Psychology against Medicine ? Mysticism in the Light of Scientific Apologetics

Abstract

The foundation, in 1884, of the Bureau des constatations médicales, responsible of the medical authentification of the miraculous healings in Lourdes, signals the start of a “ medicalization of the miracle”. The Catholic physicians establish their competence in the discrimination of “ true” and “ false” mysticism and value a medical apologetic aimed at responding to the rationalistic critics. However, since the 1920s, their authory has been challenged by Catholic psychologists, led by the Italian Franciscan Agostino Gemelli, future president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, who marks himself out as an opponent of the stigmatized Padre Pio and fights for a positive apologetic based on the autonomy of sciences, against the religious appropriation of sciences by Catholic physicians. The scientific discussions over the Marian apparitions of Beauraing (Belgium) illustrate this clash between medical and psychological apologetics. They exemplify the process of “ psychologization of mysticism”, highlighted by Michel de Certeau, and the rise of a modern criticism of mystical phenomena, which owes not only to psychology but also to the development of a lay spirituality, detached from popular religion.