Stigmata - the spontaneous appearance of bodily marks in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ - have long been a controversial phenomenon. Former well-known stigmatics, such as Saint Francis of Assisi, Anne Catherine Emmerich and Therese Neumann, have mostly been associated with the Catholic Church. Judith von Halle however, who received the stigmata at Passiontide in 2004, is a member of the Anthroposophical Society, and has to date published a dozen notable volumes of spiritual-scientific research.

In this small book, based on decades spent studying anthroposophy, Peter Tradowsky attempts a comprehensive, if aphoristic account of the stigmata. He focuses in particular on Judith von Halle, responding to Sergei O. Prokofieff's recent publication The Mystery of the Resurrection, in which the latter approaches stigmatization from a particular perspective.

'Thus, from time to time, such events occur that strike one as miraculous, and which can only be understood through a knowledge of the world of spirit. Because they seem so hard to explain, they preoccupy everyone and remind people again of the reality of the spirit.' - Ita Wegman, referring to stigmatization

PETER TRADOWSKY, born in Berlin in 1934, taught at the Rudolf Steiner school in Berlin and co-founded the Waldorf Teacher Training course there. He initiated the building of Rudolf Steiner Haus in Berlin in 1983, and was a key staff member of the Arbeitszentrum (Study Centre) for 21 years until 2005.  He is a frequent lecturer, and the author of many books such as Christ and Antichrist and Kaspar Hauser.