For some time interest has been growing in a dialogue between modern scientific research into human cognition and research in the humanities. This ground-breaking volume focuses this dialogue on the religious experience of men and women in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Each chapter examines a particular historical problem arising from an ancient religious activity and the contributions range across a wide variety of both ancient contexts and sources, exploring and integrating literary, epigraphic, visual and archaeological evidence. In order to avoid a simple polarity between physical aspects (ritual) and mental aspects (belief) of religion, the contributors draw on theories of cognition as embodied, emergent, enactive and extended, accepting the complexity, multimodality and multicausality of human life. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the chapters open up new questions around and develop new insights into the physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects of ancient religions.
Author(s): Esther Eidinow, Armin W. Geertz, John North
Series: Ancient Religion and Cognition
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 314
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Funder Acknowledgement
Introduction
Religious Experience
The Context
The Process
Conclusion
Bibliography
Part I Ritual
Chapter 1 A Cognitive Approach to Ancient Greek Animal Sacrifice
Introduction
Greek Animal Sacrifice: Four Examples
The Rituals of Sacrifice
Killing
Divination
Activities at the Altar
Eating
Interim Conclusions
Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible
The Importance of Smell
Smell and Memory
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 2 To the Netherworld and Back: Cognitive Aspects of the Descent to Trophonius
Preparation for the Katabasis
Myths of Trophonius
The First Impression of the Sanctuary
The Preliminary Stage of the Ritual
The Descent to Trophonius: The Route to the Grotto
In the Oracular Grotto
Pausanias' Account
Plutarch's Account
The Return from the Grotto
Conclusions
Bibliography
Part II Representation
Chapter 3 Ancient Greek Smellscapes and Divine Fragrances: Anthropomorphizing the Gods in Ancient Greek Culture
Introduction: Sensing Divinity
Divine Appearances
Forming God Concepts
Grounding the Greek Gods
The Smell of the Divine
Divine Smellscapes
Divinities Smelling
Divine Smells and Embodied Religion
Bibliography
Chapter 4 Belief, Make-Believe, and the Religious Imagination: The Case of the Deus Ex Machina in Greek Tragedy
Belief and Make-believe
Variation: Deus Ex Machina and Ritual Impersonation of the Divine Compared
Faith, Obedience, Trust
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 5 Chanting and Dancing into Dissociation: The Case of the Salian Priests at Rome
Embodied Techniques of Experience: The Dissociative Mind
Reconstructing the Body Techniques: The Salii Going Wild?
Reconstructing the Vocal Techniques: Chanting in Tongues?
The Dissociative Identities of The Salii: The Mimicry of Mars
Bibliography
Part III Gender
Chapter 6 The Bacchants Are Silent: Using Cognitive Science to Explore the Experience of the Oreibasia
Dancing for Dionysus: The Sources for Maenadic Ritual
Mythical Role Models: The Maenad in Greek Imagination
Exploring Maenadic Madness: Difficulties and Controversies in Interpretation
Cultural Knowledge in Predictive Processing
Epiphanic Experience in Maenadic Ritual
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 7 Who Is the Damiatrix?: Roman Women, the Political Negotiation of Psychotropic Experiences, and the Cults of Bona Dea
The Story of Rome between Sexual Violence and Cosmic Misogyny
Silence, Rape, and Homicide: The Good Goddess' Myths
Wine, Power, and Subordination: The December Festival
Snakes, Medicines, and a Secret Sacrifice: The May Celebration
Who Is the Damiatrix?
Two Orders, Two Cults, One Goddess
A Socio-cognitive Reading of The Bona Dea Cults
Conclusion
Bibliography
Part IV Materiality
Chapter 8 Walls and the Ancient Greek Ritual Experience: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis
Introduction
Why Walls?
Walls and the Ritual Experience
The Mystery Cult of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis
Prior Expectations of Initiates at Eleusis
The Eleusis Temenos Walls and the Ritual Experience
The Temenos Walls and the Group's Sense of Self
The Temenos Walls and the Initiates' Engagement with the Ritual
The Walls and Emotional Contagion
The Presence of Religious Authority
The Telesterion Walls and the Ritual Experience
The Post-ritual Understanding of the Mysteries at Eleusis
Bibliography
Chapter 9 Identifying Symptoms of Religious Experience from Ancient Material Culture: The Example of Cults of the Roman Mithras
Introduction
Two Historiographical Challenges
The Historiographical Challenge of Religious Experience
The Historiographical Challenge of 'Mithraism'
Ritualized Technologies of Mithraic Religious Experience
Communal Meals
Initiation Rites
Iconographic Technologies of Mithraic Experience
The Visual Technology of the Tauroctony
The Visual Technology of the Mithraeum
Conclusion
Bibliography
Part V Texts
Chapter 10 Bridging the Gap: From Textual Representations to the Experiential Level and Back
Moving from Representations of Feelings to Their Emotional Counterparts
The Neglect of the Emotional Level in Recent Scholarship on Feelings
Tracing Emotions Underlying Textual Instantiations of Feelings
An Emotional Reading of Paul
Paul and Lady Macbeth in Dialogue
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 11 A Relevant Mystery: Intuitive and Reflective Thought in Gregory of Nyssa's Representations of Divine Begetting in the Against Eunomius
Gregory and the Problem of the Material Aspects of the Language of Begetting for the First Two Persons of the Trinity
The Against Eunomius and the Popularizing and Dissemination of Nicene Doctrine
Cognitive Science of Religion and Conceptualizing Successful Religious Concepts
Intuitive Understandings of Divine Begetting
Reflective Thought and Conceptualizations of Divine Begetting
Bibliography
Index
