Vicka: Recently I was going through some notes of mine and I saw that just before Christmas of the first year of the apparitions, many touched the Virgin at the evening apparition.
Janko: How did they touch the Virgin?
Vicka: Well, we told them where to touch and they touched.
[Janko Bubalo, A Thousand Encounters with the Blessed Virgin Mary in Medjugorje. The Seer Vicka Speaks of Her Experiences, Friends of Medjugorje, Chicago, 1987, pp. 108-109]

 

Since January 1982 they ceased to do so, conforming to the behavioral model that tradition considers as distinctive of ecstatic phenomena. So, in 1983, Vicka, interviewed by Father Janko Bubalo, claimed:

 

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We see the Virgin, but we don’t see anything else or sense anything else [....]

When the Virgin appears, I no longer see nor hear anything except her.
[Ibid., pp. 47 and 167]

 

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The Scientific Reports on Medjugorje

 

So far, these study groups had the opportunity to collect physiological measures and run experimental (and not only observational) studies:
 

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- Prof. Henri Joyeux’s (1984)

The report of their research was published in René Laurentin and Henri Joyeux, Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at Medjugorje, Veritas Publishing, Dublin, 1987 (French edition: Études médicales et scientifiques sur les apparitions de Medjugorje, O.E.I.L., Paris, 1985).

 

The team of Prof. Joyeux (an oncologist physician close to the movement of Charismatic Renewal) was formed at the request of Father René Laurentin, who has been the most prominent Medjugorje campaigner for fifteen years:

 

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On 20 March at 8 a.m. we telephoned René Laurentin who informed us of his desire to put togheter a medical team to carry out a scientific examination of these extraordinary phenomena.
[Prof. Joyeux in Laurentin, Joyeux, Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at Medjugorje, p. 46]

 

This team concluded that "The phenomenon of the apparition in Medjugorje [...] is scientifically inexplicable" [ibid., p. 74].

 

Prof. Théophile Kammerer, President of the Lourdes International Medical Commitee, objected:

 

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As to their level, these tests remain superficial [....] Despite this, all the sophisticated techniques impress the simple-minded readers.
[Théophile Kammerer, Critical Study of Medical Explorations of the Medjugorje Seers, LIMC, 20 September 1986]

 

Queen of Peace Society (1985)

A report of their investigation was published in Italian, as Luigi Frigerio et al., Dossier scientifico su Medjugorje ("Scientific report on Medjugorje"), Associazione Regina della Pace, 1986 [a digitized version is also available].

 

The team was formed on the spontaneous initiative of Dr. Frigerio, a gynecologist, and was named “Associazione Regina della Pace“ (“Queen of Peace Society”) as a tribute to the apparition. It was named this way before the beginning of their investigations by medical instrumentation [cf. Frigerio et al., Dossier scientifico su Medjugorje, p. 55].
In the report there is also an excerpt of the Statute of the Association, stating that it has the "apologetic aim to highlight the harmony of Science with Faith" [ibid., p. 56].

 

On 21 November 1985 Dr. Frigerio stated:
 

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Through various scientific missions we have collected some data, I can't say some proofs of the presence of the Virgin, because the proof is of a spiritual nature, ie, the conversion, but certainly some important clues that for now are all in favor of the autenticity of this phenomenon. [....]
My experience leads me to say, without presumptuousness, with great simplicity, that the changes of this century, from the methodological point of view, in order to live the Church, are two: the movement of C.L. [Comunione e Liberazione] and the insistent apparitions of the Virgin at Medjugorje. I believe that following this change one can come to a concrete experience in his own life, even in the workplace.
[Emanuela Sala, Piero Mantero, Il miracolo di Medjugorje, Edizioni Mediterranee, Rome, 1986, pp. 119 and 129]

 

 

Researchers from these two teams, together with a number of theologicians, held a meeting in Paina (Milan) in 1986, with the goal of discussing and comparing their results.

 

Dr. Giorgio Gagliardi and Father Dr. Andreas Resch’s (1998)

Their original report was published as Andreas Resch and Giorgio Gagliardi, I Veggenti di Medjugorje. Ricerca Psicofisiologica, ("The seers of Medjugorje. Psychophysiological inquiry"), Resch Verlag, Innsbruck, 2000.
This team was put together at the insistence of the priest of Medjugorje, Father Ivan Landeka [cf. Resch, Gagliardi, I veggenti di Medjugorje. Ricerca psicofisiologica, p. V]

 

The scientific coordinator, Dr. Giorgio Gagliardi, has developed an attitude of great caution [see Received from Dr. Gagliardi (Coordinator of Scientific Medjugorje Commission)].

 

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*****

 

A vast popular mythology flourishes about these medical investigations. According to the stories circulated among believers and supporters of Medjugorje, the seers stoically lent themselves to painful testing procedures, and have been under constant scientific scrutiny for years. This is far from being the case.

 

Let us consider all the instrumental tests that could be conducted during the seers’ “ecstasies”. This excludes all the (prevalently or solely) observational tests, as well as those tests that were run while the seers were not having an “apparition.” Altogether, these tests only cover 12 presumed apparitions, each lasting just over a minute, in this period of thirty years.

 

These are the details: Prof. Joyeux’s team managed to perform their studies on June 10, October 6 and 7, and December 28 and 29, 1984. The average duration of an appartion was 79 seconds (range: 62 to 102 seconds. See Laurentin, Joyeux, Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at Medjugorje, p. 50).

 

Researchers from the “Queen of Peace” group could study only three of the six seers (Ivan, Marija, and Jakov) during three days (September 7, 8, and 9, 1985). In this case, the average duration of the three apparitions was 61 seconds (range: 49 to 75 seconds. See Frigerio et al., Dossier Scientifico su Medjugorje, pp. 66-69. In March of that year, Vicka, Ivanka and Marija had undergone an eye examination, but the report [pp. 49-51] does not provide any information about the duration of the apparition).

 

Finally, the team lead by Resch and Gagliardi could work on two seers, Ivan and Marija (as previously stated, we are considering only those subjects who claimed to have an “ecstasy”) and for two days only: April 22 (a 90-second apparition) and 23 (a 100-second apparition for Marija; 154 seconds for Ivan) 1998.

 

They were also able to collect data from one single seer (Marija) on December 12, 1998 (duration: 185 seconds. See Resch, Gagliardi, I veggenti di Medjugorje. Ricerca psicofisiologica, pp. 45-47-75-96).

 

One could find mention of some tests of Ivan and Marija, performed on June 25, 2005, by Dr. Philippe Loron. However, no report has ever been published on these recordings. We have no information on the member of the investigating team. There is no accurate description of which tests were performed. And no results were reported in quantitative (and, therefore, precise and verifiable) form.

 

Dr. Loron (I invite the curious readers to examine his baffling declarations, reported in the webpage One-Sided Doctors) can be considered an associate of Joyeux.

 

Scientific Method?

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On October 7, 1984, Joyeux’s team ran a “test” consisting in putting a paper card before Ivanka’s and Marija’s eyes, during an apparition (see the picture).

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