Smells and Bells

  Wrap Up Post Or maybe you do… of incense and perfume of course. I never in a million years would have thought I would enjoy learning about senses. I never would have been able to connect scientific subjects to religious studies.  Before enrolling in this course, I spent dreadful hours scrolling through Wheaton’s course selection trying to figure out my schedule. This course was not in my plans but I needed to add a course and this was an option. Although the topic sounded fun, it also felt a bit intimidating as I had no idea what to expect.  While taking the course, I sometimes felt overwhelmed with the readings but was also super intrigued by the texts we read. It is super interesting how each religion emphasizes a different sense as almost superior to other senses. In Buddhism, vision is constantly stimulated with bright and beautiful sculptures. In Islam, there is such an emphasis placed on rhythm and stage skills during Quran recitals. All while Jews ca...

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 ...