Smells and Bells

      There is nothing a people person loves more than an unplanned reunion with a friend from long ago. Or seeing a loved one after a long period of no holidays. For humans, the sight of a loved one, to be in their presence, is essential. Diana Eck argues that in Hinduism,  Darśan is a type of communion between deities and worshippers; seeing in this way must be essential for Hindus to reconnect with their beloved gods. Eck also mentions that Darśan is never solely a visual experience but rather involves all senses. The communication between worshipper and deity provides an experience beyond the five senses, reaching into the sixth...     David Abram argues that humans have lost their touch with the living earth, resulting in devastation of our natural word. While some consider the gift of  shamans and sorcerers to be a supernatural one, connecting our human world to another dimension, Abrams argues that their power lies within their ability to c...

Reading Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous made me think about the way I consider nature itself to be magic. I see the sixth sense as any sensation that cannot be explained by the other five senses, which includes all magical and supernatural experiences. While I see the supernatural as unexplainable the same way I do magic, I see magic as something that is unexplainable but inherently natural. The ways plants, and all other living things communicate with each other and work together to create the world in all its beauty is magic to me. And yes I know most of that can be explained by science, but I feel like science is just a means to explain things that are known to be magic. I don’t want to be that guy, but I think science is kind of dumb. I see the benefits of science in every aspect of it, but I also think it’s kind of unnecessary; we don’t have to have an explanation for everything. While this goal to be able to explain everything has led to some incredible discoveries, it has also led...

A lot of my friends have experiences with the supernatural. Whether it's because of their family histories dealing with and being involved in brujeria/vodou/obeah, they have countless stories of being visited by grandparents in their dreams or of grandmothers cursing their husbands. They're an endless well of supernatural histories and I wish I had as many stories to tell as they do, but I don't. David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous  had me thinking about the importance of words and what I would consider magic. One of my friends, whose aunt is very involved in brujeria and has a family history of magic in Puerto Rico, taught me how to curse someone. Well, she didn't really teach me how to do it, more so explained to me how she was taught. You write down on a slip of paper the name of the person who you want to curse and you put it in your shoe. The name becomes the representation of that person, in a way. Every time you step on the ground, you're stepping on that...

This semester has been a truly eye-opening experience for me. Throughout my 3 years here at Wheaton and all the religion classes, I have taken, while all super engaging and fun, this one truly gave me a more connected sense of everything. I think relaying the importance and significance of certain senses into different religions worldwide allows for a greater sense of understanding and community, rather than connecting more so on the premise of spirituality. Touching upon the basis of the senses we all share allows for a more universal connection regardless of the religious affiliation. For example, in Green's writing in chapter 3, she discusses the importance that certain perfumes and incense had in religious contexts, so much so that their fragrance was only to be used in the priestly castle. Incense holds a significant role in rabbinic literature, but it is also crucial to most rituals and prayers performed in the Hindu religion. Another example of this can also be seen in Abram...

Bandit   In Spell of the Sensuous , Abram writes: “In indigenous, oral cultures, nature itself is articulate; it speaks. The human voice in an oral culture is always to some extent participant with the voices of wolves, wind, and waves— participant, that is, with the encompassing discourse of an animate earth. There is no element of the landscape that is definitively void of expressive resonance and power.” (75) Being around animals for a long period of time really taught me the truth of this idea. Animals develop their own language (and I don’t use that term lightly). They are capable of lying or misleading you, which suggests that they can tell when someone knows them well. They can recognize people as members of their flock just as readily as other sheep or goats. The line between humans and other animals is much more permeable than we might imagine.  Lady At twelve, I began volunteering at a farm. It was situated on two hundred acres of forests and pastures. I worked in t...

Credit: Health Matters, Stories of Science, Care & Wellness (NewYork-Presbyterian) David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous reading made me think of how magic is portrayed in the media, like in movies, books, and TV shows, and how that is often different from the ideas and beliefs Abram talks about. One way he defines magic is:      “Magic, then, in its perhaps most primordial sense, is the experience of existing in a world made up of multiple intelligences, the intuition that every form one perceives…is an experiencing form, an entity with its own predilections and sensations, albeit sensations that are very different from our own” (16). I think that this definition differs from popular definitions of magic because it allows for the possibility of anyone experiencing magic and assumes that magic is natural and existing, rather than super -natural or brought on by special, impossible powers that only some people have. The concept of “multiple intelligences” and intuitions...

