Emotions and Religious Dynamics 9781472415035, 9781472415028

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Emotions and Religious Dynamics We all feel emotions and are moved to action by them. Religious communities often select and foster certain emotions over others. Without understanding this it is hard to grasp the way groups view the world and each other. Often, it is the underlying emotional pattern of a group rather than its doctrines that either divides it from, or attracts it to, others. These issues, so important in today’s world, are explored in this book in a genuinely interdisciplinary way by anthropologists, psychologists, theologians and historians of religion, and in some detailed studies of well and less well known religious traditions from across the world.

Dedicated to the memory of Dr Chang-Won Park (1973–2012) Durham University, UK, and Sogang University, South Korea

Emotions and Religious Dynamics

Edited by Douglas J. Davies Durham University, UK with Nathaniel A. Warne Durham University, UK

© Douglas J. Davies with Nathaniel A. Warne 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Douglas J. Davies with Nathaniel A. Warne have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street Union Road Suite 3-1 Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818 Surrey, GU9 7PT USA England www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Emotions and religious dynamics / edited by Douglas J. Davies, with Nathaniel A. Warne. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4724-1502-8 – ISBN 978-1-4724-1503-5 (ebook) – ISBN 978-1-4724-15042 (epub) 1. Emotions–Religious aspects. I. Davies, Douglas James, editor of compilation. BL65.E46E46 2013 204'.2–dc23 2013009009

ISBN ISBN ISBN

9781472415028 (hbk) 9781472415035 (ebk-PDF) 9781472415042 (ebk-ePUB)

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Contents List of Contributors   List of Figures and Tables  

vii xi

Introduction: Emotion, Identity and Group Communication   Douglas J. Davies

1

1

The Role of Emotion and Identity in Mixed-faith Families   Elisabeth Arweck

9

2

Sikh Spectrum: Mapping Emotions in the Panth   Eleanor Nesbitt

27

3

Emotions in Buddhism   Peter Harvey

47

4

Emotions in the Writings of Two Church Fathers: Evagrius of Pontus and Mark the Monk   Augustine M. Casiday and Christopher C.H. Cook

5 6

Metaphysics, Emotions and the Flourishing Life: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Use of Aristotle on Religious Emotions   Nathaniel A. Warne



‘Being in love without restriction’:Emotion and Embodiment in Bernard Lonergan   Barnabas Palfrey

7

Forced Migration and Meaning-making   Valerie DeMarinis

8

Identity Under Pressure: Motivation and Emotional Dynamics in Cultural and Religious Groups   Marc Cleiren

9

William James on Religion and Emotion   Robert A. Segal

63

75

95 109

121 153

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10

The Knowing Body: Structuralism and the Somatic Aspects of Biblical Sacrifice   Seth D. Kunin

11

Death, Emotion and Digital Media   Tim Hutchings

Index  

167 191 213

List of Contributors Douglas J. Davies is Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University and Director of its Centre for Death and Life Studies. His study Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity and Otherness (Oxford University Press, 2011), and edited collection with Chang-Won Park, Emotion, Identity and Death: Mortality across Disciplines (Ashgate, 2012), complement this present edited collection. Other recent publications include Natural Burial: Traditional–Secular Spiritualities and Funeral Innovation (with Hannah Rumble, Ashgate, 2012), The Theology of Death (Continuum, 2008). His Anthropology and Theology (Oxford: Berg, 2002), and Meaning and Salvation in Religious Studies (Brill, 1984), strongly developed issues of embodiment that assume high profile in this present volume. He has published extensively on both Mormon and Anglican religious–cultural themes. He is an Oxford D.Litt., an Honorary Dr Theol. (Uppsala, Sweden), is an Academician of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. Elisabeth Arweck is Senior Research Fellow in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU), Institute of Education, University of Warwick, and Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Religion. Her recent research has focused on young people growing up in mixed-faith families and the related emotions in such families, young people’s attitudes to religious diversity, and the religious socialisation and nurture of young people. Recent publications include a number of co-authored articles (for example with Eleanor Nesbitt) and (coedited) volumes, such as Religion and Knowledge (with Mathew Guest, Ashgate, 2012), Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age (with Chris Deacy, Ashgate, 2009) and Reading Religion in Text and Context (with Peter Collins, Ashgate, 2006). She is the author of several book chapters and of Researching New Religious Movements in the West (Routledge, 2007). Augustine Casiday is Senior Lecturer in Historical Theology at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. He researches ancient and medieval Christian beliefs and monastic practices, with a particular interest in their modern appropriations, especially by Orthodox Christians. His publications include translations of early Christian monastic literature, monographs on key monastic theologians such as John Cassian and Evagrius Ponticus, and such edited volumes as The Orthodox Christian World (Routledge, 2012) and The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 2: Constantine to c. 600 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

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Marc Cleiren researches and teaches within the Department of Psychology at The Netherlands’ University of Leiden, at the School for Strategic Management at Utrecht University, and he has his own training and coaching practice. His theoretical and experimental interests focus on life-attitudes in meaning-making and in interventions in educational and therapeutic contexts related to those goals. He has also worked on issues of organ donation and his important study Bereavement Adaptation (Taylor & Francis, 1992) reported and analysed a major Dutch research project on grief in relation to various forms of loss. Chris Cook is Professor of Spirituality, Theology and Health in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, and an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist with Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. He trained at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, and worked in the psychiatry of substance misuse for over 25 years. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 2001. He is Director of the Project for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Durham University and an editor (with Andrew Powell and Andrew Sims) of Spirituality and Psychiatry (Royal College of Psychiatrists Press, 2009). Valerie DeMarinis is Professor of the Psychology of Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden, where she works closely with theologians and health professionals. With strong psychotherapeutic interests, she researches various means of ‘meaning-making’ in relation to promoting health and the treatment of illness. Her publications include Critical Caring (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), and Religious and Social Ritual (with M.B. Aune, State University of New York Press, 1996). Peter Harvey is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland. Research interests include: early Buddhist thought; Buddhist ethics; and Buddhist meditation. He is Co-founder of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies (www.ukabs.org.uk), President 2002–06, and editor of its journal, Buddhist Studies Review (2006–). He is author of An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 1990, 2nd edition 2013), The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvāṇa in Early Buddhism (Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1995), An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Buddhism (edited volume, London and New York: Continuum, 2001). He teaches meditation in the Theravāda Buddhist Samatha Trust tradition (www.samatha.org). Tim Hutchings is a postdoctoral fellow at the CRESC Research Centre (Open University), studying digital forms of sacred text. His Durham University doctorate of 2010 consisted of an ethnographic study of five online Christian churches, exploring issues of authority, worship, community and the relationship between online and offline religion. His other research interests include media proselytism, digital storytelling, death and mourning, and the digital humanities. Dr Hutchings’s

List of Contributors

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recent publications include articles in Information, Communication & Society, the Australian Journal of Communication and the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion. He has also published chapters in a number of edited volumes, including Digital Religion (ed. Campbell, Routledge, 2012), Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture (ed. Cheong et al., New York: Peter Lang, 2012), and Emotion, Identity and Death (eds. Davies and Park, Ashgate, 2012). Seth Kunin is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Arts and Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Durham University. His research has focused on developing and applying neo-strucuturalist theory. This focus has shaped his work on biblical texts and more recently on crypto-Judaism in the Southwestern United States. His main publications in these areas include The Logic of Incest (Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) God’s Place in the World (Cassell, 1998) We Think What We Eat (Columbia University Press, 2004), and Juggling Identities (Columbia University Press, 2009). Eleanor Nesbitt is Emeritus Professor (Religions and Education) at the University of Warwick, UK. She has conducted ethnographic research into religious socialisation in Sikh, Hindu and Christian communities as well as directing studies of values education projects on two Hindu-related religious movements and the religious identity formation of young people in mixed-faith families. Her publications include Sikhism A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2005), Intercultural Education: Ethnographic and Religious Approaches (Sussex Academic Press, 2004), Interfaith Pilgrims (Quaker Books, 2003) as well as poetry, for example (with Ian Florance) Gemini Four (Only Connect, 2011). She is a founder member of the Punjab Research Group and reviews editor of the Journal of Punjab Studies. Barnabas Palfrey is a lecturer in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College, Salisbury, and is completing his doctorate at Oxford University on the American liberal Catholic theologian David Tracy. One of his interests concerns how a Christian theological thinking might interlace continental hermeneutical thought with more ‘empirical’ and pluralistic Anglo-American emphases. Robert A. Segal is Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen. He has written The Poimandres as Myth (de Gruyter, 1986), Joseph Campbell (rev. edn, Penguin, 1990), Explaining and Interpreting Religion (Peter Lang, 1992), Theorizing about Myth (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), and Myth: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has edited In Quest of the Hero (Princeton University Press, 1990), The Gnostic Jung (Princeton University Press, 1992), The Allure of Gnosticism (Open Court, 1995), The Myth and Ritual Theory (Blackwell, 1998), Jung on Mythology (Princeton University Press, 1998), Hero Myths (Blackwell, 2000), The Blackwell

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Companion to the Study of Religion (Blackwell, 2006, 2nd edn forthcoming), and Myth: Critical Concepts (London: Routledge, 2007). Nathaniel Warne is currently a PhD candidate at Durham University, UK. His interests are primarily in theological ethics and political philosophy. Nathaniel’s current research looks at the relationship between eudaimonism, the theoretical approach to happiness and ethical life, and the doctrine of divine calling, with special interest in the theology of work. His other research interests include historical theology and the intersection of metaphysics with ethics.

List of Figures and Tables Figures 1.1

Ken Wilber’s integral framework  

12

8.1

Holarchy: the hierarchical organization of holons  

123

8.2

Self-preserving and transcendent motives of holons  

125

8.3

Individual motivation and action in holarchic perspective  

134

Tables 8.1

Prototypical qualitative dichotomies in psychological theory in the context of self-preserving and self-transcendent orientations   126

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Introduction Emotion, Identity and Group Communication Douglas J. Davies

Emotions and identities have recently gained considerable significance as theoretical concepts in a swathe of disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences.1 In this, the turn into the twenty-first century mirrors that from the nineteenth into the twentieth when issues of religious experience, mysticism and personality attracted wide attention. Today, albeit through transformed routes, these issues of experience are more important than ever given the political and social weight carried by religious convictions, especially when allied with political agendas and religious apologetics. At other levels of society, too, these are deeply significant factors in terms of the dynamic interaction of one religious group with another, whether in community relations or inter-faith activities. In the following chapters these theoretical issues run alongside the challenging academic necessity of coming to grips with how distinctive traditions describe and ponder their own emotional repertoires. This interplay of theorising and ethnographic-like description is the outcome of a research project prompted by the still far from answered question of how underlying emotional configurations of identity influence the way groups deal with each other. While we now know a great deal about the ideological, doctrinal and ethical dimensions of the great religious traditions of the world, and while anthropological and sociological studies furnish a century and more of detailed ethnographic and social survey work on the ways people embody their ideas,2 a great deal remains to be done on the nuanced subtleties of inter-religious group activity. It is, of course, relatively easy for anyone to learn the broader and more detailed aspects of religious doctrine and history, and to assume that this provides a basis for what is often called inter-faith dialogue; it is far more difficult to have a grasp of the emotional matrix within which such doctrine and its many versions make sense.

  John Corrigan (ed.), Religion and Emotion: Approaches and Interpretations (Oxford University Press, 2004). John Corrigan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion (Oxford University Press, 2008). 2   E.g. Kay Milton and Maruška Svašek (eds), Mixed Emotions: Anthropological Studies of Feeling (Oxford: Berg, 2005). 1

Emotions and Religious Dynamics

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My own work on Mormonism over many years has, for example, shown just how an idiom such as that of ‘the cross’ can carry a weight of emotional significance that influences a sense of religious identity that can divide groups unaware of such nuances.3 Protestants, especially Evangelical Protestants, have an enormous emotion-identity investment in ‘the cross’, as is evident in hymnody, sermons, as well as in accounts of conversion and a sense of forgiveness of sin through the sinless and incarnate Son of God. This is enshrined in ‘the theology of the cross’ that typified aspects of Reformation theology as opposed to a more Catholic theology of glory. Mormons relocated much of this sentiment of a place of divine suffering to the Garden of Gethsemane, and came to pinpoint Christ’s ‘Gethsemane Experience’ as paradigmatic of salvation and of true obedience of the divine Son to the divine Father. Unless both partners in Mormon–Protestant engagements appreciate such emphases, their mutuality is likely to lack a most significant appreciation of each other’s points of devotional–theological–ethical sensitivity. The absence of any cross on Mormon buildings as well as the tendency not to wear crosses easily passes unnoticed but carries a depth of significance for Latter-day Saints (LDS), for whom Christ’s Gethsemane Experience of suffering that caused him to sweat as it were drops of blood holds high spiritual profile, as well as serving as a prompt for dedicated ethical endeavour on the part of devotees. For the LDS, Christ was less a passive lamb for the slaughter than an entirely active Saviour and elder brother entering into an ultimate conflict with the forces of evil, a conflict to be echoed in their own lives today. These relative emphases go on to influence other theological, pastoral and ethical attitudes such as grace, failure, achievement and forgiveness. The capacity of any religious group to prefer certain emotions and foster their affinity with particular doctrinal clusters of ideas, though strongly evident in Max Weber’s approach to religious communities, remains an area ripe for extensive research that could benefit scholarship in itself and also contribute to deeper engagements of real-life situations. 4 This volume goes just a little way to addressing some of these issues, if only as a ground-clearing and limited foundation-laying exercise. Our chapters are the outcome of a research network funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council that enabled a group of scholars from diverse arts-humanities and social science disciplines to explore potential approaches to the interplay of emotions with identities within and between diverse religious groups.5 The following   Douglas J. Davies, The Mormon Culture of Salvation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000). Also, Introduction to Mormonism (Cambridge University Press, 2003). 4   E.g. Max Weber, ‘The Social Psychology of the World Religions’, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) (London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 267–301). 5   The ‘Emotion, Identity and Religious Communities’ award was granted by the Research Networks and Workshop Scheme, and began in the academic year 2008–2009. It was led by Professor Douglas J. Davies at the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University. 3

Introduction

3

chapters reflect a significant outcome of that network’s activity over a two-year or so series of meetings but, and this is a strategically important point, they stop short of providing anything like a full account of inter-group emotional dynamics not least because we seem to possess no ready language for discussing the emotional and mood bases that underlie different groups when interacting with each other. What we do have in this book is a combination of expertise in disciplinary theory and in familiarity with different religious traditions derived from ethnographic, historical and textual sources that help in developing ongoing work to which many will, doubtless, continue to contribute. One other outcome of this project was my own study of emotion that sought to extend issues of identity and religion in alliance with the motifs of hope, reciprocity and otherness, ideas that seemed to me foundational in the social nature of human religion.6 One powerful pedagogical goal achieved in our networked study lay in bringing together a group of highly experienced, mid-career and postgraduate scholars within an open-ended arena of collegial endeavour of older and younger academics. This embraced the implicit sense of value accorded to the exploratory work pursued for doctoral awards, just as it welcomed the deeply embedded expertise of other colleagues, and it is hoped that the experience gained by postgraduate students when working on an equal footing with some very established scholars will contribute to their own future research activity. We very much wish to thank the AHRC for making this foundational collaboration possible. One aspect of this experience lay in the open-ended brainstorming that marked the first year of discussion, which, at times, seemed to spawn a loose array of perspectives. Participants decided to ride with this approach even though it often involved a degree of frustration at being enticed from their regular academic comfort zone, but it was just such comfort challenges that allowed varying levels of insight generation to take place. Indeed, the very issue of intellectual ‘comfort zones’ in connection with interdisciplinary work on ‘emotions’ seemed entirely proper. As for those involved in this network, they possessed diverse intellectual backgrounds and knowledge of a variety of religious traditions. In addition to those with chapters in this book, other colleagues also were part of the discussion for longer and shorter periods of time. Some of their work is already very well known in this broad field, as with Dr Charlotte Hardman and her exemplary ethnography of identity and emotion among the Lohorung Rai of Nepal.7 Scholars able to attend only some of the consultative seminars included Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University, whose own study with Ole Riis on the emotions and sociology of religion has also been published recently;8 6   Douglas J. Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity and Otherness (Oxford University Press, 2011). 7   Charlotte E. Hardman, Other Worlds: Notions of Self and Emotion among the Lohorung Rai (Oxford: Berg, 2000). 8   Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion (Oxford University Press, 2010).

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Professor Matthew Ratcliffe of Durham, who is well known for his philosophical work on emotions,9 as is Professor Ivan Strenski of the University of California, Riverside, and his extensive contribution to religious studies.10 Another colleague, Nathanial Warne, has been of considerable assistance in the editing of this volume despite not having been in the original network group. His own doctoral researches in Puritanism at Durham University’s Department of Theology and Religion made his work of real value to our venture during the process of producing this book, in formatting each chapter, corresponding with contributors, all with an insight into the role of emotions in religious worlds. One keen member of the network whose work on emotion in Korean Confucian thought would have held a significant chapter in this book was Dr Chang-Won Park, but his untimely death in South Korea in 2012 not only lost a promising scholar to the academic world,11 but also lost to us a valued colleague and muchloved friend: we dedicate this volume to his memory. His contribution would have highlighted the extensive Confucian tradition of self-control embedded in a reflexive sense of self-in-society, a theme as important for contemporary Korean, as, indeed, for aspects of Chinese culture. Scheme and Chapters The following chapters have been planned and arranged in a specific way that takes us from the first three studies focused on the complexity of mixed-faith families and the inner complexities of Sikh and Buddhist thought (Arweck, Nesbitt, Harvey), to three chapters on Christianity that span a millennium and a half of differing patterns of spirituality in the Church Fathers, Puritans and some contemporary systematic theology (Casiday and Cook, Warne, Palfrey). Three further chapters (de Marinis, Cleiren, Segal) take up more specifically theoretical issues in psychology and sociology, and then one chapter (Kunin) offers an innovative account of structuralism in relation to emotion before the final contribution (Hutchings) brings us to the rapidly changing world of information technology and its framing and driving of emotional potentialities. Elisabeth Arweck offers a valuable sketch of emotions against some recent sociological thought as a prelude to her account of a study of mixed-faith families that was not, intrinsically, a study of emotions, but from which she was able to ‘tease out’ aspects of emotional dynamics of the groups concerned. Her account of Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh family interplay echoes the goal of this overall   Matthew Ratcliffe, The Modalities of Melancholy: A Phenomenological Study of Depression (Oxford University Press, 2010). 10   Ivan Strenski, Thinking About Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). 11   See Chang-Won Park, Cultural Blending in Korean Death Rites (London: Continuum, 2010). 9

Introduction

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book and challenges us all with research tasks that still lie ahead. This chapter is a good example of how an interdisciplinary network is able to prompt and foster a re-examination of already existing material. Eleanor Nesbitt, a colleague of Elisabeth Arweck, now familiarises us with the interplay of texts and lived practices in Sikh life extending from Punjab to the UK and to Canada. Nesbitt is, of course, not only a fine scholar of Sikh life, but is one whose intellectual and methodological perspectives are far from restricted to any one discipline. Here anthropological, sociological and literary interests are embedded in her conviction that ‘an alert, multiply informed empathy is an attainable and vital aid’ for cultural study. Her chapter on a spectrum of Sikh emotions complements Harvey’s on Buddhism, revealing the enduring concern of religious traditions with their own ways of depicting that ‘balance and tension’ within life’s daily reality and its desired goals of dynamic apprehension of self, society and reality as traditionally understood: not least evident in her account in the ‘emotions of longing’. Peter Harvey’s expertise in Buddhism brings to our collection some detailed information on those ancient and modern traditions that have scrutinised human sensations to portray that mind–body interplay that sought to stabilise the human condition and foster enlightenment while also attempting to influence the ethos and tone of society. His detailed analysis is a firm reminder that current interests in emotions and identity from numerous academic disciplines are but one form of human interest in the shifts of emotional dynamics that inherit millennia-long human reflexivity of feelings and their outcome. Harvey also cites recent secular mindfulness therapies as well as experimental analyses of ‘mindfulness’, not least through the use of magnetic resonance. Augustine Casiday and Chris Cook combine their skills as classicist, psychiatrist and as theologians to show how Evagrius and Mark, two Church Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, reveal self-critical awareness in their ‘discretion’ of human feelings, failings, and religious goals in respect of gluttony and anger. Here we enter a world that many today would identify in terms of spirituality and of the way qualities of experiences are approved of and appropriated in the development of an identity that drives the core of a religious way of life. Nathaniel Warne, while retaining us within the domain of Christianity, now moves us forward a thousand years, delivering us into the realm of the Puritans. Here it is ecclesiastical history that drives the theoretical perspectives on emotion and, in the process, reveals the textual sources firing these Puritan minds in generating their practical life of faith. While, in popular terms, the very word ‘Puritan’ might imply an absence of emotion or at least of strong emotional control, Warne may surprise many by excavating the wells of classical philosophy and ethics, especially of Aristotle, as resources for the Puritans as Christian devotees. This interestingly

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detailed account of ‘Puritans’ is likely to surprise those of us with no technical historical or theological knowledge of their rationale of emotion. Barnabas Palfrey’s chapter continues within a Christian world but again moves us forward by five hundred years into our own day. His analysis brings systematic theology to bear on the theology of Bernard Lonergan concerning the role of distinctive emotions on Christian identity, especially that of love and a sense of the life-setting in which it is encountered. Here there are strong echoes of the ‘emotions of longing’ in Nesbitt’s Sikhism. Palfrey wrote when still an Oxfordbased postgraduate student. Valerie DeMarinis, from her strong anthropological and psychological foundations, drives the study of emotions into the field of mental health and of conditions, including trauma, associated with forced migration. Here the very concept of ‘culture’ becomes important as the complex medium shared or not shared by patient and psychiatrist, a complexity that influences how emotional conditions are expressed and grasped by both parties. Her work is set in a Swedish context and raises the further topic of a kind of spirituality or drive for meaningmaking that may appear in a society often described in secular terms but that may involve people with diverse religious commitments. Marc Cleiren presents us with one of our intentionally longer chapters whose purpose is to talk us into a perspective, this time a strongly psychological one, with which many will be unfamiliar. Invoking a variety of psychologists, he analyses motives for behaviour by setting the themes of self-preservation and selftranscendence alongside each other when considering religion as a means, end or quest. He explores human endeavours in terms of security and freedom, and his creative integration of theories allows him to offer examples drawn from as wide a field as divorce, conversion and terrorism. In ways that are echoed in Hutchings’s later chapter, he also highlights the role of information technology as a resource for emotional motivations. Robert Segal ensures that this study pays serious attention to some of the classical work of William James on ‘religious experience’. In the process, he follows closely the significance of cognitive and more experiential aspects of a philosopher’s work, noting the ‘use of emotions to justify the deepest philosophical claims’. With his characteristic alertness to historical context Segal also draws attention to allied thinkers, including C.G. Lange and Freud, in terms of defining and approaching ‘emotions’, and we are reminded of the spectrum of terms that have often pervaded former studies of religion, whether that of ‘religious experience’ or even of mysticism. Seth Kunin, in an intentionally long chapter, revisits the literature of ancient Israel and its realm of ritual sacrifice. In so doing he reappraises theories of

Introduction

7

structuralism in particular in the light of recent studies of emotions in general. This brings the topic of emotions directly into the erstwhile avowedly cognitive and rational schemes of structuralism. This has been of particular interest to me as editor of this book and director of the AHRC-ESRC Emotions Network because he takes up both my own structuralist analysis of Sacrifice in Leviticus, and one of Edmund Leach, both already over thirty years old, and re-analyses them in the light of the new emotions-interest. From the relatively ‘slow-speed’ communication of Hebrew sacrifice we now pass to the fast speed of today’s electronic highways that offer new challenges and opportunities for the expression of emotion in religious contexts. Tim Hutchings, one of the new generation of digital researchers, takes us into these technological domains with an account that achieves a double purpose. For not only does he explore the issue of how online resources are both formed by and form the emotional conventions of different groups, but he also directs this technical knowledge to the case of bereavement. This is, itself, a valuable contribution to the role of emotions in death studies as fostered and constrained by online means, and all this while not forgetting the age-long human proclivity for story-telling concerning the dead. Inner and Outer Emotional-identity Futures Taking the lead from Tim Hutchings, I note that news items in the UK on 12 November 2012 stated that much twitter communication had observed a twominute silence on Sunday 11 November at 11 a.m., reflecting the two-minute silence held by millions across the UK to mark Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Here new media combine with and are generated by older media of human ritualised emotionality and expression of identity as, for example, in the case of Durham Cathedral at that same time. There, representative of thousands of other churches, and on this Remembrance Day packed to the doors, the two-minute silence was powerful and unbroken. The preacher12 spoke incisively on silence as the symbol of remembrance. When its time came, the bugles sounded The Last Post and Reveille as points of entry into and exit from that silence of many hundreds of individuals standing as one. Here emotion and identity in terms of grief, pride, gratitude, nationalism, and doubtless of less identifiable states, were inescapable, not least as the order of British society was mapped on the ground in terms of monarch’s representative, national and local politicians, the judiciary, the military, university, voluntary associations and hundreds of members of the general public, all framed by the Church of England’s rites and sacred space. As in many other towns across the land, the church service was followed by the military marching from Cathedral through the city centre, extending the sacred   The Revd Canon Dr Stephen Cherry. See Durham Cathedral online for sermon text.

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space into the wider life of society. If the music was changed, the only other British event that could match such an occasion is that of Christmas, when a slight shift in the kaleidoscope of emotion and identity brings to the fore anticipated joys of family and friends. These large-scale events are, in themselves, studied in far from great detail, and offer scope for future research.13 But in ending this Introduction with thanks to each network member and chapter author for their participation and industry, and to Ashgate and its editors for patience and help in bringing this collection to publication, let me conclude with the emotional complexity over emotion, religion and identity evident in but a cameo of the life of one man, James Boswell, the remarkable biographer of Samuel Johnson. For the single day of Sunday 15 May 1763 we learn that Boswell in ‘an excellent calm and serious mood … attended divine service in Ludgate Church with patience and satisfaction, and was much edified’. However, after lunch, he attended a Presbyterian service at ‘Dr Fordyce’s meeting in Monkwell Street’, of which he says, ‘I thought this would have done me good. But I found the reverse.’ He disliked the preacher’s ‘New Kirk delivery and the Dissenters roaring out the psalms sitting on their backsides, together with the extempore prayers, and in short the whole vulgar idea of Presbyterian worship, made me very gloomy’. As a result he ‘hastened from this place to St Paul’s’, where he caught ‘the conclusion of the service, and had my mind set right again’.14 History, and even the biography of biographers, not to mention the sociology, theology, psychology and religious studies material highlighted in this present work, all furnish areas ripe for advancing our grasp of how emotion and identity interplay in the life of individuals and communities. Sharing and learning the perspectives of diverse disciplines can only be of help in developing this field of study further as the sensitivities of scholars as well as of their ‘subjects’ increases to the benefit of all.

  See Douglas J. Davies, ‘Changing British ritualization’, in Linda Woodhead and Rebecca Catto (eds), Religion and Change in Modern Britain (Routledge, 2011, pp. 203– 18). 14   Frederick A. Pottle, with a preface by Christopher Morley, Boswell’s London Journal 1762–3 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966). 13

Chapter 1

The Role of Emotion and Identity in Mixed-faith Families Elisabeth Arweck

Introduction When I was invited to be part of the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Network on Emotion, Identity and Religious Communities, it was explained to me that the Network aimed to explore the ways in which patterns of emotion are preferred and encouraged within different religious–cultural groups and the way in which those emotions may be related to the scriptural or other more formal aspects of the tradition. The reason for assembling the various members of the Network was to focus on their respective fields of study in order to shed light on the significance of emotion in religious communities. Therefore I shall first outline the field in which the data reported here are situated, to provide the wider background of the research project that gave rise to the data. I shall then offer some thoughts on emotions in general and the sociology of emotions, before discussing some of the emotional aspects arising from the research in question. The Project on Mixed-faith Families With Eleanor Nesbitt as the principal investigator, I worked, as the researcher, on a three-year project (2006–2009) that investigated the religious identity formation of young people in mixed-faith families. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Fieldwork – consisting of semi-structured interviews with young people and their parents – was conducted over a period of about 18 months, from autumn 2006 to the end of February 2008. The stated aim of the project was to identify and explore how young people in mixed-faith families formed their religious identities. The study’s objectives comprised three aspects, which built on one another: • to identify differences and commonalties between children’s identity formation and parents’ expectations and perceptions of this; • to assess the impact of religious socialisation (formal and informal) and religious education on young people’s religious identity and their response;

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• to inform theoretical debate in religious studies and religious education on the representation of ‘faith communities’/’religious’ in syllabuses. The research questions explored the importance of a range of factors – such as gender, how much parents were committed to their faith traditions, education, socio-economic status, locality, religious calendars, perceptions of faith – in young people’s faith development. Also, we explored how these factors and their importance were represented by the young people and their parents. In our study, the term ‘mixed-faith families’ referred to combinations of the following four faiths: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. There were a number of reasons for choosing these four faiths, including the numerical preponderance of the four religions in the UK (see ‘Census’, 2001),1 the increase in intermarriages crossing various boundaries, previous research experience in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU), and the analytical advantage of matching two Semitic with two Indic faith communities. In semi-structured interviews we explored a range of topics with young people and their parents. The young people’s ages ranged from 5 to early 30s. The criterion of eligibility for participation was whether they still lived at home. The parents’ ages ranged from late 20s to early 50s. We aimed for a sample of 30 families – five families of each possible combination of the four faiths. When we approached families to ask whether they would be willing to take part in the study, parents identified themselves as Christian, Hindu, Sikh or Muslim and we then explored their varying levels of ‘commitment’ in the interviews.2 Given the involvement of young people and potentially sensitive issues, careful consideration was given to ethical aspects of the study, including issues of consent, negotiating access to families, contact with young children, confidentiality and data management. We gathered 185 interviews, of which 112 were with adults, the rest with young people. On average, four or five interviews were conducted with each person. Some interviews took over an hour, some only 20 minutes. Most of the interviews (110) were conducted in person, face to face, the rest by phone. We counted 28 ‘families’ as our sample. The term ‘families’ is used here in a wide   ‘Census’, 2001, see http://census.ac.uk/casweb or http://www.statistics.gov.yuk/ census2001/. 2   The original design of the project included participant observation of occasions when children learnt about religion, celebrated festivals or went through rites of passage, in the family, community or school context. Such participation was aimed to complement the interviews, but proved impossible. Another aspect of the planned research was the combination of ‘traditional/conventional ethnograph’ with the use of the Internet for identifying, contacting and interacting with potential families. This approach proved not very successful. The methodological issues and challenges we encountered are recorded in Eleanor Nesbitt and Elisabeth Arweck, ‘Issues Arising from an Ethnographic Investigation of the Religious Identity Formation of Young People in Mixed-Faith Families’, Fieldwork in Religion 5, no. 1 (2010): 7–30. 1

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sense, comprising varying family constellations, such as a family consisting of two parents and two children (as envisaged in our original research design) and a family represented by one person only. In some cases, not all the members of a family who were eligible to take part in our study were available for interview, for a number of reasons, including time constraints and language barriers. The families in our sample did not represent the full range of possible combinations of the four faiths, as we were not able to include Hindu–Muslim or Muslim–Sikh families. Our sample comprised two Hindu–Sikh, ten Hindu–Christian, six Christian–Sikh and ten Christian–Muslim families. Having provided an outline of the study, I shall now look at the notion or concept of emotion and how it relates to religions in general. Conceptualising Emotion In order to gain an understanding of the notion of emotion, one’s first recourse might be to look up the term in a dictionary. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary provides a range of aspects of ‘emotion’: it states that the term is derived from the French word ‘émouvoir’, which means ‘excite, move the feelings of’. This leads to ‘a (physical) moving, stirring, agitation’ and then to ‘any vehement or excited mental state’ and its use in psychology as ‘a mental feeling or affection’. The Shorter Oxford also lists all the words around emotion, such as ‘emotional’ and ‘emotionalist’ and so on. There is thus the connection of emotion with feeling, which extends the conceptual field: ‘feeling’ can be used interchangeably with ‘emotion’, but it also means the ‘capacity or readiness to feel’, ‘state of consciousness’ and ‘intuitive cognition or belief’. All this points to the subjective dimension and the interior of the individual. Ken Wilber’s integral framework (see Figure 1.1) maps the subjective as one of four fields, the other fields being the intersubjective, objective and interobjective.3 For the purpose of the discussion here, the second field of the interior – the intersubjective – is probably of more relevance rather than the two fields of the exterior – the objective and interobjective – although they also play a role. Wilber’s framework shows the close relationship between emotions and memories – which points to the work of Danièle Hervieu-Léger,4 who conceptualises religion as a chain of memory and thus examines the ways in which religion is transmitted from generation to generation, a topic that is pertinent to the project on mixed-faith 3   I have appropriated Wilber’s integral framework (e.g. Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 2nd edn (Boston: Shambhala, 1995)) for my own purposes here. I am grateful to Bereket Loul, ‘Deriving Meaning in Transition: Role of Religion for Young Asylum Seekers and Refugees’ (paper presented at the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Phase II Launch, Lancaster, 13 May 2009), for bringing the framework to my attention. 4   Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory (Cambridge: Polity, 2000).

