Given my passion for the mystery since I was a boy and the type of studies I did until I got my doctorate in moral theology on mystical phenomena, some years ago I thought about creating the term «Taumatolantanology», that is “the study of what is marvelous and hidden”.
By using this word, I meant to refer to the study of those unusual phenomena which are apparently outside what is known in nature, therefore meaning the science of phenomena unknown about their nature. In fact, this is a concept open in all directions, with regard both to the possibility of explanation and also to the choice of different branches of the sciences for the adequate explanation of a phenomenon.
News about extraordinary phenomena can be found since the dawn of human history and modern science immediately includes these concepts into the field of mythology. It would seem wiser to have respect for tradition and to also pay attention to what men of the past have said on certain issues, especially on the fundamental ones, often abandoned or snubbed for our inability to explain them once and for all.
Fr. Emidio Alessandrini ofm
