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This book is a fascinating look at an extraordinary Christian religious experience—stigmata. It opens with a short chapter about saints and sainthood and then goes into detail about the suffering Jesus went through during the Passion. Those who aren’t aware of what the author describes as a “mystical grace given by God” but want to know more about the subject will get an excellent crash course in it by reading this book. It is not only interesting to read about people who have experienced this phenomenon, but it is also the way that the author writes his work that helps make a tough subject better to understand.
Intriguingly, Graham breaks down the information in statistics, such as in one section, where it is broken down on stigmatics (the name of people who have experienced stigmata) who died at the age of thirty-three—the same age as when Jesus “died.” It’s also divided into statistics by age (some of the people experienced it before puberty), gender, country of origin, denomination, etc.
The author's inclusion of a whole chapter on alleged fraudulent cases is a smart and brave choice because it gives a different perspective. It almost tells the reader that it doesn’t hurt to have a healthy dose of skepticism, either. The ending chapters are lengthy biographies on different stigmatics starting in the thirteenth century to modern times. One of those modern cases is Giorgio Bongiovanni, whose experiences in the ‘90s were actually caught on video. Overall, this is truly riveting stuff that will make anyone question their belief system in a good way.