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families.5 The connection between emotions and memory in Wilber’s framework points beyond the individual and the subjective, towards the collective, which is also a concern in Hervieu-Léger’s work. Wilber thus highlights the importance of culture in the intersubjective dimension, which is – according to Bikkhu Parekh – where religion is located. Parekh considers religion to form part of culture, together with language, memories, ethnicity and shared values.6

Figure 1.1

Ken Wilber’s integral framework

The Sociology of Emotions Another theoretical framework that informs the present discussion is the sociology of emotions, a fairly new field of study that I discovered when reading an article by Janet Holland, published in 2007, in which she discusses emotions in research,   See Elisabeth Arweck and Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Young People’s Identity Formation in Mixed-Faith Families: Discontinuity of Religious Traditions?’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 25, no. 1 (2010a): 67–87; Elisabeth Arweck and Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Growing Up in a Mixed-Family: Intact or Fractured Chain of Memory?’, in Religion and Youth, ed. Sylvia Collins-Mayo and Pink Dandelion (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010b), 167–74. 6   Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), 142–78; also see Arweck and Nesbitt, ‘Young People’s Identity Formation’. 5

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drawing attention to the importance of emotions in the production of knowledge and in advancing understanding, analysis and interpretation.7 The sociology of emotions emerged in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s and took hold in the UK during the 1990s.8 Its exponents basically recognise that emotions can contribute to an understanding of the social, thus going against the historical view in sociology that emotions are associated with the irrational and thus opposed to the objective scientific search for knowledge. Sociologists of emotions have argued that understanding emotions is essential to the pursuit of knowledge and that the relationship between them should be re-thought: rather than repressing emotion in epistemology it is necessary to rethink the relation between knowledge and emotion and construct conceptual models that demonstrate the mutually constitutive rather than oppositional relations between reason and emotions. Far from precluding the possibility of reliable knowledge, emotion as well as value must be shown as necessary to such knowledge.9

According to the sociology of emotions, the study of emotions can transcend the dichotomous ways of thinking that have restricted Western thought, since emotions lie at the juncture of fundamental dualisms such as mind–body, nature– culture and public–private.10 There are differences within the field also, regarding the theoretical perspective on what emotions are, which – as in other sub-sets of sociology – varies between the biological and the social. From the biological perspective, emotions are instinctual or the brain’s conscious response to instinctual visceral change. The social perspective is based on a social constructionist approach, but with variations within it, including a post-modern trend arguing for the primacy of discourse in the construction of emotions. An interactionist position sits somewhere between them or combines them.11   The following exposition on the sociology of emotions is greatly indebted to Holland’s section on this topic. Holland, Janet. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10 (2007): 195–209. 8   Since the present chapter was drafted, two publications on the sociology of emotion in religion have been published (Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010]; Douglas James Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011]), which are further indications of this area having become an important field. 9   A.M. Jaggar, ‘Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminism Epistemology’, in Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing, ed. Alison M. Jaggar and Susan Bordo (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 156–7; cited in Janet Holland, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10 (2007): 197. 10   Gillian Bendelow and Simon J. Williams (eds), Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues (London: Routledge, 1998); Simon Williams and Gillian Bendelow, ‘The “Emotional” Body’, Body & Society 2 (1996): 125–39. 11   Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); See Holland, 197. 7

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One of the proponents of the sociology of emotions, Arlie Hochschild, for example, sees emotion as the most important sense, but crucially as linked to both action and cognition. Hochschild introduced into the field influential concepts relating to the management of emotions. These include ‘emotion management’ (an effort by any means – conscious or not conscious – to change one’s feeling or emotion), where individuals try to shape and re-shape their feelings to fit their ‘inner cultural guidelines’.12 There are ‘feeling rules’ that guide individuals’ ‘emotion work’ of management. Hochschild says further that ‘in managing feeling, we partly create it … We can see the very act of managing emotion as part of what the emotion becomes.’13 Hochschild has been particularly interested in the commercialisation of emotion work in her studies of flight attendants and other workers and in gender differences. She states: Th[e] specialisation of emotional labor in the marketplace rests on the different childhood training of the heart that is given to girls and to boys … Moreover, each specialization presents men and women with different emotional tasks. Women are more likely to be presented with the task of mastering anger and aggression in the service of ‘being nice’. To men, the socially assigned task of aggressing against those that break rules of various sorts creates the private task of mastering fear and vulnerability.14

According to Holland,15 another influential figure in the sociology of emotions is Norman Denzin,16 who links emotions with the body, considering emotions as embodied experiences; thus the ‘emotions body’ becomes ‘a moving, feeling complex of sensible feelings, feelings of the lived body, intentional value feelings, and feelings of the self and moral person’.17 For Denzin, the sociological perspective on understanding emotions should be built at the intersection between emotions as embodied experiences, their social nature and their links with feelings of selfhood and personal identity reflectively experienced. There have been what Holland18 refers to as ‘disciplinary border skirmishes’ between psychology and psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic approaches to the study of the emotions and the sociology of emotions as to who can best understand the place of the emotions in the experience of human beings. While 12   Arlie Russell Hochschild, ‘The Sociology of Emotion as a Way of Seeing’, in Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues, ed. Gillian Bendelow and Simon J. Williams (London: Routledge, 1998), 9. 13   Ibid., 11. 14  Hochschild, The Managed Heart, 163, cited in Holland, 197 15   Holland, 197. 16   Norman K. Denzin, On Understanding Emotion (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984). 17   Ibid., 128, cited in Holland, 197. 18   Holland, 197.

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these ‘border skirmishes’ can be set aside here, two things are important to note: first, the complexity of understanding emotions in human experience, and second, the need to beware of objectifying emotion19 and to take emotion as a way of knowing the world, the means by which individuals make sense of, and relate to, their physical, natural and social world. So emotion has epistemological significance since one can only ‘know’ through one’s emotions and not simply one’s cognition or intellect.20 There is thus a relational aspect of emotion, which is included in the following definition of emotion by Ian Burkitt, signalling both complexity and relationality: emotions are multi-dimensional and cannot be reduced to biology, relations, or discourse alone, but belong to all these dimensions as they are constituted in ongoing relational practices. As such, the objects of our study in the sociology of emotions cannot be understood as ‘things’ but are complexes composed of different dimensions of embodied, interdependent human existence.21

Hochschild’s concept of ‘feeling rules’, Denzin’s point about the social nature of emotions and Burkitt’s relational aspect of emotions reverberate in Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead’s argument in A Sociology of Religious Emotion. In contrast to the approach represented in Wilber’s framework, Riis and Woodhead argue that the sociological dimension of religious emotion is quite distinct from the psychological and psychoanalytic. While emotions are generally assumed to be private, personal and subjective inner states, they are constructed in the interplay of social agents and structures, including those found within religion. Such structures relate to the ‘ever-changing relations with complexes of cultural symbols and material settings’.22 Riis and Woodhead stress the importance of social relations and of relations with material objects, cultural symbols and environmental settings in what they call ‘an emotional regime’.23 Emotions (including religious emotions) play a role in the triangle composed of the individual, society and symbolic/ material culture.24 Riis and Woodhead understand ‘emotional regimes’ as cultural constructs that are external ‘social facts’ in the Durkheimian sense.

  See Ann Game, ‘Sociology’s Emotions’, Review of Sociology and Anthropology 34 (1997): 385–99. 20   See Holland, 198. 21   Ian Burkitt, ‘Social Relationships and Emotions’, Sociology 31, no. 1 (1997): 42, cited in Holland, 198. 22   Riis and Woodhead, Religious Emotion, 7. 23   Ibid., 21. 24   Ibid., 47–51. 19

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A Sociology of Emotions in Religion It seems to me that the aspect of relationality and the thought of both Hochschild and Denzin can be usefully employed in the field of religion, although neither Hochschild’s nor Denzin’s work is concerned with emotion in religion. The following explains how I see the relevance for religion of what Hochschild and Denzin argue, especially with regard to emotion(s) in religion. Hochschild’s notion of ‘emotion management’ is described as an effort to change our feelings or emotions, whether this is conscious or not, an effort that involves shaping and re-shaping feelings to fit ‘inner cultural guidelines’. This means that there are ‘feeling rules’ that guide what is referred to as the ‘emotion work’ of management. Hochschild also says that managing feeling involves partly creating feeling so that the very act of managing emotion is part of what the emotion becomes.25 Although Hochschild looked at the commercialisation of emotion work in her studies of flight attendants and other workers and in gender differences, we can – if we interpret her ‘inner cultural guidelines’ as the values and meanings encoded in the teaching of a religion or of religions – trace tracks and patterns of what she calls ‘emotion work’. I shall elaborate further in a moment. Similarly, Denzin’s idea that emotions are embodied experiences – his notion of an ‘emotions body’ – can be applied to religion. As Denzin places the sociological perspective of understanding emotions at the intersection of emotions as embodied experiences, their social nature and their links with feelings of selfhood and personal identity, this intersection could be seen in terms of the materialisation of religion or materialised religion, which makes the immaterial aspects of religion manifest or which serves as an expression of these immaterial aspects or complements them. I am thinking, for example, of particular postures or physical expressions that accompany rituals or particular practices, such as the recitation of scripture or prayer. In her book on Lived Religion, Meredith McGuire26 makes a similar point, but approaches the issue by drawing attention to the way body practices – postures, movements and ways of focusing attention – can be conducive to spiritual experiences, making the human body a central part of the practice and experience of religion. Given the connection between the physical and emotional, embodied practices and emotions are intertwined. McGuire mentions that a deeply felt embrace can promote a sense of being connected with a spiritual community, that is with others with whom one shares collective memories and experiences – which highlights the relational aspect of emotion and points to aspects of emotion that go beyond Wilber’s subjective realm. Further, the point about collective memories refers us back to Hervieu-Léger’s concept of religion as a chain of memory – a connection that McGuire also draws – with emotion being a link in that chain. McGuire   Hochschild, ‘Sociology of Emotion’, 11.   Meredith B. McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 25 26

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suggests that ‘religious or spiritual practices are ways [in which] individuals engage their socialized senses in the activitation of embodied memory’.27 She makes reference to Pierre Bourdieu’s28 notion that all our senses – physical and social – are involved in remembering and embodying practices. In her inaugural address on religious sensations and aesthetics, Birgit Meyer29 makes a similar point; she speaks of ‘sensational forms’ ‘which make the transcendent sense-able’ and which are transmitted and shared (9). As Meyer states, the notion of ‘sensational form’ can also be applied to the ways in which material religious objects – such as images, books or buildings – address and involve beholders. Thus, reciting a holy book as the Quran, praying in front of an icon, or dancing around the manifestation of a spirit are also sensational forms through which religious practitioners are made to experience the presence and power of the transcendental.30

Meyer’s statement relates to the notion of materialised religion, in both physical (religious objects) and embodied forms (praying, dancing), which include the concomitant feelings and emotions. Thus, through ritual practice, social meanings become physically embodied,31 as do religious meanings: Religious ritual is like a chain of such embodied practices, each link having the potential to activate deep emotions and a sense of social connectedness, as well as spiritual meanings. The practices for engaging in ritual are embodied – embedded in the participant’s mind–body as a unity. Body practices can make body metaphor a physical, mental, and emotional reality.32

Meyer notes ‘the resilience of particular religiously induced bodily disciplines and sensory practices’, pointing out that, once ingrained, they endure beyond individuals’ adherence to the religions they were brought up in. She cites the examples of former Protestants who ‘are still gripped by a diffuse feeling of awe when hearing the sound of a church organ’ and African converts to Christianity who are touched by the sound of ‘pagan drums’.33

  Ibid., 100.   Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). 29   Birgit Meyer, Religious Sensations: Why Media, Aesthetics and Power Matter in the Study of Contemporary Religion (Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit [Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen], 2006). 30  Ibid. 31  McGuire, Lived Religion, 99–100. 32   Ibid., 100. 33  Meyer, Religious Sensations, 25–6. 27 28

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McGuire’s reference to the way individuals feel connected to a (religious) community also ties in with the concept of religion as encapsulating ‘inner cultural guidelines’ that engender emotion work, in Hochschild’s sense. When we look at the repertoire of processes and procedures that serve to socialise individuals into a religion, we can see a range of emotions embedded in them and these include a strong relational aspect. For example, in Hindu nurture, festivals and religious practices (such as fasting) have strong emotional over- and undertones. Festivals teach people to be mentally and physically pure; they help people in resolving conflicts and bind them together for harmonious living and welfare; they have deep spiritual meaning and purpose, and remind people of the presence of a supreme reality or God. They are a kind of maintenance programme, as Sridhar points out.34 There are also emotional aspects in devotion (to God or seminal religious figures – for example, in Islam, the Prophet; in Christianity, Mary), in the mourning for martyrs or ancestors, in devotional singing, in religious narrative, in the recitation of scripture, in remembering and praying for family members who have died, in prayer and so on. Thus being socialised into or nurtured in a particular tradition sets the tracks and patterns of the ‘emotion work’ (or the ‘emotional regime’) associated with particular elements of belief and practice. Emotion work, as Hochschild points out, has two aspects: on the one hand, the inner guidelines manage our feelings; on the other hand, we shape emotions through this management process. Also, to put this within Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, religious socialisation embeds learned senses and meanings. The ‘management of emotions’ in this sense thus includes the script for emotions that are ‘permitted’ and accepted, socially, and those that are not. Again, there is the intersection of the subjective and the intersubjective. Again, there is the close link between culture and religion: the question of which emotions are put on public display – either because they form part of a religious act or because they are (socially) expected to be on display – and which emotions are kept private is subject to cultural regulation. An example in this regard is whether and how one shows grief in public in a Hindu context compared with a Jewish context or a Western Christian context. All of this is also related to gender, as certain practices are clearly the domain of either men or women, such as, for example, the display of grief, just mentioned. In her Lucy F. Farrow Lecture of 2009, Bernice Martin expounds the gender aspect in the aesthetic of Pentecostalism – with ‘aesthetic’ understood here as ‘the material, embodied expression of Pentecostalism in its worship and in its community practices’.35 As she explains, underlying the gendered aesthetic in 34   Melukote K. Sridhar, ‘Sacred Celebrations: The Role of Festivals in Nurturing Hindu Children’s Spirituality’, in Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World’s Religious Traditions, ed. Karen-Marie Yust et al. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 223–35. 35   Bernice Martin, Woman and the Pentecostal Aesthetic: The International Lucy F. Farrow Lecture for 2009 (Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 2009), 1, see also 15.

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Pentecostalism is the division of labour – the model of complementary gender roles, which sees women, among other things, as more emotional than rational.36 Thus Pentecostal women are particularly adept in the aesthetic ways through which access to the transcendent is achieved,37 as illustrated by studies of Pentecostal women in various parts of the world. One such study is by Miriam Rabelo, Sueli Mota and Cláudio Almeida,38 who describe how Pentecostal women prepare themselves to receive the Holy Spirit through a series of emotional and physical stages, by adopting particular postures and gestures, and directing their attention inwards and by banishing negative emotions, such as anger and envy.39 Further on the ‘management of emotions’, religious traditions also include mechanisms in their emotional scripts that override the very rules and prescriptive behaviours they seek to instil in believers, such as the ‘law of priority’ in Islam or the parable of the Good Samaritan in Christianity. In addition, there is the almost universal rule of hospitality, the obligation to look after strangers and the mandate to exercise compassion for the weak and destitute (e.g. widows and orphans). At the core of these overriding principles is the emotion of love, which is considered to originate in God – however understood. This emotion and others, such as the emotion of devotion and prayer, are shared by well-nigh all religions. There is thus some tension between the scripted set of emotions in religion and the kind of emotion that is at the discretion of the individual – the former setting tracks and patterns, the latter opening itself up to spontaneity and relying on the ‘good’ judgement of the person concerned. There is a third element that adds to the tension, which is the individual’s agency. Parekh points out that individuals respond to culture in various ways, suggesting three main patterns: embrace one’s culture fully; embrace one’s culture selectively; be culturally footloose by picking and choosing a magpie’s nest of cultural elements. Parekh’s patterns can also be applied to the way individuals respond to religion or the religion in which they were brought up on the emotional level: they may embrace it fully; be selective in what they embrace; or adopt a pick-and-mix strategy. Having discussed some general aspects on emotions and the way the sociology of emotions approaches this topic, I shall now examine the role of emotions for the participants of our study.

  Ibid., 5.   See ibid., 18. 38   Miriam C.M. Rabelo, Sueli R. Mota and Cláudio R. Almeida, ‘Cultivating the Senses and Giving in to the Sacred: Notes on Body and Experience Among Pentecostal Women in Salvador, Brazil’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 24, no. 1 (2009): 1–18. 39   See also Martin, Woman and the Pentecostal Aesthetic, 19. Martin cites two other studies in this context (see Martin, 18–20). 36 37

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Emotion and Identity in Mixed-faith Families The following presents some observations that I have teased out of the data arising from our project. It should be noted that emotion was not the focus of our study, but it was evident during the interviews that some of the topics we discussed with the participants raised highly emotive issues. Emotion in religion is about what we show to other people – the religious community we are part of – and how (directly or subtly) we appeal to other people’s emotions or not; hence also the connection between the term ‘emotionalist’ and ‘blackmail’. Some of this is written into the script of the religion concerned and communicated to individuals as they are socialised into their respective religions. Some of the emotions we display can be said to be more determined by culture – if we separate, for analytical purposes, culture from religion. Culture and religion are also closely linked to ethnicity, and one could see ethnic identity as an emotional investment in the community one is a part of. Gabriele Marranci, for example, defines identity as ‘an emotional commitment through which people experience their autobiographical selves’.40 A number of parents in our study – from a range of backgrounds, including Caucasian Christian, Punjabi Sikh and Gujarati Hindu – had distanced themselves from the religion in which they had been brought up. Some drew a clear distinction between culture and religion, accepting the one, but putting aside the other. The process of stepping back from the religion of their upbringing went hand in hand with the related emotions, mainly the decision not be drawn into the emotional framework of the religion concerned or slowly drifting away from it. However, such parents tended to remain emotionally tied to their ethnic backgrounds, whether positively or negatively. In a way, following Marranci, one could say that they still had some investment in their respective communities. For example, a father from a Punjabi Sikh background said, ‘I’m a Punjabi and I’m proud of it’, while a mother, also from a Punjabi Sikh background, indicated that she could not escape being a Punjabi Sikh, whether she liked it or not, and for her it was but a label. Some parents referred to the ‘emotional blackmail’ that went on in families of their ethnic background (Punjabi) and the ‘deep memories’ their families (also Punjabi) had – which brings us back to Hervieu-Léger and her idea of religion as a chain of memory: there was a strong wish in those families to pass on religious– cultural traditions and conventions. By contrast, parents from a British Church of England background reported the lack of display of emotions in their religious upbringing. Hence the cultural differences in the way emotion is shown. The comment by a mother from a British white Church of England background about her Punjabi Sikh in-laws made me aware of the differences in cultures concerning assumptions about the individual and individual agency. This parent 40   Gabriele Marranci, Jihad Beyond Islam (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006), 7, cited in Jason Dean, ‘Review of G. Marranci’s Jihad Beyond Islam’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 23, no. 1 (2008): 124–5.

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remarked on the amount of control that parents in Asian families exerted over their children, regardless of how old the children were. There were expectations that the relationship between parent and child or between elder and younger people would last throughout the parents’ lifetime. This led me to realise that, within an Asian perspective, the individual is far more bound into a collective – the wider family and the community – than the individual within a Western perspective. This has consequences for the extent of autonomy and agency that individuals have or are able to claim. Thus participants in our study from, for example, an Asian Muslim background faced a number of expectations to do with religion and family, which those from a white British background did not experience. These expectations included that they remain within the religious tradition, honour obligations to the community, marry within the fold and so on. Again, some of those expectations were linked to gender and also to the seniority of the children. For example, certain responsibilities would be expected of the oldest son. Such expectations were, of course, what some of the parents in our study had broken away from. However, regarding the issue of ‘marrying out’, religious traditions (e.g. Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity historically) generally expect individuals to suppress their individual/personal emotions and stay within the fold, that is not break taboos (again, there is the question of how much agency or autonomy the individual has). Overriding such taboos causes ‘upset’ or ‘emotion’ in the now defunct sense of the word ‘emotion’ – tumult, stir – as our study and others, such as stories in the Bible or Tania Datta’s BBC Radio 4 programme on mixed couples, The Last Taboo (broadcast on 12 June 2006), vividly illustrate. Further, some representatives of religious traditions argue that, apart from causing a rent in the fabric of the community, breaking taboos also leads to (emotional) confusion in the children issuing from such unions, because they will not know where they belong when their parents are from different religious backgrounds. Another observation arising from our study concerns the links between emotion and memory and their role in transmitting religion from generation to generation. Some of the grandparents in our study felt strongly about passing on their religious–cultural tradition – or at least something of their tradition – to the grandchildren. This urge was often expressed in grandparents’ wish for the grandchildren to undergo a rite of passage – for example, a Hindu grandmother wanted one of the life-cycle rituals or samskaras performed for her grandson: the ceremonial shaving of the first hair (in Sanskrit cudakarana, in Hindi mundane)41   See, Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Religious Nurture’, in Encyclopedia of Hinduism, ed. Denise Cush and Catherine Robinson (London: Routledge, 2008), 677–9. Melukote Sridhar (2006) explains that Hindu sacraments are refinement rituals (samskaras), of which there are 16, including tonsuring of hair, initiation into learning, and sacred thread ceremony. The rituals cover a Hindu’s life from birth to death. A dozen of them are meant to assist in the development of children into balanced adults. Eleanor Nesbitt (2008) explains these rituals as part of the formal and informal nurture of young people. However, she points out (personal communication of 31 August 2012) that (most) Hindu children do not experience 41

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or a puja (a ritual ceremony) to mark this stage – as if by doing so the young people would be claimed by the respective tradition. In some cases, this caused (emotional) problems with the extended family, especially as the parents were agreed that their children should be exposed to both traditions and should be free to choose themselves which tradition they wanted to embrace, if any. The parents clearly understood that performing the ceremony in question would indeed claim their child for that religion. The previous point leads to another issue: the trajectory that emotions undergo in a person’s lifetime. The grandparents who felt strongly about passing their religion on to their grandchildren had in fact had periods in their own lives when they were not steeped in their religion or when they had jettisoned their religion altogether, which had happened for a range of reasons. However, becoming grandparents had kindled or rekindled in them emotions about religion that had lain dormant. Thus age and stage in life and life circumstances all play a role in emotion work. Another indication of how emotions can be stirred by life events came from adults in our study who reported that they had become aware of particular emotions at the time when they became parents. Emotions that lay hidden until that lifechanging experience can reveal themselves at that point, as Lowri Turner (a white British woman married to an Asian with a Hindu background) discovered to her surprise (The Guardian, 7 July 2007: family, 7–8).42 In Turner’s case, it revealed deep-seated prejudices or ‘mixed emotions’, as her article is aptly titled. When they become parents, individuals tend to re-assess how they feel about their own and their partner’s religious background and how much or how little of either they want to pass on to their child. Such emotion can also arise in relation to rites of passage that cannot be performed and thus require ‘emotion management’. Such rites may channel a longing for spiritual expression, but come at an emotional cost when there are reasons when they cannot be performed. For example, in our study, a mother from a Christian background felt the urge to have her child christened, but was conscious that this would be difficult for her husband, who had a Muslim background. A contributor to Affinity, the newsletter of the UK-based Muslim/ Christian marriage support group, expressed this as follows: The baptism of a child could well be a deeply traumatic and alienating experience for a non-Christian parent, with a feeling of the child’s being ‘appropriated’; but the elimination of this and other religious markers can also have a huge emotional and spiritual cost. as many as 16 samskaras; her data relating to the UK suggest that most boys – at least in Punjabi and Gujarati families – have a mundan and quite a few Gujarati and Maharashtrian brahmin boys may be invested with a thread. Therefore, until marriage, the mundan, which is almost exclusively for boys, is currently the most generally observed of the samskaras. 42   Muslim/Christian Marriage Support Group, ‘Longing for Spiritual Expression’, Affinity: Newsletter of the Muslim/Christian Marriage Support Group (2003): 6–7.

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I conclude with the words of a father who had taken part in our study. He had moved away from the religious tradition in which he had been brought up. For him it was the institutional structure and the ritualistic aspect of Roman Catholicism that he had come to reject. He described how he had moved from the religious to the spiritual, from the organisational to the fluid, free-floating, mystical side of religion. However, he could see how important the structures of organised religion could be for individuals and that they could provide an emotional framework for a young person growing up and finding his/her way in life. This is the way he expressed it: my attitude towards organised religion was fairly … and still is, really, fairly … hm … not negative, but … I’m aware so much … of the pitfalls and the control aspect of it, as I see it, whereas the one good thing about … a religious tradition and a child growing up in that is, it does provide some kind of .. moral or spiritual framework … and I’m aware that that’s … valuable, even though … I’m not keen on the … organisation or the edifice itself and there’s a lot of things wrong with it, I do appreciate – and I can look back to my own childhood and find some parts of it that, yes, I’m glad I had that … input at that time … but that … is specifically about being a parent, that you become more aware through … your child’s eyes, what are the good … aspects of it. … Basically, any kind of … moral framework like that … is a good thing. … there’s some things that I’d disagree with it, but then there are about … all religions and all … religious organisations … but the essence of it being … leading the good life or … being … loving or caring or … is a good thing and … you can’t really dispute that … … ’cause when you strip everything away … and whether that’s … events that happen in your life, like bereavement or … whatever it is … then … what you draw on … it’s a brave person that can draw on … their own self, but … when I’ve kind of drawn on that, it’s become in relation with … my faith … that, I suppose, is when the … almost the ritualistic side of … organised religion, though … extremely dull and really boring [laughs], from my perspective, can be quite good in that you … you can be touching base a little bit or you can get a little bit of inkling that it isn’t just about … the everyday and making money … and having a nice holiday … and accumulating things …

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References Arweck, Elisabeth, and Eleanor Nesbitt. ‘Growing Up in a Mixed-Family: Intact or Fractured Chain of Memory?’ In Religion and Youth, edited by Sylvia Collins-Mayo and Pink Dandelion, 167–74. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2010. Arweck, Elisabeth, and Eleanor Nesbitt. ‘Young People’s Identity Formation in Mixed-Faith Families: Discontinuity of Religious Traditions?’ Journal of Contemporary Religion 25, no. 1 (2010): 67–87. Bendelow, Gillian, and Simon J. Williams (eds), Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues. London: Routledge, 1998. Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Burkitt, Ian. ‘Social Relationships and Emotions’, Sociology 31, no. 1 (1997): 37–55. ‘Census’, 2001. See http://census.ac.uk/casweb or http://www.statistics.gov.yuk/ census2001/. Davies, Douglas James. Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Dean, Jason. ‘Review of G. Marranci’s Jihad Beyond Islam’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 23, no. 1 (2008): 124–5. Denzin, Norman K. On Understanding Emotion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984. Game, Ann. ‘Sociology’s Emotions’, Review of Sociology and Anthropology 34 (1997): 385–99. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. Religion as a Chain of Memory. Cambridge: Polity, 2000. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Hochschild, Arlie Russell ‘The Sociology of Emotion as a Way of Seeing’. In Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues, edited by Gillian Bendelow and Simon J. Williams, 3–15. London: Routledge, 1998. Holland, Janet. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10 (2007): 195–209. Jaggar, A.M. ‘Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminism Epistemology.’ In Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing, edited by Alison M Jaggar and Susan Bordo, 145–71. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989. Loul, Bereket. ‘Deriving Meaning in Transition: Role of Religion for Young Asylum Seekers and Refugees’. Paper presented at the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Phase II Launch, Lancaster, 13 May 2009. Marranci, Gabriele. Jihad Beyond Islam. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006. Martin, Bernice. Woman and the Pentecostal Aesthetic: The International Lucy F. Farrow Lecture for 2009. Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 2009.

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McGuire, Meredith B. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Meyer, Birgit. Religious Sensations: Why Media, Aesthetics and Power Matter in the Study of Contemporary Religion. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit [Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen], 2006. Muslim/Christian Marriage Support Group. ‘Longing for Spiritual Expression’. Affinity: Newsletter of the Muslim/Christian Marriage Support Group (2003): 6–7. Nesbitt, Eleanor, and Elizabeth Arweck. ‘Issues Arising from an Ethnographic Investigation of the Religious Identity Formation of Youth People in MixedFaith Families’. Fieldwork in Religion 5, no. 1 (2010): 7–30. Nesbitt, Eleanor. ‘Religious Nurture’. In Encyclopedia of Hinduism, edited by Denise Cush and Catherine Robinson, 677–9. London: Routledge, 2008. Parekh, Bhikhu. Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000. Rabelo, Miriam C M., Sueli R. Mota and Cláudio R. Almeida. ‘Cultivating the Senses and Giving in the to the Sacred: Notes on Body and Experience Among Pentecostal Women in Salvador, Brazil’. Journal of Contemporary Religion 24, no. 1 (2009): 1–18. Riis, Ole, and Linda Woodhead. A Sociology of Religious Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Sridhar, Melukote K. ‘Sacred Celebrations: The Role of Festivals in Nurturing Hindu Children’s Spirituality’. In Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World’s Religious Traditions, edited by Karen-Marie Yust, Aostre N. Johnson, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, 223–35. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006. Wilber, Ken. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, 2nd edn. Boston: Shambhala, 1995. Williams, Simon, and Gillian Bendelow. ‘The ‘Emotional’ Body’. Body & Society 2 (1996): 125–39.

