and rituals. This connection has been highlighted for “official” religions, while there has been only ... (Show more)
Recent research conducted in the field of sensory studies and material religion has shown the link between sensory perception and religious experiences, emphasizing the role of the senses in the production of religious concepts, cults and rituals. This connection has been highlighted for “official” religions, while there has been only scant attention for the “private” or “deviant” religiousness: those forms of worship that were not (yet) approved or censored by religious authorities.
In contemporary Catholicism, stigmatization – that is the reproduction of the Christ crucified wounds on the body of a person – was an emotional and sensory shock both for those who received them (stigmatics) and spectators (visitors). In many cases, after the sensory perception of the so-called “Fridays of Passion” (which involved, in different ways, all the senses), the stigmatic assumed for the faithful a new pseudo-religious “extrinsic value”, becoming a “living saint”, “evidence” of God’s presence in the world (regardless of the Church’s teachings).
This contribution aims to investigate the relationship between deviant devotion and sensory perception in the case study of an Italian stigmatic, Palma Mattarelli d’Oria (1825-1888), emphasizing the central role of the senses in the popular creation of her worship and ritual practices. Following a bottom-up perspective, particular attention will be given not to the official position of the Church, the medical-scientific debate or the media coverage (themes that have already been discussed by other scholars), but to the sensory impact of Mattarelli on her community. The goal is to learn more about the so-called “no man’s land” of deviant devotion, studying the faithful, their object of worship and their practices, by paying attention to material religion and sensory perception.

References:
Boyer, Pascal, Et l’homme créa les dieux. Comment expliquer la religion. Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 2001.
Margry, Peter Jan, ‘New transnational religious cultures: the networks and strategies of deviant devotions in contemporary Europe’, in A. Paládi-Kovács, ed., Times, places, passages. Ethnological approaches in the new millennium. Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 2004: 205-213.
Kane, Paula, ‘Stigmatic cults and pilgrimages: the convergence of private and public faith’, in Tine Van Osselaer and Patrick Pasture, eds., Christian Homes. Religion, Family and Domesticity in the 19th and 20th century. Leuven: Leuven University Press: 104-125.
Keane, Webb, ‘The evidence of the senses and the materiality of religion’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14, 2008: 110-127. (Show less)

Kristof Smeyers : Christ in Curls. Devotion, Ridicule and Mary Ann Girling
In 1871, the journalist and chronicler of supernatural London, Rev. Charles Maurice Davies, walked into a cramped and crowded space under a railway arch in Walworth, in the south of the City. Inside, the crowd was sweaty and rowdy in expectancy of the religious prophet and self-styled “God-Mother”-with-stigmata, Mary Ann ... (Show more)
In 1871, the journalist and chronicler of supernatural London, Rev. Charles Maurice Davies, walked into a cramped and crowded space under a railway arch in Walworth, in the south of the City. Inside, the crowd was sweaty and rowdy in expectancy of the religious prophet and self-styled “God-Mother”-with-stigmata, Mary Ann Girling (1827-1886). The room was packed. When the doors shut, a mob was still gathered outside hoping to catch a glimpse of Girling. Davies’ report of his first visit to Girling and her “Children of God” (two more visits would follow) is a first-hand testimony of the religious charisma and authority Girling exerted.
At the same time Davies’ article is a colourful sketch of the reception of Girling’s millenarian message. He describes the diversity of the people in the room: Girling’s entourage joined her on stage and there were devout “Girlingites” in the audience, but also a sceptical group that hurled sarcastic insults at Girling and interrupted her throughout her sermons. By 1871, however, Girling had experience dealing with unruly mobs. She started prophesying in her hometown in Suffolk in the 1860s, first in the churches of the Methodist Connexion and, when barred from those because of her radical message, in streets and on market squares. Her preaching radicalised further after she received the signs of Christ’s wounds in 1864, attracting more faithful followers and curious spectators alike.
This paper traces the shifts in the devotion to Girling and the promotion of her divine message, from her sermons in Methodist churches to her ecstatic dances in a tent camp on the edge of the New Forest. That journey sheds light on the challenges of devotion and the hardships of a radical mystic operating outside of the established churches.

References:
Charles Maurice Davies, 1873, Unorthodox London. London: Tinsley Brothers.
Mary Ann Girling, 1883, The close of the dispensation, the last message to the Church and the world. Hordle.
Janet Rose, ‘The woman who claimed to be Christ: the millennial belief of Mary Ann Girling and her disciples 1860-1866’ . Unpublished DPhil diss. Oxford: Oxford University, 2007.
Herbert Thurston, Surprising mystics. London: H. Regnery Company, 1955. (Show less)

Tine Van Osselaer : On Coughing and other Rebellious Acts: the Faithful, the Church and Deviant Devotions in the 19th and early 20th Centuries
On the 11th of April 1924 a strange “disease” caught some of the Bickendorf (Germany) parishioners. As their parish priest started to read a letter from the episcopal authorities, one parishioner after the other started to cough, making it impossible for the other parishioners to understand a word their pastor ... (Show more)
On the 11th of April 1924 a strange “disease” caught some of the Bickendorf (Germany) parishioners. As their parish priest started to read a letter from the episcopal authorities, one parishioner after the other started to cough, making it impossible for the other parishioners to understand a word their pastor was saying. The other faithful did not discard the continuous coughing as a mere coincidence, but interpreted it as an attempt to hide the bishop’s decision from their fellow-parishioners. Or to be more precise, the coughing was to hinder the bishop’s condemnation of the visits to the allegedly stigmatized Maria Göbel becoming public knowledge.
In my presentation, I address the episcopal attempts to (re-)gain control over grassroots cults like Göbel’s and the responses these triggered among the faithful. My focus is on their actions to monitor the enthusiasm for stigmatics, the men and women who carried the wounds of Christ who were frequently reported in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. While some of them were eventually “adopted” by the Church (as saints, blessed or venerable persons), the majority never made it this far. This was not seldom due to the Church’s interference in the early stages of the cult. As we shall see, the clergy had various means at its disposal to curtail the enthusiasm (ranging from public letters to censorship and employment strategies). However, as the Bickendorf example shows, the faithful did not necessarily willingly obey their bishop’s decision and they could resort to various acts of rebellion.
Studying these cases, I want to re-enter what has been called the “no man’s land” of religion and examine the “informal”, “deviant” devotions that have primarily been linked to the twentieth century (Margry, 2004) but might be detected in the previous eras as well. Drawing upon the work that has been done on “popular religion” and the official doctrine as a two-way relationship in which one influenced the other (Ryan, 2012), I want to study the cases where the tolerance of the Church met its limits, and devotions were explicitly called “deviant”.

References:
Margry, Peter Jan, ‘New transnational religious cultures: the networks and strategies of modern devotions in contemporary Europe’, in A. Paládi-Kovács, ed., Times, places, passages. Ethnological approaches in the new millennium. Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 2004, 205-213.
Ryan, Salvador, ‘Some reflections on theology and popular piety: a fruitful or fraught relationship?’, The Heythrop Journal 53, 2012: 961-971. (Show less)



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