Visions et apparitions. Approche psychologique

Visions occur in many religions. In contrast to the former spontaneous trust in visions, many in modern times question their divine origin. Their contents are indeed strikingly dependent on the religion, and in Christianity , on the cultural and religious context. Both phenomenologically and psychologically , the recent «apparitions», which are curiously multiplying, are visions. Psychiatry has especially caused distrust of them by stressing the similarities between pathological hallucinations, visions, and «apparitions». The author proposes to interpret these visions as non-pathological hallucinatory psychological products, conditioned by an intense emotional cathexis of religious representations and by a belief conviction. The believer can view the visions as having a special charismatic meaning, when they are theologically authentic and when the visionaries are not mentally disturbed. The biblical prophetic vision and the «apparitions» of Jesus after the resurrection are of a different kind, however. Being the foundation of a new belief content, they are revelations.Vergote Antoine. Visions et apparitions. Approche psychologique. In: Revue théologique de Louvain, 22ᵉ année, fasc. 2, 1991. pp. 202-225