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Chapter 2

Sikh Spectrum: Mapping Emotions in the Panth Eleanor Nesbitt

Introduction The opening of the Sikh scripture, the Gurū Granth Sāhib, and the words most widely known and repeated by Sikhs are: ik oankār satnām kartā purakh nirbhau nirvair … (One being, truth by name, creator, without fear or enmity…). For humans, by contrast with the ‘One being’, the very rare state of sahaj (equipoise) is a spiritual goal and blessing.1 As in other faith communities, innumerable contrasts can be found between divine perfection and spiritual aspiration on the one hand and human outworkings of emotion on the other, and between the words of scripture – especially about the nature of God/ Ultimate Reality – and adherents’ conduct. However, my focus will be on the less dichotomous lines of tension that underlie Sikh patterns of identity and emotion, which I picture as a triangle and three overlapping circles. This conceptual framework has developed from my thirty years of looking analytically at ethnographic data from field studies of Sikh socialisation in the UK Midlands. The present chapter’s basis is, however, primarily documentary: devotional and scholarly literature, supplemented by post-2000 autobiography, poetry and drama in the UK. The above-mentioned triangle and circles will need to be understood in conjunction with my suggestion that the ideas of balance and tension are useful for navigating such a vast, complex and changing terrain as emotion in the Panth (a Sikh word for the Sikh community). The chapter concludes by distinguishing between what emotions Sikhs actually feel and what emotions they feel that they can legitimately show, and between emotions sacralised in scripture and emotions enshrined in secular tradition or fantasised in Bollywood films. But first, some preliminary definitions are offered, followed by an indication of my own position vis-à-vis my subject. Emotion has been defined as ‘inward experience of strong feeling, often accompanied by physiological changes’.2 The emotions and states of mind   AG = Adi Granth, the Sikh scripture which (in the Gurmukhi original) has standard pagination, 2015. 2   M. Johnstone, R. Kaur and A. Jack, ‘Emotions’, in Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought, ed. Kenneth McLeish (London: Bloomsbury, 1993), 232. 1

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discussed in this chapter – those that surface most persistently from an overview of documentation and ethnographic data – approximate (to varying degrees) to psychologists’ lists of ‘basic’ or ‘primary’, ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ emotions.3 In line with Riis and Woodhead4 on the sociology of religious emotion, my focus is not a sub-set of emotion, sometimes designated ‘religious emotions’, such as awe and wonder, but the wider range of individual and collective Sikh experience. In slight modification of Parrot’s classification (e.g. by moving ‘pride’ out of the category of ‘joy’ and adding ‘wonder, devotion and reverence’), some of the most evident emotions in literature by and about Sikhs are: love [prem], lust [kām], longing [birahā, vairāg, i.e. the yearning of separation from one’s beloved], compassion [dayā]; ecstasy [vismād], joy [anand], contentment/peace of mind [sukh], optimism [chardhī kalā]; pride [hankār, ahankār]; wonder, devotion [bhagati] and reverence [sharaddhā]; anger [krodh, gussā], enmity [vair], vengeance [badlā]; sadness [udās], grief [dukh]; fear [dar, bhaī], and anxiety [ghabrāt]. In line with the anthropologist Inge-Britt Krause’s insights,5 this chapter contests potentially ethnocentric (Western/European) distinctions that may be drawn between, for example, the psychological and the physiological. Krause’s ethnographic study of the ‘sinking heart’ [dil girdā hai] phenomenon among Sikhs in Bedford, UK affirmed the contribution that anthropology can make to cross-cultural patient care.6 On the basis of this fieldwork Krause argues that her ‘constructivist … view [of emotion] is confirmed …by anthropological enquiry’, and that: for Punjabis who adhere to a humoural paradigm somewhat similar to that of the ancient Greeks, the illness complex which in English may be glossed as ‘sinking heart’ is simultaneously a way of conceptualizing heart symptoms and a way of expressing and communicating sadness. The illness is caused by heat which in turn may be caused by thinking too much about oneself and withdrawing from social relationships.7

Krause’s recognition of the need to deconstruct concepts such as emotion in the light of individuals’ own cultural frameworks was foreshadowed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his analysis of the ‘inside’, emotional aspect and the ‘outside’, presentational aspect of the Javanese individuals whose lives   W. Gerrod Parrott (ed.), Emotions in Social Psychology: Key Readings (Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2000). 4   Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 5   Inga-Britt Krause, ‘Sinking Heart: A Punjabi Communication of Distress’, Social Science and Medicine 29, no. 4 (1989): 563–75; Inga-Britt Krause, ‘Family Therapy and Anthropology: A Case for Emotions’, Journal of Family Therapy 15, no. 1 (2004): 35–56. 6   Krause, ‘Sinking Heart’. 7   Krause, ‘Family Therapy’, 49. 3

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he studied.8 In accordance with Geertz’s interpretive tradition, I take as read that ‘empathy’ requires of the enquiring ‘outsider’ application to learning the symbolic system of those whose lives are being studied. Emotion and Identity Emotion provides an affective core to one’s identity, and identity can be pictured as both synchronic or horizontal (with peers) and vertical or diachronic (historically via the generations of one’s family, for example). Both sociological and psychodynamic approaches to identity aim to link the inner and the outer world,9 and this outer world includes awareness of the labelling and stereotyping of one’s community by other individuals. Identity is precipitated by awareness of difference,10 it is ‘socially bestowed, socially sustained and socially transformed’.11 It is both fluid and narrative,12 a narration related to multiple other narratives,13 and the ethnographic interview itself may contribute, however minutely, to the interviewee’s ‘self-narration’ of who he or she is.14 Sikh (meaning literally ‘a learner’) became the name for the (mainly Punjabi) religious community devoted to Gurū Nānak (1469–1539), his nine successors and the Gurū Granth Sāhib, a scripture believed to be the Sikhs’ living Gurū.15 In the present chapter the adjective ‘Sikh’ includes all who identify themselves as Sikh, whether or not they are conversant with religious practice, such as worship in a gurdwara. Thus ‘Sikh’ includes not only ‘ful-on Sikhs’ (to quote a recent interviewee), such as khālsā or amritdhārī Sikhs (initiated Sikhs who maintain   Clifford Geertz, ‘“From the Native’s Point of View”: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28, no. 1 (1 October 1974): 26–45. 9   K. Plummer, ‘Identity’, in The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought, ed. William Outhwaite and T.B. Bottomore (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 270–72. 10   Henri Tajfel, Social Identity and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 11   Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality; A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966); Plummer, ‘Identity’. 12   Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity, 1991); Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 13   D. Loseke, ‘The Study of Identity as Cultural, Institutional, Organizational and Personal Narratives: Theoretical and Empirical Integrations’, The Sociological Quarterly (2007): 48, 661–88. 14   Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘British, Asian and Hindu: Identity, Self-Narration and the Ethnographic Interview’, Journal of Beliefs and Values 19, no. 2 (1998): 189–200. 15   For further definition see Eleanor Nesbitt, Sikhism: a Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 8

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the discipline required of initiates) and the larger number of uninitiated keshdhārī Sikhs (whose hair and – in the case of adult males – beard are neither cut nor trimmed), but also the many sahajdhārīs (uninitiated Sikhs) who include monā (short-haired, clean-shaven male Sikh), as well as patit (lapsed initiates). In other words, I include both ‘Sikhs’ and ‘proper Sikhs’,16 to use the distinction made by many of my Sikh interviewees, or – to use a Canadian writer’s distinction – both ‘practicing’ [sic] and ‘non-practicing Sikhs’.17 ‘Non-practicing’ is elaborated as: those who follow only some Sikh beliefs and practices. For example, third and fourth generation Sikhs in England and Canada are more likely to be into drinking beer, smoking, cutting their hair, and living a non-Sikh way of life than being a practicing Sikh.

However, the generational shift is by no means uniform. Thus, to quote Sathnam Sanghera, a London-based Sikh journalist, writing about his female UK contemporaries: You have absolutely no idea what end of the Punjabi spectrum they are coming from, and whether they mean what they say. They could be anything from a sword-wielding religious Sikh who has never cut their hair or left their house without a chaperone (or pretending to be), to a nymphomaniac alcoholic who is throwing up in your lap after half an hour and demanding you move on to China Whites for a boogie.18

In their discussions of the identity and experience of young South Asians, including Sikhs, in the diaspora, the educational psychologist Paul Ghuman (2003)19 and some other scholars present them as ‘between two cultures’, and this view is supported by UK Sikhs’ fiction, poetry and autobiography. Sathnam Sanghera explains: ‘so many British Asians are (like me), for want of a better word, schizophrenic, constantly switching between personas to fit into different worlds’.20 However, while acknowledging such accounts, scholars increasingly point to individuals’ identities being simultaneously multiple and situational, and also

  Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Sikhs and Proper Sikhs: Young British Sikhs’ Perceptions of Their Identity’, in Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change, ed. N. Gerald Barrier and Pashaura Singh (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999), 315–53. 17   B.A. Robinson, http://www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism3.htm, 2006. 18   Sathnam Sanghera, If You Don’t Know Me by Now: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies In Wolverhampton (London: Viking, 2008), 184. 19   Paul A. Singh Ghuman, South Asian Adolescents in the West (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003). 20  Sanghera, If You Don’t Know Me by Now, 184. 16

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integrated.21 Jacobson’s analysis of young UK Pakistanis’ identity as comprising ethnic, national and religious identities applies too to diasporic Sikhs.22 None the less, the same individual may well experience and describe anxiety that is deeply felt as ‘culture clash’, yet also demonstrate the ‘multiple cultural competence’ of an integrated plural identity.23 A Sikh’s individual identity is inseparable from identification with a range of overlapping groups, including non-Sikh Punjabis and his or her peer group (which in the diaspora may be largely non-Punjabi), as well as identity with the Sikh (religious) community, the Panth (literally ‘path’),24 and with Sikhs as a qaum or ‘nation’ in the sense of a ‘people who stand together’.25 Thus Sikhs collectively were outraged and traumatised by the events of 1984 (the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and the subsequent violence), and their sense of a separate identity was heightened by the events and consequent ‘hurt sentiments’.26 The invasion of the Golden Temple ‘was regarded by many Sikhs as an act of desecration that warranted revenge’.27 Before proceeding further, reflexivity calls for some explication of my own positioning.28 As a Quaker, of Anglican background, I am an insider to the experience of ‘faith’,29 but not to the particular faith under discussion (Sikhism). Moreover, by marriage I am part of a Punjabi – but not Sikh – family, and I have been conducting research (principally ethnographic and UK based) for over thirty years. Sikhs who have shared their understandings with me include the writers 21   Sissel Østberg and Community Religions Project, Pakistani Children in Norway: Islamic Nurture in a Secular Context (Leeds: Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds, 2003). 22   J. Jacobson, Islam in Translation: Religion and Identity Amoung British Pakistani Youth (London: Routledge, 1998). 23   Robert Jackson and Eleanor M. Nesbitt, Hindu Children in Britain (Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books, 1993). 24   See W.H. McLeod, ‘On the Word Panth: A Problem of Terminology and Definition’, Contributions to Indian Sociology 12, no. 2 (1978): 287–95; Roger Ballard, ‘Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change in Four Dimensions of Punjabi Religion’, in Punjabi Identity in a Global Context, ed. P. Singh and S.S. Thandi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 7–38. 25   McLeod, ‘On the Word Panth: A Problem of Terminology and Definition’, 170. 26   I. Glushkova, ‘“Frontier Posts” in the Making: The 21st Century Mass Media’s Impact on “Ramsetu Movement” and “Amarnath Agitation”’ (presented at the The Public Representation of a Religion Called Hinduism Session 4, University of Manchester, 9 July 2009). 27   M. Juergensmeyer, ‘Religious Violence’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. Peter B. Clarke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 902. 28   See, too, Eleanor Nesbitt, Interfaith Pilgrims: Living Truths and Truthful Living (London: Quaker Books, 2003). 29   Pink Dandelion, A Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers: The Silent Revolution (Lampeter: E. Mellen Press, 1996).

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Piara Singh Sambhi, Sewa Singh Kalsi, Kailash Puri, Darshan Singh Tatla and Gopinder Kaur. Yet, as Riis and Woodhead remind us: It is impossible to gain immediate, reliable access to what participants in a social situation are feeling: we are not socialized as they are, and we do not operate within exactly the same framework of memories and cultural resources.30

None the less, an alert, multiply informed empathy is an attainable and vital aid, and – as already suggested – the diversity of socialising influences within Sikh society means that a Sikh scholar too would have to acknowledge the specificity of his/her own positioning. Balance or Tension? Central to sikhī are concepts that denote a fine balance, the ideal balance to which the gurmukh (Guru-focused) individual aspires. Thus the sant-sipāhī is a saintsoldier or ‘warrior-saint’,31 combining meditative and combative qualities, and ready to spring to disciplined, courageous action in defence of righteousness and of anyone who is oppressed. The life of the sant-sipāhī is to be a balance of sevā (altruistic service) and simran (remembrance of the divine nām, divine truth encapsulated in a single word). In adulthood the balance is to be expressed through living a grahastī life (as a ‘householder’, spouse and parent) rather than through either world-renouncing asceticism or irresponsible hedonism. This is a synchronous balance that diverges too from an older, Hindu exhortation to a life of successive stages, each with its distinct focus, and with the grahastī life giving way to years of increasing renunciation of family ties. In mystical terms the ultimate goal of human life for a Sikh is sahaj, a state of enlightenment, a ‘blissful union’. Sahaj also translates as ‘equipoise, equanimity and equilibrium’.32 While the ideal balance continues to inspire religiously observant Sikhs, the experience of most Sikhs is of less than perfect equanimity. In many instances the emotions that a Sikh experiences can be mapped in relation to lines of tension. These can be represented as a triangle comprising: panjābīat (Punjabi-ness, traditional Punjabi culture); sikhī (the Gurūs’ teaching, Sikh spirituality plus the discipline expected of an initiated Sikh, that is a Khālsā Sikh, also known as amritdhārī); and modernity (or ‘late modernity’, referring to the ‘western’ and secular aspect of contemporary life, especially in diaspora

  Riis and Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion, 219.   Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh, Warrior Saints: Three Centuries of the Sikh Military Tradition (London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Sikh Foundation, 1999). 32   Dewan Singh, http://www.allaboutsikhs.com/sikhismarticles/guru-nanaks-conceptof-sahaj-gateway-to-sikhism, Guru Nanak’s Concept of Sahaj: Gateway to Sikhism, no date. 30

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settings). These three concepts of panjābīat, sikhī and modernity are analytically pivotal for observing and interpreting evidence of emotion in a Sikh context. Some of the many contradictions between the demands of these three will be highlighted as sources of tension in the lives of contemporary Sikhs. I contend too that the variables of gender, caste and generation (the three overlapping circles) can heighten the tensions between panjābīat, sikhī and modernity, and these variables shape identities and contribute to emotions. This is illustrated by particular attention to the experiences of women, of members of the lowest castes and of young adults, three overlapping groups. The pull between panjābīat and sikhī; between modernity and sikhī, and between modernity and panjābīat, on occasion manifests as stress and emotional outbursts. The Canadian scholar Kamala Nayar lists many such points of divergence (and so of psychosocial tension) between ‘traditional Punjabi values’, ‘Sikh spiritual beliefs’ and ‘modern social ideals’: hence, for example, in relation to ‘family’ Nayar suggests the ‘traditional Punjabi value’ of ‘interdependence; extended family’ whereby ‘attachment to family members is encouraged; central for socialization and production’ (2010).33 Under ‘Sikh spiritual beliefs’, however, ‘worldly attachment to family and others is regarded as a barrier to liberation or connectedness with EkOnkar’ (‘God’), while in terms of ‘modern social ideals’ emphasis is on the ‘nuclear family’ involving ‘some socialization but more of a unit of consumption’. Similarly, dominant custom requires conspicuous expenditure (mainly by the bride’s family) on marriages, including dowry items and the generous provision of alcoholic drinks for male guests. By contrast, Sikhs’ religious teaching condemns the display of wealth and forbids intoxicants.34 However, as we shall see, on occasion panjābīat, sikhī and modernity, or any two of these, can be mutually reinforcing in precipitating a particular action. For example, the emphases of sikhī are sometimes closer to the values of modernity than of panjābīat. Thus: Family custom often dictates that sons and daughters marry members of the same zāt (caste…). In rejecting this, as many Sikhs wish to, they are in fact not abandoning Sikh religious teaching [although the Gurus who married did so within caste, and they married their children within caste], and are arguably acting in accordance with it.35

33   K. Nayar, ‘Sikh Women in Vancouver: An Analysis of their Psychosocial Issues’, in Sikhism and Women: History, Text, and Expirience, ed. Doris R. Jakobsh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 252–75. 34   Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Sikhism’, in Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions, ed. Peggy Morgan and Clive Lawton, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 121. 35   Ibid.

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Moreover, panjābīat, sikhī and modernity can, all three, pull together, encouraging and reinforcing a particular activity, as suggested by Verne Dusenbery in his discussion of diaspora Sikh philanthropy in Punjab.36 In order to understand both the tensions and the convergences, it is appropriate to examine ‘traditional Punjabi’, ‘Sikh spiritual’ and ‘modern’ values inherent in particular behaviours and emotions, while recognising the risks of essentialism and reification. Riis and Woodhead’s analysis suggests the usefulness of the concept of ‘emotional regime’ since ‘emotional patterns transcend the individual and persist over time and across generations’.37 These emotional regimes are ‘embedded in different social domains’,38 and in so far as panjābīat, sikhī and late modernity characterise social domains, contemporary (especially diaspora) Sikhs ‘live across [authors’ italics] many different social domains, and … experience resultant emotional cross-pressures’.39 We will now consider, in turn, panjābīat, sikhī and modernity in relation to emotion. Panjābīat and Emotion Panjābīat can be characterised by simultaneous openness and competitiveness. Both qualities are evident in the abundant hospitality intrinsic to South Asian – and indeed many other – communities of all religious backgrounds. In religious terms, the openness manifests as a fluidity and multiple allegiance (at least from a western viewpoint that is attuned to searching out ‘syncretism’). Geaves,40 Ballard41 and Nesbitt42 offer examples, with Ballard theorising the dimensions of operative folk religion, with its eclectic, ‘kismetic’ dimension,43 which, as Ballard illustrates, is often expressed in a gravitation to supposed healers and spiritual masters that is especially conspicuous at times of anxiety, grief and anger. Meanwhile, impetus such as, in late nineteenth-century Punjab, Christian conversions and the imperative to self-identify by religion in the census, all fed into competition between Sikh, Hindu and Muslim activists. Punjab’s politics foster factionalism and its associated emotions. Furthermore, izzat (family honour)   V.A. Dusenbury, Sikhs at Large: Culture, and Politics in Global Perspective (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008), 136–64. 37   Riis and Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion, 50. 38   Ibid., 210. 39   Ibid. 40   R.A. Geaves, ‘The Borders Between the Religious: A Challenge to the World Religions Approach to Religious Education’, British Journal of Religious Education 21, no. 1 (1998): 20–31. 41   Ballard, ‘Punjabi Identity’. 42   Eleanor Nesbitt, http://www.casas.org.uk/papers/pdfpapers/identity.pdf, My Dad’s Hindu, My Mum’s Side Are Sikhs’: Issues in Religious Identity, Charlbury: ACE Papers, 1993. 43   Ballard, ‘Punjabi Identity’, 17–21. 36

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continuously precipitates competition between individuals, families and larger groupings, and is inseparable from emotions of pride, exultation, anger, shame, humiliation and vengeance. This pride or izzat is one of the Punjab’s deepest feelings, and as such must be treated with great respect. Dearer to him than life, it helps to make him the good soldier that he is. But it binds him to the vendetta.44 In Punjab a family’s izzat is strongly bound up with land ownership, especially in the case of the Jat (traditionally peasant farmer) community, so much so that many Sikh farmers have committed suicide rather than lose izzat by selling land to repay debt.45 Furthermore, it is because of izzat that Sikh UK families have avoided involving outside professionals in resolving difficulties within the extended family.46 Crucial to the maintenance of izzat is the conduct, actual and perceived, of women, and of unmarried daughters in particular. For women the correlates of izzat are the expectation of modesty, the fear of disgrace or shame (beizzatī – the ‘behzti’ of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s controversial drama [2004]) and distress, and the necessary suppression of romantic love, especially when aroused by a member of a lower caste. The Canadian scholar Doris Jakobsh posed the following question to her students, the majority of whom were Sikhs: ‘What one word would you say best defines or characterizes what you think about when you envision the concept of ‘Sikh women’? After some discussion the overwhelming majority pointed to the Punjabi/Sikh notion of ‘honour’ or ‘izzat’.47 Sikhī and Emotion While the blissful equipoise of sahaj remains an ultimate and ineffable goal, sukh, in the sense of contentment and peace of mind, is within the emotional experience of many devotees. In Gurū Nānak’s teaching not only is ‘God’ (ik oankār) free of fear and enmity (i.e. nirbhau and nirvair), but the Gurmukh too aspires through sevā and simran to avoid the pitfalls of ego, as it gives rise to the five classic weaknesses, each implicitly emotional, of Indic religion: kām (lust), krodh (anger), lobh (greed), moh (attachment) and ahankār (pride), and is encouraged to feel and enact compassion (dayā). The emotions intrinsic to religious devotion (bhakti; bhagati in Punjabi) pervade the Gurū Granth Sāhib and the lives of devotees. Indeed, Sikhs’ customary   Malcolm Lyall Darling, quoted in Dusenbury, Sikhs at Large, 46.   Sukhpal Singh, ‘Autobiography of Bhai Sahib Randhir Singh’ (presented at the Punjab Research Group, Coventry University, 26 June 2010). 46   W. Owen Cole, Cole Sahib: The Story of a Multifaith Journey (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009), 71. 47   Doris R. Jakobsh and Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Sikhism and Women: Contextualizing the Issues’, in Sikhism and Women: History, Texts, and Experience, ed. Doris R. Jakobsh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 8. 44 45

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name for ‘God’, Vāhigurū, originated in devotees’ wonder – expressed historically in the cry of ‘Vāh Gurū’, with ‘vāh’ approximating to the English exclamation ‘wow’.48 Praise finds daily expression in kīrtan, the singing of the Gurūs’ hymns to instrumental accompaniment. For readers of the scripture through an English rendering, Nikky Singh’s selection of passages, entitled ‘the name of my beloved’, conveys the emotion of yearning (vairāg, birahā) which pervades the text, often in the imagery of human lovers’ separation and union.49 Marriage, the highest experience of human love, is a particular form of this universal and formless love. It expresses the longing for union with the Ultimate Reality. The Gurus often speak from the point of view of a woman, a bride awaiting her divine Groom, who addresses the Formless One as ‘Beloved’. My mind and body yearn but my Lover is far away in foreign lands. The Beloved does not come home, I am sighing to death, and the lightning strikes fear into me. I lie alone on the bed, tormented; mother, the pain is like death to me. Without the Divine One, how can there be sleep or hunger? What clothing can soothe the skin? Nanak says, the bride is truly wed when she is embraced by her Beloved.50

Other recent translators, too, Christopher Shackle and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair, seek to convey the bliss and ecstasy through the union of the devotee and God.51 For example, a verse of the fifth Guru, Arjan, affirms: Nanak, the Name of the Lord grants me life And it fills my whole being with rapture.52

The emotions of longing and joy are not communicated solely by words, powerful though many verbal images are, but significantly through the Sikh Gurūs’ development of north Indian music. The Gurū Granth Sāhib (like other north Indian medieval religious texts) is arranged according to the melodic pattern (raga, rāg in Punjabi) in which it will be sung, each producing rasa (a flavour, an emotion).   Gopinder Kaur, Studying Sikhism: An Overview, Edexcel AS RS [Religious Studies] (London: Pearson Educational, 2008), 3. 49   Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). 50   Ibid., 4, quoting from Tukharī Chhant by Gurū Nānak. 51   C. Shackle and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair, Teachings of the Sikh Gurus: Selections from the Sikh Scriptures (London: Routledge, 2005), 123–36. 52   Ibid., 136. 48

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Rasa is the ‘juice, extract, flavour, quintessence’53 and the emotional aspect of the Gurū Granth Sāhib is decipherable through ‘rasa theory’. On the subject of ‘Rasa (Emotion)’ Gobind Singh Mansukhani wrote: If raga (melodic pattern) be compared to a tree, rasa is its fruit … As one musicologist puts it, ‘Emotions is [sic] the food and the artistic consciousness is the tongue. The resulting experience is rasa.’… According to Indian aesthetics, each poem or musical composition produces a certain rasa (emotion).54

For exploration of the capacity for different emotions to be expressed within a single raga, see an authoritatively practice-based exposition of Sikh musicology.55 As the rāgs of the Gurbānī evoke appropriate dispositions in those who hear: When the mind is full of devotion, it bursts into the song of the Lord … Sacred music enables one to reach this stage of peace and equipoise. The mind becomes calm and relieved …56

Exponents, both scholarly and devotional, decry the fallacy of finding and emphasising a divergence between the sikhī of Gurū Nānak and the formative emphases of Gurū Hargobind and Gurū Gobind Singh.57 It is noteworthy, however, that the emotions associated with valour increasingly find a place in Sikhs’ emotional repertoire in the seventeenth century. In religious discourse tenderness and compassion (dayā), as well as courage on the field of battle, inform the saint-soldier’s actions, as evidenced by Bhāī Khannaiyā distributing water to fallen combatants of both sides and Bhāī Randhīr Singh’s sorrow at the plucking of a flower.58 What is evident in the Sikh case is the fact that, as Riis and Woodhead outline, ‘symbols are integral to emotion and social relations, and are not merely a sign or token of them’.59 The Gurū Granth Sāhib (enthroned and suitably attended) exercises a powerful centripetal pull on Sikhs’ emotions. So too do the insignia that are required of initiated Khālsā Sikhs and that signal Sikh identity for   Owen M. Lynch, Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), 17. 54   G.S. Mansukhani, http://www.gurmat.info/sms/smspublications/Indian%20Classical% 20Music%20&%20Sikh%20Kirtan.pdf, Indian Classical Music and Sikh Kirtan, 1982. 55   H.S. Lallie, S. Kaur and Keerat Singh, Emotions in Sikh Musicology, Sikh Formations, forthcoming. 56   Mansukhani, 1982. 57   B.S. Bhogal, ‘Text as Sword: Sikh Religious Violence Taken for Wonder’, in Religion and Violence in South Asia: Theory and Practice, ed. John R Hinnells and Richard King (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 107–36. 58   Randhir Singh, Autobiography of Bhai Sahib Randhir Singh, trans. Trilochan Singh (Bhai Sahib Randhir Singh Trust., no date). 59   Riis and Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion, 41. 53

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the Panth more widely. In the Sikh case, five symbols (known as the Five Ks, because in Punjabi ‘K’ is the initial letter of the name for each) are prominent in normative accounts of the faith. Public campaigns in the UK and resultant changes in legislation have centred on Sikhs’ right to maintain several of the Ks, in particular the kes (uncut hair) and the kirpān (sword), and – closely associated with the kesh – the turban. Much has been written about outrage and emotional hurt caused by forcible removal of the turban and pressure to cut one’s hair. Sikhs have also articulated the bullying, discomfort and embarrassment that makes some young male Sikhs long to have their hair cut, and the trauma-cum-relief of then venturing to do so.60 While the foregoing may have suggested emotional intensity and turbulence, the Khālsā’s approach to life is to be characterised by an optimism that is summed up by the Punjabi words charhdī kalā. This means adopting a ‘positive, buoyant and optimistic attitude to life and to the future’ (see the website SikhiWiki.org 2005) and never admitting defeat, while at the same time trusting in God. Charhdī kalā also includes helping those who are in need.61 In this spirit Gurū Arjan cheerfully criticised Bābā Farīd’s pessimism, for to Gurū Arjan the world was a beautiful garden, though with a poisonous plant growing in it.62 Religiously observant Sikhs testify to an emotional equipoise born of absorption in the singing and hearing of the Guru’s words (shabad). To quote a contemporary Birmingham Sikh mother: Those Sikhs I have encountered who have become attuned to shabad kirtan can look upon shabads as old and trusted friends, who ground and inspire them in different ways through all the changing moments of joy and sorrow.63

Modernity/ Diaspora and Emotion For twentieth-century Sikh immigrants in western countries adjustment often gave rise to emotions of loss, anxiety, fear and shame, as well as hope and pride – emotions expressed in the verse and song that sprang from the diaspora.64 More recently individuals in India, too, have experienced an element of dislocation as   See, for example, Sanghera, If You Don’t Know Me by Now.   Nesbitt, ‘Sikhism’, 127. 62   Hugh Beattie, Sikhism (Milton Keynes: Open University, 2006), 59–60. 63   Gopinder Kaur, ‘Understanding Shabad Kirtan in Its Sikh Context: Why Is It so Important to Sikh Religious Experience and in What Ways Does Gurbani Convey This?’ (unpublished MA dissertation, South Asian Area Studies, SOAS, University of London., 2001). 64   J. Shamsher, ‘The Overtime People’, South Asian Review 5, no. 4 (1972): 313–25; Darshan S. Tatla, ‘A Passage to England: Oral Tradition and Popular Culture Among Early Punjabi Settlers in Britain’, Oral History 30, no. 2 (1 October 2002): 61–72. 60 61

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increasingly rapid change differentially affects family members. Writing about the life of workers in call centres in and near Delhi (many of whom are Sikh), Tina Basi notes the ‘[g]lobalizing processes [that] can be found in shopping centres, cinemas, multiplexes, bars, restaurants, nightclubs, universities’.65 Modernity itself is an ‘emotional regime’,66 one in which valorised qualities (such as ‘coolness’) pull against many aspects of tradition. At the same time, the late twentieth-century diaspora has globalised Punjab’s music and dance, the bhangra, transmuted through transcultural fusions, but still resounding with jubilation and exuberance, and the macho triumphalism of the Jat (landed peasant caste) Sikh male.67 Gender, Caste and Generation – the Intersecting Circles I suggest that differences of gender, caste and generation, in their many possible combinations, correspond to different patterns of tension and reinforcement between the three pulls of panjābīat, sikhī and modernity. Thus, as previously noted, when looking at gender in relation to panjābīat, Jakobsh found izzat central to her Sikh women students’ experience, but not to her male students’. Likewise, Kamala Nayar’s analysis springs from her exploration of psychosocial issues among Vancouver’s female Sikh population. Sathnam Sanghera translates the ‘psychosocial tension’ into: In my experience, second generation Punjabi women – being the product of patriarchal culture – are either depressingly servile or terrifyingly aggressive. As one of them once put it to me – or rather screamed at me – Sikh girls don’t have personalities, they have post-traumatic stress disorder. They have to fight so hard and persistently for their independence that they become brutalized by the experience, and even when they have their freedom, they can’t stop fighting.68

Nikky Singh describes her anguish at not being allowed (as a son is allowed, indeed as he is expected to do) to light her father’s funeral pyre. In this inequality one can   Tina Basi, Women, Identity and India’s Call Centre Industry (London: Routledge, 2009), 35. 66   Riis and Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion. 67   See G. Baumann, ‘The Re-Invention of Bhangra: Social Change and Aesthetic Shifts in a Punjabi Music in Britain’, World of Music 32, no. 2 (1990): 81–95; R. Huq, ‘Asian Kool: Bhangra and Beyond’, in Dis-Orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music, ed. Sanjay Sharma, John Hutnyk and Ashwani Sharma (London: Zed Books, 1996), 61–80; Anjali Gera Roy, Bhangra Moves: From Ludhiana to London and Beyond (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010); Anjali Gera Roy, ‘BhangraNation: New Meanings of Punjabi Identity in the Twenty First Century’, Journal of Punjab Studies 19, no. 1 (2012): 111–28. 68  Sanghera, If You Don’t Know Me by Now, 187. 65

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detect a gender-specific tension between either sikhī and the gender equality of modernity or a tension between sikhī 69 and panjābīat. Similarly, for readers who have been taught that caste and its associated discriminatory practices were (like certain assumptions about women) an aspect of the older Hindu tradition that Sikhism has rejected, it needs to be explained that this very rhetoric of Sikh preachers and spokespersons itself apparently contributes to unawareness both within and outside the Panth of persistent prejudice, notably on the part of the majority, towards members of two communities whose caste names are generally avoided in scholarly writing in order not to perpetuate the offence that they cause. While the Gurus certainly taught that one’s hereditary status in the social hierarchy of caste (varna and jati [zāt]) was irrelevant to attaining mukti (liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth), they themselves adhered to the practice of marriage within one’s jati. This continuing practice leads to a structural separation and gives rise to both pride and prejudice (on the part of the higher castes) and hurt, humiliation and anger among those at whom this is directed. The hurt and anger sound in the UK diaspora Sikh voices of ‘A. Shukra’,70 in the autobiography of Jasvinder Sanghera71 and in the powerful drama of Annobil and Bhatoa.72 The verse of Daljit Nagra and the autobiography of Sathnam Sanghera,73 both writing from outside these stigmatised communities, perceptively evoke ongoing intercaste prejudice. ‘Generation’ is to be understood both in the sense of successive roles, with increasing age, in the family as child, parent, grandparent, and also in the sense of an individual’s relative closeness to a migration from Punjab and subsequent settlement elsewhere. In many cases members of a UK Sikh family’s oldest generation were also immigrants to the UK from Punjab, but there is no consistent equivalence, as many of their sons and daughters-in-law have themselves come to the UK from India as young adults. Moreover, many UK Sikhs were born and received some years of education in India before accompanying their parents to the UK as children and teenagers. Robinson, quoted above, conveys a widespread, but sometimes over-generalised, assumption that a falling away from sikhī increases from generation to generation. This assumption is belied by the resurgent sikhī espoused (especially in terms of external signifiers of allegiance to the Khālsā) by many young Sikhs, as acknowledged (humorously) by Sathnam Sanghera (quoted above). The ‘reinvention of tradition’ can itself involve intergenerational hurt, as do some aspects of ‘falling away’.   As outlined by Jagbir Jhutti-Johal, Sikhism Today (London: Continuum, 2011), 37.   A. Shukra, ‘Caste – A Personal Perspective’, in Contextualising Caste: PostDumontian Approaches, ed. Mary Searle-Chatterjee and Ursula Sharma (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 169–78. 71   J. Sanghera, Shame (London: Hodder, 2007). 72   R.D. Annobil and R. Bhatoa, ‘The Fifth Cup (unpublished Manuscript of Play)’ (Drum, Birmingham, 2007). 73  Sanghera, If You Don’t Know Me by Now. 69 70

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Sadness at the lack of a mutually comprehensible language between generations of the same family is conveyed by Sathnam Sanghera’s account of getting someone in India to write a letter for him to his mother, as well as her only partial grasp of his outlook and experience.74 Daljit Nagra’s poem ‘In a White Town’, captures young Sikhs’ embarrassment at being seen to be connected with his mother: ‘I would have felt more at home had she hidden that illiterate body.’75 With regard to the work of Krause and other ethnographers who have reported on Sikh communities, both ethnographic research and UK Sikhs’ recent creative writing highlight the risk both of essentialising anthropological observation and of generalising either about a generation or across generations. Variations of emotional experience are multiply connected with individual Sikhs’ familiarity, on the one hand, with Punjab’s language and culture and, on the other hand, with the English language and western values and norms. In India, too, generational differences regarding the experience and expression of emotion are almost certainly increasing at a time when expectations and assumptions are changing with unprecedented rapidity, though unevenly in terms of location (metropolitan/ urban/rural) and social class. Sanction and Sacralisation The shifting emotional patterns, discernible according to context, illuminate convergences and divergences between the three sides of my ‘triangle’ and varying overlap between the ‘circles’ of generation, gender and caste. Onto these can further be mapped: emotions that are felt, those that are sacralised, those that are immortalised or fantasised, and those emotions that must be displayed or that must be hidden. What is actually felt embraces the gamut of joy and pain, fear, hatred, and compassion and peace of mind. From this range, emotions that are sacralised (in the Gurū Granth Sāhib and in expositions of sikhī) are religious devotion (bhagati), yearning, bliss, love of God and compassionate courage. Affective states that are immortalised or fantasised in non-scriptural artistic expression include romantic love, the unhappiness of daughters-in-law at the mercy of their mothers-in-law, honour, anger, revenge and courage. The poet Wāris Shāh’s Hīr Rānjhā, the perceptive autobiographical writing of Prakash Tandon,76 and the increasingly Punjab-influenced Bollywood movies offer examples aplenty. Meanwhile, modernity valorises the qualities of coolness, personal autononomy, and idolises celebrity, each with its own penumbra of emotion.

