I’m pretty sure there’s a term for the ‘appearance’ of Mary in frost on the window, or in a cheese omlet, or on a rock face, or other unassuming places. What is it?
idiocy
delusion?
mindless wishing?
hucksterism?
I know, none of these are what you were looking for.
[aside]One morning I took a dump and it looked like the last supper.[/aside]
d&r
Googling seems to suggest “apparitions” is the most common word. Maybe “visions” too?
Pareidolia.
Steamy Visions of Vladimir Lenin
The Vatican seems to use ‘apparition’ (‘apparitio beatae Mariae’ or ‘apparitio virginis Mariae’ in Latin) for events where people actually claim to see the Virgin Mary appearing as a person.
The name for the phenomenon where people recognize faces or other distinct objects in random patterns is pareidolia. Visions of the Virgin Mary in a tortilla or a cloud or a cheese omelet fall into this category. So do the ‘face on Mars’, the man in the moon, and heavy metal songs that order the listener to submit to Satan when played backwards.
Legend has it that her appearance returns each spring to a church in Capistrano.
Or maybe that is Proud Mary, she keeps on rollin’.
simulacrum?
It’s usually called a Marian apparition.
The result of an overactive imagination!