Smells and Bells

Religion & the Senses Religious Properties of Smell By Genesis Lantigua Introduction:      Candles, incense and essential oils have become our best friends when cleaning and perfuming our homes. Most of us also do not step outside our homes without first taking a shower and layering ourselves with lotions, deodorants and perfumes. Where does this obsession with scent come from and why is this a conversion in religious studies? Let's sniff into history and find out.     Diane Ackerman has composed a beautiful and easily captivating text, A Natural History of the Senses, where she clearly illustrates the historical component of each of the senses. For this posts' sake, we will analyze Ackerman's first chapter on smell. The History of Aromas     According to Ackerman, perfumed scents were first used in Mesopotamia as incense offering to “sweeten the smell of animal flesh burned as offerings” (Ackerman, 56). Perfumes were eventually conside...

Genesis Lantigua Touch: Comfort or Pain Hair shirts and metal cilice at the Can Papiol Romanticism Museum. Religion has been alive for ages, probably as long as the five senses have been working in and with humans. Some of the five senses are obviously central in major religions: taste in the eucharist and Jewish Sabbath celebrations, the sound of Quran recitals and of modern instruments at a local megachurch, the beauty seen in Hindu and Roman Catholic temples, even the olfactory organs are stimulated with incense in religious ceremonies. But historically speaking, where does the sense of touch interfere with religion? Let’s dive into it. The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch by Constance Classen is an overwhelmingly informational resource for understanding the historical and religious influence of somatosensory, or the sense of touch, the sense that allows us to feel pain, heat, cold, texture, etc. Classen argues that there is one aspect of touch that cannot be tampered by t...

Religion and Vision: Seeing the Divine in Hinduism By Genesis Lantigua Diaz Introduction Diana L. Eck’s Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India introduces Western readers to Hinduism and helps the reader appreciate and value Hindu approaches to worship. Eck, professor of religion and Indian studies at Harvard University, composes a text filled with definitions of Hindu worship terms. One of these terms is Darsan . Darsan is the Indian word for seeing, more specifically spiritual seeing. Eck argues that in contrast to Christianity and Islam which emphasize hearing the divine (listening to the word of God or Allah), Hinduism emphasizes seeing the divine. In Hinduism, the “central act of worship” is to see and to be seen by the divine.  “The central act of Hindu worship, from the point of view of the lay person, is to stand in the presence of the deity and to behold the image with one’s own eyes, to see and be seen by the deity” Eck, 3. Idols or Icons in Hinduism In Hinduism the de...

  Religion and Taste: Wine and other “Spirits” in Judaism  By Genesis Lantigua Diaz Why is wine so important to Jewish ceremonial practices?  Introduction Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus and Betsey Dexter Dyer’s Cultures and Cultures: Fermented Foods as Culinary ‘Shibboleths’ introduces the importance of fermented foods in Judaism and their symbolic relevance to Jewish culture. According to the authors, these fermented foods such as wines, breads, cheeses etc are what is described as ‘shibboleths’. Shibboleths are items that distinguish one culture from another- it originally was used in the book of Judges to identify different tribes based on pronunciation skills. The word is believed to have been unpronounceable to some groups which was an easy identifier of “the other” culture. Since then, the word shibboleth is used to indicate anything that draws a line between cultures, although its original definition is an ear of corn according to the Oxford online dictionary. Fermented ...

Quran Recitation in Indonesia Quran recitation is common in many Islamic countries, but there is an indiginous Indonesian style of Quran recitation different from all others. Quran recitation in Indonesia differs from other Islamic performing traditions because Indonesia is the only place where excerpts of the Quran will be recited alongside musical instruments. Other Islamic cultures present Quran poetic shows, but leave out the music. Is Quran Recitation music? According to the US Census, 87% of the Indonesian population identifies as Muslim. Indonesian culture, however, is unique in many ways, which also affects Indonesian religious practices. Although most Indonesian citizens follow Islamic religious beliefs, there is one specific factor of Indonesian worship that differs from the way Islam is practice in other parts of Asia and that is Quran recitation. What is Quran recitation? Quran recitation is strictly to be separated from music in Islamic cultures. The addition of singin...

Alright, let’s tie this up in a nice little bow. I genuinely did not know what to expect coming into this class. The extent of my knowledge of the senses comes from elementary school when we had to make it a little song to get the information through our tiny heads. Beyond that, everything seemed pretty cut and dry. We have five senses. We need to use all of them to survive. It’s as simple as that. I did not know how there was enough to talk about the senses to fill an entire college course, especially one specifically regarding the relationship between the senses and religion. But the fact that we were barely able to fit all the content in before the semester ended proves just how wrong I was. Let’s talk about why that is and what some of the things I learned were. First off, even the most basic assumption about the senses, that there are five of them, was questioned immediately. The sixth sense may not have been as clearly defined as the other senses, but there was certainly a lot to...