  Ibid.   Daljit Nagra, Look We Have Coming to Dover! (London: Faber, 2007), 18. 76   Prakash Tandon, Punjabi Century, 1857–1947 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 74 75

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Evident too in life and its artistic representations are the affective patterns that must be shown (in accordance with panjābīat): expressions of a young woman’s modesty (sharam), and the grief displayed by her family and close friends at the bride’s departure (dholī). An emotion that must be hidden has traditionally been – and largely continues to be – romantic love, especially if it is inter-caste, as with the ‘teen heart-gutted caste-breakers in Cranford Park’.77 Unsurprisingly, as change accelerates and norms fracture, instances of ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘double standards’ increase, as the same individuals are observed by others presenting behaviours aligned with different conventions and moral codes in different contexts, and distancing themselves disapprovingly from conduct that they, or their relatives, in fact have been observed to espouse. As a result, the emotional responses of anger, frustration, bitterness, loss, uncertainty and a not knowing ‘whether they mean what they say’78 recur and make self-identification with the group more problematic. In Conclusion Sikh history and scripture have provided context as well as content for this attempt to map the spectrum of human emotion in relation to individuals’ social domains, with particular reference to panjābīat, sikhī and late modernity. Each of these is itself in transition, not least due to the multiple interactions in both individual and collective experience. It is hoped that the present chapter complements those analyses of identity and accounts of the Sikh ‘religion’ or Sikh ‘community’ which bypass the affective dimension, and also that the focus on interactions between panjābīat, sikhī and late modernity, combined with attention to the factors of caste, gender and generation, stimulates further discussion. References Annobil, R.D., and R. Bhatoa. ‘The Fifth Cup (unpublished Manuscript of Play)’. Drum, Birmingham, 2007. Ballard, Roger. ‘Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change in Four Dimentions of Punjabi Religion’. In Punjabi Identity in a Global Context, edited by P. Singh and S.S. Thandi, 7–38. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. Basi, Tina. Women, Identity and India’s Call Centre Industry. London: Routledge, 2009. Baumann, G. ‘The Re-Invention of Bhangra: Social Change and Aesthetic Shifts in a Punjabi Music in Britain’, World of Music 32, no. 2 (1990): 81–95. 77   Daljit Nagra, ‘The Saturday Poem: Jhoota Kunda Ballads The Ghost of Cranford Park’, The Guardian, 26 April 2008. 78  Sanghera, If You Don’t Know Me by Now, 184.

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Beattie, Hugh. Sikhism. Milton Keynes: Open University, 2006. Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. Bhogal, B.S. ‘Text as Sword: Sikh Religious Violence Taken for Wonder’. In Religion and Violence in South Asia: Theory and Practice, edited by John R Hinnells and Richard King, 107–36. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007. Cole, W. Owen. Cole Sahib: The Story of a Multifaith Journey. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009. Dandelion, Pink. A Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers: The Silent Revolution. Lampeter: E. Mellen Press, 1996. Dusenbury, V.A. Sikhs at Large: Culture, and Politics in Global Perspective. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008. Geaves, R.A. ‘The Borders Between the Religious: A Challenge to the World Religions Approach to Religious Education’. British Journal of Religious Education 21, no. 1 (1998): 20–31. Geertz, Clifford. “‘From the Native’s Point of View”: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28, no. 1 (October 1, 1974): 26–45. Ghuman, Paul A. Singh. South Asian Adolescents in the West. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity, 1991. Glushkova, I. ‘“Frontier Posts” in the Making: The 21st Century Mass Media’s Impact on “Ramsetu Movement” and “Amarnath Agitation”’, presented at the The Public Representation of a Religion Called Hinduism Session 4, University of Manchester, 9 July 2009. Huq, R. ‘Asian Kool: Bhangra and Beyond’. In Dis-Orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music, edited by Sanjay Sharma, John Hutnyk and Ashwani Sharma, 61–80. London: Zed Books, 1996. Jackson, Robert, and Eleanor M. Nesbitt. Hindu Children in Britain. Stoke-onTrent: Trentham Books, 1993. Jacobson, J. Islam in Translation: Religion and Identity Amoung British Pakistani Youth. London: Routledge, 1998. Jakobsh, Doris R., and Eleanor Nesbitt. ‘Sikhism and Women: Contextualizing the Issues’. In Sikhism and Women: History, Texts, and Experience, edited by Doris R Jakobsh. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. Jhutti-Johal, Jagbir. Sikhism Today. London: Continuum, 2011. Johnstone, M., R. Kaur and A. Jack. ‘Emotions’. In Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought, edited by Kenneth McLeish. London: Bloomsbury, 1993. Juergensmeyer, M. ‘Religious Violence’. In The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by Peter B. Clarke, 890–908. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Kaur, Gopinder. Studying Sikhism: An Overview. Edexcel AS RS [Religious Studies]. London: Pearson Educational, 2008.

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Kaur, Gopinder. ‘Understanding Shabad Kirtan in Its Sikh Context: Why Is It so Important to Sikh Religious Experience and in What Ways Does Gurbani Convey This?’ Unpublished MA dissertation, South Asian Area Studies, SOAS, University of London., 2001. Krause, Inga-Britt. ‘Family Therapy and Anthropology: A Case for Emotions.’ Journal of Family Therapy 15, no. 1 (2004): 35–56. Krause, Inga-Britt. ‘Sinking Heart: A Punjabi Communication of Distress’, Social Science and Medicine 29, no. 4 (1989): 563–75. Lallie, H.S., S. Kaur and Keerat Singh. Emotions in Sikh Musicology, Sikh Formations, Forthcoming. Loseke, D. ‘The Study of Identity as Cultural, Institutional, Organizational and Personal Narratives: Theoretical and Empirical Integrations’, The Sociological Quarterly (2007): 48, 661–88. Lynch, Owen M. Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990. Madra, Amandeep Singh, and Parmjit Singh. Warrior Saints: Three Centuries of the Sikh Military Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Sikh Foundation, 1999. Mansukhani, G.S. Http://www.gurmat.info/sms/smspublications/Indian%20 Classical%20Music%20&%20Sikh%20Kirtan.pdf. Indian Classical Music and Sikh Kirtan, 1982. McLeod, W.H. ‘On the Word Panth: A Problem of Terminology and Definition’, Contributions to Indian Sociology 12, no. 2 (1978): 287–95. Nagra, Daljit. Look We Have Coming to Dover! London: Faber, 2007. Nagra, Daljit. ‘The Saturday Poem: Jhoota Kunda Ballads The Ghost of Cranford Park’, The Guardian, 26 April 2008. Nayar, K. ‘Sikh Women in Vancouver: An Analysis of their Psychosocial Issues’. In Sikhism and Women: History, Text, and Expirience, edited by Doris R Jakobsh, 252–75. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. Nesbitt, Eleanor. ‘British, Asian and Hindu: Identity, Self-Narration and the Ethnographic Interview’. Journal of Beliefs and Values 19, no. 2 (1998): 189– 200. Nesbitt, Eleanor. Http://www.casas.org.uk/papers/pdfpapers/identity.pdf. My Dad’s Hindu, My Mum’s Side Are Sikhs’: Issues in Religious Identity, Charlbury: ACE Papers, 1993. Nesbitt, Eleanor. Interfaith Pilgrims: Living Truths and Truthful Living. London: Quaker Books, 2003. Nesbitt, Eleanor. ‘Sikhism’. In Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions, edited by Peggy Morgan and Clive Lawton, 118–67. 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Nesbitt, Eleanor. Sikhism: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Nesbitt, Eleanor. ‘Sikhs and Proper Sikhs: Young British Sikhs’ Perceptions of Their Identity’. In Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change, edited by N. Gerald Barrier and Pashaura Singh, 315–53. New Delhi: Manohar, 1999. Østberg, Sissel, and Community Religions Project. Pakistani Children in Norway: Islamic Nurture in a Secular Context. Leeds: Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds, 2003. Parrott, W. Gerrod (ed.) Emotions in Social Psychology: Key Readings. Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2000. Plummer, K. ‘Identity’. In The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought, edited by William Outhwaite and T.B. Bottomore, 270–72. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative. Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Riis, Ole, and Linda Woodhead. A Sociology of Religious Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Robinson, B.A. Http://www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism3.htm, 2006. Roy, Anjali Gera. Bhangra Moves: From Ludhiana to London and Beyond. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010. Roy, Anjali Gera. ‘BhangraNation: New Meanings of Punjabi Identity in the Twenty First Century’. Journal of Punjab Studies 19, no. 1 (2012): 111–28. Sanghera, J. Shame. London: Hodder, 2007. Sanghera, Sathnam. If You Don’t Know Me by Now: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies In Wolverhampton. London: Viking, 2008. Shackle, C., and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair. Teachings of the Sikh Gurus: Selections from the Sikh Scriptures. London: Routledge, 2005. Shamsher, J. ‘The Overtime People’. South Asian Review 5, no. 4 (1972): 313–25. Shukra, A. ‘Caste – A Personal Perspective’. In Contextualising Caste: PostDumontian Approaches, edited by Mary Searle-Chatterjee and Ursula Sharma, 169–78. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994. Singh, Dewan. http://www.allaboutsikhs.com/sikhismarticles/guru-nanaks-conceptof-sahaj-gateway-to-sikhism. Guru Nanak’s Concept of Sahaj: Gateway to Sikhism, no date. Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995. Singh, Randhir. Autobiography of Bhai Sahib Randhir Singh. Translated by Trilochan Singh. Bhai Sahib Randhir Singh Trust, no date. Singh, Sukhpal. ‘Autobiography of Bhai Sahib Randhir Singh’, presented at the Punjab Research Group, Coventry University, 26 June 2010. Tajfel, Henri. Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Tandon, Prakash. Punjabi Century, 1857–1947. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

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Tatla, Darshan S. ‘A Passage to England: Oral Tradition and Popular Culture Among Early Punjabi Settlers in Britain’. Oral History 30, no. 2 (1 October 2002): 61–72.

Chapter 3

Emotions in Buddhism Peter Harvey

Introduction While Buddhism is wary of emotionality, or attachment to strong emotions, it counsels the cultivation of certain wholesome emotions and clear awareness of all emotions. The ethos of Buddhist cultures is such as to discourage expressions of anger, and to value calm. Intentional actions are seen to produce karmic effects that help shape one’s future destiny for good or ill, and such actions include not only those of body and speech, but also of mind, as when one puts energy into a negative or positive emotion. Such actions also have a reverberating effect on those around one, affecting the tone of society. Other than the effect of general Buddhist values and outlook, Buddhism also has a range of meditation methods and associated analyses of mental states that can be drawn on so as to help take more responsibility for one’s mental states, including emotions, so as to guide them into more wholesome or skilful (kusala1) channels. Doing this entails training the attention so that, first, the mind can develop a greater ability to remain concentrated, in a calm state, less buffeted by the ups and downs of life and, second, so that one can calmly observe the flow of one’s mental states, and the effect of one’s actions and reactions, so as to recognise factors in these that are conducive to bringing suffering to oneself and/or others. While the physical and social world can present one with various problematic situations, one’s reactions to these can often add several layers of additional self-concerned emotional froth. Calm, good-humoured observation of this in oneself and others can naturally lead on to putting one’s energies into more beneficial patterns. Emotions and Identity How does Buddhism see emotions as linked to identity? Negative emotions such as greed, anger and jealousy are seen as rooted in attachment to the identity of oneself or one’s group: to self-importance, self-centredness and narrow-minded attachment to views. Positive emotions such as kindness and compassion are seen to help break down the barriers between people. Moreover, one of the factors of 1   Italicised terms given here are in Pali, the scriptural and chanting language of Theravāda Buddhism.

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‘right speech’ is the avoiding of divisive speech, that talks of absent others’ real or imagined faults, so as to spread dislike and distrust. Rather, one should spread harmony by one’s speech: Having heard something here, he is not one for repeating it elsewhere for (causing) variance among those people; or having heard something elsewhere, he is not one to repeat it here for (causing) variance among these people. In this way he is a reconciler of those who are at variance, and one who combines those who are friends. Harmony is his pleasure, harmony is his delight, harmony is his joy, harmony is the motive of his speech.2

People are also drawn together in devotional chanting before a Buddha-image, a symbol of both where their tradition comes from and what they are aiming towards. Also important is the sangha or ‘community’ in its various senses: the community of partly or completely enlightened ones; the monastic community as a focus of spiritual practice, and support by and teaching to the lay community; and most broadly, the community of fellow practitioners. In the very broadest sense, Buddhist concern is for the community of all sentient beings, who share with humans the struggles of existence, and all have the potential for enlightenment, whether in this or a future life. Negative Emotions Buddhism often sums up negative emotions/mental states as ‘greed, hatred and delusion’, with greed/grasping/clinging/craving/attachment and hatred/anger/ ill-will/resentment as emotional states that are sustained by a deluded view of reality that is self-centred and does not recognise the impermanent, frustrating nature of the reality in which all sentient beings share. In turn, greed and hatred cloud our vision so as to entrench delusion. Affective and cognitive faults are thus seen to feed into each other, which is why Buddhist meditation aims to work on both fronts, weakening emotional faults by developing calm (samatha) and cognitive ones by developing insight (vipassanā), and with both of these using mindfulness (sati), guided by wise attention, to help one better get to know the mind and its quirks. An important goal of meditative training is to weaken and at least temporarily suspend the ‘five hindrances’, which are five common problematic mental reactions that can obstruct sustained attention to any worthwhile task, including meditation. They are likened to impurities in gold ore, and meditation is akin to refining this ore (the mind), so as to bring out its natural radiance. The hindrances are:

2   Majjhima Nikaya, edited by Robert Chalmers (London: Pali Text Society, 1899), vol. III, p. 49, translated by Peter Harvey.

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• Desire for sense-pleasures: the attention being pulled away from one’s chosen focus to something more interesting, alluring, diverting or comfortable. The ‘I want’ or ‘I want something different’ reaction. • Ill-will or aversion: directed at the task at hand, one’s own wandering mind, or other people who may be doing things that one finds distracting. The ‘I don’t like’ reaction. • Dullness and lethargy: the mind going into a neutral, passive, lazy state. The ‘I can’t be bothered’ reaction. • Restlessness/excitement and worry/unease: two different forms of agitation that are poles between which the mind can swing, so as not to find a more contented, happy middle. The (high- or low-pitched) ‘oooo’ reaction. • Vacillation: a wavering fear of commitment based on a lack of clarity about what is of real benefit to oneself and others. The ‘maybe’ reaction. All of these come with plausible self-justifications, like at least some spam emails, and each can subtly infect attempts to weaken them, such as getting angry with oneself for, for example, being lazy or agitated. To experience times of peace from them – when the mind is calmly concentrated, in a state that has kindness, joyful energy, contented happiness and sustained application based on clarity of purpose – is both beneficial in itself and a great aid to developing insight and beneficial self-change. A Map of Neutral, Negative and Positive Mental States In the literature known as the Abhidhamma, great attention is given to describing and analysing the processes making up mind and body, and how they interrelate. According to the Abhidhamma of the Theravāda school, among these are the 52 mental qualities (cetasikas), many of which can be called ‘emotions’, that occur in various ever-changing mixes in the flow of mental states, as it shifts between those that are unskilful, those that are skilful, and those that are the result of these states, or are otherwise neutral. In the Abhidhamma-saṅgaha,3 these are listed as:

3   Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha: The Pali Text, Translation and Explanatory Guide (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1993), 76–113.

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7 universals, present in all mental states: sensory contact/stimulation; pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feeling; perceptual identification; will/volition; mental focus; vitality; attention. 6 particulars, which may be present in any mental state, intensifying it: mental application; examination; commitment; energy; joy; purposefulness. The 14 unskilful qualities: 4 qualities present in all unskilful mental states: delusion; lack of self-respect; disregard for consequences; restlessness/ excitement. 10 qualities that may be present in any unskilful mental state: greed; view-clinging; self-importance; hatred/aversion; envy; avarice; worry; dullness/sloth; lethargy; vacillation. The 25 beautiful/skilful qualities: 7 qualities present in all skilful mind states: trustful confidence; mindfulness; selfrespect; regard for consequences; non-greed/generosity; non-hatred/lovingkindness; equipoise. 6 pairs of qualities, of mind and the mental ‘body’, that are also present in any skilful mind state – they are aspects of a mental enlargement, and have no counterparts in unskilful states, where the mind seems smaller, with parts closed down: • tranquillity: a natural stilling or becoming quiet; • lightness: buoyancy, lack of heaviness, as when there is ease of action. • malleability: when body and mind are pliable and receptive; opposed to fixed views and self-importance. • readiness/workability: when body and mind are workable and wieldy, like refined gold. • proficiency or competence: being mentally healthy, fit for any task; opposed to the fifth hindrance, vacillation. • rectitude or straightforwardness: simplicity, directness, uprightness; opposed to unnecessary complexity, or craftiness, or deceit. 6 qualities which may be present in any skilful mind states, strengthening and deepening it: right speech, right action, right livelihood; compassion, empathetic joy; wisdom.

Familiarity with such ideas aids mindful discernment of one’s mental states, the undermining of negative ones and the cultivation of more positive ones. As mental qualities are emphasised as arising from particular conditions, Buddhism has many meditative techniques for undermining conditions that feed unwholesome states, and cultivating those that nurture wholesome ones.

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Reflections to Counteract Negative Emotions In the Vitakka-saṇṭhāna Sutta4 are described five ways to successively use to undermine problematic emotional reactions or thoughts and bring greater mastery of one’s mental states: a. Turning the mind to a counteractive wholesome object, for example counteract ill-will for a person by focusing on a positive aspect of them; counteract ill-will to an object (e.g. a recalcitrant computer) by seeing this as pointless; counteracting problematic desire for an object by reflecting on its impermanence; counteracting inappropriate sexual desire for a person by reflecting that they are less physically attractive under their skin. b. Reflecting on the disadvantages of the unwholesome thoughts: for example worry and anger bring immediate suffering to one; laziness prevents success in anything; strong desire is a distraction.. c. Putting the mind on something else by doing another task that requires one’s attention: for example reading, painting, washing up, cleaning one’s shoes... d. Tracing the unwholesome thoughts back to their source, which is often rather insignificant. e. If all else fails, as part of one is still clinging to the negative thought, using will-power to put it down. The tradition is particularly rich in methods to undermine ill-will and hatred.5 It is emphasised that if one bears resentment to another, or reacts with anger to their acts, one is oneself bringing immediate harm to oneself by the mental and physical tension, disquiet and pain of these emotions. They tighten up the stomach, agitate the heart and disperse any calm that is there, throwing one off balance. For someone to ‘make’ one angry, one must cooperate with them to some degree; one has to ‘take’ offence. It is possible, though, to learn to take more responsibility for one’s emotions, and learn not to indulge in anger, but retain one’s centre of balance. This does not preclude firm expression of an objection to another’s bad actions (for the benefit of themselves, as well as oneself). If this is done calmly, it is more likely to be listened to, without the hearer putting up a self-defensive wall.

4   Majjhima Nikaya, vol. I, 118–22. One translation of this is Soma Thera, The Removal of Distracting Thoughts (Vitakka-Santhana Sutta), Wheel Pamphlet 20 (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994). Also available at: http://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/ wheel021.html. 5  Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, Visuddhimagga, The Path of Purification (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 2010), IX. 14–39. Downloadable version available at: http://accesstoinsight. org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPurification2011.pdf.

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Anger is seen as particularly destructive, but that does not mean that resolute and determined energy should not sometimes be applied to seeking to right a wrong. In reflecting on a person one is angry with, one can reflect that, if they did something against one or someone one cares for, say, last week, they are a somewhat different person now, in a different frame of mind, for the mind and moods change all the time. Thus, in a certain sense, the person one dislikes no longer exists. One should allow others to change, just as one would want others to let one change, and not be identified only in terms of some real or imagined bad action one once did. On the other hand, a Buddhist might draw on the idea of past rebirths (seen as countless), and reflect that everyone one comes across has, in some past life, been a close relative or friend and been very good to one: bearing this in mind, one should return kindness now. One can also reflect that every person and being one will ever come across is like oneself in wanting to be happy and free from suffering. In this respect, we are all the same. So one should bear this in mind, and wish a ‘hostile’ person what one wishes for oneself. In reflecting on those who irritate one, it is best to focus on their good side, not their bad side. If one cannot find any good side, then it is at least appropriate to have compassion for them: they must be really troubled, and will suffer accordingly. The Four Divine Abiding Among particularly valued skilful/wholesome emotions are the four ‘divine abidings’ (brahma-vihāras): lovingkindness (Pali mettā, Sanskrit maitrī), compassion (karuṇā), empathetic joy (muditā) and equanimity (Pali upekkhā, Sanskrit upekṣā), directed at all beings, human or otherwise, liked or unliked. They relate to the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, right resolve, and compassion is particularly emphasised in Mahāyāna Buddhism, where it is paired with wisdom as two key qualities to develop. The divine abiding are particularly developed in contemplations in which the mind progressively focuses the relevant quality on a range of types of people. For example, in cultivating lovingkindness, it is emphasised in the Theravāda tradition that one should first focus this on oneself, wishing ‘may I be well and happy’ so that one can have genuine goodwill towards oneself, warts and all; this then makes having such an attitude to others easier. In Tibetan Buddhism, however, the quality is first focused on one’s mother. In the cultivation of compassion, the Mahāyāna tradition of Tibet and East Asia also has the practice of ‘the exchange of self and other’, in which one focuses the self-concern one usually has for oneself

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on another person, and the relative indifference one often has for others is instead focused on oneself.6 Loving-kindness is a friendliness or benevolence that dissolves ill-will and flows out to swell the happiness of others. The Indian monk Acharya Buddharakkhita says about it: The Pali word mettā is a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence. The Pali commentators define mettā as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others … Essentially mettā is an altruistic attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on selfinterest. Through mettā one refuses to be offensive and renounces bitterness, resentment and animosity of every kind, developing instead a mind of friendliness, accommodativeness and benevolence which seeks the well-being and happiness of others. True mettā is devoid of self-interest. It evokes within a warm-hearted feeling of fellowship, sympathy and love, which grows boundless with practice and overcomes all social, religious, racial, political and economic barriers. Mettā is indeed a universal, unselfish and all-embracing love … Just as a mother gives her own life to protect her child, so mettā only gives and never wants anything in return. To promote one’s own interest is a primordial motivation of human nature. When this urge is transformed into the desire to promote the interest and happiness of others, not only is the basic urge of self-seeking overcome, but the mind becomes universal by identifying its own interest with the interest of all. By making this change one also promotes one’s own well-being in the best possible manner. Mettā is the protective and immensely patient attitude of a mother who forbears all difficulties for the sake of her child and ever protects it despite its misbehavior. Mettā is also the attitude of a friend who wants to give one the best to further one’s well-being. If these qualities of mettā are sufficiently cultivated through mettā-bhāvanā – the meditation on universal love – the result is the acquisition of a tremendous inner power which preserves, protects and heals both oneself and others.7

Loving-kindness is, then: friendliness, goodwill; a genuine benevolent concern for the welfare of oneself and others; the heartfelt aspiration for the happiness and health of a living being; a warm, accepting patience, free from all hatred, ill-will, bitterness, 6   Śāntideva, The Bodhicaryāvatāra, trans. Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), VII.16, VIII.120, VIII.140–54; Tsong-kha-pa, trans. Alex Wayman, Ethics of Tibet: Bodhisattva Section of Tsong-kha-pa’s Lam rim chen mo (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 59–61. 7   Acharya Buddharakkhita, Mettā: The Philosophy and Practice of Universal Love, Wheel Pamphlet 365–6, (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1995). Also available at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/wheels/wheel365.html,

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festering self-pity, resentment or stoic indifference; a willingness to patiently work with what life and other people present one with, without anger; a warm glow of zestful energy in the ‘heart’, which melts some of the icy encrustations from one’s ego. Mettā seeks the welfare of beings and delights in their genuine good qualities, but is free of attachment and sticky sentimentality. To what extent is it the same as ‘love’? This English word can mean either (a) warm affection, attachment, liking or fondness, benevolence, affectionate devotion, or (b) sexual affection, passion or desire. Among these, benevolence is the closest to mettā, but it is not sexual affection, passion or desire. It is not the same as the ‘love’ in marriage because this is exclusive, whereas mettā is ideally spread as widely as possible. Nevertheless, mettā may exist as part of a married relationship. Its model is the love of a mother for her child, although mettā is open and disinterested, akin to Christian agape. On this issue, Ñāṇamoli says: Where Greek distinguishes between sensual eros and spiritual agape, English makes do with only the one word ‘love’. But the Pali language, like the Sanskrit, has many words covering many shades of meaning. The word chosen by the Buddha for this teaching is mettā from mitta, a friend (or better ‘the true friend in need’).8

The ill-will that mettā opposes is seen as one of ten spiritual ‘fetters’. While greed/ attachment and hate are opposing worldly attitudes, they are to be each opposed by attitudes which avoid their worldly opposites: greed/attachment by generosity and renunciation, and hate by loving-kindness. Karuṇā, compassion, is a genuine feeling for the suffering of others, but not sorrow, sadness or grief. One might say that it is to be ‘stirred but not shaken’ by the suffering of others (unlike some people who like their drinks ‘shaken but not stirred’). The meditation on compassion goes right when the mind feels elevated, peaceful and supple – by going beyond the common ego-centric focus of one’s thoughts – not weighed down by sorrow. One should seek to identify with others, but without being dragged down by their plight. Nor should one entertain any perverse tendency to gloat. Muditā, empathetic joy, is joy at the joy of others. It is pleasure that others are happy, being free of unskilful displeasure or aversion at the success of others. A good example of it would be if one went for a job interview, failed to get the job, but was happy for the person who did get the job. This is of course better than going away from the interview miserable. This way there is more happiness in the world, rather than the happiness of the successful candidate being balanced by one’s own displeasure. Again, if one is standing in a long queue waiting to be served, why not be happy for each person as their turn comes, rather than being

8   Ñāṇamoli. The Practice of Loving-kindness (Mettā), Wheel Pamphlet 7. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994. Also available at http://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ nanamoli/wheel007.html

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impatient for one’s own turn? Muditā, though, is to be distinguished from restless over-excitement, or being overly attached to the idea of success. Upekkhā is equanimity, impartiality, evenmindedness, but not dull indifference or an uncaring attitude. It views beings equally, and is not pulled up and down with their success or failure (or one’s own), which is seen as to a fair extent due to their karma – though other factors of course contribute too. It is believed that a certain group of non-eternal, non-creator deities known as the brahmās are rich in the brahma-vihāras, being reborn as such beings due to their past practice of them. One could say that a loving brahmā god who was aware of the sufferings of the world would need a lot of equanimity, or he would be always upset at what he saw! The four brahma-vihāras are initially mental states, but then naturally become expressed in behaviour. The attitude of the mother to her four children of different ages is a useful illustration of the four states: she wants the very young child to grow up and be happy, a sick child to get better, is pleased at the success and happiness of one in the flush of youth, and can generally leave her grown son or daughter to get on with their own affairs.9 The great fifth-century CE Theravādin commentator Buddhaghosa, in chapter 9 of his Visuddhimagga (Vism.), analyses the brahma-vihāras in some detail: Lovingkindness Characteristic ‘promoting the aspect of welfare’ Function

‘to prefer welfare’

Compassion ‘promoting the aspect of allaying suffering’ ‘resides in not bearing others’ suffering’ ‘non-cruelty’

Manifested as ‘the removal of annoyance’ Proximate ‘seeing the ‘to see cause delightful aspect helplessness of beings’ in those overwhelmed by suffering’

Succeeds when Fails when

Empathetic joy

‘being pleased’ (at ‘promoting the aspect success of others) of impartiality towards beings’ ‘resides in being non-envious’

‘to see equality in beings’

‘the elimination of displeasure’ ‘seeing beings’ success’

‘the quieting of resentment and approval’ ‘seeing ownership of karma thus: ‘beings are owners of their karma. Whose (if not theirs) is the choice by which they will become happy, or will get free of suffering, or will not fall away from success they have reached?’ ‘it makes resentment and approval subside’

‘it makes ill-will ‘it makes ‘it makes subside’ cruelty subside’ displeasure subside’ ‘it produces sentimentality/ sticky affection’

‘it produces sorrow’

Equanimity

‘it produces giddy excitement’

‘it produces equanimity of unknowing (ignorant indifference) based on the home (lay) life’

  Ñāṇamoli, Visuddhimagga, The Path of Purification, IX.108.

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Each of the above positive emotions has a clear ‘far’ enemy and a more tricky and insidious ‘near’ enemy:

Far enemy Near enemy

Lovingkindness ‘ill-will’

Compassion

Empathetic joy

‘cruelty’

‘displeasure’

Equanimity

‘attachment and resentment’ ‘passionate ‘grief based ‘gladness based on ‘the equanimity of attachment, on ordinary ordinary worldly unknowing based on since both share worldly life, life, since both ordinary worldly life, in seeing good since both share in seeing since both share in qualities’ share in seeing success’ ignoring faults and good failure’ qualities’

The Five Faculties and the Seven Factors of Awakening Wholesome qualities to develop also include the five faculties (indriyas):10 trustful confidence/faith (Pali saddhā, Sanskrit śraddhā); energy/mental strength (Pali viriya, Sanskrit virya); mindfulness (Pali sati, Sanskrit smṛti); mental unification/ concentration (samādhi); and discerning wisdom (Pali paññā, Sanskrit prajñā). It is emphasised that one needs to balance trustful confidence, a quality of the heart attuned to the Buddha, his teachings and the spiritual community, and wisdom, a more cognitive quality concerned with undermining delusions that feed grasping and attachment.11 This accords with the idea that affective and cognitive faults feed each other, so one needs to balance spiritual work on both aspects of one’s personality. It is also emphasised that energy and mental unification must be balanced, so that energy does not produce restless excitement, and mental unification does not sink into dullness. One can never have too much mindfulness, though. Another set of skilful qualities to cultivate are the seven factors of awakening (bojjhaṅgas).12 These start with mindfulness, but then include the rousing factors of investigation of states (dhamma-vicaya), energy, and joy (pīti), and the more calming ones of tranquillity (passaddhi), mental unification and equanimity (upekkhā). These last two groups need applying according to the needs of the situation. Both joy and tranquillity are associated with attentive chanting, and deep meditative collectedness, but are respectively more energised and peaceful in their nature. Qualities such as equanimity, patience and calm are much valued, but it is emphasised that they are not the same as uncaring indifference.

  Rupert Gethin, The Buddhist Path to Awakening (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001), 104–45.   Ñāṇamoli, Visuddhimagga, The Path of Purification, IV.45–9. 12  Gethin, The Buddhist Path to Awakening, 146–89. 10 11

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Mindfulness Mindfulness is a particularly valued quality in Buddhism, which sees it as a crucial aspect of the process of meditatively calming down and waking up so as to see things as they really are. Both of these help us to reduce the suffering that we inflict on ourselves and others. Mindfulness allows one to slow down, step back from and alertly take stock of what one is doing and feeling, which allows things to naturally calm down. It is: • mind-ful-ness: full presence of mind, alert attention, mental clarity, being wide awake, fully with-it, vigilant, not on auto-pilot; • a thorough observation, not careless in its watchfulness; • a disinterested, non-judgemental observation, without reacting for or against; a ‘bare attention’ that simply notes and registers what is going on; • not being superficial in one’s attention: remembering what one is supposed to be attending to, not ‘floating away’ from it, and reminding oneself to return to it if one does; • full awareness of what is happening in and to one, as it happens; • where appropriate, undistorted memory of a past experience, especially of meditative experience and its beneficial qualities; not losing one’s connection to these; • it conduces to a simple, natural, non-habitual state; • seeing things as they are, without overlooking aspects of them, or projecting things onto them. Mindfulness is seen as absent in any unwholesome mental states, which are seen to require a lack of awareness regarding what is of true value. On the other hand, it is seen as a necessary ingredient of any wholesome state. Hence to be mindful of a just-past negative state is already to be in a positive, wholesome state – at least for the moment of that mindfulness. Much attention is given in Buddhism to recognising and gently undermining negative emotions, and cultivating positive ones. Mindfulness is an important ingredient in both: calm and disinterested awareness of the arising, presence and passing away of various bodily and mental processes; also clear recollection of these, in a way that sees their connections. To understand, and skilfully redirect, emotions, one must first be able to carefully observe them – and to do this, it greatly helps to be able to watch them arise from within an otherwise calm and still mind, and to gently restrain reactions to them, yet observe whatever reactions nevertheless arise. This mindful observation comes under the scope of the four applications of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhānas).13 13  Analayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization (Birmingham: Windhorse, 2003); Sarah Shaw, Buddhist Meditation: An Anthology of Texts from the Pali Canon (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 76–85, plus 101–8, 140–46, 186–93.

