The Virgin Mary Apparitions: An Exploration in the Philosophy of Religion through Mystical Experience and Reason
- Michelle Patino Quiroz
- 5 days ago
- 10 min read
By Michelle Patino Quiroz
The apparitions of the Virgin Mary are the most widely discussed and historically significant mystical phenomena within the Catholic tradition. They have been reported across continents and centuries—from Mexico (Guadalupe, 1531) to Ecuador (Good Success, 1594–1634), Portugal (Fatima, 1917), and Japan (Akita, 1973). These events exist at a complex intersection of how we seek to understand the world: through spiritual exploration and philosophical questioning—two methods of understanding that frequently overlap, yet continue to test each other’s limits. Many Catholics view them as credible private revelations that carry a moral and spiritual message: repentance, prayer, conversion, and the pursuit of peace.
Others, however, including scholars both inside and outside the Church, approach them with caution—noting the challenges of interpretation, verification, and cultural influence. From a philosophical perspective, these apparitions challenge the limits of human reasoning and raise questions central to the philosophy of religion: Can mystical experiences yield genuine knowledge? How can we distinguish between subjective truth, which reflects personal belief, and objective truth, which reflects reality? And if God exists, why does divine hiddenness persist in a world marked by suffering and evil?
1. Epistemological Questions: Can Mystical Experience Yield Knowledge?
Before considering faith, we can examine these apparitions empirically and logically. Philosophy begins with the question: how can we know that what is claimed is true?
Hundreds of Marian apparitions have been reported over the centuries, from the 1500s through the 20th century. Of these, 16 have been officially recognized by the Catholic Church, which has established careful procedures for examining such phenomena. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) required that reported apparitions be approved by ecclesiastical authority before public devotion was permitted, stating that “apparitions were to be investigated and approved by the local bishop before public worship could be allowed.” These guidelines were later formalized in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. (Pelikan)
One of the most widely discussed Marian apparitions is associated with the Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In 1531, the Virgin Mary is reported to have appeared to Juan Diego, a poor Aztec man, and instructed him to gather flowers in his tilma (traditional Aztec Mexican cloak or cape) as a sign for the bishop. When the cloak was presented, an image of Mary was said to appear, which, according to reports, convinced the bishop to build a church. Analyses of the tilma, while sometimes debated, have noted features that some observers find remarkable. Some devotional sources report that Nobel Prize–winning biochemist Richard Kuhn “analyzed a sample of the fabric, found the pigments used were from no known natural source, whether animal, mineral, or vegetable.” (“Scientifically Validated Miracles of Marian Apparitions”). Considering that synthetic pigments in 1531 were not available, this phenomenon remains unexplained.
Similarly, in his 1981 book The Tilma under Infrared Radiation, biophysicist Dr. Philip Serna Callahan photographed the image under infrared light and reported an absence of sketches, brush strokes, or corrections, indicating that it may have been created in a single step. Catholic researchers have noted details such as reflections in the eyes and the arrangement of stars on the cloak, which they interpret as corresponding to astronomical patterns recorded on December 12, 1531, the date of the reported apparition. They also observe that the colors of the image have remained vivid for nearly 500 years, despite being painted on cactus fiber, which normally deteriorates within two decades. From a historical perspective, debate continues over whether these features could have been produced by an indigenous artist in the sixteenth century.
Other claims have also been made regarding the tilma. Some Catholic researchers suggest unusual features—for example, that the cloth maintains a constant temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit—but even in Catholic publications such as the Knights of Columbus, this claim has not been independently verified. One limitation of these findings is that most studies have been conducted by researchers who are Catholic or believers, leaving limited research conducted by secular scientists.While this may introduce potential bias, the observations reported by Kuhn and Callahan remain intriguing and continue to raise questions about the tilma’s physical features.
In addition to scientific discussion, the tilma’s rich symbolism has been widely noted. The image is often associated with the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation 12:1–2:
“A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars…”
Theologians have suggested that the symbolism on the tilma reflects imagery described in Christian scripture, depicting Mary with a crown of twelve stars and radiant light, similar to the description in Revelation and to the image reported on Juan Diego’s cloak. While interpretations may vary, the symbolism is widely recognized within Marian theology.
