Objective:

To propose an analysis, from the perspective of cultural history, of how long-standing religious discourses-such as those about the good death, that helped socialize ideas about heaven, hell, and purgatory-acquire a social use in a specific context. By studying the conditions of possibility of these discourses upon the apparition of a dead person in a rural parish, the article seeks to understand the devotion to the souls in purgatory in the broader context of mid-nineteenth-century Colombia.

Methodology:

The analysis is based on a qualitative study of primary sources. It combines the dense description of a micro-space related to the anthropological dimension of an apparition and the macro perspective that allows reconstructing its context.

Originality:

This work is a novel contribution to understanding the specific conditions of an apparition. It offers a revealing approach to how a belief operates and its possibilities of emergence in a network of relationships that give it meaning. In this way, a gap is filled in the historiography of the religious fact which has studied Christian's beliefs and the imagined destiny of the dead, focusing especially on the pious practices associated with salvation.

Conclusions:

The apparition of a soul in pain allows us to delve into the specific reasons why the deceased remain in the affective orbit of the living, serving to inculcate Christian norms and principles. In addition, it is revealing of the concerns about the afterlife, an expression of an eschatology that was mobilized by the Catholic Church in the second half of the nineteenth century in Colombia. Finally, the possibility and the way of communicating with the dead is an indication of an amalgamation of practices that can even contradict the same religious dogma.