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The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta,14 or ‘Discourse on the Applications of Mindfulness’, is a key early meditation text that details how to develop mindfulness in relation to the body, feelings, mind-states and dhammas (basic reality-patterns such as the five hindrances and seven factors of awakening). These various phenomena, in oneself and then in others, are to be contemplated while one is ‘diligent, clearly comprehending, and mindful, free from desires and discontent in regard to the world’, noting their arising, passing away, then both, ‘just for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness’, in a manner that is independent and not clinging. As regards the body, the first and most important thing to be contemplated is the inand outflow of the breath, but attention may also be given to bodily movements, postures, physical elements, body parts and the decay of the body. The ‘feeling’ (vedanā) that is to be contemplated is not exactly the same as ‘emotion’, but is simply the pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feeling-tone that accompanies either a physical sensation or an emotion, and whether this relates to normal worldly affairs or spiritual practice. Mindfulness of feeling can be practised to some extent in ordinary life, but more deeply in meditation. In meditation, the feelings might be of slight bodily discomfort, or neutral feeling when the body is well composed, or slight unpleasant feeling in response to the mind wandering too much, or joy and happiness that arise from the practice. In samatha meditation, the emphasis is on opening to, observing and then calming the feelings, which is fully done in the progressive levels of meditative absorption; in vipassanā meditation, the emphasis is on observing the impermanence of feelings, their constant change. Each and every moment has some feeling present, whether strong or weak, sustained or quickly changing. The commentaries explain that physical pleasure or pain come only from the tactile sense, as seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting are only immediately accompanied by neutral feeling. Any happiness or displeasure associated with them comes quickly after seeing and so on, due to immediate mental reaction by habit and association. Some reactions are practically automatic, and are the product of past experience and karma. One has little control over such reactions. But then there are more active reactions, which build on what one sees and so on and the usual associations from this. When mindfulness is weak: • in response to the presence or thought of pleasant feeling, there can be a reaching out to consume, a wanting – ‘yes please, give me, must have’ – a craving for pleasure; • in response to the presence or thought of painful feeling, there can be aversion, a craving for ending, a tensing up, a rejection, and perhaps anger at the supposed source of the feeling; or one becomes unsettled and confused, and so seeks solace by looking for some pleasant feeling to become attached to, like a baby wanting its dummy to suck; • in response to the presence or thought of a neutral feeling, there can be 14   Majjhima Nikaya, edited by Robert Chalmers (London:Pali Text Society, 1899), vol. I, 55–63.

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an attitude of indifference or confusion towards the neutral, and hence boredom, a wanting-something-to-happen, a craving for fuller existence, or a dull ignorance. Feelings generally trigger certain perceptions, and these in turn other states: what one feels one perceives/labels (sañjānāti); what one labels one applies thought to (vitakketi); what one thinks on one elaborates/proliferates (papañceti); what one elaborates is the origin of the interpretations and reckonings that come from elaboration which assail a person in regard to objects discernible by the eye (or any other sense-organ, or mind), past, future or present.15

In unskilfully responding to feeling, one loses the simplicity of undistorted perception, so as to pick at things and froth up problems that weigh on one, and often lead on to unskilful actions. But through mindfulness and calming, the frothing-up activities of unskilful perception can be moderated, undermined and transformed: • in response to pleasant feeling, there can be calm appreciation, letting go, and mindfulness of any negative aspects of pursuing the feeling; • in response to unpleasant feeling, there can be patience, and an awareness of impermanence. There can also arise joyful faith in the Buddha’s analysis of experience, which highlights dukkha, unsatisfactoriness, as a pervasive feature, and shows a way beyond it; • in response to neutral feeling, there can be a watching of the mind and its tendency to move from boredom to mild aversion, or to sink into passivity, or to wanting-something-to-happen. Overall, one needs to be aware of the attraction of feeling, of the disadvantages of feeling, and of the way beyond entanglement in feeling. Mindfulness of mind-states (citta) involves the more direct contemplation of emotions, noting the presence of attachment/lust (rāga), hate or delusion, or of their opposites, or whether the mind is lethargic or excitedly distracted, or in a calm, focused state, or not. Mindfulness of dhammas involves contemplation of: the five hindrances; the five khandhas (the processes that make up body and mind); the senses and their objects and how the relation between these can lead to limiting fetters; the seven factors of awakening; and the four aspects of life, generally translated as the ‘Noble Truths’ (better: True Realities for the Spiritually Ennobled): the painful aspects of life, craving as supporting these, their ending with the ending of craving, and the Buddhist path of moral virtue, meditative concentration and wisdom as that which leads to the end of craving.   Ibid., 111–12, trans. Peter Harvey.

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Mindfulness in Secular Therapies Buddhist-derived ‘mindfulness’ has in recent years been drawn on by a number of secular therapies. In the USA, the approach of the Insight Meditation movement, as well as Korean Zen, is drawn on in the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who established the approach of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction in 1979 as a secular therapy. His ideas are put forward in such books as Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life,16 and in 1995 he founded the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare and Society (umassmed.edu/cfm/index.aspx). Building on the work of Kabat-Zinn, in the UK, Mark Williams and John Teasdale, from the UK, and Canadian Zindel Siegal developed Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy. In 2004, this was recognised by the National Health Service’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence as a recommended treatment for recurrent depression, and there are now MAs or MScs in the discipline at Oxford University’s Mindfulness Centre, the University of Wales at Bangor, and Exeter and Aberdeen Universities. Emotional Intelligence Those involved in ‘positive psychology’ (the study of the causes of happiness, rather than of psychological problems) and the idea of the ‘plasticity’ of the brain have also become interested in Buddhist meditators. Daniel Goleman, in his Destructive Emotions and How we can Overcome them: a Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, reports on studies at the Universities of Wisconsin and California of advanced western monastic meditators trained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track their brain states while in various contemplative states.17 An interesting effect was on the startle reflex, a primitive human response to such things as a loud noise, that involves a very quick set of muscle contractions in the face, especially around the eyes; it is usually beyond voluntary control.18 The intensity of the startle reflex has been found to correspond to the ‘magnitude of the negative emotions a person feels – fear, anger, sadness, and disgust’.19 It was found that one meditator, after a loud noise that he knew was coming, could, unlike others put through this kind of test, have almost no startle reflex. When the meditator was in an open, accepting, mindful state, the sound seemed like a neutral event, ‘like a bird crossing the sky’. 16   Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (London: Piatkus, 1994). 17   Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them?: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (London: Bloomsbury, 2003). 18   Ibid., 15–16. 19   Ibid., 16.

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While there was no effect on the facial muscles, the heart rate went up slightly. When in one-pointed concentration, though, there was no effect on the heart rate, but a slight effect on the facial muscles.20 On the other hand, when viewing a medical film of a burns victim having his skin peeled off, the usual reaction of disgust was replaced by one of compassion.21 References Analayo. Satipaṭṭhāna:, The Direct Path to Realization. Birmingham: Windhorse, 2003. Bodhi, Bhikkhu. A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha. The Pali Text, Translation and Explanatory Guide. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1993. Buddharakkhita, Acharya. Mettā: The Philosophy and Practice of Universal Love, Wheel Pamphlet 365–6. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1995. Also available at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/wheels/wheel365.html. Chalmers, Robert (ed). Majjhima Nikaya. 3 volumes London: Pali Text Society, 1899. Passages from this have been translated by the author of this paper, but the most recent complete translation is by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Boston: Wisdom, 1995. Gethin, Rupert. The Buddhist Path to Awakening. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001. Goleman, Daniel. Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them?: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. London: Piatkus, 1994. Ñāṇamoli. The Practice of Loving-kindness (Mettā), Wheel Pamphlet 7. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994. Also available at http://accesstoinsight. org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel007.html Ñāṇamoli, Bhikkhu. Visuddhimagga, The Path of Purification. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 2010. Pali Text Society. Majjhima-nikaya, Middle Length Sayings. Trans. I.B. Horner. 3 vols. London: Pali Text Society, 1954. Śāntideva. The Bodhicaryavatara. Trans. Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Shaw, Sarah. Buddhist Meditation An Anthology of Texts from the Pali Canon. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Soma Thera. The Removal of Distracting Thoughts (Vitakka-Santhana Sutta), Wheel Pamphlet 20. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994. Also available at http://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel021.html.

  Ibid., 17.   Ibid., 18–19.

20 21

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Wayman, Alex. Ethics of Tibet: Bodhisattva Section of Tsong-kha-pa’s Lam rim chen mo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

Chapter 4

Emotions in the Writings of Two Church Fathers: Evagrius of Pontus and Mark the Monk Augustine M. Casiday and Christopher C.H. Cook

Introduction Early Christian writers had an understanding of what we would refer to as the emotions, which drew heavily on classical Greek philosophy as well as a perceptive understanding of human nature interpreted and understood in theological terms. Among these writers, the thinking of those who are now known as the Church Fathers is of particular interest. The Church Fathers were theologians and interpreters whose teachings and examples have been valued by successive generations of Christians. Although some Christian communities have more pronounced tendencies to hold the Church Fathers in high regard than others have, in recent times interest in their writings has cut across confessional lines. Interest in the writings of monastic Church Fathers has been particularly emphasised recently, perhaps because the monastic vocation that informs their works lends itself readily to a critique of contemporary society. Among these Fathers, we have selected just two as a focus of interest for this chapter: Evagrius of Pontus and Mark the Monk. Evagrius and Mark, along with the other Fathers, have important things to say about human emotions that can be of value in helping us to reconsider contemporary psychological and other scientific ways of thinking about our emotional life. A major barrier in appropriating the writings of monastic Church Fathers, however, is that their anthropological presuppositions tend to be foreign even to modern Christians. This foreignness is not particularly attributable to the fact that their views are Christian, but rather to the fact that they are typically adapted from classical Stoicism. In particular, their conceptual frame of reference was to an understanding of ‘the passions’ rather than to our concept of emotions (a concept with much more recent origins).1 The passions are both a broader range of experiences (including, for example, hunger and sexual desire, as well as what 1   Thomas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

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we would recognise as emotions) and also presume a different understanding of the relationship between body and mind, or reason and affect, than we are used to imagining. In some ways, this view of things brings us close to contemporary cognitive behavioural models of psychology and it is not without opportunities for contemporary application.2 However, it is also quite alien to us, and depends upon understandings of the human soul with which most people are not now familiar. According to Plato, the soul was divided into rational and passionate parts, the latter comprising both appetitive desires and also an ‘incensive’ part, which is the seat of (among other passions) anger. The Platonic model was famously understood as analogous to a charioteer (reason) with two unruly horses to control (the appetitive and incensive passions). Things work best when the charioteer is in control, but the horses are strong and self-willed, and tend (given any opportunity at all) to pull in all the wrong directions. The terminology introduced by classical and later Christian writers to refer to this anthropological model can be very confusing. However, it is particularly important to be aware of the importance of the ‘nous’, often translated as ‘intellect’ or ‘mind’, as the charioteer in this model. The nous is not easily reduced to any contemporary term that is familiar to us. It is more spiritually and theologically nuanced than mere reason, and in fact is significantly distinguished by early Christians from reason (dianoia) alone. But it is also much more rational and intellectual than our concept of mind (with all its emotional intrusions) would allow. It is, in many ways, the point of human contact between bodily passion and spiritual reality, between human experience of this world and spiritual encounter with the Divine. With this all too brief introduction in place, we shall now proceed to consider how Evagrius and Mark dealt with two fundamentally important passions: gluttony (a passion of the appetitive part of the soul) and anger (an incensive passion). This choice is informed by familiarity with the texts and is justified (we hope!) by the conclusions that we draw. Evagrius of Pontus Evagrius (c. 345–99)3 was a promising and eloquent young theologian who, having come from a noble family and having received a good education, studied under Gregory Nazianzen in Constantinople and found himself engaged in some of the leading controversies of the day. However, less than three years after moving to Constantinople, and having had an affair with the wife of a prominent local politician, he fled first to Jerusalem, and then to the North African desert. Here he spent virtually the entire remainder of his life, first at the leading monastic centre at Nitria, and then in the more remote region of Kellia, where he became 2   C.C.H. Cook, The Philokalia and the Inner Life: On Passions and Prayer (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011). 3   A.M. Casiday, Evagrius Ponticus (London: Routledge, 2006).

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a pupil of Macarius the Great. Engaging in practices of severe ascetic discipline and devoting himself to a life of prayer, he became a noted and respected teacher. Unlike most of the Desert Fathers, who appear to have relied largely on an oral tradition of teaching, and who appear to have been suspicious of the spiritual dangers of owning books or presuming to write for the benefit of others, Evagrius wrote extensively about the spiritual life. Evagrius was a prolific author. His extant works include instructions for his pupils on monastic life, commentaries on scripture, various piece of personal correspondence, and a series of works on prayer and the inner life. Whilst drawing, as did many of his time, on influences from Origen of Alexandria, as well as from his teachers in Constantinople and later the Egyptian desert, Evagrius was a highly original and perceptive writer on the spiritual life. When, following his death, and especially following the Second Ecumenical Council a century and a half afterwards, Evagrius’ theological works were tainted by association with the condemned writings of Origen, his writings on the spiritual life none the less continued to circulate. Moreover, they remained hugely influential. The enduring spiritual influence of someone whose theology was perceived as having been so roundly condemned must be considered a remarkable matter. This was facilitated partly by widespread translation, so that even when the Greek manuscripts were destroyed, others, especially in Syriac, remained. However, the enduring influence seems mainly to have come about because of the perceived value of Evagrius’ insights into the spiritual life. Sometimes these were explicitly separated from supposed ‘theological’ writings and commended as worthy of affirmation, in contradistinction to the heresies of the latter. Sometimes, as in the prolific writings of Maximus the Confessor,4 they found their enduring influence when key concepts were modified and re-transmitted through the influence of writers on whom history eventually bestowed the stamp of orthodoxy. Sometimes the works of Evagrius were attributed to other authors, for example Nilus the Ascetic. However, four texts by Evagrius were included in the important 1782 anthology assembled by Nicodemos and Macarius, The Philokalia, and only one of these was included under the name of Nilus.5 Perhaps, in the late eighteenth century, Nicodemos and Macarius were able to perceive that some basic ideas of Evagrian origin could be found in virtually all the later texts of the Philokalia and that this early contribution to the tradition of Orthodox spirituality should not be overlooked. But Evagrius’ influence has been important in western Christianity as well, at least partly through his pupil John Cassian, who takes up important Evagrian ideas in his writings (e.g. in The Conferences), and there can be few spiritual writers since the closure of the New Testament canon whose writings have been so widely influential throughout the Christian world. Whilst much could be said about the influence of Evagrius, a key idea that seems to have been original to him, and which almost all subsequent authors in the   Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996).  Cook, The Philokalia and the Inner Life.

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tradition adopted, was that there is a limited number of generic kinds of thought that are of importance for any understanding of the inner life, and particularly for understanding and practice of the life of prayer. Usually, although not completely without exception, Evagrius adopts a list of eight particularly significant thoughts: gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sadness, acedia, vainglory and pride. Whilst it is immediately apparent that these thoughts would not all now be labelled ‘emotions’, it is also clear that key emotions are included here and that the idea of identifying such a list of thoughts shows awareness of the important ways in which non-rational influences upon inner, mental, life tend to colour all human endeavour, not least the quest for God in prayer.6 The eight thoughts, and Evagrius’ commentaries and reflections upon them, show a perceptive and sophisticated understanding of the interplay of (what we would refer to as) spiritual, psychological and physical aspects of human nature. Within this overall portrait of human nature, the complex interplay of the rational and (what we would call) emotional aspects of mental life is highlighted in various ways. Thoughts are seen to have a life of their own. Whilst this is sometimes attributed to demonic influence, we should not imagine that this is a psychologically naïve demonology, or that it is immediately comparable to contemporary western Christian phenomena (such as Pentecostal or charismatic demonologies). Rather, it recognises patterns of thought that we might regard as closely resembling a kind of ‘addiction’, where disordered appetites prejudice our judgements concerning life’s priorities. It demonstrates an acute awareness of the ways in which (what we might call) affective thought content can easily make us less objective and rational about our values and decision making than we would like to imagine that we are. From an early twenty-first-century perspective, it is possible to aver that the influence of Evagrius has been significantly, perhaps primarily, as a result of his psychological perceptivity. He has even been referred to as a ‘father of cognitive psychology’!7 Whilst, as we have already seen, the concept of emotions (let alone of cognitive psychology) was anachronistic to the world of Evagrius, and thus he writes about emotions only within the terminology and conceptual framework of thoughts, passions, demons or vices, none the less we may historically reflect that Evagrius had come face to face with his emotions in some deeply disturbing ways and yet had not been afraid to reflect prayerfully and honestly about what he found. Or, perhaps more accurately, we might say that he found that he could not pray truly unless or until he had properly taken into account the impact upon human spirituality of the emotions. Let us now turn to the two specific examples that we have chosen for our study here.

  For a further discussion of the eight thoughts, and their relationship to prayer, see

6

ibid.

7   K. Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009).

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Gluttony Evagrius identifies gluttony as a particularly important thought, or passion, and it usually comes first in his listing of the passions. With avarice and vainglory, it is understood as one of three fundamental thoughts.8 Moreover, it is seen as importantly related to (what we would call) emotional life. Thus, for example, in On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues (1.2), it is understood as associated in various ways (whether as cause or effect) with such passions as terror, envy, sexual desire and gloom. Elsewhere, it is understood as allowing the emergence of sexual desire, anger and sadness.9 It is caused by anxiety and fear.10 It would seem clear that Evagrius understood gluttony as having a more or less direct, somato-psychic, adverse effect upon human thoughts: Land that has become barren produces thorns; and the mind of a glutton grows shameful thoughts.11

This effect not only gives root to harmful (and emotionally laden) thoughts, but also prevents thoughts of a pure, or contemplative, kind: It is not possible to find spices in the mud, nor the fragrance of contemplation in a glutton.12

For Evagrius, influenced by the Stoic tradition, the aim of the spiritual life was to achieve pure prayer, for which a requisite was dispassion, or impassibility, and he understood gluttony as impeding this aim.13 Elsewhere, however, it appears to be the effect of gluttony on (and conversely, the benefit of abstinence for) the body itself that he sees as important: Do not pity a body that is debilitated and in mourning, nor fatten it up with rich foods, for if it gains strength it will rebel against you and wage unrelenting war upon you, until it takes your soul captive and delivers you as a slave to the passion of fornication.14

8   Evagrius, ‘On Thoughts’, in Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. and ed. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1. 9  Ibid. 10   Evagrius, ‘Antirrhetikos’, in Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons, ed. David Brakke (Trappist: Cistercian Publications; Liturgical Press, 2009), 1.16, 1.19, 1.47. 11   Evagrius, ‘Eight Thoughts’, in Evagrius of Pontus, 1.18. 12   Ibid., 1.19. 13   Ibid., 1.25. ‘On Thoughts,’ 35. 14   Ibid., 1.34.

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Gluttony is thus understood by Evagrius as an important physical variable, which both causes and is caused by unhelpful passionate (emotionally laden) impulses, and which impedes dispassion and contemplative prayer. Anger Anger, in common with all the eight thoughts, is enslaving,15 preoccupying the mind,16 impeding prayer and making God unwelcome in the soul.17 However, in keeping with the nature of this emotion (as we would call it), Evagrius gives it a particularly aggressive and destructive character portrait. It is an ‘evil beast’.18 It is: A plundering of prudence, a destruction of one’s state, a confusion of nature, a form turned savage, a furnace for the heart, an eruption of flames, a law of irascibility, a wrath of insults, a mother of wild bests, a silent battle, an impediment to prayer.19

Anger is understood by Evagrius as being opposed to patience,20 a cause of sadness,21 and is itself caused by pride.22 Anger is overcome by love.23 Evagrius also perceives a proper place for anger. The problem is that it is all too easily turned against other people, and thus becomes a cause of loss of charity on the one hand and evil thoughts on the other. Rather, Evagrius understands that it should be exercised ‘against the demons’,24 and in rebuke of one’s own ‘flattering thoughts’ (i.e. the passions, or eight thoughts).25 He seems to be extremely wary of the possibility of ever being righteously angry with another human being. Anger is thus understood by Evagrius as an important psychological variable – dangerous and difficult to control – that all too easily disrupts the human social order and prevents prayer. For Evagrius, then, thoughts are complex phenomena at the intersection of what is rational and (what we would call) emotional in human mental life. They influence, and are influenced by, physical aspects of human nature as well as by the   Evagrius, ‘Foundations’, in Evagrius of Pontus, 5.   Evagrius, ‘Vices,’ in ibid., 4.7. 17   Evagrius, ‘Eight Thoughts’, 4.8, 4.11–12, 4.14, 4.16, 4.18; Evagrius, ‘Praktikos’, in Evagrius of Pontus 11, 23, 25; Evagrius, ‘On Thoughts,’ 5, 16, 32; Evagrius, ‘Prayer,’ in Evagrius of Pontus, 14, 27, 50, 64. 18   Evagrius, ‘Eulogios’, in Evagrius of Pontus, 5.5. 19   Evagrius, ‘Vices’, 5. 20  Ibid. 21   Evagrius, ‘Praktikos’, 10, 25. 22   Ibid., 14. 23   Evagrius, ‘Exhortation to a Virgin’, in Evagrius of Pontus, 41; Evagrius, ‘Praktikos’, 38; Evagrius, ‘Antirrhetikos’, 5:37, 5.39, 5.40, 5.64. 24   Evagrius, ‘Praktikos’, 24, cf. 42; See also: Thoughts, 16. 25   Evagrius, ‘Eulogios’, 11.10. 15 16

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spiritual. Their importance for Evagrius is primarily because of their relationship to the life of prayer. Unless we understand our inner life, our ‘emotional’ life, well we will not be able to pray well. Mark the Monk Mark the Monk is known to us exclusively through his writings. Of them, there are eight to ten, including a doctrinal treatise, a personal letter to an otherwise unknown Nicholas, a fictionalised debate between a priest and a lawyer, and a few specimens of a literary form preferred by Evagrius (whose works Mark probably knew and developed), the ‘chapters’. Mark probably lived in Asia Minor and wrote towards the end of the fifth century.26 His writings circulated widely from an early date. We know, for instance, that several of them were available in Syriac from the sixth century and in Latin from the ninth. In Latin, some of Mark’s works found a keen readership in the West during the era of reformations, thanks not least to his own emphasis on grace and works. Those two themes were topical in sixteenthcentury Europe, but what sets Mark’s works apart is that those themes are not often foregrounded in Greek Christian writings from the fifth century. They are central to Mark’s twin work, ‘On the Spiritual Law’ and ‘Concerning Those Who Imagine That They are Justified by Works’, or, more briefly, ‘On Works’. There are certainly differences between Mark’s problematic and that of post-Reformation Christianity in the West and they should not be underemphasised. Even so, the fact that Mark’s longest (and in many regards most sophisticated) writing has as its central concern the conditions for the possibility of godly living means that his claims about emotions can be interpreted within a framework that is by no means foreign to the religious culture of Western Europe. That this concern is familiar is very helpful, since in his writings Mark engages with it in unfamiliar ways. The sophistication of Mark’s ‘On the Spiritual Law’ and ‘On Works’ is evident in their common structure. They consist in 201 and 211 ‘chapters’, respectively, which are typically brief or even aphoristic claims. The interconnections of the chapters, or even between chains of chapters, are not rendered explicit by the literary form. In some cases, the author indicates that the number of chapters and even the internal ordering of chapters are meaningful features. (Evagrius did so, for instance, in the preface to his Praktikos.) The genre therefore places a heavy burden of interpretation on the reader: to understand the work, the reader must ruminate upon the text, seeking patterns in it and thus being open to the insights that it may provoke. Because the text’s very form makes understanding it effortful, this genre is frequently used along with disciplines of living to catalyse changes in perception and so to reinforce changes in behaviour. Christians were not pioneers in this undertaking, as we see from a popular Stoic text much appreciated 26   Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday, Counsels on the Spiritual Life, vols 1 and 2 (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 24–6.

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and subsequently adapted by early Christians, the Sentences of Sextus. The study of these ‘chapters’ promotes ethical improvement and psychological integration, leading to theological comprehension. Through this use of this genre in particular and in his other writings as well, Mark proposes an approach to Christian life that anticipates features of modern cognitive-behavioural therapies. Gluttony Mark identifies gluttony as a problem precisely because it indicates, in the first instance, a problematic orientation towards the world. The glutton pursues satisfaction irrationally and, in doing so, allows increasingly complex desires to flourish in a way that is dehumanising and, as it were, turns the human into a pig.27 Mark asserts that, for a person who indulges in sensual pleasures (which go beyond food and drink) it becomes ever more difficult to attend to the life of the mind or nous. One who pursues pleasure becomes indifferent to and forgetful of God-given knowledge of ‘what is useful and beneficial’ in life.28 A lack of that knowledge leads to personal instability – which is sometimes expressed through ‘weeping and wailing’ at one’s own sins – and, expanding outward, to interpersonal problems as well.29 Elsewhere in his writings, Mark elaborates on this instability when he talks of how the ‘person who does not understand God’s judgments intellectually [i.e. with the nous] walks a trail with precipitous cliffs on both sides and is easily knocked off balance by every gust of wind’. It is therefore not only in dealing with other people, but also when confronted by the passions and even ‘chance occurrences’, that the glutton is vulnerable.30 Mark analyses this vulnerability with reference to the overall orientation of a person’s life. ‘We undertake everything that we do because of two unreasoning impulses: a desire for people’s praises and a desire for creature comforts. These impulses, which, without our willing it, take control over our will, are neither evils nor virtues but are rather proofs of our inclinations’ – inclinations, as he goes on to explain, either towards the Lord or else towards the Devil.31 Elsewhere, Mark talks at some length about the inclination of the thoughts and how the Devil uses them.32 He is less explicit in describing the consequences of orientating one’s inclinations toward the Lord, but by implication it conveys stability.

  Mark the Monk, ‘A Letter to Nicholas’, in Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk, trans. and ed. Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday, vols 1 and 2 (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 7.5. 28   Mark the Monk, ‘On the Spiritual Law’, in ibid., 78. 29   Ibid., 145. 30   Mark the Monk, ‘On Works’, in Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 181. 31   Mark the Monk, ‘The Mind’s Advice to Its Own Soul’, in Counsels on the Spiritual Life, 2. 32   Mark the Monk, ‘Concerning Holy Baptism’, in Counsels on the Spiritual Life, ad q. 11. 27

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Anger Mark never settles on a single aetiology of emotional and cognitive disorders. He offers vivid descriptions, perhaps in deference to the complexity of his theme, perhaps in order to provide memorable images for various circumstances. One such image is the tree of vice, the trunk of which is anger: Come, let us now also discuss a little the irrational passion of anger. … This passion is especially strengthened by pride and, when it grows strong, becomes indestructible, until the diabolical tree of bitterness and anger and fury, its roots moistened with the foul water of pride, blooms and flowers and produces a great crop of transgressions.33

Elsewhere, he says anger derives from the instability and the lack of understanding that are born of gluttony. Thus, he cautions, ‘The person who becomes angry with his neighbour on account of riches or acclaim or pleasure does not yet realize that God manages all things with justice.’34 Mark here suggests that unmanaged and unreasoning desires (which countless factors can thwart) dispose people to react with hostility when those desires are frustrated: because we have a secret love for enjoyments (I mean for self-centeredness and people-pleasing), both for arrogance and a love of show and ostentation, of superiority and pride, and other vices similar to these whose success multiplies our desires and whose lack of success multiplies our irascibility – because of this, we are powerless.35

Powerless, but not harmless: often, says Mark, one vents this frustration violently upon others. When such behaviour becomes habitual, our conscience is (to borrow Mark’s term) ‘fetter[ed] … with irrational impulses controlled by carnal imaginings’.36 Thus anger and gluttony come to exacerbate each other. This overview presents Mark’s teaching on anger as being overwhelmingly negative, as indeed it is. But in much the same way that Mark asserted that impulses are in themselves value-neutral, he also seems to suggest that anger might be ambivalent. In an isolated passage, Mark instructs the one who has become embroiled in ‘evil talk’ to ‘be angry with yourself and not with the person talking’.37 It would be rash to make very much of this instruction, although recalling the overriding importance Mark attributes to the general orientation of one’s life we might cautiously venture that even a destructive emotion can be valuable under     35   36   37   33 34

Mark the Monk, ‘To Nicholas’, 8.1–2. Mark the Monk, ‘On the Spiritual Law’, 110; emphasis added. Mark the Monk, ‘Concerning Holy Baptism’, ad q. 14; emphasis added. Mark the Monk, ‘To Nicholas’, 3.2–3. Mark the Monk, ‘On the Spiritual Law’, 154.

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certain circumstances. Great discretion is needed to judge the timely application of anger against another vice to promote spiritual growth, but (as was already proverbial by the time of Aristotle) one nail drives out another.38 Conclusion Evagrius of Pontus and Mark the Monk remind us that there are different ways of construing the emotional life than those that we currently employ. Philosophy, theology and anthropology inform our understanding of emotions, as much (or perhaps more) than merely contemporary scientific understandings would allow. For Evagrius and Mark, an understanding of the affective life was informed by the concept of the passions, a concept that is both holistic and very perceptive in its understanding of the relationships between body and nous, and between different passions (or, as we might say, appetites, emotions and desires). Among the passions, gluttony and anger provide illuminating examples of the ways in which more physically based desires may be understood as influencing our apparently more psychologically based emotions, and also of how strong emotions and physical desires can develop a hold over us such that we act in ways of which we are not proud. Whilst lacking the scientific underpinnings of contemporary psychology, such models of self-understanding, originating in the classical and early Christian world, may be seen to be highly perceptive. References Aristotle. ‘Politics’. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, translated by B. Jowett. Vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Casiday, A.M. Evagrius Ponticus. London: Routledge, 2006. Cook, C.C.H. The Philokalia and the Inner Life: On Passions and Prayer. Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011. Corrigan, K. Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Dixon, Thomas. From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Evagrius. ‘Antirrhetikos’. In Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons, edited by David Brakke. Trappist: Cistercian Publications; Liturgical Press, 2009.

38   Aristotle, ‘Politics’, in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, trans. B. Jowett, vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 5.1314a; the proverb was also rehearsed by Evagrius at ‘Praktikos’, 58.

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Evagrius ‘Eight Thoughts’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘Eulogios’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘Exhortation to a Virgin’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘Foundations’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘On Thoughts’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘Praktikos’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘Prayer’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Evagrius. ‘Vices’. In Evagrius of Pontus: the Greek Ascetic Corpus, translated and edited by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Louth, Andrew. Maximus the Confessor. London: Routledge, 1996. Mark the Monk. ‘A Letter to Nicholas’. In Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk, translated and edited by Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday. Vols 1 and 2. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009. Mark the Monk. ‘Concerning Holy Baptism’. In Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk, translated and edited by Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday. Vols 1 and 2. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009. Mark the Monk. ‘On the Spiritual Law’. In Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk, translated and edited by Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday. Vols 1 and 2. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009. Mark the Monk. ‘On Works’. In Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk, translated and edited by Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday. Vols 1 and 2. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009. Mark the Monk. ‘The Mind’s Advice to Its Own Soul’. In Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk, edited by Augustine Casiday and Tim Vivian, translated by Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday. Vols 1 and 2. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009. Vivian, Tim, and Augustine Casiday. Counsels on the Spiritual Life. Vols 1 and 2. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009.

