QUOTE (Shankpin @ Jun 22 2008, 09:53 PM)

Bizarre, just totally bizarre.
I honestly don't know what to say about any of it.
All I know for sure is that some people who suffer certain types of psychiatric illnesses are known to exhibit such phenomenon, but it's just not likely that all can be explained away as such. Mind over matter vs. Spiritual... Spiritual vs. Mind over matter...
& if it is spiritual, if this be a genuine stigmatic, is it a good thing, or is it a bad thing? I really don't know what to make of it.
I don't either, which is one of the reasons I'm so curious about it.
What exactly is the purpose of stigmata spiritually? It has no non-spiritual purpose that I can see, so what is it's importance in the whole scheme of things? To make people believe? Yet the only people who do believe in stigmata, already believe in God, or I guess they do. I can't see an atheist believing in stigmata, but I could be wrong. So, to me, stigmata is just a religious phenomena. Only experienced by the religious and only believed to be true by the religious.
I'm religious myself, but I have a hard time believing in stigmata, I can't see the God that I believe in, persecuting his believers with this torture. JMO
Primordial's links give a whole different view of it, thanks primordial!!!!