At 27, Emiliano Aden must be Argentina’s youngest stigmatic. His life changed on the afternoon of 21 February 1996, a hot day by any standard; in Palermo, a suburb of the Federal capital Buenos Aires, it was an unbearable 42°C (108°F). Aden, then aged about 19, was returning home with his girlfriend from a 12-hour shift in a supermarket. As he parked his car, he felt a piercing sensation on his forehead. It was the beginning of his stigmata.

When I interviewed Aden in January 2001, his housekeeper showed me into his bedroom, where he was resting: “He’s in ecstasy,” she said.