The world of political leaders, military strategists, shrewd philosophers, and other elites twisting ideologies to define and redefine the West curiously meets that of children and peasants, mostly women and poor, interpreting one of the most powerful Christian symbols ever, the Virgin Mary, while making sense of what happens around them. Alfredo Ignacio Poggi has written a truly creative, erudite, and enticing book. It will reshape how you read the history of Western ideas.

Hosffman Ospino, Boston College

By observing Marian faith, Alfredo Ignacio Poggi nuances established theories and ideologies and their global accidents in the name of reason and progress. This book revitalizes the devotional notion of good and unveils the pervasive idea of a heuristic systemic/environmental equilibrium. Poggi invites us to observe the dialectics between spirituality and rationality, determining the relation between intellectual elites and anonymous citizenry.

Leopoldo Tablante, Loyola University New Orleans

Alfredo Ignacio Poggi has written a unique and fascinating explanation of the rise of Marian apparitions in the twentieth century. He takes what the visionaries said and did in response to their experiences at face value. He applies the theoretical lens of Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age, and the Latin American magical realism of authors such as Gabriel García Márquez, to achieve a longer view stretching back to the Enlightenment. From this vantage point, those who received and were influenced by Marian visions were engaged in a legitimate reaction to the unprecedented violence, dislocation, massification, and forced urbanization that exponentially increased as the twentieth century unfolded. The insights gained are profoundly important for understanding our times.

Laurie M. Johnson, Kansas State University and author of Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right: The Political Thought of Carl Jung