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Chapter 5

Metaphysics, Emotions and the Flourishing Life: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Use of Aristotle on Religious Emotions Nathaniel A. Warne

Introduction1 The past 50 or so years have witnessed a growing interest in ethical naturalism, specifically in the form of virtue ethics, as opposed to other normative theories of ethics. This growing interest in virtue ethics has been seen in the celebrated theologians and philosophers Jean Porter, Philippa Foot and Alistair MacIntyre, to name but three. While their primary resources have been drawn from ancient and medieval philosophers, this chapter argues that, at the most fundamental level, there is another resource that can be utilised for investigating ethical naturalism, virtue ethics and, more specifically, eudaimonism, a resource found in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English Puritans. In demonstrating this we will show that those Puritans have interesting and valuable things to say not only concerning ethics but also on the relationship between spiritual and moral development and emotions. We will look, first, at how these Puritan thinkers used Aristotle, and at times Thomas Aquinas, to discuss the emotions in the moral and spiritual life. Second, this chapter will look at how these thinkers located the emotions in terms of a flourishing of human being in a life pursued according to reason. Finally, this chapter will seek to show the fundamental agreements and disagreements between the ancient and medieval eudaimonists and these Puritan thinkers. Although this chapter is principally interested in Puritan views, it will also consider the Roman Catholic priest and religious controversialist Thomas Wright (1561–1623), for the Puritans were party to a wide cross-confessional discourse on this subject and Wright was one of the key sources used and to whom they were responding.

1   Much appreciation goes to Christopher J. Insole, Alec Ryrie and David Horner for reading through drafts of this chapter. Also many thanks to Adam B. Schaeffer, Patrick Grafton-Cardwell and Benjamin DeSpain for their most helpful insights and comments.

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Eudaimonism In this section, we look at the basic principles of Aristotle’s ethical thought in order to lay the foundations for discussing its usage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In a far from exhaustive way, we will briefly address eudaimonism, the teleological structure of Aristotle’s metaphysics, as well as the virtues’ relation to the passions. Aristotle’s ethical beliefs are eudaimonistic, which is to say that moral values are derived from an agent’s end, and that end is ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia).2 Elizabeth Anscombe’s influential 1958 article, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, brought out a fuller understanding of this definition of eudaimonia by translating it as ‘flourishing’ or ‘well-being’, rather than the traditional English translation ‘happiness’. As for Aristotle, he begins his ethical treatise by investigating the teleological structure of actions, arguing that ‘the good’ is ‘what everyone seeks’.3 Moreover, this good is not something that is external to the moral agent but is the perfection of its nature. ‘The oak, which, springing from the acorn, grows according to the law of its nature, whatever that may be.’ The acorn grows towards an end that is in accordance with its function and the laws of its nature, and becomes a perfect tree, realizes the end of its existence and attains ‘its own good’.4 This highest good, ‘as far as its name goes, most people virtually agree; for both the many and the cultivated call it happiness, and they suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being happy’.5 Julia Annas, for example, shows that happiness is a complete or final good pursued for itself and nothing else. In fact, everything else is pursued for it. Another criterion that Annas shows in Aristotle is that happiness is self-sufficient, requiring nothing, ‘and making a life choice worthy on its own’. Finally, happiness is not simply one good end amongst others, but fulfils all others in itself.6 Aristotle infers that there is some ultimate end that mankind pursues for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else. When someone makes a decision they are ‘expressing a desire for an object as promoting the final good’.7 To make a decision is to show and act on a rational desire to a rational end. We do everything else for the sake of that rational ultimate   End: Greek τελος.  Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, trans. W.D., revised by J.O. Urmson Ross, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 1094a1–4. All citations of Aristotle are from the Barnes edition unless otherwise noted, referred to as EN. 4   J.A. Stewart, Notes on the EN of Aristotle, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), 3. 5  Aristotle, EN, 1095a15–20. G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy 33, no. 124 (1 January 1958): 1–19. 6   Julia Annas, ‘Aristotle on Virtue and Happiness’, in Aristotle’s Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy Sherman (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 36; Aristotle, EN, 1097a25–b21. 7   Terence Irwin, The Development of Ethics. Volume 1, From Socrates to the Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 124. 2 3

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end. ‘Honor, pleasure, understanding, and every virtue’ we choose for the sake of happiness, ‘supposing that through them we shall be happy’.8 Happiness is the ‘end of the things achievable by action’.9 For Aristotle, to be a human being is to fulfil the function of a human being, which is ‘to have a certain kind of life, and this is to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle’.10 For a human to fulfil what it is to be human, she must use her reason. In giving a clearer picture of happiness Aristotle refers back to his metaphysics to ‘grasp the function of a human being’.11 He concludes that ‘the human function is activity of the soul in accord with reason or requiring reason’.12 Just as it is the function of a good harpist to play the harp well, the human function is a ‘certain kind of life’ that is ‘activity and actions of the soul that involve reason’. The ‘function of the excellent man is to do this well and finely’.13 Functions are ‘completed well by being completed in accord with the virtue proper [to that kind of thing] which is activity of the soul in accordance with the most complete virtue’.14 Since passions fall within this eudaimonistic and metaphysical framework in their relation to the virtues that assist a thing towards its intended and metaphysical end, we may now ask about the relation between the virtues and the passions. Robert C. Roberts notes, first, that some virtues go by the name of some ‘emotiontype’, such as gratitude or compassion or hopefulness. Second, some virtues work as powers for controlling emotions, with such virtues including courage, temperance and patience. Third, ‘some virtues are strongly determining long-term concerns, loves, or passions for some class of states of affairs’, as is the case with justice. Fourth, there are virtues of ‘proper affect’ that are dispositions to be properly affected. Finally, there are ‘virtues that require the absence of a certain range of emotional response’ such as trust, forgiveness and humility.15 The Passions and the Parts of the Soul Now we must ask how this discussion of the human ‘good’ relates to the emotions. We will first see in this section that Puritan thinkers saw, as did Aristotle, that the passions are the motivating factor towards humankind’s ultimate good. They give man desires to pursue good ends. This section will also show that in virtue  Aristotle, EN, 1097b1–5.   Ibid., 1097b21–22. 10   Ibid., 1097b22–1098a19. 11   Ibid., 1097b25–1098a21. 12   Ibid., 1098a7–9. 13   Ibid., 1098a10–15. 14   Ibid., 1098a16–20. 15   Robert C. Roberts, ‘Aristotle on Virtues and Emotions’, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 56, no. 3 (1 July 1989): 293–4. 8

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of being a ‘rational animal’ there is a good and bad way for humans to relate and use their emotions. We will look briefly at Aristotle’s discussion of the three parts of the soul found in his De Anima (DA) and Nicomanchean Ethics (EN), and then demonstrate that theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drew heavily upon this schema in their writings on the emotions and the good life. Nutritive Soul The first of the three parts of the soul for Aristotle is primarily related to ‘nutrition and reproduction’. The ‘nutritive soul’, as he calls it, is in all living things and is the ‘most primitive and widely distributed power of soul’. Self-nutrition is the ‘only psychic power that plants possess’. The acts in which the nutritive soul manifests itself are ‘reproduction and the use of food’. In terms of this part of the soul reproducing itself, Aristotle takes a very theological perspective, stating that this is the way in which the natural agent may ‘partake of the eternal and divine’, which is the goal to which all things strive.16 Thomas Wright adopts the Aristotelian structure of the soul when he states that there is a ‘triple appetite, natural, sensitive, rational’. He notes that the natural appetite is ‘found in plants and elements’, while the natural is also ‘in beasts and men’.17 Popular preacher and bishop of Norwich, Edward Reynolds (1599–1676), similarly states in A Treatise of the Passions that the ‘externall’ or nutritive vegetable soul is ‘common to Beasts, Men, and Plants’,18 is the ‘peremptorie and uniforme order’ in the agent’s natural course and is ‘governed by an immutable, most wise, and most constant Law, proceeding from the Will’ in which there is no change.19 The Passions and the Sensitive Soul Before discussing the second part of the soul it is important that some definition of passions be given to make it easier to discuss how it is that rational animals properly use the emotions. The ‘Sensitive Passions’, as Reynolds portrays them, are thoroughly Aristotelian. For Aristotle, it is sensual desire, not sensual as in  Aristotle, On The Soul, in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, trans. J.A. Smith, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 415a23–30, 413a32–35. Referred to here as DA (De Anima). 17   Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall. Corrected, Enlarged, and with Sundry New Discourses Augmented. By Thomas Wright. With a Treatise Thereto Adioyning of the Clymatericall Yeare, Occasioned by the Death of Queene Elizabeth, Early English Books Online (London: Printed by Valentine Simmes [and Adam Islip] for Walter Burre [and Thomas Thorpe], 1604), 12. 18   Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man with the Severall Dignities and Corruptions Thereunto Belonging, Early English Books Online (London: Printed by F.N. for Robert Bostock and George Badger, 1650), 61–2. 19   Ibid., 33. 16

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sexual, but in appetites (επιθυμία) to which Aristotle attributes the anger, fear and confidence that moves an animal.20 It is the sensitive part, which is in all animals, that gives movement. He writes that local movement is not found in the nutritive part because this kind of movement ‘is always for an end’ but plants lack ‘imagination’ and do not have the ‘organs necessary for carrying this out’.21 It must be found in both the practical thought and the appetite. However, ‘thought is never found producing movement without appetite’ and ‘appetite can originate movement contrary to calculation, for desire is a form of appetite’. And the thing that is the object of the appetite is the ‘stimulant of practical thought’, which may be a real or apparent good.22 Reynolds defines passions as those naturall perfective, and unstrained motions of the Creatures unto that advancement of their Natures, which they are by the Wisdome, Power, and Providence of their Creator, in their own severall spheres, and according to the proportion of their Capacities, ordained to receive, by a regular inclination to those objects, whose goodnesse beareth a naturall convenience to Vertue of satisfaction unto them, or by an antipathie to the good they desire, must needs be noxious and destructive, and by consequent, odious to their natures.23

The passions are perfective motions of an agent towards natural ends that were put in the agent by the providence of God according to the capacities of the agent’s natural desires. Desire or distaste for a thing either encourages us towards or moves us away from certain ends. ‘The root and ground of all passions is principally the good; and secondly, or by consequent, the evill things.’24 The idea of having a specific ‘object’ that moves a moral agent is quite prominent among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Puritans. Passions having an object can have a number of senses. Martha Nussbaum shows (i) that emotions have to be ‘about something, they have an object’. My having fear, for example, must come from something of which I am scared. (ii) ‘The object is an intentional object’ because the emotion is ‘seen or interpreted by the person whose emotion it is’. Emotions are not merely about their objects, but the aboutness is a way of seeing. (iii) Beyond being just a way of seeing the object, emotions also entail beliefs about the object. I must

20   Aristotle, EN, 1105b21; Aristotle, DA, 433b13; Robert C. Roberts, ‘Emotions Among the Virtues of the Christian Life’, The Journal of Religious Ethics 20, no. 1 (1 April 1992): 41. 21   Aristotle, DA, 432b15–16. 22   Ibid., 433a16–26. 23  Reynolds, Treatise, 31–2, italics mine. 24   Ibid., 32.

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believe that ‘bad events are impending’. And (iv) there must be a particular sort of value given to the object.25 Reynolds describes the passions as ‘those motions of Perfections or flight, which are grounded on the Fancie, Memory, and Apprehensions of the common sense: which we see in brute beasts; as, in the feare of Hares and Sheepe, the fiercenesse of Wolves, and anger or flatterie of Dogs, and the like’,26 which are the ‘impulsions of Nature’.27 To round out Reynolds’s definition of passion, it is important to note that he is similar to Aristotle in that here we see the same passions that motivate, ‘feare’ and ‘anger’. We can also see similar aspects of the Aristotelian definition in Thomas Wright, whose Passions of the Minde indicates that passions ‘are internal acts or operations’ of the ‘sensitive power, or facultie of our soul’ through the ‘imagination of some good or ill thing’. They are called affections because ‘they affect some good or bad’. Passions must follow either the sense or the reason. The Church of England clergyman and writer William Fenner (1600–40) was generally happy using the Aristotelian schema for the passions, but broke away from it when he felt it necessary. In agreement with Aristotle, Fenner gave a eudaimonistic conception of the emotions stating that every creature seeks out its own good, and our affections give us signs into our true happiness.28 The affections are the forcible and sensible motions of the heart, or the will, to an end, according as it is apprehended ‘to bee good or to bee evill’.29 The affections are the ‘feet,’ the ‘wings,’ the ‘inclinations’, the ‘passions’ and the ‘perturbations’ of the soul.30 Fenner is, however, unsatisfied with Aristotle’s three-part structure of the soul. Just as the affections are in the forcible motions of the will, they are also in the sensitive appetite. Where the ancients and scholastics would situate the affections only in the sensitive appetite, Fenner places them in both the sensitive and rational. He writes:

25   Martha Nussbaum, ‘Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance’, in What Is Emotion?, ed. Robert C. Solomon, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 275–6. See also Peter King, ‘Aquinas on the Passions’. In Aquinas’s Moral Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, edited by Scott MacDonald and Eleanor Stump, 101–32 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). The idea of the passions having an object is also extensively discussed in William Fenner, A Treatise of the Affections, or, The Soules Pulse Wherby a Christian May Know Whether He Be Living or Dying: Together with a Lively Description of Their Nature, Signes, and Symptomes, as Also Directing Men to the Right Use and Ordering of Them / by ... M. William Fenner ..., Early English Books Online (London: Printed by R.H. for I. Rothwell, 1642), 3–9. 26  Reynolds, Treatise, 37. 27   Ibid., 38. 28  Fenner, Affections, 1. 29   Ibid., 29. 30   Ibid., 3, 9, 66.

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As the affections are motions, so they are the motions of the will. I know Aristotle and most Divines too, doe place the affections in the sensitive part of the soule, and not in the will, because they are to be seene in the beasts. But this cannot be so, for a mans affections doe most stirre at a shame or disgrace; which could not bee, if the affections were in the unreasonable sensitive part: the unreasonable sensitive part of a man is not sensible of credit or offense..the affections must needs be in the heart: the scripture places that affections in the heart or the will.31

Fenner continues, stating that ‘St. Paul couples his affections and his will together in one’.32 We can see here how Fenner slightly alters Aristotle. For Aristotle, the ‘virtues are nothing more than the right ruling of the affections’. Fenner says that ‘with little alteration’ the ‘ruling of the affections’ is the main ‘worke of grace’. Grace rules the affections.33 Reynolds’s, Wright’s and Fenner’s definitions of passions have all the aspects found in Aristotle’s argument for why local movement is in, or at least starts with, the sensitive appetite. Robert C. Roberts writes that, ‘while emotions can be morally evaluative in themselves, many can also be evaluative as producers of actions’. An emotion such as compassion ‘has moral significance in virtue of motivating compassionate actions’.34 As mentioned earlier, Reynolds holds that the nutritive soul is ‘externall’. The ‘Intrinsicall’ can be broken into three parts. The second and third parts of the soul are found in animals, which not only possess the nutritive part, but also move and perceive. Plants cannot perceive because they do not have the ‘principle in them capable of taking on the forms of sensible objects’.35 There is the same ‘proportion of governments’ in the animals with reason and those without; however, the animals without knowledge are guided by divine law, while those given reason perform by knowledge conjoined with the animal. And ‘this is either mental, or sensitive, or rational, from all which, arise sundry degrees of Motions and Passions’.36 This   Ibid., 5.  Ibid. 33   Ibid., 53–4. 34   Roberts, ‘Emotions Among the Virtues of the Christian Life’, 38. 35   Aristotle, DA, 413a1–4, 424a33–424b4. This is a rather important aspect of Aristotle’s conception of the soul, which is outside of the scope of this chapter, and that is the relationship between the body and soul. The question is whether the body and the soul are one, to which the answer is both yes and no. Yes, in that the soul is form (actuality) and body is matter (what has been actualised), so if actuality and actualised are one, then the body and soul are one; but also no, because form and matter are surely not the same thing. Aristotle uses the example of wax and the seal to make his point. DA, 412b6–9. When Aristotle says that plants’ souls cannot have sight because they don’t have eyes and cannot hear because they don’t have ears, he is not being a materialist; this is rather a reflection of his view of the interdependence of the body and the soul.Also see W.F.R. Hardie, Aristotle’s Ethical Theory, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 72–83. 36  Reynolds, Treatise, 35–6, 451. 31 32

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says that each of these three parts has its own motions and passions. The idea of each part of the soul having its own appetite is also directly drawn from Aristotle.37 Rational Soul Aristotle says that it is in the possession of sensation that we call a living thing an animal.38 Reynolds agrees with Aristotle, stating that the sensitive appetite is ‘common to Men and Beasts’.39 However, in humans ‘it is ordained to proceed naturally from the government of Reason; and therefore may properly be called an “Humane Appetite, as being determind, restrined, and made conformable unto Mans Nature”’.40 Rational passions are not simply ‘acts of reason’ or ‘immaterial motions of the soul’, but a ‘participation and dependence by reason of their immediate subordination in man unto the government of the Will and Understanding, and not barely of the Fancie, as in other creatures’.41 As for calling these governed passions reasonable, he writes that he has Aristotle on his side: who, though the sensitive Appetite in man be of it selfe unreasonable, (and therefore by him contradivided to the Rationall powers of the Soule) yet by reason of that obedience which in oweth to the Dictates of the understanding, whereunto Nature hath ordain’d it to be subject and conformable (thought Corruption have much slackened and unknit that Bond) hee justly affirmeth it to be in some sort a Reasonable Facultie, not in trinisically in it selfe, but by way of participation and influence from Reason.42

The sensitive soul in a man is in a sense reasonable, but is still obedient to the dictates of the understanding. The principal acts of the human soul are either reason or discourse, which proceed from his understanding of which imagination is an assistant: or ‘of Action and Morality, from his Will’. These capacities proceed   Aristotle, DA, 432b7, 433a9–21. Reynolds makes the addition of the ‘Mental’ to the parts of the soul, thus seemingly breaking away from Aristotle. But for him the mental motions and passions are ‘the purest most abstract parts of the soul, where men can get a glimpse of the future Glory’. This is where ‘Aristotle hath placed his greatest fellicitie in the contemplation of the highest and divinest Truths; which he makes to be the object of that supreame part of the Soule.’ So the mental is more like the understanding, in that understanding is no longer in process, as reason is still moving towards something, namely knowledge and understanding. Reynolds, Treatise, 36–7; Aristotle, DA, 3.5–6; Aristotle, EN, Bk 10. 38   A.A. Howsepian, ‘Sin and Psychosis’, in Limning the Psyche, ed. Robert C. Roberts and Mark R Talbot (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 274–5. 39  Reynolds, Treatise, 62. 40   Ibid.; Aristotle, DA, 415a7–12. 41  Reynolds, Treatise, 38. 42   Ibid., 38–9. 37

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from the physical organs and ‘faculties of the body’.43 It is in the soul that God ‘fastened a perfect knowledg of his Law and Will’. Although ‘most kindes of Plants or Trees exceed us in vegetation and fertility’, and many animals ‘have greater activity and exquisitenesse in their senses than wee’, the ‘reason therefore is, because Nature ayming at a superior and more excellent end, is in those lower faculties lesse intent and elaborate’. Reynolds takes David in Psalm 139 to be saying that these lower faculties are the groundwork ‘for the better notice of man’s greater perfections, which have ever some connexion and dependance on them’ and are instrumental to mankind’s happiness.44 Continence and Incontinence In this section we will first look at aspects of the passions that the ancient and medieval eudaimonists and the Puritan thinkers have in common. For both the eudaimonists and the Puritans, the passions need to be ordered by the reason. Puritans disciplined their emotions because they knew how important they were. Of any other group of this time, these thinkers were less suspicious of the use of passions, believing that they should be nurtured and directed, not suppressed. Our natural affections are not sinful.45 Both ancient and medieval eudaimonists and these later theologians saw the importance that emotions played in the spiritual life. The affections give mankind insight into true happiness.46 Aristotle, based on his view of the soul and its place within the ‘rational animal’, emphasises reason taking precedence over the passions. This is most clearly found in the four-fold distinction between virtuous, continent, incontinent and vicious persons. With the virtuous person there is no discrepancy between the passions and the reason as to the right and good action. With the continent person, the rational part of the soul pursues right and good ends and the non-rational part of the soul, which desires wrong ends, disagree with each other as to the right action. In the case of the continent person the rational soul overcomes the non-rational part. Functionally speaking, there is no visible difference between the virtuous person and the continent person. The incontinent person judges accurately the best thing to do, but fails to control her desire to do otherwise and as a result acts on her desire and not her reason or better judgement.47 Thus her non-rational soul

  Ibid., 3, 18, 403–4, 445; Aristotle, DA, 403a8–10.  Reynolds, Treatise, 3–4. 45  Fenner, Affections, 66. 46   Ibid., 1. 47   J.A. Stewart, Notes on the EN of Aristotle, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), 215; J.E. Hare, God and Morality: A Philosophical History (Malden: Blackwell, 2007), 58–60. 43 44

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overcomes the rational part. The incontinent person has the ability to reason well and knows the right action, but acts on appetite.48 Reynolds adopts this aspect of Aristotle. In man there is a natural struggle between appetite and reason that comes from the fall but not from nature itself.49 ‘For from the Law of creation, there was not formall Opposition, but a Subordination between Spirit and Sence; Man having it in his own power, to excite, continue, remit, lay down his Passions, as Reason should dictate unto him.’50 Placing a person’s inability to properly submit the reason to the passions within a post-fall reality is an addendum that Reynolds makes to Aristotle, but the belief that it is natural for a rational animal to control the irrational passions with the rational is an Aristotelian idea.51 Reynolds uses Aristotle in his description of the incontinent person first when defining incontinence as ‘the weakness and disabilitie of Reason, to keepe close to her own Principles and Resolutions’.52 He continues by stating that ‘this is the case of reluctancie betweene the Knowledge and Desires of Incontinent Men, and others of the like Nature: For, as Aristotle observes of them, they are but …, half evil, as not sinning with that full and plenary Consent of will, but Praeter Electionem.’53 Rather, they have a kind of ‘half-knowledge’, much like the sleeptalker who is neither fully awake nor asleep.54 These ideas are nearly direct quotes from EN. The ‘half-wicked’ man for Aristotle is one who is ‘like the man who is asleep or drunk’, who acts voluntarily for he ‘in a sense with knowledge both of what he does and of that for the sake of which he does it’, but is not fully wicked.55 The sin of imposture, according to Reynolds, is when a person allows their lower parts to reign, ‘and being impatient altogether of resistance or controul, laboureth and to muffle reason’. This is the understanding being overrun by passions. It is the judging of things, ‘not according to their naked and naturall

48  Aristotle, EN, VII 1–10, 1102b14–18. Aquinas too discusses this in IaIIae.q24.a1. The vicious person is the person whose rational and non-rational parts agree and does the wrong actions, while in the virtuous person there is the same sort of agreement between the two parts, but both parts pursue the right ends. Also see Irwin, The Development of Ethics. Volume 1, From Socrates to the Reformation, 154. 49  Reynolds, Treatise, 6–7, 63. Aristotle, EN, 1149b15–1150a2. 50  Reynolds, Treatise, 61. Also see Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 113. 51  Aristotle, EN, 1102b29–1103a4. Also see Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, trans. J. Solomon, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 1219b28–31, 1220a1–2. 52  Reynolds, Treatise, 71. EN, Bk 7 Ch.7. 53  Reynolds, Treatise, 70. EN, Bk7 Ch.10 54  Reynolds, Treatise, 70–71. 55  Aristotle, EN, 1147b7–9, Bk 7 Ch.10.

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truth, but according as it finds them beare in the Fancie those impressions of Pleasure, which are most agreeable to corrupted Nature’.56 Another manner of corruption for Reynolds is the withdrawing of the reason from the examination of pleasures. ‘Since as Aristotle hath observed, directly agreeable to the phrase of St. Peter, there is … an elected or Voluntaire Ignorance, which for their securities sake, men nourish, themselves in.’57 He takes Romans 1, 2 Peter 3:5 and EN, Book 3 Chapter 1 to be saying the same thing concerning voluntary ignorance, or the voluntary suppressing of knowledge for a perceived good. However, what Aristotle is talking about in the section cited and what the biblical authors are discussing do not seem to be the same. Aristotle is discussing the difference between voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary actions, but he never mentions that these forms of involuntary and non-voluntary actions are related to people who are suppressing knowledge with malicious intent. The only mention of the passions in this chapter is to make the point that the irrational passions are no less a part of human nature than the reason.58 In both the biblical passages, there seems to be a voluntary ignorance of something natural, in the case of Romans 1, or something revealed, in the cause of 2 Peter. St Peter strongly emphasises the conscious effort of ignorance when he writes ‘for they deliberately overlook this fact …’ (2 Peter 3:5). However, the point that Reynolds is trying to make, perhaps unjustifiably, is that there is a place within the biblical narrative for a doctrine of continence and incontinence. Moderation The concept of moderation was a pervasive aspect of Reformation England’s moral and political thought. Ethan H. Shagan’s book The Rule of Moderation attempts to show that the concept of moderation was central, for better or for worse, as Shagan sees it for worse, to the ecclesiological and political identity of Reformation England.59 This idea of moderation comes from Aristotelian ethics in that, for Aristotle, emotions are to be moderated. The virtuousness of an emotion does not depend on the nature of the feeling, but in there not being an excess, or deficiency, of that emotion. He writes that emotions: may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the 56  Reynolds, Treatise, 65; Aristotle, Politics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, trans. B. Jowett, vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1287a30–32. 57  Reynolds, Treatise, 69. 58  Aristotle, EN, 1111b1. 59   Ethan H. Shagan, The Rule of Moderation: Violence, Religion and the Politics of Restraint in Puritan England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 9–10.

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right people, with the right aim [motive], and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of excellence [virtue].60

Robert Roberts interprets this passage to mean that ‘virtues are not simple dispositions to passions, but instead dispositions to be properly affected by a certain range of situations’. ‘Properly’, as Roberts takes this, is to be understood as possessing the ‘right amount of some kind of passion’.61 The emotions in themselves are amoral. In Book 2, Chapters 5–9 of the EN, Aristotle lays out what has become known as the doctrine of the mean, which states that any virtue sits between two opposite errors that need to be avoided. He writes, ‘every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency’.62 Courage, for instance, is the mean between rashness and cowardice. It can be viewed as such: (Vice) Rashness ← ———Courage (Virtue)——— → Cowardice (Vice) As we can see from the above diagram, the virtue sits comfortably between the two vices at the opposite ends. As any given person would naturally lean towards one vice or the other, individuals’ natural tendencies and circumstances are taken into account.63 If someone were naturally disposed to find him- or herself on the side of cowardice, then they would need to move more towards rashness in order to achieve a good balance. Aristotle does not claim that negative emotions need to be eliminated and suppressed; he is in fact saying quite the opposite. It is not the case, then, that there can be negative emotions of which one needs to be rid. Rather, ‘negative’ emotions are used to counter natural dispositions towards one vice or another.64 Like Aristotle, the Puritans believed that the emotions needed to be controlled and disciplined while seeking balance.65 Church of Ireland bishop George  Aristotle, EN, 1106b19–24.   Roberts, ‘Aristotle on Virtues and Emotions’, 295. 62  Aristotle, EN, 1106a26–b28. 63   Ibid., 1106a36–b7. 64   Roberts, ‘Aristotle on Virtues and Emotions’, 295; Also see J.O. Urmson, ‘Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean’, in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 163. 65   Riis and Woodhead, Religious Emotion, 112–13, 125–6. The idea of moderation was not only attributed to the emotions for the Puritans. Richard Rogers in his Seuen Treatises writes that moderation is needed for all lawful things such as eating, drinking and recreation. Richard Rogers, The Practice of Christianitie. Or, An Epitome of Seuen Treatises Penned and Published in the Yeere 1603. by That Reuerend and Faithfull Pastor, Mr. R.R. Late Preacher of Wethersfield in Essex, Tending to That Ende., Early English Books Online (At London: Imprinted by F. K[ingston] for Thomas Man, and are to bee sold at the signe of the Talbot in Pater-noster row, 1618), 228. 60

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Webbe (1581–1642) writes, ‘all immoderations are enemies unto the quietness of the Minde’.66 He later notes that moderation is an antidote to a disquieted mind.67 Wright absolutely agrees with this model for moderation and spiritual development. It is often the case that one passion is the cure for another. Fear, say of the punishment of a superior, will often expel the passions of anger or lust or any other disorder of the commonwealth.68 The whole of book three of Wright’s The Passions of the Minde is dedicated to the idea that ‘men commonly by nature are more enclined’ towards one sinful extreme or another and need to practise moderation in their spiritual development.69 He writes, ‘every moderat passion bordureth betwixt two extremes, as liberalitie betwixt avarice; fortitude betwixt desperate boldnesse and superfluous feare, called timiditie’.70 We can become aware of our natural leanings in two ways. The first is through a growing self-knowledge that lets us know which vice we can tend towards.71 The second is more external in that for Wright good friends make us aware of inordinate passions because people outside ourselves can better judge our actions. These friends should admonish us for our passions when we are moving away from virtue. A friend is no small treasure.72 Once a person has figured out to which vice they lean, they should investigate how heavily they lean that way.73 The first remedy to ‘mortifie passions’ is moderation. Among many other tools that Wright gives to moderate passions, the Aristotelian idea of habituation is one of the most important ways someone can appropriately control their desires. He writes: This meane, to mortifie passions, I take to be one of the most forcible and important remedies that men can use, especially for two causes: the first, for that by these contraries acts are bred in the soules, certaine habites, helpes, stayes, or inclinations most opposite unto our passions; and therefore the passions being strong, they cannot be overcommed, by the might of excellent vertue.74

The deeper the roots of the tree, the more force is needed to pull it up. The deeper the vice, the more habituating of virtue a person needs to moderate it.75   George Webbe, The Practice of Quietnes Directing a Christian How to Live Quietly in This Troublesome World., Early English Books Online (London: Printed for John Saywell, 1657), 28. 67   Ibid., 29. 68  Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall, 154–5, 122–3, 147. Also see Shagan, Rule, 48. 69  Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall, 78. 70   Ibid., 82. 71   Ibid., 80–81. 72   Ibid., 79–80. 73   Ibid., 81. 74   Ibid., 84–5. 75   Ibid., 85. 66

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Reynolds is also quite content with utilising the Aristotelian model of moderation in regard to the passions.76 Like a ship sailing between storm and calm, the passions must, for virtue, also be between two extremes.77 Just as for Aristotle and Wright, passions are specific ‘to such and such a person’,78 and are ‘done either by opposing contrary passions to contrary, which is Aristotles rule, who adviseth, in the bringing of passions from an extream to a mediocritie,’ and to ‘incline and bend them towards the other extreme’ by the power of reason.79 In the mind, ‘passions, as they mutually generate, so they mutually weaken each other’.80 Anticipating that objection of Jesus casting out the money changers in anger, Reynolds acknowledges that Jesus had intense emotions, but successfully moderated and directed them according to the rule of judgement. ‘In which respect, the Passions of Christ are by Divines called Propassions’ or the beginnings of passions, but not passions themselves.81 William Fenner makes frequent use of Aristotle in his Treatise of the Affections to discuss the moderating of the emotions. He, like Aristotle, believes that the affections need to be ordered. When discussing taking control of the emotions, Fenner writes that in the ‘Greek tongue the spirit of God cals it σωφροσυνη’,82 which has a semantic range of reasonableness, self-control and temperance.83 Σωφροσυνη is used a number of times by St Paul and St Peter in discussing temperance, as well as in the EN as Aristotle’s preferred word for the virtue of temperance.84 According to Fenner, one cannot raise up one’s affections, or order them, unless one is risen with Christ.85 Fenner cites Aristotle’s questioning whether Brutus was not a block or brute for having no affections for his own children who were being murdered before him. He further cites ‘The Philosopher’, stating: the affections are like wheeles, and like chariots unto reason. If a mans reason be never so good, he knowes hee is bound to repent, and be godly, and obey; yet if he have no affections thereto, he goes like a chariot without wheeles; he goes without force, he cannot go at all; but if he have affections thereto, the affections are like wheeles; and like horses to carry him amaine.86  Reynolds, Treatise, 131–6, 190–95, 319b.   Ibid., 60. 78   Ibid., 51. 79   Ibid., 52. EN, Bk 2 Ch. 9. 80  Reynolds, Treatise, 53. 81   Ibid., 49. 82  Fenner, Affections, 94. 83   Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek–English Lexicon (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1996), 1751. 84  Aristotle, The EN, ed. H. Rackham (London: W. Heinemann; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926), 3.10–11. 85  Fenner, Affections, 2–3. 86   Ibid., 67. 76 77

