Smells and Bells

Kripal's mention of the concept of "the great forgetting" really struck me. My biggest fear has always been forgetting. Forgetting my friends or family, forgetting my past, even the simple idea of having a memory that I just can't remember terrifies me. I had never heard the term "the great forgetting", but the concept which Kripal describes is relatively familiar to me. The idea of society enforcing a belief onto people that forces them to forget a truth or identity through social structures we are taught to believe.  "We do not think. We are thought." This idea of forgetting due to the engrained structure and beliefs of society made me think about stories of people remembering “past lives”. The concept of a past life is a fascinating belief that is ingrained in many religions and cultures, but the thought of remembering a past life is much stranger than just the idea of being reincarnated and to many people both of these are truly impossible e

  When I think of touch as a sense, pain is often not what comes to mind. Pain has such a negative correlation in my mind and the mind of most people in western cultures, and the senses to me are positive and powerful features that allow you to connect with the world around you. Glucklich makes the connection of sports to pain. Many sports to this day are about how long one can endure pain in some form, and this has become completely normalized. What even is the end goal of boxing? Two people just beat eachother up until one of them gives in to exhaustion and we encourage and idolize those who can make it to the end without getting knocked out. In many cases, athletes are cheered on when they injure themselves and continue to play with their injury, seeing them as true devoted athletes who just love their sport. Why does one's ability to endure pain make them “strong” and “devoted”? Why seek out pain and torture? Glucklich talks quite a lot about how many religious cultures have co

  Deborah Green's “ The Aroma of Righteousness” addresses the erotic and appealing nature of scents in the context of rabbinic texts in a very eye opening way and I was quite drawn to her statements on women and smell. It was and still is common practice for women to use perfumes in order to have an appealing smell to them, even a bit expected of them. The consequences of patriarchal societies are seen in all kinds of historical texts and in Greene writings you can really see the impact that this has on women and how they are depicted and seen in a religious context. Women are expected to smell good, though when that smell is recognized and thought to have a seductive pull, those women are now viewed as erotic temptations that test and wickedly trick mankind. It was surprising to see how such suggestive texts can be seen in religious contexts, but the ways that these are often used against women was not as shocking to me. This can be seen in current society just through beauty prod

  I was unable to read Diana Eck’s “Seeing the Divine Image in India”, though I did watch the three overview videos on oncourse about her book and examples of some Hindu rituals including darśan. I wasn’t aware of the western religions disapproval of the use of idols in worship. I had known beforehand of the use of idols in hinduism and how prevalent it is in their rituals, and never questioned how that could be perceived differently by others, specifically other religions.  From  http://dailydeeperlife.org/folly-of-idol-worship/  As someone who is nonreligious, the use of idols in rituals and worship seems like a perfectly acceptable concept. To have something you can physically interact and connect with would in my mind help you to form a closer connection with your beliefs as a whole. To know that you can speak to, touch, or make offerings to an idol that represents so much more than what its physical form constitutes would make the connection to that spiritual figure seem that mu

       I find it quite interesting the ways in which humans can use physical items to represent non-physical ideas or beliefs. Perez describes the ways that people of the Afro-Caribbean religion Lucumi use food that they themselves prepared to appeal to and strengthen their connection to their deities, the Orishas, and the spiritual realm. Some claim that when the offerings are taken back they weigh less than they had before being given out to the Orisha, although in most cases it cannot be physically noted in any way that these offerings are being interacted with and appreciated (unless someone is possessed and eats the food as the deity in the body of one of the followers). Despite this, the practice is still incredibly important and relevant to their usual rituals.  Lucumi man performing a religious ritual https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_9109      Seeing and eating is said to overlap metaphorically in relation to the “taste buds” of the spirits