Apparitions, particularly in Catholicism, induce a state of supposedly miraculous ecstasy in the seers. They feel really high and enjoy the experience so much. They don't move. They rarely blink. They look pale. Apparition claims, by default, have the curiosity seekers, the devout and the gullible traveling miles just to look at them. In apparitions of the Virgin Mary, the seer goes into trance and seems unaware of any other stimuli. The person stares upwards and moves their lips as if talking to an entity only they can see.
While some people feel ecstatic about things, we must distinguish between their experience and the allegedly supernatural version.
The suggestion that visionaries want the experience associated with the apparition and not so much the person in the apparition is conveniently ignored by religious devotees. They may only be attending to the apparition to trigger the experience.
The alleged witnesses of the appearances of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje need discussion. Some of them have been subjected to more testing during ecstasy than any others.
The Lauretin and Joyeaux research found that, broadly speaking, the visionaries there were in ecstasy. They looked normal and didn't show any signs of anything disturbing during their apparitions. They had no anxiety or sign of pathology before during or after. It is presumed that ecstasy should enhance the dignity and normality of the visionaries if the visions are from God. Accordingly some experts in Catholicism hold that the Medjugorje ecstasies show that the apparition claims should be taken seriously enough for further investigation. Part of that is checking to see if they are really from God which involves looking at alleged spiritual fruits and scanning the messages given during visions for orthodoxy and accuracy.
It has been found since that the ecstasy is exaggerated by the visionaries and those who claim to be investigating them. The ecstasy is nothing out of the ordinary.
Then there is Garabandal, a site of alleged visions in the sixties, where the visionaries were rigid and pale. One Mari Loli's evil expression and looking in a different direction to the rest of the visionaries has been noted by many. If you consider all that then the visions could not have been from God.
At Medjugorje, at least there are no entertaining antics during ecstasy. In contrast, at Garabandal, the visionaries seemed to be able to walk backwards over dangerous terrain without slipping. This may be less miraculous than it appears for they were children and children have a knack for doing dangerous things safely and they had their arms linked together. Gimmicks during ecstasy would be a bad sign.
The ecstatics report a religious experience as a union with God. They say it is a little taste of Heaven. By claiming ecstasy, the seers are claiming to have God in their souls and the ecstasy is described as a state of intense prayer. Jesus said that if you pray, try and keep it private if you can because of the risk of pride which can hide itself even in the guise of humility. To flaunt your humility is a form of pride and the Bible warns that the heart is very prone to self-deception. That means genuine seers would have their ecstasies in private.
Bernadette of Lourdes and the visionaries of Medjugorje and Fatima made no effort to hide their trances. Nobody tells the crowd that follows them to go back home. In fact they produced them after seeking an audience. Whatever was causing the ecstasies, it was not God. And their humility must be questioned. By the way, the Medjugorje visionaries are known for enjoying fame and their opulence. There is no humility there at all.
Bernadette of Lourdes reported ecstasy and it was thought she didn't know what was going on around her. But there were times she did! Did she fake at times? Or is the perception that sometimes she went into an uncanny and unexplainable trance based on mistakes?
The Bible lists supernatural charisms, gifts from the Holy Spirit such as prophecy, and ecstasy is not mentioned. The Bible gives no authority for the acceptability of ecstasy.
There is no biblical account of people going into a mystical trance, becoming immobile, deathly pale and staring into space and thus looking like some kind of exhibit. The phenomena is occult. The Bible details what kind of phenomena is occult and what is from God. It is safe to say that anything it does not clearly endorse is of the occult. While the Bible does not condemn normal ecstasy, it does condemn those who seek supernatural trances such as mediums.
Let us mention Paul who claimed to go to the Third Heaven, in 2 Corinthians 12, and said he didn't know if he was in his body or not. And Acts speaks of his ecstasy. There is nothing here to suggest that it is the Catholic style of ecstasy. People might say watching a gripping film put them into ecstasy. In a vivid day dream you do not know if you are in the body or not. There is not enough information to turn Paul into a seer in the style of Bernadette of Lourdes. In fact, he would have been accused of demonic possession if he had been.
Ecstasy is like letting the apparition take you over so that is concerning. You are absorbed in it. That could be harmful or misleading if the apparition is not from a reliable or good paranormal source. People who claim to have charisms are as prone to error as people who don't. Charisms do not give a person a monopoly on the truth. Consider the differences - many of them major - between Charismatics and Pentecostals. One camp says the Catholic Church is needed for salvation and others say it is not. That is a major thing. If charisms do not confer infallibility or anything nearer to it, then how can apparitions? What use are they if they are not lamps for the truth? Those who chase apparitions only want to be part of something magical. It is not about goodness or truth. People worry about the bad fruits that follow false apparitions but they forget that merely saying you have had an apparition is a bad fruit. It encourages the thrill seekers.
The Bible complains that people generally prefer fun and pleasure to God. Is it likely that God would confer ecstasy for the ecstasy could be preferred to him and be what the visionaries enjoy not the Virgin or him? Ecstasy isn’t mentioned in the Bible as we have seen so many Christians say it is bestowed by Satan. They suppose he is trying to create an addiction to spiritual pleasure. And perhaps devotion to the apparition assuming he is engineering it. Since apparitions are seen by the Church as private revelations, Satan might be using them to separate the visionary from God or to try to and might have no other sinister purpose.
Ecstasy is taken as evidence that an apparition is taking place. But is it? Perhaps Bernadette of Lourdes was not seeing the Virgin for the duration of her ecstasy? An ecstasy is only an ecstasy. To honour an apparition, is to honour the visionary more than the vision.
FINALLY
Ecstasy, as commonly reported during alleged Marian apparitions, is neither a biblical nor necessarily divine sign. Instead, it may reflect psychological, social, or even occult phenomena. The supernatural explanation is unwarranted, especially given the lack of biblical support and the susceptibility of both seers and their audiences to deception, pride, or desire for experience rather than truth.