Bernadette Soubirous in the context of "Religious name"

A visionary, defined broadly, is one who can envision the future. For some groups, visioning can involve the supernatural.

Though visionaries may face accusations of hallucinating,people may succeed in reaching a visionary state via meditation,lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example of a visionary is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century artist and Catholic saint. Other visionaries in religion include St Bernadette (1844-1879) and Joseph Smith (1805-1844), said to have had visions of and to have communed with the Blessed Virgin and the Angel Moroni, respectively. There is also the case of the Targum Jonathan, which was produced in antiquity and served as the targum to the Nevi'im. It described the significance of the turban or a diadem to indicate a capability on the part of Jewish priests to become agents of visionary experience.

Lourdes (/lʊərd/, also US: /lʊərdz/, French: [luʁd] ; Occitan: Lorda [ˈluɾðɔ]) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for its Château fort, a fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its center.

In 1858, Lourdes rose to prominence in France and abroad due to the Marian apparitions to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous (later canonized a saint by the Catholic Church for her virtuous life). Shortly thereafter, the city and its Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes became among the world's most important sites for pilgrimage and religious tourism.

Our Lady of Lourdes (French: Notre-Dame de Lourdes; Occitan: Nòstra Senhora de Lorda) is one of the devotional names or titles under which the Catholic Church venerates the Virgin Mary. The name commemorates a series of 18 apparitions reported by a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in Lourdes, France in 1858. After the first reported apparition on 11 February 1858, Bernadette told her mother that a "Lady" had spoken to her in the cave of Massabielle (1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) from the town) while Bernadette, her sister, and a friend were gathering firewood. Bernadette reported similar apparitions of the "Lady" over the ensuing weeks, in the last of which the "Lady" identified herself as "the Immaculate Conception". On 18 January 1862, the local Bishop of Tarbes Bertrand-Sévère Laurence endorsed the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes.

On 1 February 1876, Pope Pius IX officially granted a decree of canonical coronation to the image as Notre-Dame du Saint Rosaire. The coronation was performed by Cardinal Pier Francesco Meglia at the courtyard of what is now part of the Rosary Basilica on 3 July 1876.

The Lourdes apparitions are several Marian apparitions reported in 1858 by Bernadette Soubirous, the 14-year-old daughter of a miller, in the town of Lourdes in Southern France.

From 11 February to 16 July 1858, she reported 18 apparitions of "a Lady". Soubirous described the lady as wearing a white veil and a blue girdle; she had a golden rose on each foot and held a rosary of pearls. After initial skepticism from the local clergy, these claims were eventually declared to be worthy of belief by the Catholic Church after a canonical investigation. The apparition is known as Our Lady of Lourdes.

Lourdes water is water which flows from a spring in the Grotto of Massabielle in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France. According to Catholic tradition, the location of the spring was described to Bernadette Soubirous by an apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes on 25 February 1858. Since that time, many millions of pilgrims to Lourdes have followed the instruction of the Blessed Virgin Mary to "drink at the spring and bathe in it".

Since the supposed apparitions, many people have claimed to have been cured by drinking or bathing in it, and the Lourdes authorities provide it free of charge. Those claims have been described as an example of the placebo effect.