Following the tilma, other widely reported Marian apparitions demonstrate a consistency in message and symbolism, some carrying prophetic themes and offering guidance and warnings that encourage people to turn toward goodness. For example, Our Lady of Fatima (Portugal, 1917) appeared to three children and emphasized prayer, conversion, devotion, and also spoke of future conflicts, including the rise of communism and the possibility of another world war. Our Lady of Akita (Japan, 1973) is reported to have communicated through visions and physical manifestations, such as a weeping statue, calling for spiritual commitment. Our Lady of Good Success (Quito, Ecuador, 1594–1634), according to the recorded testimony of Mother Mariana
de Jesús Torres, involved reported apparitions over several decades in which Mary warned of a future crisis of faith, moral corruption, declining priestly vocations and marriages “at the end of the nineteenth century and especially after the mid-twentieth century and that Satan would wreak havoc through the Masonic sect.” (Coe).
To many Catholic believers, this decline is evident in the statistics: J.P. De Gance, founder and president of a marriage and relationship ministry, notes that “if you compare marital vocations to priestly vocations, ordinations are down 38% since 1970, but Catholic marriages are down north of 70%” (Payne). Additionally, Robert J. Barro, co-author of a study on global Catholic participation, observes that “between 1965 and 2010, we find a striking worldwide reduction in Catholic participation in formal services… It cumulates to something like 20 percentage points” (DeSmith). Such correlations will not be dispositive or ultimately persuasive for all, but for adherents, contemplative interiority opens the possibiity for such connections between spiritual realities and statistical trends.
The Nature of Subjective Truth and Objective Truth
Discussions of the tilma highlight the difficulty of separating what can be directly observed from how it is interpreted. While some features of the image have been studied scientifically, the evidence remains inconclusive, and interpretations vary depending on cultural, religious, and analytical perspectives. The nature of Marian apparitions involves subjective experiences reported by individuals, which cannot be independently observed or measured. From a scientific point of view, it is impossible to prove that every person who claimed to see Mary told the truth or that their experiences were not hallucinations, raising questions about the reliability of the messenger. Critics often reduce such mystical experiences to illusions of the mind or cultural archetypes.
René Descartes, a French philosopher and mathematician often called the “father of modern philosophy,” is famous for his method of radical doubt. He argued that the senses can deceive us, and therefore any belief based on sensory experience must be carefully questioned before it can be accepted as objectively true. As he writes in Meditations on First Philosophy, “Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to completely trust those who have deceived us even once” (Descartes). Marian apparitions, as personal and unverifiable sensory experiences, fall within the range of this skepticism, making it reasonable to question whether such experiences originate from reality or from the mind itself.
While Descartes’ skepticism challenges the validity of sensory experience, Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes offers a psychological foundation for understanding the form and persistence of mystical experiences, while still leaving open the debate on its interpretation. Carl Jung describes the Mother archetype as embodying “the magic authority of the female; the wisdom and spiritual exaltation that transcend reason; any helpful instinct or impulse,” and adds that “perhaps the historical example of the dual nature of the mother most familiar to us is the Virgin Mary” (Jung 158). While Jung emphasizes that the mother figure is a universal image, he also explains that “this image changes markedly when it appears in the individual psyche” (Jung
159). This distinction is important when considering Marian apparitions, because the image of the Virgin Mary does not seem to change much across individual experiences.
Although Marian imagery fulfills humanity’s instinctual desire for a maternal figure, this does not settle the question of whether apparitions are simply products of the human psyche. Instead, it raises further questions. Humans have often created feminine or maternal symbols, such as Pachamama or “Mother Earth,” arising from a shared longing for protection and environmental responsibility. Mother Earth is largely symbolic, while Marian apparitions are personal, and intimate. These figures encourage ethical action and care for the world. Although both come from a similar maternal desire, their purposes and expressions are distinct.
Psychological analysis helps explain why humans are drawn to religious symbols, mystical experiences, and maternal figures, but it does not fully explain the prophetic claims associated with Marian apparitions. If archetypes are understood as “empty” forms that are shaped by culture and personal experience, it becomes difficult to explain why some Marian apparitions are linked to specific statements about the future that later seem to match real historical events.
For example, the apparitions at Fatima include statements recorded before the outbreak of the Second World War that refer to a coming period of widespread suffering and conflict. Similarly, apparitions associated with Our Lady of Good Success are believed to have predicted a future decline in religious practice and vocations. While interpretations of these claims vary and are often made after the events occurred, the very persistence of such claims continues to raise questions for explanations that deem Marian apparitions to be nothing more than psychological projections. That said, unless we assume that the human unconscious has an unknown ability to accurately predict future events, archetypal theory by itself may not fully explain everything contained in these experiences.
