Wrap-Up Post

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 talk about in regards to it. Through reading Abrams, Kripal, and Kabat-Zinn, it is clear that this sixth sense is very real, even if it’s only in the way in which it is involved in religious culture. This fact alone made me realize something very important that I would carry through the rest of the class: This idea of having five defined senses that permeate through all human life and are absolutely necessary to human existence is a primarily Eurocentric idea. Now, obviously, all cultures incorporate the senses to a certain degree because the senses ARE necessary to living. But the way in which we think of these senses and the way we teach about them is very specific to our culture even though we don’t teach it like that. We teach it in a way that makes it seem like these five senses are universal and absolute. But the stories we read about other religious traditions using the senses in a way that is not compatible with our understanding shows just how narrow our, or perhaps more accurately my, understanding of them has been. The sixth sense is not just a defined additional sense, it is a testament to the fluidity of the senses, both within science and in practice.

 I’ll draw an analogy that is perhaps easier to understand. If I were to ask you what the main natural elements are on earth, what would you say? Probably that there are four: Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. These “four main elements” are pervasive throughout much of culture and media in the west. Avatar: The Last Airbender uses these elements to structure its entire world and culture. But the idea of there being four main elements would be considered ridiculous if you asked around elsewhere. In reality, these are just the elements which were laid out by Plato, called the “Socratic elements”, and we have taken them as fact. But there are many other elements that other cultures would consider part of the family: ice, lightning, aether, light, dark, etc. When we look at these scientific concepts through a narrow lens, we fail to witness the vast realm of possibility which is shown by other cultures throughout the world. And that is exactly what we have done with the senses.