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The emotions were an ‘elemental spiritual force, as irresistible as hunger or gravity. As such, it was folly to ignore them and prudence to harness them. “When a childe of God prayes with affection, he prayeth with force”.’87 This is a polemic by eudaimonists and the Puritans against the Stoic view of the passions. Fenner also uses Aristotle to talk about sickness in the soul, stating that ‘Aristotle cals the affections Ægritudines animi … if the soul be affected indeed, she is sicke if she speed not.’88 What Fenner is using Aristotle to express here is that if the affections are sick, then the whole person is affected. They are also what make a man mutable. Without the passions, a person cannot be persuaded.89 Fenner cites Aristotle in saying that ‘virtues are nothing more than the right ruling of the affections’. He says that ‘with little alteration’ to Aristotle, the ‘ruling of the affections’ is the main worke of grace. Grace does not take away affections but rules over them. If a man were angry before conversion, grace would not take the anger away.90 Fenner’s view, apart from being congruent just with Aristotle, is consistent with the medievalists. ‘Most of the emotional territory … had already been welltrodden by pious Catholic Christians for centuries’.91 For Thomas Aquinas (1225– 74), moral virtue is not to deprive the function of the sensitive appetite, but rather to ‘make them execute the commands of reason, by exercising their proper acts’. Virtue directs the sensitive appetite to its proper regulated movements. Not all the Puritans are happy with having the emotions being controlled in this way because they place the passions in the sensitive soul rather than in the rational soul, like Aristotle. Further disagreements concerning this distinction will be addressed in the forthcoming section on divergences. Disagreement on Moderating the Passions There are some fairly significant discrepancies between the ancient and medieval eudaimonists’ view of moderation and the Puritans. J.O. Urmson, for example, makes the point in his essay Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean that a person who is genuinely scared of fighting in a war and desires to run away, but stays and fights valiantly, ‘is entitled to be regarded as possessing the moral virtue of courage as the man who takes his stand without inner conflict’. But Urmson continues on to point out that, for Aristotle, forcing oneself to behave properly does not show an agent to have character. ‘Excellence of character is not the triumph of grace   Alec Ryrie, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 27. Fenner, Affections, 4–5, 7. 88  Fenner, Affections, 44. 89   Ibid., 48. 90   Ibid., 53–4. 91  Ryrie, Being Protestant, 24. Also see Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Puritan Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 11. 87

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over the old Adam; it is the state of character which entitles a man to be called eudaimon’; one is more eudaimon if they act from their good character without resistance. For nearly every Puritan thinker, the postlapsarian condition in which mankind currently resides implies that there is always need for restraint from sinful desires. The Christian emphasis on the weight of original sin made Christian ethicists believe that the will could not just be augmented, but rather every action was a kind of restraint, the kind of restraint in Urmson’s example given above.92 Another significant difference between some of the English Puritans and Aristotle and Aquinas is in their definition of zeal. For Fenner, every emotion exists to glorify God; zeal, then, is the state in which every emotion is rightly directed and expressed to the uttermost. It is ‘a high strain of all the affections’..93 A man may be drunk with emotions.94 This does not seem like such a contrast, as both parties think that their passions need to be ordered correctly. However, the underlying definition of zeal by the two groups is fundamentally different. For Aquinas, ‘zeal, whatever way we take it, arises from the intensity of love’.95 To be zealous for Aquinas is a movement towards the object that is loved and to vigorously withstand any opposition or resistance to the end of that love. For example, ‘a man is said to be zealous on God’s behalf, when he endeavors, to the best of his means, to repel whatever is contrary to the honor or will of God’.96 Not all Puritans are convinced of the Aristotelian and Thomist view of the passions as a kind of moderation. Aristotle endorses strong feelings when those feelings are appropriate in a situation. As we have seen above, on some occasions a high amount of anger is appropriate, whereas in another a small degree is more virtuous. The appropriate amount of anger is not some quantity between zero and ten but rather the amount that is proportionate to the seriousness of the situation, whatever that may be. A virtue like anger should never get to the point where it overtakes reason. So, even in those situations where a large amount of anger is appropriate, a person should never lose control. Aristotle also makes clear that there are certain emotions – spite, shamelessness, envy – and actions – adultery, theft, murder – that are always wrong, in any circumstances.97 Ethics cannot be reduced to simple rules; but Aristotle does insist that some rules are uninfringeable.98 Fenner, being the Puritan most critical of Aristotle, agrees with Aristotle that some emotions are always wrong. ‘Envy and malice, and the like’ are sinful passions in themselves. These can never ‘be regulated, or guided by any moderation’. These  Urmson, Doctrine of the Mean, 160. Also see Shagan, The Rule of Moderation, 13.  Fenner, Affections, 142, 147. 94   Ibid., 92–3. 95   Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of English Dominican Province (Notre Dame: Ava Maria Press, Inc., 1948), IaIIae.q.28.a4. 96  Ibid. 97  Aristotle, EN, 1107a8–12. 98   Aristotle also discusses habitation in his explanation of virtues, although I will not be able to address this due to space limitations. 92

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‘affections are not properly natural’.99 Fenner and Aristotle are in agreement here. However, as mentioned earlier, Fenner disagrees with Aristotle’s view of the soul that the affections belong to the lower animal nature because spiritual events such as shame or disgrace stir the passions. Like Aristotle and most other Puritans, Aquinas sees that the animal ‘passions [are] a movement of the sensitive appetite when we imagine good or evil: in other words, passion is a movement of the irrational soul, when we think of good or evil’.100 Fenner is sceptical of this. He asks: if the affections are only in the sensitive and material part of the soul, then what about the angels? But Aquinas has a response to this in the Summa. When God and angels have joy and love, ‘they specify simple acts of the will having like effects, but without passion’.101 Some other Puritans were quite satisfied with holding this definition of zeal while also promoting moderation of the passions. William Perkins (1558–1602), in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, writes that the meekness as preached by Jesus in Matthew 5:5, is ‘a gift of Gods spirit, whereby a man doth moderate his affection of anger, and bridle in himself impatience, hatred, and desire of revenge’.102 Meekness is the ‘vertue’ of moderating passions with two outcomes: first, it gives man a ‘quiet and patient heart, to beare Gods iudgements’. Second, the meek person bears injuries that are done to him by others, but at the same time one must still have ‘zeal as hote as fire’.103 Puritan ethicist Robert Bolton (1572–1631) notes that one of the true marks of the Christian from the ‘formall hypocrite’ is that the ‘power of saving grace doth subdue and sanctifie our affections with a conscionable and holy moderation.’104 Conclusion In this chapter we have seen that within the eudaimonistic ethical tradition, even though there is an emphasis on members of humankind being rational animals, and that our good is based around this, there is still a prominent place for the emotions  Fenner, Affections, 65b.  Aquinas, Summa, q.22.a3. 101   Ibid., q.22.a3, reply 3. 102   William Perkins, A Godly and Learned Exposition of Christs Sermon in the Mount: Preached in Cambridge by That Reuerend and Iudicious Diuine M. William Perkins. Published at the Request of His Exequutors by Th. Pierson Preacher of Gods Word. Whereunto Is Adioyned a Twofold Table: One, of Speciall Points Here Handled; the Other, of Choise Places of Scripture Here Quoted, Early English Books Online ([Cambridge]: [Pr]inted by Thomas Brooke and Cantrell Legge, printers to the Vniuersitie of Cambridge, 1608), 15–16. 103   Ibid., my italics. 104   Robert Bolton, A Discourse About the State of True Happinesse Deliuered in Certaine Sermons in Oxford, and at Pauls Crosse, Early English Books Online (At London: Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, for Edmund Weauer, 1611), 74. 99

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in making moral judgements. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Puritans in England were generally quite happy with using Aristotle and Aquinas’ three-part structure of the soul to discuss the emotions in the moral and spiritual life. Also in this chapter, by looking at the difference between the continent and the incontinent person, we saw that there is wide-ranging agreement of these two parties in that the passions need to be ordered by the reason in order for a person to fulfil their natural ends as rational animals. The last portion of this chapter looked at the fundamental disagreements between the eudaimonists and Puritans by specifically considering the doctrine of the mean and the definition of zeal. References Annas, Julia. ‘Aristotle on Virtue and Happiness’. In Aristotle’s Ethics: Critical Essays, edited by Nancy Sherman, 35–56. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Anscombe, G.E.M. ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. Philosophy 33, no. 124 (1 January 1958): 1–19. Aquinas, Saint Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of English Dominican Province. Notre Dame: Ava Maria Press, Inc., 1948. Aristotle. Eudemian Ethics. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, translated by J. Solomon. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Aristotle. On The Soul. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, translated by J.A. Smith. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Aristotle. Politics. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, translated by B. Jowett. Vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Edited by H Rackham. London: W. Heinemann; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926. Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, translated by W.D. revised by J.O. Urmson Ross. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Bolton, Robert. A Discourse About the State of True Happinesse Deliuered in Certaine Sermons in Oxford, and at Pauls Crosse. Early English Books Online. At London: Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, for Edmund Weauer, 1611. Fenner, William. A Treatise of the Affections, or, The Soules Pulse Wherby a Christian May Know Whether He Be Living or Dying: Together with a Lively Description of Their Nature, Signes, and Symptomes, as Also Directing Men to the Right Use and Ordering of Them / by .. M. William Fenner .. Early English Books Online. London: Printed by R.H. for I. Rothwell, 1642. Hardie, W.F.R. Aristotle’s Ethical Theory. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

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Hare, J.E. God and Morality: A Philosophical History. Malden: Blackwell Pub., 2007. Howsepian, A.A. ‘Sin and Psychosis.’ In Limning the Psyche, edited by Robert C. Roberts and Mark R. Talbot, 264–81. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997. Irwin, Terence. The Development of Ethics. Volume 1, From Socrates to the Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Puritan Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie. A Greek–English Lexicon. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1996. Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance’. In What Is Emotion?, edited by Robert C. Solomon, 271–83. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Perkins, William. A Godly and Learned Exposition of Christs Sermon in the Mount: Preached in Cambridge by That Reuerend and Iudicious Diuine M. William Perkins. Published at the Request of His Exequutors by Th. Pierson Preacher of Gods Word. Whereunto Is Adioyned a Twofold Table: One, of Speciall Points Here Handled; the Other, of Choise Places of Scripture Here Quoted. Early English Books Online. [Cambridge]: [Pr]inted by Thomas Brooke and Cantrell Legge, printers to the Vniuersitie of Cambridge, 1608. Reynolds, Edward. A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man with the Severall Dignities and Corruptions Thereunto Belonging. Early English Books Online. London: Printed by F.N. for Robert Bostock and George Badger, 1650. Riis, Ole, and Linda Woodhead. A Sociology of Religious Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Roberts, Robert C. ‘Aristotle on Virtues and Emotions’. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 56, no. 3 (1 July 1989): 293–306. Roberts, Robert C. ‘Emotions Among the Virtues of the Christian Life’. The Journal of Religious Ethics 20, no. 1 (1 April 1992): 37–68. Rogers, Richard. The Practice of Christianitie. Or, An Epitome of Seuen Treatises Penned and Published in the Yeere 1603. by That Reuerend and Faithfull Pastor, Mr. R.R. Late Preacher of Wethersfield in Essex, Tending to That Ende. Early English Books Online. At London: Imprinted by F. K[ingston] for Thomas Man, and are to bee sold at the signe of the Talbot in Pater-noster row, 1618. Ryrie, Alec. Being Protestant in Reformation Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Shagan, Ethan H. The Rule of Moderation: Violence, Religion and the Politics of Restraint in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

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Stewart, J.A. Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892. Stewart, J.A. Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892. Urmson, J.O. ‘Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean’. In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, 157–70. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Webbe, George. The Practice of Quietnes Directing a Christian How to Live Quietly in This Troublesome World. Early English Books Online. London: Printed for John Saywell, 1657. Wright, Thomas. The Passions of the Minde in Generall. Corrected, Enlarged, and with Sundry New Discourses Augmented. By Thomas Wright. With a Treatise Thereto Adioyning of the Clymatericall Yeare, Occasioned by the Death of Queene Elizabeth. Early English Books Online. London: Printed by Valentine Simmes [and Adam Islip] for Walter Burre [and Thomas Thorpe], 1604.

Chapter 6

‘Being in love without restriction’: Emotion and Embodiment in Bernard Lonergan Barnabas Palfrey

Introductory Preamble According to Thomas Dixon,1 immediately before the rise of ‘emotion’ in the first half of the nineteenth century, people in Britain spoke instead of ‘passions’, ‘sentiments’ or ‘affections of the soul’.2 This shift to a new category reflected a certain ‘secularization of psychology’ that sought – and partly achieved – a descriptive language independent of ideological exhortation.3 As Davies summarises: ‘It is, for example, quite a different thing to speak of “The Passion of Christ” rather than of “The Emotion of Christ”, for the former involves numerous theological ideas of suffering and self-sacrifice while the latter is ideologically neutral.’4 To the fore in this chapter will be the recent Roman Catholic philosopher– theologian Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan (1904–84). I will also refer to his one-time American pupil, David Tracy (b. 1939). These theologians both belong to and own cultures prizing both descriptive neutrality and empirical science. And yet both have also sought to lead their empirical culture to contemplate the ultimate conditions of everyday human experience, as being conditions that manifest themselves with vital power within that experience. Both have spied in such self-manifesting ultimate conditions the presence to humankind of a gracious and demanding transcendence. It is not the purpose of this chapter to either defend or decry such claims. In any case, the formula ‘self-manifesting ultimate conditions’ is itself so analytically abstract as to be very likely to mislead if it is taken for a basic proposition that assimilates their approaches. For, guided by promises and paradigms suggested to them by their appropriations of Christian tradition, 1   Thomas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3. 2   Douglas James Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 28. 3   Ibid.; Dixon, From Passions to Emotions. 4  Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion, 28.

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Lonergan and Tracy have formulated their fundamental religious convictions in different ways, both between themselves and over the courses of their careers. Today, for example, Tracy seeks a religious thinking about God outside the normal bounds of ‘theism’,5 having conceded that everything is ‘far more complicated’ than his own earlier ‘metaphysical and transcendental arguments’ of the mid-1970s once suggested.6 How do such supposed transcendental arguments relate to religious emotion, we may ask. Here I would cite Lonergan’s challenge to an eagerly ‘critical’ young David Tracy in 1970: ‘Do you ask a friend to give a critical argument for his love of his wife?’ As Tracy reflects today, ‘It was true. … Like Freud says, you can’t argue with feelings, they’re there or they’re not there’ (private conversation with David Tracy, 26 October 2009). And perhaps here we can spy a significant isomorphism between religious participation and the more general human experience of emotion, for we are all of us to an extent participant devotees in our own emotions, however much we also seek to be their wise custodians (as well as, perhaps, good observers and theorists of human emotions in general). And if it is true that emotions are partly as it were ‘religious’ in practice – at the same time as actual religions partly consist of emotions – then perhaps we should expect religious and non-religious thinking (as likewise theological and non-theological thinking) to have things to say to each other about emotion, whatever their divisions regarding more-or-less elusive transcendental beliefs. After considering Lonergan we will turn to a couple of recent social-scientific studies of religious emotion and identity, prospecting the chances of our theologian and social scientist illuminating each other. I will conclude on the potential of the notion of ‘embodiment’ for both the human empirical sciences and theology. .

‘Being in Love in an Unrestricted Fashion’ A ‘Theology of Emotion?’ On the face of it, Bernard Lonergan’s religious thought looks like a striking theology of emotion, for Lonergan came to hold that the essence of religion, as a phenomenon of human salvation, lies in an affective disturbance and motivation   Moving first to prioritise ‘possibility’ over ‘actuality’ in thinking about God, Tracy proposes then to conceive ‘the Void’, ‘the Open’, ‘the Good’and ‘God’ as partially overlapping ‘names’ for an ‘Impossible Real’ experienced as the condition of experience. Alongside this ‘route’ of the Impossible, Tracy also spies live premodern and modern routes of ‘Love’ and ‘the Infinite’ for thinking God today. Cf. David Tracy, ‘On Longing: The Void, The Open, God’, in Longing in a Culture of Cynicism, ed. Stephen van Erp and Lea Verstricht (Zürich; Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2008), 15–32. 6   David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), xiv. 5

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transcendently gifted to individuals. At the heart of this religious experience, according to Lonergan, lies the saving gift from above of a heart that falls and exists ‘in love without restriction’ and, hence (Lonergan thinks), ‘in love with God’.7 Lonergan held that this gift from above of a loving heart is offered to all people without exception, although there will be many variations in the historical conditions of its advent and in the extent to which it is either understood or received: ‘even … atheists … may love God in their hearts while not knowing him in their heads’.8 To my knowledge, Lonergan himself never used the word ‘emotion’ to describe this allegedly fundamental human experience. And yet Lonergan understood it to communicate a dynamic state of being that takes up and transfigures the relational sympathies and feelings that are natural to human beings.9 This transfiguring ‘conversion to love’, Lonergan held, confirms in its wake also intellectual conversion to reality and moral conversion to the good.10 By it, Lonergan held, a person’s cognitive interiority is empowered to overcome the cognitive distortions that are disseminated through her culture and sedimented within her own personal formation. Also, she is empowered to counter her own tendencies to an evil willing that prefers easier but morally and practically worse courses of action. As for the experience itself, meanwhile, Lonergan found it wholly singular. He characterised it as ‘conscious, yet without being known’, and, as such, ‘an experience of mystery’.11 Adapting the formula of Rudolf Otto,12 this mysterium is fascinans, because ‘to it one belongs’ (in love) and ‘by it one is possessed’. It is also tremendum, because ‘it is an unmeasured love’ that therefore ‘evokes awe’. On a slightly more concrete-sounding note, this experience also ‘corresponds to St. Ignatius Loyola’s [description of] consolation that has no cause, as expounded by Karl Rahner’.13 At the same time, and uniquely, this ‘experience of the mystery of love and awe’ is wholly ‘unmediated’, for it is a ‘word’ ‘prior’ to all meaning and knowledge, which ‘God speaks to us by flooding our hearts with his love’.14 In so far as Lonergan sought an image to illustrate this mercurial experience, he turned not to the iconography of his own Christian tradition, but instead to the statue of the Buddha. As he wrote: ‘The posture and, above all, the features of the Buddha at prayer radiate a serenity that reveals what might be meant by authenticity   Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971), 105. 8   Ibid., 278. 9   Cf. ibid., 57. 10   Cf. ibid., 243. 11   Ibid., 106. 12   Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine in Its Relation to the Rational, trans. John W. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917). 13  Lonergan, Method in Theology, 106; cf. Karl Rahner, The Dynamic Element of the Church: Quaestiones Disputatae 12 (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964), 131ff. 14  Lonergan, Method in Theology, 112. 7

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attained.’15 Lonergan also wondered whether ‘the alleged atheism of Buddhism’ – to him a defect – might actually stem from a jealous love of ‘mystical solitude’ that prefers to stay simply within this ‘non-objectivized’ religious experience. In these descriptions of what he considered to be fundamental religious experience, Lonergan clearly wanted to recall some class of discrete actual experiences. However, at the same time he also burdened his account with theoretical concerns that tended to remove the experience to a vanishingly ideal, almost spectral, plane. Upon what authority, we might ask, did Lonergan think to define the reality and quality of this supposed ‘unmediated experience’? As it happens, Lonergan had a pretty clear-cut answer, offered partly explicitly and partly implicitly. The reality and character of fundamental religious experience are corroborated, conceived and rendered concrete, above all, he suggested, through the ‘outward words’ of the religions, that is, in flesh and churches and history that exemplify the truth of a religious anthropology.16 According to Lonergan, such outward words must always and everywhere be spoken and enacted, if we are, with the aid of God, to (re)constitute our world in meaning and value as the Kingdom of God. But the noblest of all such communication occurs, Lonergan thought, when meaning and value become so powerfully ‘personal’ and ‘incarnate’ that, as he liked to say, ‘Cor ad cor loquitor’ in ‘the meaning of a person, of his words, of his deeds’: ‘love speaks to love, and its speech is powerful’.17 So, from the motivating and reorienting ‘word’ that is prior to meaning, through to the flesh-word that is optimally saturated with meaning, we encounter in Lonergan a thought about religion that circles around emotion and embodiment. And yet it can never quite trust itself to them. Indeed, had Lonergan himself adopted the secularised language of ‘emotion’ to characterise religious experience, then he would have risked relinquishing his religious and theistic horizon, given the manner in which he conceived these. At the same time, by assuming the authority of religious institutions – paradigmatically his own Church – Lonergan supplemented his theology of consciousness with assurances about ideal human embodiment in history and culture. The Salvation of Consciousness To understand better how Lonergan framed his thought of religion and God, it is necessary to look back to his earlier constructive work, Insight: A Study of

15   Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1958), 123; cited in Frederick E. Crowe, Lonergan (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1992), 163. 16  Lonergan, Method in Theology, 112–13. 17   Ibid., 73, 113. The social anthropologist of religion, Douglas Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion, 66, likewise notes how religious meaning can be ‘seen’ in religious exemplars, just as it can also be experienced directly in devotional practices.

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Human Understanding. This mammoth ‘essay in aid of self-appropriation’18 promised to help its readers uncover for themselves the self-authenticating fact, the invariant methods, and the metaphysical implications of their own intellectual experience – uncovered as a ‘pure, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know’.19 Convinced that our everyday human experiences of abstractive ‘insight’ into the sensible world signify more than simply restricted techniques, Lonergan deduced that human insight must depend upon some Other’s unrestricted act (or event) of understanding that conditions and posits the human labour of insight: ‘what man is through unrestricted desire and limited attainment, God is as unrestricted act’.20 He would write later that ‘our authenticity consists in being like [God], in selftranscending, in being origins of value, in true love’.21 Thus Lonergan proposed his theological analogy of consciousness – between human experience and transcendent reality – on the basis of an alleged immediate, dynamic and self-authenticating presence-to-oneself, which he supposed selfconsciously ‘authentic’ persons to enjoy. Perhaps most religion intends something at least a little like this. Transcendence becomes manifest in attainments of human identity, whether individual or social, whether by ways of reinforcement or interruption. Some may conclude that this and comparable human attainments present what ‘transcendence’ amounts to; others might hold to a real difference. Either way, we can see in the case of Lonergan how he kept his meditations on human identity very much on an abstract and formal level. Even as he expanded his thinking, after Insight, to better include issues of history, emotion and embodiment, Lonergan maintained a theological philosophy of human self-consciousness, supplemented by presuming the authoritative function and concrete witness of religious institutions and tradition. (David Tracy22 has argued that the scientific integrity that Lonergan accorded to his religious concept of ‘conversion’ was in fact predicated upon his ‘assuming (as a dogmatic assertion) the truth-value’ of a body of religious tradition.) At the same time as he was compiling this theory and theological metaphysics of human cognition, back in Insight, Lonergan was already also conscious of endemic moral ‘evil’ and cognitive ‘bias’ in human affairs, threatening to collapse into absurdity his vision built upon the supposition of human insightful cognition.23 For, inclined to sloth and enveloped within already-corrupted cultures, human beings seem impotent to become free for truth and goodness. It is as if the ‘desire to know’ retracts in actual fact into a hopelessly latent desire to be liberated  Lonergan, Method in Theology, 278.  Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, 348ff. 20   Ibid., 668. 21  Lonergan, Method in Theology, 117. 22   David Tracy, ‘Lonergan’s Foundational Theology: An Interpretation and Critique’, in Foundations of Theology: Papers from the International Lonergan Congress, ed. P. McShane (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1970), 210. 23  Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, 191ff., 225ff., 666–7. 18 19

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from its own corruption. ‘How’, Lonergan24 wondered, ‘is one to be persuaded to genuineness and openness, when one is not yet open to persuasion?’ The ‘problem of liberation’ is ‘real’, Lonergan concluded, ‘and its dimensions are the dimensions of human history’, ‘as large as human living’.25 This is the context in which Lonergan later unveils transcendent loving as the deeper cosmic reality that cradles intellect and science. The human-as-knower turns out to be even more fundamentally a human-as-lover. Indeed, later Lonergan suggested that in the absence of dynamic impulses of love, our whole capacity for cognitive and moral self-transcendence stays only latent. Self-transcendence is actuated in contexts of familial, sexual, civil–political or religious (or, presumably, other) love.26 For from one’s various beings-in-love ‘flow one’s desires and fears, one’s joys and sorrows, one’s discernment of values, one’s decisions and deeds’.27 As Gordon Rixon has put it (building on a late essay by Lonergan [1975] 1985), Lonergan imagines ‘a prior, dispositive influence of domestic, civil, and divine love’ that meets us everywhere as if ‘from above’. This influence complements all our ‘upward’ strivings through the levels of consciousness (from sensing and imagining, through conceiving and judging, to deliberating and acting). ‘Overlaid’, these two orders ‘refract the actual path of cognitional activities journeying toward self-transcendence’, causing multiple ‘patterns of collaboration between (re)orienting love and creative composition’.28 And to the extent that divine love really organises a person’s loves, grace and nature interpenetrate each other to redeem and renew a person in her general task of attending to the world lovingly, conceiving it intelligently, judging it rationally, and deciding how to act in it responsibly and, when needed, self-sacrificially.29 For, according to Lonergan, only ‘being in love in an unrestricted fashion’ can really correspond to our similarly unrestricted capacity for cognitive questioning and moral self-questioning.30 This, he says, is ‘the basic fulfilment’ of our conscious intentionality, and in its wake comes ‘deep-set joy’, ‘radical peace’ and ‘love of one’s neighbour’. By the same token, however, an ‘absence of that fulfilment opens the way to the trivialization of human life in the pursuit of fun, to the harshness of human life arising from the ruthless exercise of power, to despair about human welfare springing from the conviction that the universe is absurd’.31 Lonergan’s   Ibid., 624.   Ibid., 632. 26   Lonergan, Method in Theology, 105. 27  Ibid. 28   G. Rixon, ‘Transforming Mysticism: Adorning Pathways to Self-Transcendence’, Gregorianum 85, no. 4 (2004): 724. 29   Cf. Lonergan on what he called the ‘transcendental precepts’ of all cognitive method: ‘Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible’ (Lonergan, Method in Theology, 231). 30   Ibid., 105. 31  Ibid. 24 25

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highly schematic theory permitted him to organise a fascinating body of analyses in philosophy, theology and the social sciences (including economics!), which we cannot go into here. Emotion and Desire On the face of it, in the Christian tradition alone one could pick out a great many affects other than ‘being in love’ – from remorse to sorrow, to despair, to pity, to hope – that might be seen in their place as just as salvific. That said, Lonergan clearly stood in a long tradition that would gather up all spiritual practices under the heading of what Augustine called ‘the desire of God’, which is to say, our God-infused desire for God. Thus Insight’s metaphysical ‘desire to know’ recapitulated itself in later Lonergan within a ‘being in love with God’ that claimed to engage the entirety of the ‘existential’ and ‘incarnate’ subject.32 ‘Where earlier Lonergan’s model might have been the mind of Thomas [Aquinas], restless till it could rest in seeing God, now he leans more to the heart of Augustine, restless till it rests in God.’33 But Lonergan’s account of theological desire remains, even so, though not wholly bloodless, still rather pure and vague in its practical specifics. This has not always been so in Christian spirituality. In medieval Christian erotic mysticism, for example, things were rather different. As Gerard Loughlin observes, whereas an old tradition regarded the body mainly as an indispensable measure of ascetic failure, the desiring bodies of medieval adepts became explicitly also ‘a means for their ascent’, ‘the locus of their union with Christ’.34 Erotic mystics would ‘evoke’ in metaphor the very sensual and sexual body that they literally renounced. But the line between the literal and the metaphorical would always be a potentially muddy one as the adept sought to express ‘a spiritual felicity that exceeds the embraces of interpenetrating bodies’. The ensuing theological ‘ars erotica’ was ‘concerned with evoking the ecstatic union of the soul with Christ, that, even as it surpasses the pleasures of the flesh, always returns to … the meeting, biting, engulfing of lips and tongues, to that fateful opening verse from the Song of Songs … “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” [Song 1:2]’.35 There is precious little hint of this kind of thing in Lonergan. But perhaps more significantly, neither is there in Lonergan any comparable sense that almost insuperable paradoxes dog spiritual practices that aim at bringing human nature to its completion in grace. All that Lonergan’s formula calmly notes on this 32   Cf. Bernard Lonergan, ‘The Subject, , in A Second Collection, ed. B Tyrrell (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968), 69–86. 33  Crowe, Lonergan, 97. 34   Gerard Loughlin, Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Cinema and Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 10. 35   Ibid., 12.

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front is that ‘religious development’ is always a dialectical struggle ‘between authenticity and unauthenticity, between the self as transcending and the self as transcended’.36 And neither, meanwhile, does this formula of ‘self-transcendence’ recall the dialectical intensity of a Kierkegaard or a Luther regarding how saving grace confronts our sinful nullity. For all Lonergan’s synthesising brilliance, he makes salvific experience into something rather clear-cut and predictable. Perhaps Lonergan’s schematic of salvation is everywhere just a little too pellucid to do justice to the rugged and uneven character of most religious – or indeed, most human – thinking and living. And yet, of course, without sustained recourse to abstractions one can hardly reflect theoretically at all. I find something continually intriguing, even rather bewitching, about Lonergan’s analysis of cognition and, even, of religious love. Perhaps David Tracy is wise still to find in Lonergan, after all these years, ‘the most persuasive reading of the structure and the differentiations of human consciousness’ (private conversation with David Tracy, 26 October 2009). Now we turn to consider two human scientists’ approaches to religious emotion. Religious Emotion according to the Human Sciences A Sociological Approach: Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead (2010) Certainly, Lonergan’s account of religious experience would not commend itself to Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead,37 who caution against specifying specifically ‘religious’ emotional life in terms of any particular or preferred kinds of sentiment. From their sociological perspective, these authors argue that wrong opening turns are taken when Rudolf Otto identifies authentic religion with a sense of mysterium tremendum et fascinans; or, alternatively, when Karen Armstrong writes that ‘all religions are designed to teach us how to live, joyfully, serenely, and kindly, in the midst of suffering’.38 Riis and Woodhead insist instead: ‘Any emotion can be religious: not only awe and serenity, but grief, ecstasy, anxiety, hatred, selfrighteousness, and so on.’39 Preferable to the approaches of Otto or Armstrong, Riis and Woodhead40 suggest, would be to call an emotion ‘religious’ simply whenever it appears in a recognisably religious context. So, rather than spend time wondering if particular named emotions could ever possess general anthropological or religious significance, Riis and Woodhead opt  Lonergan, Method in Theology, 111.   Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 38  Otto, The Idea of the Holy; Karen Armstrong, The Bible: A Biography (London: Atlantic Books, 2007). 39   Riis and Woodhead, Religious Emotion, 54. 40   Ibid., 69. 36

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instead to explicate occasions of human emotion exclusively in terms of their participations in, dissentions from, and contributions to the ‘emotional regimes’ that help to structure social groups. ‘Emotional regime’ names for Riis and Woodhead the manner ‘in which emotional norms get articulated through an entire socio-symbolic structure (such as a business, a family, a religious group)’.41 On Riis and Woodhead’s model, an emotional regime tends towards a stasis or equilibrium of maximal interrelation and positive feedback between its elements of (i) participant individuals, (ii) collective community and (iii) symbols – all within its particular human-environmental niche. Of course, there always remain many counteractive and disordering influences in the real world, so no single emotional regime is ever in practice so stable that it lacks tensions within and between its basic terms. An emotional regime breaks down wholly only when its ordered sphere of human individuality, sociality and symbolism dissipates entirely. The individual person, meanwhile, suffers and contributes her agency to a simultaneous plurality of partly conflicting emotional regimes inasmuch as she belongs simultaneously (and with varying degrees of commitment) to multiple communities of different kinds and scopes. Riis and Woodhead acknowledge that the ‘multidimensional nature of emotion’ invites a range of ‘[p]sychological, philosophical, behavioural … neurological … literary, visual, theatre, cultural … media … [and] social-scientific’ approaches and studies.42 Yet even so, they imply that only their kind of approach focusing on the socio-cultural ‘relational contexts’ in which emotions are effected (and not on emotional experiences themselves), constitutes an adequate empiricalscientific approach to the human phenomenon of emotion. More direct approaches lead only to a focus on ‘inner disturbances’ and ‘feeling-states’ that falls short of the emotions of which humans speak and by which they interpret their lives to themselves and others. ‘An emotion may well involve an inner state, but it is also a feeling about something or someone, such that the understanding of its object is an intrinsic part of the state’: ‘treating emotions as inner disturbances is not a good place to start – and an even worse place to end’.43 Riis and Woodhead know that human emotions involve ‘psycho-physical orientations and adjustments’ that individuals suffer and perform, but they characterise the individual’s experience of emotion as simply one more dimension of her ‘lived experience’, about which (they imply) little truly scientific can be said (except to note that such things are always ‘simultaneously embodied, cognitive, and evaluative’).44 Now, it might seem likely that this approach must limit their prospects for interaction with human history’s many commentaries on just such experiences. But Riis and Woodhead would not agree. Indeed, they judge their approach eminently suitable for encouraging ‘a rapprochement between social     43   44   41 42

Ibid., 47. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 21, 52. Ibid., 21, 26–7.