Jung himself writes, “The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms” (Jung 155). This suggests that the concept of “Mother” is not passed down as a specific image, but that humans are born with the ability to create such a symbol. Jung further explains that mother symbolism appears wherever humanity longs for redemption, often appearing in concepts such as “Paradise” or “the Kingdom of God” (Jung 156). Importantly, Jung does not see archetypes as psychological flaws or illusions. He states that “in themselves, archetypal images are among the highest values of the human psyche… To discard them as valueless would be a distinct loss” (Jung 160). For Jung, the goal is not to deny archetypes but to understand them. In this way, archetypal psychology helps explain why humans are open to Marian symbolism without excluding the possibility that Marian apparitions may come from a source beyond the human psyche.
Ultimately, human interpretation is influenced by cognitive patterns. Psychologically, cognitive dissonance helps explain why people may reject evidence that contradicts pre-existing beliefs, while cognitive bias leads individuals to selectively interpret information in ways that align with their worldview.
If God exists, why does divine hiddenness persist in a world marked by suffering and evil?
These apparitions engage directly with philosophical questions regarding the problem of evil and divine hiddenness. Skeptics ask: If God exists and is good, why does evil persist, and why doesn’t He reveal Himself directly? Within Christian theology, the existence of evil is often explained through the concept of free will. In this context, love is truly free—it requires allowing a choice rather than forcing it. This understanding of free will helps explain why believers see Marian apparitions as a way God subtly reveals Himself through Mary: not by denying suffering, but by communicating without interfering with human freedom.
Building on this, Catholic tradition interprets Mary as a “new Eve,” a figure who participates alongside Christ as a co-redeemer in overcoming evil. This symbolism reflects biblical imagery, particularly Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; they will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” Catholics often interpret these messages as offering hope for humanity and suggesting the eventual victory of good over evil. Along with her messages, Mary is also understood as confronting the problem of evil through warnings and predictions that have been interpreted as relevant to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Philosophers like René Descartes and psychologists like Carl Jung might interpret Marian apparitions as products of human perception, shaped by our desire to encounter the divine. Psychology can explain why humans are drawn to certain symbols, while philosophy and theology explore the implications of belief and meaning. These perspectives reveal some aspects of the phenomena but do not fully explain the consistency, predictive claims, or rich symbolism of Marian apparitions. Even when considered after the events occurred, claims associated with the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita, or Our Lady of Good Success raise questions about the validity and interpretation of scientific studies, challenging explanations that reduce these experiences solely to psychological projection.
Ultimately, Marian apparitions invite reflection on the complex relationship between perception, knowledge, and morality. While reason alone cannot fully grasp these experiences, humans can at least arguably perceive the divine when they are attentive, reflective, and open to moral and spiritual growth, whether the apparitions are understood as prophecy, psychological experience, or lessons about morality and evil.
Works Cited
“Claims about the Tilma and the Image.” Knights of Columbus,
https://www.kofc.org/en/news-room/our-lady-of-guadalupe/truths/index.html . Accessed December 2025.
Coe, Jonathan B. “Our Lady of Good Success Speaks to Us Today.” Crisis Magazine, 25 June 2019, https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/our-lady-of-good-success-speaks-to-us-today . Accessed December 2025.
Descartes, René. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” Marxists Internet Archive, Cambridge University Press., 1637,
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/descartes/1639/meditations.htm . Accessed December 2025.
DeSmith, Christy. “Data bolsters theory about plunging Catholic Mass attendance — Harvard Gazette.” Harvard Gazette, 12 September 2025,
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/data-bolsters-theory-about-plunging-catholic-mass-attendance/. Accessed December 2025.
Jung, Carl G. Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype. Rascher, 1954. Jungian Analysts, https://www.jungiananalysts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/C.-G.-Jung-Collected Works-Volume-9i_-The-Archetypes-of-the-Collective-Unconscious.pdf . Accessed December 2025.
Payne, Daniel. “As Marriage Rates Continue to Plunge, How Can the Church Get More People to the Altar?” The Catholic Telegraph, Catholic News Agency, 11 July 2024, https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/as-marriage-rates-continue-to-plunge-how-can-the -church-get-more-people-to-the-altar/97010 . Accessed December 2025.
Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan. “Mary | Biography, Jesus, Bible References, Significance, Theology, & Miracles.” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-mother-of-Jesus . Accessed December 2025.
“Scientifically Validated Miracles of Marian Apparitions.” Magis Center, 28 July 2021, https://www.magiscenter.com/blog/marian-apparitions . Accessed December 2025.