Image from mondaycampaigns.org This course provided a different lens to my psychology major and helped me reconsider what I have been taught. Abram summarizes this shift in my perspective: “This breathing body, as it experiences and inhabits the world, is very different from that objectified body diagrammed in physiology textbooks, with its separable “systems” (the circulatory system, the digestive system, the respiratory system, etc.) laid bare on each page. The body I here speak of is very different from the body we have been taught to see and even to feel, very different, finally, from that complex machine whose broken parts or stuck systems are diagnosed by our medical doctors and “repaired” by our medical technologies. Underneath the anatomized and mechanical body that we have learned to conceive, prior indeed to all our conceptions, dwells the body as it actually experiences things, this poised and animate power that initiates all our projects and suffers all our passions” (37)....

 I don't believe in ghosts. I'm not superstitious. I'm not particularly into astrology or tarot like a lot of my friends are right now. Abram's version of the sixth sense as more of a way of interacting with nature made a lot more sense to me than the version that immediately came to mind, thinking of ESP. That said: I don't believe in ghosts but my neighbors' house is haunted. Or, at least, that's the conclusion me and my siblings came to when we had something like our 6th neighbor in that house in 11 years. It didn't help to change our minds given how abrupt some of their departures were or how strange some of those neighbors were (one when I was ten was a professional disc golfer and his really annoying six year old daughter-- I guess someone's bound to do that, but at the time it was the weirdest job I had ever heard of). Clearly, a ghost was scaring them away. Four or five years ago, a family moved into that house. They had four kids- five?- an...

While reading The Spell of the Sensuous, I was reminded of my time abroad specifically when Abram wrote that “nonhuman nature can be perceived and experienced with far more intensity and nuance than is generally acknowledged in the West” (25). Although Denmark is still considered The West, the cultural concept of “hygge” exemplifies how Danes are much more in touch with their senses than Americans. Cherishing, acknowledging, and savoring are frequent actions for them. Abram wrote, “To be sure, our obliviousness to nonhuman nature is today held in place by ways of speaking that simply deny intelligence to other species and to nature in general, as well as by the very structures of our civilized existence—by the incessant drone of motors that shut out the voices of birds and of the winds; by electric lights that eclipse not only the stars but the night itself; by air “conditioners” that hide the seasons; by offices, automobiles, and shopping malls that finally obviate any need to step ou...

In the book The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, by David Abram one quote stuck out with me the most which was “...along with the other animals, the stones, the trees, and the clouds, we ourselves are characters within a huge story that is visibly unfolding all around us, participants within the vast imagination, or Dreaming, of the world.” I look at this quote and I completely agree with it. We are characters in which have our own stories that intertwine with other people’s stories. I feel as though the best way in which to describe how I felt as though it was already written and almost as if it was the sixth sense was the mother’s day after my aunt had passed away in April. This was the first holiday in which we all came together and tried to celebrate, but the mood was very somber at this time. I went out and played with the neighbor kids and we talked to this older woman who was tending to her garden and told us to all pick a flower. I pick...

The sixth sense is quite the sense. Some parts of it can be controversial among some. For other it plays a key role in their lives. Many view the sixth sense in a various amount of ways. Some think it is simply just being able to sense someone right behind you. Others think it's the ability to sense more spiritual beings. However all can agree that it is a very interesting part of senses. Throughout The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More Than Human World, written by David Abram, he explore the written language to distinguish humans from their experiential relationship to the nonhuman environment. This idea immediately brings to mind the spiritual world. For some the spiritual world is non-existent to them. However, for others, its is very prevalent in their lives.  For Christians, the spiritual world is a very real one. "The Holy Spirit" is something that is very prevalent in the lives of Christians connecting the sixth sense directly to religi...

I think that the notion of the sixth sense, something beyond human understanding, has been one of the most compelling and interesting topics we have covered inside of this course. I feel like the most lively discussion we had on campus had to do with the paranormal, and that is saying something as this course has crafted interesting exchanges but this went beyond. The Great Beyond is something that captures the attention of many people and always appears to create a dichotomy between the various number of things. Abrams points to the separation of the natural world as a rigid and understood entity with the “supernatural” or the unexplainable that moves above it as a major snag that Western thinkers have gotten stuck on. I think this is a very interesting place to think on how we might move forward in understanding the categories we call paranormal and supernatural because they are clearly so important to us.                     ...

I was really thinking hard about what I could write about with the 6th sense, so I started by looking for a topic in the Spell of the Sensuous  book and I came across the section on pages 78-79 about animal communications. This made me start thinking about how I communicate with my dogs at home. We teach them tricks and they seem to understand them, but sometimes they just know things without getting any indication from us. For example when one of my family members is sick one of my dogs will not leave that person alone like he has to constantly sitting near them or looking at them. For example, one time I was super sick at Wheaton so I came home for a long weekend, and my dad told me while I was sleeping he was literally standing on my chest looking at me to make sure I was ok. So strange. Java (left) and Diver (right) (Shiba Inu and Beagle Mix Brothers) So last night I had what I decided was a weird 6th sense moment where I was sleeping (It was like 3:30 am so I was dead as...