Marian Apparitions in times of war and conflict: a depth-psychological approach to understanding the emergence of the numinosum during periods of darkness.

Carl Jung is known for introducing concepts such as the collective unconscious and archetypes, but his legacy is one which also includes an openness to observing and understanding phenomena such as collective visions and the uncanny, an interest which can be traced back to his 1902 doctoral dissertation, “On the Psychology and Pathology of the So-called Occult Phenomena”. This openness allows us to explore and examine phenomena such as Marian apparitions. In my analysis of the Marian apparitions of Zeitoun that took place from 1968 to 1970, I offer an interdisciplinary methodological approach to investigate visions of the Virgin Mary stemming widely from the works of Jung and relies on theories of the psyche proposed by Jung and post-Jungians. Specifically, I draw on Jung’s theoretical model in Flying Saucers which offers a structure to analyze numinous objects as constellated material which emerges out of the collective unconscious. Studies of Marian phenomenology show that the appearances are usually accompanied by a concatenation of events such as social upheaval, economic crisis, and war. In this lecture, I present the findings of the application of this depth-psychological approach to the Zeitoun case including the existential crisis leading up to the appearances (i.e. 1967 Arab-Israeli War), the significance of the apparitions, and the integration of the numinous symbol by Egyptian society.