Speculation on Mary as a Trickster
by Regan Lee
The phenomena invites debate, stirs up trouble, and creates divisions among Catholics, the religious, the spiritual and the non-religious or spiritual alike. From church goer to UFO researcher, all groups engage in controversial and opposing discussions about her appearances. Science enters the fray; more debate.
Often Marian apparitions occur on sacred ground or in places where previous supernatural, anomalous appearances have taken place.
The messages of Mary are often urges to reject the church’s official line. Trickster laughs at authority, usurps it, mocks it.
People continue to follow their beliefs, curiosity, and remain true to their personal experiences in terms of Marian apparitions by visiting her shrines, creating groups, communicating with others who share similar views, often in defiance of church mandate.
At times, the church has gone so far as to get the law involved in shutting down pilgrimages, etc. Here the authority cracks down on the anomalous; even, in typical Trickster like irony, that authority is itself anomalous.
Paranormal phenomena has occurred in many MAs, (Marian Apparitions) : rosaries turning gold or silver, aerial phenomena, dramatic weather events, the strong scent of roses, etc. These can be compared to various “stunts” performed by UFO occupants, in an anomalous, paranormal context.
Even the symbology of Mary herself, often thought of as only a Catholic icon, is Trickster like. Mary was not a “virgin” in the strict sense in Jewish and other traditions; Mary, a Jew, was mother to Jesus Christ, another Jew. Her pregnancy is a mystery; occurring because of a “visitation” of an angel. If these events were placed in a UFO/alien/paranormal context, the presence of the Trickster is apparent.
The Trickster is a joker. From the spiritual aspects of marian apparitions; Guadalupe, Medajorgie, Lourdes, etc. to the pop culture circus like appearances of the Blessed Mother on window panes, trees and tortillas, we see the extremes and contradictions of Trickster. From the divine (appearing on holy sites) to the ridiculous (appearing on bread, tortillas and oily windowpanes) the Trickster holds up the image of Mary to all of the folk, while thumbing its nose at the approval of the church, as well as society.
Mary as Political Icon
The Virgin of Guadalupe is a political symbol, not just a religious icon. Her image appears on t-shirts, candles, all kinds of mundane objects. People put her image on their cars. Keys hang from plastic encased images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, her image is stuck to the front of refrigerators. Other Marys appear in these ways as well.
Even non-Catholics, like myself, have taken on her iconography to represent an oppositional stance towards the institutionalization of spiritually. Though raised in that tradition and baptized and growing up in part in Hispanic culture, I also come from a Jewish background: you can’t get more inverse than that!
In these ways, we can look at Marian Apparitions as an aspect of the Trickster, and consider the symbol of Mary in all her manifestations as both a feminine and divine side to the Trickster.
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