Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico

Abstract

Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico is based on fieldwork at several shrines and basilicas and is supported by research in a vast, interdisciplinary body of previous scholarship. The analysis is primarily in material religion and the psychology of religion. The study is written in two voices, one analytical and the other narrative, that alternate throughout the book. The focus is on miracles in everyday life; miraculous images, meaning statues and paintings imbued with sacred presence and power; and petitionary devotion, by which votaries request miracles and in exchange make offerings. Votive offerings are studied in depth and include collages, photographs, documents, votive texts, milagritos, hair and braids, clothing, retablos, and representative objects, as well as pilgrimage and shrine visits. The study’s principal themes include votive exchange, sacred power and human agency, reification, transitional objects, simulacra, ontology, projective animation, simultaneous resort to religious and medical resources, faith as a cognitive filter, sacred power transfer, social and narrative construction, positive framing, collaborative and deferred control, vows (juramentos), and causal attribution as it relates to miracle attribution. The miraculous images treated in the book include the Cristo Negro de Otatitlán, Niño del Cacahuatito, Señor de Chalma, Señor de la Misericordia (Tepatitlán), Señor del Rayo, Señor de las Tres Caídas (Teotilalpam), Virgen de Dolores de Soriano, Virgen de Guadalupe, Virgen del Pueblito, Virgen de Juquila, Virgen de los Remedios, Virgen de San Juan de los Lagos, Virgen de Talpa, Virgen de Tonatico, and Virgen de Zapopan, among many others.

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