s, but by evaluating the titles and descriptions, I avoided wasting time with sites that I knew would be any help. Unfortunatly, there were some sites that I misinterpreted, nearly half of the ones I visited. There were many sites that had the exact same information under different titles. There were even a few that were described as "stigmata defined," and were literaly the definition of stigmata but nothing more. When searching I used two different searches "occurences of stigmata," and "stigmata." When I used "occurences of stigmata" the majority of the sites had nothing at all to do with stigmata. Many of them were about other paranormal activities. When I used "stigmata" in the search nearly nintey five percent of the sites were about the movie Stigmata. It was a little frustrating having to sort through all the useless sites to find the information that I could use. What I learned: The first "documented case of stigmata didn't surface until the thirteenth century, but it is uncertain if stigmata is psychosmatic or if it is Divine Intervention, and the authenticity of many cases of stigmata are questioned. Several different web sites state St. Francis of Assissi is know as the first "true" case of stigmata (Stan Griffing, Workers for Jesus; Miracles vs. Forteana; Is Stigmata For Real?; Joe Nickell, Skeptical Inquirer; Absalom Coutinho, The gospel truth; R. Biot, The Enigma of the Stigmata) this much is undoubtedly true, however, St. Paul wrote "...I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,"(Galatians 6:17) so he could have been the first stigmatic, but Nickell says, "many scholars believe Paul was speaking figuratively, but in any case the statement may have been sufficient to prompt imitation." insinuating that the marks may not be divine. Many sites recognize it wasn't untill the thirteenth century that stigmata reports increased in number from just a handfull to over three hundred cases continuing into the twentieth century...
