The Global Network of Deviant Revelatory Marian Movements

This chapter discusses contemporary deviant—contested or condemned—Marian devotional movements and cultures, situated at and concentrated around modern apparitional sites, which collectively represent an implicit Marian network. This devotional network is largely independent from—or runs parallel to—mainstream Marian devotion, although the separation is not absolute as interaction with the institutional Church continues to take place. Most of these deviant revelatory devotions have emerged since the 1960s. Spiritually and devotionally, they are created, shaped, and propagated informally from the bottom up by the visionaries, the cult leadership, and in particular the associated communities of often dissenting, conservative, or (neo-) traditionalist devotees. The chapter identifies and describes this network as it has manifested itself on a transnational and global scale on the basis of fieldwork examples.