Pilgrim Apparition Work

Abstract
Research on religious apparitions tends to focus on characteristics of the participants, needs of the believers, functions of the events, and biographies of the leaders. In contrast, this article focuses on group interaction and participant interpretations. The authors analyze what took place, and what pilgrims thought and felt, during a recurring apparition of the Virgin Mary during the 1990s on a farm near the U.S. town of Conyers, Georgia. Analysis draws on sixty hours of observation, nineteen semistructured interviews with pilgrims visiting the site, conversational interviews, and local and national press coverage. They examine the nature and significance of pilgrim apparition work, identifying three forms: sojourn work, seer work, and sign work. They conclude that by engaging in these “guided doings,” pilgrims apply and adapt wider apparition meanings to particular miracles and, in the process, sustain both the validity and normalcy of the miracle taking place.