Piedade fairies and Salem witches
Piedade fairies and Salem witches

Summary/Abstract: How can two religious phenomena, motivated and sustained by supernatural visions of children and adolescents result in totally diametrically different personal and social transformations? One of the phenomena studied is part of Brazilian Catholicism and refers to an apparition of the Virgin Mary (from the 1980s until today). The other phenomenon, the puritan inquisition, reveals an American religious dynamic very common in the 17th Century. The inquisition caused many people to die and promoted significant changes in the lives of the people involved and in their communities. Besides comparing these two phenomena, the author’s purpose was also to show the richness of these episodes, without surrendering to interpretations which are excessively psychological and sociological, and which are not sensitive to the transcendent’s experience of life.

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