Smells and Bells

One topic that stood out to me as interesting in The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch was the historical role of touch in museums, and how it was eventually phased out, replaced primarily with sight. Most people probably think of museums as being a strictly no touch zone, as a way to protect important historic artifacts from being damaged or worn by human contact, but even in a modern context there are plenty of museums where touch is still an active part of the experience. The museum that comes first too mind when I think of a museum that encourages touch is a children's museum, such as Boston Children's Museum, a place I have many happy childhood memories of. The goal of a children's museum is to be a place for children to play, learn, and learn through play, and many of these playful experiences are certainly tactile ones. Despite being primarily aimed at Children these experiences can be just as fun for adults too, and some children's museums, including B...

 An important through line throughout Jeffrey J. Kripal's discussion of the paranormal in his text Authors of the Impossible is the idea that the paranormal experiences that the work explores, from seances to alien encounters, are concepts which bridge between an objective reality and a subjective one. Many of these experiences, alien encounters in particular can be fairly monumental or life altering experiences. I am curious how the phenomenon of the objective and subjective coming together can be found in more subtle ways. Tarot, is I feel, a good example of this. (And other similar methods of divination but I will keep my focus on tarot here because I practice it myself so I can speak on it better.) On my personal experience with tarot, I've only been practicing it for a few months myself, but I grew up with tarot decks being a common sight, since both of my parents read tarot in college. It was so normal a sight for me in fact that it didn't occur to me until I was a te...

 In her book Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India Diana Eck discusses the importance and role of vision in Hindu religious practices. One element of this that stood out, is how the idea of looking in Hindu practice seems to be reciprocal. Looking upon the statue of a deity is a significant religious act and so is being looked at by one. The gaze of a newly sanctified statue is considered powerful enough that when their eyes are painted on they must not be looking directly at someone. This significance of looking, with vision having the power to transfer blessings and curses between humans and gods is particularly interesting when considered in comparison with other religious contexts. In The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch by Constance Classen, an important topic is the importance of touch in Medieval Christianity. During the era of relics, a different example of a religious object thought to be imbued with holiness, in some sense, and able to bestow its blessings on...

The soundscape of Indonesia, as Rasmussen describes it, is so much more different than it tends to be in the US, with loud public sounds being accepted and ubiquitous. Many of the sounds that are described as being familiar in Indonesia are not something I could easily imagine from experience myself, but one thing that seemed familiar in at least a sense was the concept of Ramadan Music. During Ramadan even the Indonesian musicians who don't typically create religious music will create music for Ramadan. One could consider that a familiar thing happens in the United States around Christmas. The state of Christmas Music isn't always religious, at least in the sense that most Americans would tend to think of. There are a lot of songs that are basically just secular pop songs that evoke the images of snow or Santa Claus, but there are plenty of more overtly religious songs that usually share the radio waves with them, which is hardly the case for the rest of the year. The realm of...

 While the vast majority of the most intricate rituals described by Perez in the text were the cooking done for the Orisha, a variety of things were practiced by the Lucumi that she spent time with also practiced a form of ancestor worship as part of their religion, which involved offering a part of the food that they cooked to each of the ancestors present, a process with it's own unique and intricate ritual practices and taboos. While this is a very formal way of food being used to connect with the deceased, it's definitely not the only example of it that springs to mind when I think on the concept.  Personally, the first thing that I think of when it comes to food and to the dead, together, is a friend of the families who passed away when I was in high school. She wasn't someone I was particularly close to, the mother of my mom's best friend who I saw maybe once or twice a year when she came to Massachusetts to visit her daughter and Grandchildren. She was close enou...

 While it isn't the only prominent example of smells in Jewish texts, one that logically made many appearances was the smell of the priestly offerings, both the offerings of animals or other sacrifices, and the burning of special incense. It's no wonder that this was considered an important smell during the time period that these texts was written. Until the destruction of the second temple sacrifice was essential to the way that the Jewish people worshiped. It's a theme of great importance throughout the Tanach and the commentary texts that followed. However in a modern context, smell is less prevalent of a sense in Jewish worship. It's not completely absent, aromatic spices are a major part of the Havdallah ritual for example, and probably others I just don't know about, but the burnt offering is no longer a part of Jewish life, which seems like it might take the central importance of smell out in some way too. An example of a Havadallah spice box from 19th centur...

In class yesterday we discussed briefly how various senses require a different amount of closeness in order to be accessible. We can hear and see things for some distance, as well as smell, though that can be variable, but in order to use the sense of touch we must be directly touching something and taste requires putting an object in your mouth. I found it interesting how this array of distances might be changed or augmented by existing in the digital realm. It's very easy to share visuals and sounds digitally. Smells, tastes and touches we have yet to figure out how to send through the medium of a computer. What's interesting though is that despite the lack of technology for it, especially these days where so many more interactions are online, it hasn't stopped people for trying to share these senses too. For example, just about every public discord server I'm in has some sort of channel for sharing photos of food. Here's one that my partner sent recently, from th...