On 11 March 1918, Therese Neumann was partially paralyzed after falling off a stool while attending to a fire in her uncle's barn.

For several consecutive Fridays after that, she stated she was experiencing the Passion of Christ, apparently suffering in her own body along with all his historic agonies.

[6] Professor Martini, the director of the University Hospital Bonn, observed Neumann and wrote a report about her stigmata.

"[6]A psychoanalytic study of Neumann has suggested that her stigmata resulted from post-traumatic stress symptoms expressed in unconscious self-mutilation through abnormal autosuggestibility.

[8] Montague Summers, in his book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, speaks of her supposedly supernatural ability to survive for long periods without food or water.

She was physically examined and tested by the physician Otto Seidl and four Franciscan nurses, for fifteen days (July 14 to 28).

Historian Ian Wilson commented the evidence indicated that Neumann "went back to normal food and drink intake".

He noted that she "had a vigorous, stocky build throughout most of this time, and all reason tells us that it would be impossible to survive so long without food or drink.

A recent medical paper that examined Seidl's report commented that "while under surveillance by four nuns for 14 days, Neumann exhibited no intake of nourishment; weight measurements and urine tests, however, suggest[ed] the opposite.... As far as medical records go, Therese Neumann's is one of a series of surprisingly similar cases of stigmata development, conversion disorder, and alleged absence of nutrition.

"[11] Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe disputed Neumann's inedia claims and suggested she was a "deliberate fraud aided and abetted by her father.

[13] During the Third Reich, Therese Neumann was the target of ridicule and defamation, as the Nazis knew about her dissenting views and feared her growing popularity.

[14] She was never physically harmed, though her family home, parish church and priest's house all received direct attacks.

He wrote an entire chapter, Therese Neumann, The Catholic Stigmatist of Bavaria, which reverently gives a vivid first-hand description of one of her Friday Passion trances.

The "Resl", as she is colloquially known, nonetheless attained a place in popular piety; a petition asking for her beatification was signed by 40,000 people.