I am convinced that most all experiences of the sacred are mediated by endless psychological and social filters—“invented,” if you want to say that, or “constructed,” as many prefer to say today. But this does not mean that such showings are not mediating something very real. Nor does it mean that there is not sometimes real human fraud, like the painted stigmata or fake wounds of Christ that Eire discusses on one of the three judged nuns he features.
