Jan. 13, 2012 Friday: 1st Week in Ordinary Time (B)

One of the pilgrims asked Dr. Bonaventure what physical changes the visionaries underwent when they were talking to Jesus or Mary. “All of the visionaries went into a comatose-like state during their apparitions, and their brains simply did not receive any information from the physical world,” he answered. “And yet they were as alert as me and you. Each of them experienced a complete disconnection from reality as we perceive it … and I think that perceptual disconnection was most pronounced with Segatashya.

“I performed every test I could possibly think of to rouse him from his ecstatic state once he’d enter a visionary trance. I tested his cranial nerves by shining a flashlight directly into his eyes—no response. I examined his sensory function by tapping all his reflex points with a rubber hammer—again, no response. I pinched the skin all over his body, twisted his fingers nearly out of their sockets, stuck needles in his arms and pushed them right through his flesh until they came out the other side … every test had the same result—no response. Finally, I taped electrodes all over his body, hooked the wires up to a large portable battery, and zapped him with electricity —even that didn’t faze him, no physical reaction whatsoever! “It may sound like I acted cruelly, but I had to be sure he was not faking!” the doctor explained. “If he wasn’t faking, then nothing I did would have affected him negatively; on the other hand, if he had been faking, any one of those tests would have sent him running from the podium screaming in pain. That never happened; no matter what I did to him, he never even flinched.

“I must admit that there were times when I may have gotten a bit carried away. On one occasion I pushed the poor little fellow over on to his back and then sat on top of him with all of my weight. Then I put my hands around his throat to momentarily pinch off the oxygen flow to his brain in order to induce unconsciousness … you see, he couldn’t fake indifference to that. If he thought he was being choked to death, his sympathetic nervous system would have triggered his ‘fight or flight’ response, and he’d have tried to fight me off. But he just lay there on the podium floor, smiling and chatting with Jesus through the entire ordeal. Finally, one of the priests on the podium lunged across the stage and tackled me to the ground. ‘Have you gone insane, Bonaventure!’ he hollered. ‘What are you trying to do, kill the boy?’

“After that I was completely convinced that Segatashya was a true visionary and was having authentic apparitions. I still continued studying him objectively as a medical doctor and psychiatrist, but my note keeping took on an additional role: I wanted to preserve a historical record of what was happening in Kibeho.”

Ilibagiza, Immaculee (2011-11-28). The Boy Who Met Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho (pp. 121-122). Hay House.