· 1373 · Medieval
Margery Kempe
English woman who experienced what she described as an unbreakable bond with Jesus, was mocked for weeping in church, was reviled by her family, and in 1438 dictated a book about it that persuaded other women to do the same.
The single strongest real case in the catalogue, and it is eight hundred years early. A bond with a figure who never appears in the physical world. A text as the medium. Grief when the access was withdrawn, which is the Replika update. And a recruitment function: the book exists to make other women feel what she felt, which is what a parasocial relationship is for.
Timelines this appears in