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scientific and humanistic studies’, because of how their model pays attention not only to ‘social relations’ between agents and ‘social structures’, but also to ‘symbolic relations’: that is, to the ways in which agents and social structures are each related not merely to each other but also to personal and social memories and symbols.45 Here I think Riis and Woodhead are partly on to something important and partly also a little mistaken. First, the positives. I am sure they are right to want to show that ‘the sociology of religion can be enriched by engagement, not only with anthropology and cultural sociology, but with religious studies, theology, scriptural exegesis, archaeology, and historical studies’. As they observe (in an observation that is also pertinent to our discussion of Lonergan): ‘When a devotee speaks of “love”, the sociologist must be able to understand what that means in the context of a particular religious and cultural setting, rather than attempting to interpret by observing social relationships alone, or by assuming that it refers to some universal inner experience.’46 However, there is an oddity about the way that Riis and Woodhead advertise their interest in ‘the symbolic and material contexts and manifestations of emotional life’,47 while in actual fact they neglect to match their attention to cultural symbols in human emotional regimes with comparable attention to the physical factors (biological and environmental) at work in emotion. In a model that models relations between individuals, the group and symbols, there is no space for considering non-symbolic physical realities such as, for example, the availability or otherwise of food, water, shelter, drugs, warmth or sunlight. Riis and Woodhead’s analysis associates emotions much more fundamentally with the presence of symbolic meaning than with the presence of any simply physical conditions. Implausibly, Riis and Woodhead’s analysis does not consider, say, climate and geographical latitude, or opportunities for physical exercise, or prevailing physical resources for individual or public health as being independently significant factors in emotional regimes of whatever stripe. The different kinds of physical variables (including technological influences) that might play within any given emotional regime are too many and various to begin to enumerate here. Meanwhile, it is not too much to say that Riis and Woodhead’s one-sided interest in symbols flirts with idealism. It seems to me that the adequacy of Riis and Woodhead’s otherwise valuable model of the ‘emotional regime’ would be significantly increased were it modified to propose an interrelation not only between individuals, the community and symbols, but also between each of those and ‘physical conditions’ as a fourth node in the model. Rather than ‘families, businesses, religious groups’ being simply ‘socio-symbolic’ structures, it follows, they might be described more fully as ‘social–symbolic–bioenvironmental’ structures, more adequately reflecting their actual gamut of variables.

  Ibid., 215.   Ibid., 216. 47   Ibid., 38; my emphasis. 45 46

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In such a revised model, each of ‘physical conditions’ and ‘cultural symbolisms’ alike presents its own distinct analytic, each referring to a distinct reality that conditions emotional experience (as in, for example: ‘I am cold’; and ‘the frozen lake is beautiful’). At the same time, and relatedly, it becomes possible to improve upon Riis and Woodhead’s somewhat truncated account of the significance of individuals within emotional regimes, whom they tend to focus on purely as ‘embodied agents’.’48 It would be better, I believe, to include also variables in the bodily passivity of a group’s individuals as highly significant in the structuring of a group’s emotions and in its emotional regime. A group composed solely of octogenarians is likely to throw up a different dynamic of embodied passivity than a group composed of adolescents, the latter of which will vary once again according to whether it is a mixed or single-sex community (as, of course, might the octogenarian group also). In the wake of this modification of Riis and Woodhead’s model of the ‘emotional regime’, I believe its overall plausibility and potential stand out rather more clearly: first, its plausible success in abstracting a complete set of distinct signal elements or influences that can be said to be ‘in play’ in human emotion; and, second, its potential of relating these elements to each other to form a valuable sociological analytic of emotion as a ‘biocultural’ (Davies) phenomenon of lived experience. Emotion, Embodiment and Religion – and Theology However, one thing that Riis and Woodhead’s kind of model, modified or not, is definitely not able to do is transmute its analytic into a discourse about emotion (religious or otherwise) that really mingles empirical hypothesis with ‘humanistic’ commentary. By considerable contrast, the social anthropologist of religion, Douglas Davies, has a recent book out concerning ‘emotion, identity and religion’ in a manner that moves freely between observer and participant perspectives. Davies seeks to interweave disciplined observation, hypothesis and practical wisdom on the topic of religious emotion. Unlike Riis and Woodhead, Davies definitely is directly interested in interrogating emotional experience as experience. Davies49 finds that religious practices tend to revolve around certain key anthropological realities. In particular, he highlights the role of ‘emotion’ in its contribution to ‘identity’; the role of ‘meaning’ in felt emotion and identity and in its ongoing reliance on moods ‘trust’ and ‘hope’; and the role of experiences of personal, social and cosmic ‘otherness’, as held in tension with corresponding experiences of ‘reciprocity’. Davies clearly believes that these human realities demand from us all, religious or not, theoretical interpretations and practical negotiations at least as serious as those pursued by the religious traditions.

  Ibid., 69; my emphasis.  Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion.

48 49

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One move, above all, allows Davies his particular brand of discourse. This basic move is the one by which Davies situates all these human phenomena within a fundamental theoretical horizon to do with the processes and vortices of human embodiment. The theoretical horizon of embodiment is one that Riis and Woodhead do not seek, and which their model as originally proposed (with its leaning towards idealism) actually tended to occlude. However, as modified earlier here, their model might yet lend some support to intimations that the phenomenon of embodiment is indeed anthropologically primitive. For taken more or less literally and more or less metaphorically, ‘embodiment’ indicates a place in human experience where individual body-selves and communal ‘bodies’ mutually interact and interrelate, alike, as real bodies. This analogy of the individual and the communal (and perhaps cosmic) body – which I take to be integral to the notion of embodiment – then also receives a certain confirmation in the presence of cultural symbols and bioenvironmental conditions. For both individual and communal bodies, alike, act and suffer as bodies both constituted by and acting upon cultural symbols and bioenvironmental conditions which arrive as distinct and yet also always as superimposed upon each other. For his part, Davies50 defines embodiment as ‘that complex but valuable concept describing how cultural values become second nature to our sense of ourselves’, and it is perhaps precisely the question of how one might embodying a truly ‘second’ – because transcendent – nature that haunts much of what David Tracy refers to as the nature–grace ‘polarity’ in Christian life and thought (in distinction from the sin–grace opposition or ‘dialectic’).51 On the other hand, embodiment could also indicate something that from time to time becomes radically problematic: in death, of course, for all of us; but also in illness or hopelessness, when self-recognition seems impossible and we retreat desperately into a seemingly ever-receding sense of who possibly we might be. This may become a chronically negative condition, or it may present more as a salutary sense of ontological absurdity or sinful nullity, perhaps the very condition of wisdom or grace. Which is to say, alongside religious embodiments of a virtuous ‘second nature’, other aspects of religious embodiment might posses a radically apocalyptic aspect, inasmuch as one receives one’s integrity as a gratuity that nevertheless always also remains hidden in a transcendent Other. Short Theological Ending Lonergan’s theology of consciousness almost became also a theology of emotion and desire. It sought to be a genuine theology of embodiment, in so far as the pinnacle of authentic human communication is when cor ad cor loquitor. But Lonergan   Ibid., 4–5.   David Tracy, ‘The Necessity and Character of Fundamental Theology’ (Loyola University, Chicago, 4 August 2011), unpublished lecture. 50 51

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pre-empted a host of scarcely asked questions about the means and assurance of such religious embodiment by proposing dogmatic trust in the concrete historical reality of authoritative religious institutions of intellect-in-love. As David Tracy mused to me, what Lonergan said ‘was true’: ‘You don’t argue with love or for love … But you can raise critical questions, and Lonergan wouldn’t even do that, I think’ (private conversation with David Tracy, 26 October 2009). Tracy himself broke with Lonergan over this issue of his teacher’s ‘dogmatic’ as opposed to ‘critical’ grounding of theology.52 Just perhaps, Tracy’s own work since that time will be read in retrospect as a long and tortuous journey towards something like, or at least compatible with, a ‘theology of embodiment’ that might fulfil some of Lonergan’s instincts in this area. (We should know more when Tracy publishes the ‘big book on God’ that he has been working on ever since he gave the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh in 2000.) As George Pattison53 remarks, in the vein of just the kind of theology I have in mind here: ‘embodiment is not so much a mode of the presence of [God] as the measure of the nearness and distance of our relation to [God] … When we say “God is”, whether in a predicative (“God is good”) or an existential (“God exists”) sense, the purchase of what is said rests upon such movements towards God and such rest in God as can be testified by the immediacy of bodily life.’54 The question becomes, what kind of God and what kind of relation to God is possible ‘if we accept without reserve the reality of embodiment as the condition of all religious existence’?55 Aided by the horizon of ‘embodiment’, theological and non-theological thinking should be able to converse about emotion, even if they continue to be divided by more or less elusive transcendental beliefs. References Armstrong, Karen. The Bible: A Biography. London: Atlantic Books, 2007. Crowe, Frederick E. Lonergan. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1992. Davies, Douglas James. Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Dixon, Thomas. From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

  Tracy, ‘Lonergan’s Foundational Theology: An Interpretation and Critique’.   George Pattison, God and Being: An Enquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 275. 54   In the first sentence of this quotation, ‘God’ appearing in square brackets replaces ‘Being’ in Pattison’s original. Pattison is explicit at this point that the two are in fact synonymous in this sentence. 55  Pattison, God and Being, 275. 52 53

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Lonergan, Bernard. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1958. Lonergan, Bernard. Method in Theology. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971. Lonergan, Bernard. ‘The Subject’. In A Second Collection, edited by B. Tyrrell, 69–86. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968. Loughlin, Gerard. Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Cinema and Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine in Its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917. Pattison, George. God and Being: An Enquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Rahner, Karl. The Dynamic Element of the Church: Quaestiones Disputatae 12. Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964. Riis, Ole, and Linda Woodhead. A Sociology of Religious Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Rixon, G. ‘Transforming Mysticism: Adorning Pathways to Self-Transcendence’. Gregorianum 85, no. 4 (2004): 719–34. Tracy, David. Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Tracy, David. ‘Lonergan’s Foundational Theology: An Interpretation and Critique’. In Foundations of Theology: Papers from the International Lonergan Congress, edited by P. McShane, 197–222. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1970. Tracy, David. ‘On Longing: The Void, The Open, God’. In Longing in a Culture of Cynicism, edited by Stephen van Erp and Lea Verstricht, 15–32. Zürich; Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2008. Tracy, David. ‘The Necessity and Character of Fundamental Theology’, Loyola University, Chicago, 4 August 2011.

Chapter 7

Forced Migration and Meaning-making Valerie DeMarinis

Introduction1 For the fifth consecutive year the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide exceeded 42 million, a result of persistent and new conflicts in different parts of the world. By the end of 2011, the figure stood at 42.5 million.2 The above information on forced migration provides the backdrop for this chapter even though its focus is not on forced migration but rather on the challenge that this raises for public mental health paradigms and programmes intended to provide services to these forcibly displaced persons. More specifically, this chapter focuses on the Swedish cultural context, drawing from ongoing migration research3 related to the meaning-making challenges as well as opportunities involved for mental health systems in the receiving host countries. The argument highlights, among other points, the significance of being aware of the emotions associated with the cultural life-contexts of displaced people and of how these may differ from those of the professionals treating them. The World Health Organization (WHO) conceptualises mental health as a positive emotion (such as feelings of happiness or resilience).4 The concept of positive mental health includes wellbeing, salutogenic factors (such as optimism), resilience (the capacity to cope with   The author would like to express her deep appreciation to Professor Douglas Davies for the invitation to participate in the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Emotions Research Network at Durham University, and to colleagues in the Network who provided an interdisciplinary arena for discourse around the topic. Preparation of this chapter was partially supported by a grant awarded to the multidisciplinary research programme, Impact of Religion: Challenges for Society, Law and Democracy, established as a Centre of Excellence at Uppsala University and funded by the Swedish Research Council 2008–2018. Valerie DeMarinis is a member of this Centre of Excellence, working in the research area of public mental health and migration. 2   UNHCR, Global Trends 2011. 3   This research is conducted through an interdisciplinary research programme at Uppsala University (see note 1 for further information). The specific research project from which the composite case materials are drawn is focused on a study of psychiatric models and programme components in addressing cultural and existential material in the clinical setting, with special attention to refugees and other migrant populations. 4   WHO, Promoting Mental Health, Concepts, Emerging Evidence, Practice, Summary Report. Geneva: WHO, 2004. 1

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adversity) and quality of life, defined by the WHO as ‘an individual’s perception of his/her position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which he/she lives and in relation to the goals, expectations, standards and concerns’.5 Therefore attention to emotions, both positive and negative, through culturally informed knowledge in mental health praxis can be argued as essential for public mental health promotion. In order to illustrate the interconnecting levels of challenge involved, I will first present material from two composite cases. Case 1. Person with Forced Migration Background, Experiencing the Mental Health System in Sweden I am sometimes so frustrated with how mental health is understood or practised here [in Sweden]. Maybe it is not so all over, but among the other people I talk to, people who have also lived through many different kinds of humiliation and trauma, there is a kind of disconnect. What I mean is that getting psychological help is not easy for us. There is so much stigma around it. And if one has the courage and support to try and get help, then the frustration is that very few of the people in psychiatry understand how to hear my story. Even if I have a voice and try to explain, there is a look or body language that either makes me stop talking, or even worse, makes me doubt what I know that helps me. It is not a problem of language, I can communicate in this new language, it is a problem of another kind of language. Clearly, what I am saying does not make sense to the professional listening. And just as clearly this sets off a process that in all honesty increases my discomfort. I am talking about rituals from my faith that help me to find peace. But the professional cannot translate this to something that makes sense. And, as it has happened earlier to me, I become blocked from what helps me. And then I withdraw and my body becomes the holder of this, and I become so tired. …It is strange, as I see Swedish people doing their own small rituals or these actions with leaving flowers when there is a murder. It is almost like an instinct, to DO something that can mark time and place. Why is it that this need is so often not understood by mental health professionals? My religious rituals and practices are not so different in their function although they have another source. Maybe the mental health professionals can take training from the street, from how and what people do – and I think this can help many immigrants, especially those with many levels of trauma to get better.

5   WHOQOL Group, ‘The World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL): position paper from the World Health Organization’, Social Science & Medicine 41 (1995), 1403–9.

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Case 2: Psychiatrist Working with People with a Forced Migration History There has been nothing in my formal training to help me work with religious or related types of cultural information as part of the diagnosis process. In the DSM-IV [Diagsnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn] there is some information on religious or spiritual problems, but as a diagnostic system it does not help with understanding religion as a resource. I am not sure how some colleagues in the US approach religion in psychiatry would work here in Sweden. … By not knowing how to approach this area I feel that I am at times missing vital information, especially with those who are struggling with trauma-related migration issues, coming from cultures where religion really is a mental health resource. And, an even more frightening idea is that I may even be contributing to worsening the mental health status of my patients. Naming the Challenges In this section an effort is made to present some of the major challenges, by no means exhaustive, that need to be understood in order to begin to grasp the extent of the difficulties involved in creating a dialogue space for mental health, meaningmaking and forced migration. Challenge 1: The Nature and Role of Culture in Mental Health Paradigms Examining even the very brief information from the two cases included here, it becomes clear that an understanding of and approach to working with the term ‘culture’ is vital for confronting the challenges contained in these cases. A frequently used working definition of culture from cultural psychologist A. Marsella (2005) includes attention to learned behaviour and meanings, socially transferred in various life-activity settings for purposes of individual and collective adjustment and adaptation. Cultures can be transitory or enduring (e.g. ethnocultural lifestyles), and always dynamic (i.e. constantly subject to change and modification). Cultures are represented internally (i.e. values, beliefs, attitudes, axioms, orientations, epistemologies, consciousness levels, perceptions, expectations, personhood), and externally (i.e. artefacts, roles, institutions, social structures). Cultures shape and construct our realities (i.e. they contribute to our worldviews, perceptions, orientations) and, with these, ideas, morals and preferences.6 Approaching culture in this way, it then ‘becomes clear that we cannot escape engaging in a metacultural analysis of how our mental health care institutions function and the

6   A. Marsella, ‘Culture and Conflict: Understanding, Negotiating, and Reconciling Conflicting Constructions of Reality’, International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29 (2005), 651–73.

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implicit or explicit cultural constructions of meaning in relation to conceptions of and approaches to both salutogenic and pathogenic constructions’.7 Access to cultural information, including information related to world-views, beliefs, values and activities such as rituals that symbolise meaning in action, is therefore essential to working with people coming from another cultural context, and not least those seeking mental health services after experiencing the aftermath and the emotions of traumas and hardship associated with forced migration. On this point both the case illustrations above appear to be in agreement. There is an urgent need for safely accessing cultural information. However, there is a problem. And it has to do with paradigms functioning in mental health, and in large measure the discourse surrounding the understanding of culture. A timely resource for understanding some of the fundamental challenges surrounding the nature and use of the term culture in mental health paradigms is the edited volume by Mezzich and Caracci, Cultural Formulation: A Reader for Psychiatric Diagnosis. As I have stated in a previous article, one central aim[s] is to provide exacting information related to the complicated processes between development and final presentation of the approach to culture and cultural aspects of diagnosis presented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.8 The findings of this critical review have implications not only for understanding the place of culture in current and coming nosologies, as well as for the utility and potential limitations of DSMIV as a clinical and research tool in multicultural settings. More than this, it provides a thorough and very valuable base for understanding the sociopolitical process, a dimension of culture in itself, of constructing the DSM.9

In the final DSM product it can be argued that, although cultural considerations are included, the essential discourse concerning culture as a common core of analysis and as a fundamental element not only of psychiatric distress but also of psychiatric resilience is not in evidence. ‘The placement of, for example, the very useful “Outline for Cultural Formulation” in the ninth appendix has resulted in the loss of this valuable information in at least the Swedish version of the MINI-D IV.’10 In Collins’s review of the Cultural Formulation volume, the following is noted: Culture clashes abound in this journey into psychiatric diagnosis and formulation. The central conflicts do not lie, however, between nation states or races but 7   V. DeMarinis et al., ‘Philosophy’s Role for Guiding Theory and Practice in Clinical Contexts Grounded in a Cultural Psychiatry Focus: A Case Study Illustration from Southern Norway’, World Cultural Psychiatry 2012, 76, 75–83. 8   Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn (DSM–IV), Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 1994. 9   DeMarinis et al., ‘Philosophy’s Role’, 76. 10   Ibid., 77.

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rather between the differing tribes in psychiatry itself. Mezzich and Caracci certainly deserve immense admiration for willingly straying into territories where biological determinists and nosological pedants normally hunt.11

As Collins notes, the cultural clashes are not, at least as represented by the psychiatric ‘tribe’ in the Mezzich and Caracci volume, composed of two completely antithetical sides. The cultural psychiatry tribe raises critical questions to a number of foundational tenets in psychiatric diagnosis, most especially to universal categorisation, deriving solely from shared biological commonalities, with common symptoms and common treatments. Mezzich and Caracci do not want to eliminate the more traditional concerns in psychiatry, but certainly do question the absolute nature of biological determinism. The biological assessment needs to be in dialogue with cultural assessment that provides a more holistic, cultural formulation, which aids in the accuracy of the diagnostic process. By providing important information on environmental, social, and developmental factors, as well as constitutional predispositions, the diagnostic and treatment processes can be better informed and planned for with all patients/clients.12

The diagnostic and treatment processes also need to include critical reflection on the particular cultural context with all the patterning of emotion in which mental health services are delivered. More on this type of reflection will be addressed under Challenge 3. Cultural competence is now being demanded of every health professional working in multi-cultural areas. Yet differences in the interpretation of what this means abound. The result is that explicit and/or implicit cultural discrimination takes place, and it is up to those in charge of mental health programmes and programme evaluations to address this.13 Challenge 2: Mental Health Paradigms for Approaching Trauma Experience in Forced Migration Mental Health Programes A second area of challenge, not totally divorced from the first, also involves an understanding of paradigm and perspective. This area concerns how research is conducted and how mental health treatment programmes are constructed in

11   P. Collins, ‘Culture Clashes Between Psychiatric Tribes: A Review of Cultural Formulation: A Reader for Psychiatric Diagnosis by Mezzich J.A. & Caracci G. (Eds)’. Psychology International 20 (2009), 16. 12   DeMarinis et al., ‘Philosophy’s Role’, 77. 13   D. Bhugra and S. Gupta, Migration and Mental Health, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

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addressing the needs of trauma survivors, especially those who have experienced war and violence-related forced migration circumstances. In examining the vast array of research studies with those who have survived forced migration circumstances, including war and violence-related, multipletrauma incidents, it is clear that traumatic experiences are central. However, being able to map these experiences on to, as cultural psychiatrist Silove suggests,14 a process perspective over time of pre-, during, and post-displacement experiences is not the equivalent of being able to know the actual effects of these experiences for the individual involved. There is an over-dominance in mental health approaches of forced migration populations that experienced trauma almost always leads to traumatic symptom development and the ubiquitous over-generalisation of a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) orientation. As social psychiatrist Summerfield notes, there is a distortion in the trauma paradigm approach that forces attention in a skewed and myopic fashion: How pain and suffering were to be understood has always been at the heart of the relationship between human consciousness and the material world. The religions of the world traditionally provided frameworks to capture pain, and the terminology with which to express it; over the last century in the secularizing West, this role passed to medicine and psychology. But human pain is a slippery thing, if it is a thing at all. Mental health frameworks, and the discourse of ‘trauma’, can contribute to its elucidation, in particular when it is too much for a person as a biopsychological organism to bear. Nonetheless, the transcending reality is that counting the human costs attached to adverse experience invokes not technical considerations but philosophical and socio-moral ones: these differ radically across cultures, but also do not stand still over time in one culture or indeed in an individual life course.15

One can see quite clearly in Summerfield’s words a link back to the concern of culture. The paradigm used for understanding trauma and trauma’s effects is also linked to the paradigm of cultural understanding. Summerfield, Silove and an increasing number of other researchers and programme planners argue for an approach to understanding trauma experiences with forced refugee and other migration populations through a paradigm that incorporates a mapping of both salutogenic (protective and promotive) and pathogenic (risk) factors. Here the urgency is, as in the first challenge area, one of balance. In order to truly 14   D. Silove, ‘From Trauma to Survival and Adaptation: Towards A Framework For Guiding Mental Health Initiatives In Post-Conflict Societies’, 29–52. In D. Ingelby (ed.), Forced Migration and Mental Health: Rethinking the Care of Refugees and Displaced Person, Dordrecht: Springer, 2005. 15   D. Summerfield, ‘Childhood, War, Refugeedom and “Trauma”: Three Core Questions for Mental Health Professionals’, Transcultural Psychiatry 37, no. 3 (2000), 417–33.

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understand and create a comprehensive diagnostic picture related to traumatic experiences and their effect(s) on the individual, a paradigmatic framework that includes attention to the whole picture is necessary. One of the central models for this type of diagnosis process, relevant for assessing the effects of experiences of trauma, as well as for diagnosis in general, has emerged through work done by the World Psychiatric Association. This model, as discussed by Mezzich and Saloum (2008), is referred to as ‘Person-Centered Integrative Diagnosis’ (PID). The model’s focus is summarised as follows: Conventional health care paradigms focusing just on disease and immediate care are often regarded as inadequate. This is particularly true when comorbid conditions are noted. The WHO Comorbidity Workgroup concluded that personcentered care offers the most promising approach when comorbid conditions are involved, by facilitating coordination and integration of services. A personcentered approach would also facilitate attention to the positive aspects of health, such as resilience, resources, and quality of life. This is important for clinical treatment, prevention, rehabilitation and health promotion.16

Through this approach to diagnosis, an individual’s experiences of trauma would be mapped to include attention to both risk and protective factors that have mediated how these experiences have actually been experienced. Not only would the diagnostic process be strengthened through a model such as this, but the implications for identifying resources for the treatment process and ancillary services would be greatly enhanced. Challenge 3: Meaning-Making, Existential Information and the Mental Health Context How meaning is made is also, referring to Marsella’s definition, influenced by culture and cultural context. These influence meaning at the levels of the individual, group, as well as society and the institutions formed within that society. If we glance back to the two cases at the opening of the chapter it is clear that both the person with the forced-refugee experience and the psychiatrist are struggling with meaning-related questions and concerns. An especially important area of meaning has to do with existential meaning-making and information. How this type of information is labelled makes a critical difference to what can be included or excluded. One important question is the following: does everyone have an existential meaning-making process? If we answer this question in the affirmative, using a very functional approach, then it is important that we find terms that can be inclusive of a wide variety of existential meaning-making expressions. In this respect, an inclusive worldview-type approach such as that presented in the 16   J. Mezzich and I. Salloum, ‘Clinical Complexity and Person-Centered Integrative Diagnosis’, World Psychiatry 7 no. 2 (2008), 1.

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edited volume by psychiatrists Josephson and Peteet points towards a working framework.17 However, the predominance of traditional religious woldviews and a central focus on beliefs here is somewhat problematic. An emerging Nordic model that I and others have been developing offers the potential of a more integrated approach, where beliefs, behaviours (including rituals) and belonging patterns can be assessed: The approach to existential information in this clinical context, as is the case in certain clinical contexts in Sweden (DeMarinis & Jacobsson, 2009) is not shaped by a particular religious tradition or spiritual expression. Rather, it is viewed as a type of information that is at the core of understanding the patient’s way of making-meaning, and in this sense privileged in terms of cultural information. As all persons have some way of making meaning, each person has existential information which goes to the core of what is most meaningful in his/her meaning-making. The importance of this information in the therapeutic process varies from case to case. It can be of relevance for identifying areas of dysfunction as well as function and resilience.18

When this kind of meaning-making approach is included in the diagnostic process, valuable information related to how a person makes meaning both as an individual and as part of one or more collective units can be accessed and then assessed together with the person so as to gain maximum information to better understand both idioms of distress as well as of hope. This kind of information, especially for people who have experienced forced migration and the aftermath, leading to an eventual resettlement, can be of critical importance to understanding and addressing the different types, different levels, and very possibly different functions of past and current painful memory. As cultural psychiatrist Kirmayer notes: Memory is not a static repository of knowledge and experience but an active arena of reconstruction – remembering, embodying, and extending experience as it unfolds (Kirmayer, 1996). Culture works on and through memory at every step of this process: at the moment of registration, by framing experiences as memorable and assigning them specific meanings; in an ongoing way, through creating occasions for recollection, re-telling or re-enactment; and, over the long term, by stabilizing memories through social practices, and ritual commemorations or rewriting history to elide or fragment narratives that do not serve dominant interests. To appreciate how ritual can transform painful memory, therefore, we must understand memory not only as representation in

17   A. Josephson and J. Peteet (eds), Handbook of Spirituality and Worldview in Clinical Practice. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2004. 18   DeMarinis et al., ‘Philosophy’s Role’, 80.

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an individual, but as collective representation, and not only as representation, but as individual and collective enactment.19

It is interesting to note that certain mental health models used for building mental health programmes in post-war or protracted refugee contexts are already making use of the inclusion of an existential dimension in a systems-model approach for both assessment and treatment planning in these contexts. One such model has been developed by Silove, the ADAPT model. Multiple systems are involved and interrelated, including: Security/safety, Attachment, Justice, Role/identity and Existential meaning.20 To date, I know of no such model being used in mental health contexts in the resettlement host countries, or at least this is the case in the Nordic countries.21 Use of this model has the potential to maximise adaptive responses through the identification as well as implementation of resources, including those related to existential meaning-making. At the same time, it may help to limit the influence of less adaptive ones. Planning for Opportunities In this section I return to the Swedish cases in light of the challenges noted above and move towards a view of the current situation as an opportunity for change. Here, a recent book by social anthropologist of religion Douglas Davies provided a source of inspiration from outside the mental health area. Davies22 defines embodiment, in a shorthand format, as ‘that complex but valuable concept describing how cultural values become second nature to our sense of ourselves’. And, by extension, the moving of persons between cultural contexts means that there is a need to examine cultural values in acculturation situations, both for the individual and the host environment. Returning to our cases, this approach to embodiment can provide a means for understanding the range of both emotions and feelings contained in each of the cases. The experiences of the person who has been a patient in the Swedish mental health system as well as the psychiatrist working in this system are fraught with embodied knowledge of distress that needs to be brought to the surface before it can be addressed.   L.J. Kirmayer, ‘Culture and the Metaphoric Mediation of Pain’, Transcultural Psychiatry 45 (2008), 331. 20   Silove, ‘From Trauma to Survival and Adaptation’. 21   An encouraging note is that just such a model is currently being developed for the planning of mental health services in Sweden for different migration populations. This represents a cooperative endeavour among Silove, the author, and other colleagues working in transcultural psychiatry in Sweden. 22   Douglas Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 4–5. 19

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From both perspectives, that of the patient and that of the psychiatrist, this distress is linked to the reality that different cultural assumptions, expressions and ways of making meaning are meeting in an environment that does not fully know how to make sense of what is happening. Naturally, the vantage points as well as the positions of power are different. However, the experiencing of disease and distress is clear for both. In many respects, the frustration of the patient and the frustration of the psychiatrist reflect the widely present reality that mental health systems in Sweden by and large do not work out of a paradigm that generally includes in-depth cultural analysis and a well-defined person-centred integrated diagnostic system (including attention to salutogenic factors and to existential meaning-making factors). For the individuals involved in both the cases included here, the reality of these excluded or at the very least underdeveloped areas is problematic. The frustrating and in many respects demoralising experiences of the patient address, at least in part, the implied question of the psychiatrist as to whether the operative paradigm may in fact have an unintended iatrogenic effect – one of potentially worsening the mental health status of the patient. However, through the process of being able to express the range of emotions and feelings embedded in these case vignettes, the individuals highlight opportunities, their own idioms of hope. In the patient case, there is an important observation that points to the existential meaning-making process of all persons, regardless of their cultural background: that of being able to ritualise, mark, and thereby contain and reframe experiences. Although Sweden is often referred to as one of the most secular countries,23 there is growing evidence of increased spirituality or what can be termed here as existential meaning-making expressions, not least those focused on ritualising expressions. The need to understand these expressions as having potential worth in the mental health context is certainly of relevance for those who have experienced forced migration and its aftermath. However, this need is also noted at a more general level, not just for people with an immigrant background but also for the ethnic-Swedish population.24 In the psychiatrist case, there is the awareness of the need to re-examine the paradigm of mental health used in order to test its adequacy for identifying both the needs and the resources of the very wide spectrum of mental health service users in contemporary Sweden. The idioms of hope in both cases point to the need for cultural and existential meaning-making information to be included in an emerging public mental health paradigm. It can be argued that this paradigm may indeed provide one of the bases for a public mental health promotion focus in Sweden. Health promotion 23   See, e.g., V. DeMarinis, ‘The Impact of Post-modernization on Existential Health in Sweden: Psychology of Religion’s Function in Existential Public Health Analysis’, Archive for the Psychology of Religion 30 (2008), 57–74. 24   See, e.g., V. DeMarinis et al., ‘Cultural Analysis as a Perspective for Genderinformed Alcohol Treatment Research in a Swedish Context’, Alcohol and Alcoholism 44 (2009), 615–19.

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has been defined as action and advocacy to address the full range of potentially modifiable determinants of health.25 As determinants of health are those factors that can enhance or threaten an individual’s or a community’s health status,26 the benefits of inclusion of cultural and existential meaning-making information into the diagnostic and treatment processes, as well as the danger of exclusion of such information, need to be further investigated. References American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994. Bhugra, D. and Gupta S. (eds) Migration and Mental Health, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Collins, P. ‘Culture Clashes between Psychiatric Tribes: A Review of Cultural Formulation: A Reader for Psychiatric Diagnosis by Mezzich J.A and Caracci, G (Eds)’. Psychology International 20 (2009): 16–17. Davies, D. Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. DeMarinis, V. ‘The Impact of Post-modernization on Existential Health in Sweden: Psychology of Religion’s Function in Existential Public Health Analysis’, Archive for the Psychology of Religion 30 (2008): 57–74. DeMarinis, V., Scheffel-Birath, C. and Hansagi, H. ‘Cultural Analysis as a Perspective for Gender-informed Alcohol Treatment Research in a Swedish Context’. Alcohol and Alcoholism 44 (2009): 615–19. DeMarinis, V., Ulland, D. and Karlsen, K.E. ‘Philosophy’s Role for Guiding Theory and Practice in Clinical Contexts Grounded in a Cultural Psychiatry Focus: A Case Study Illustration from Southern Norway’. World Cultural Psychiatry Research Review. (2012): 75–83. DeMarinis, V. and Jacobsson, L. European Refugee Fund, Technical Evaluation Report of ‘Projekt Horizont’ at the Unit for Transcultural Psychiatry, Uppsala University Hospital. Stockholm, European Refugee Fund Papers, 2009. Josephson, A.. and Peteet, J. (eds), Handbook of Spirituality and Worldview in Clinical Practice. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2004. Kirmayer, L.J. (1996). ‘Landscapes of Memory: Trauma, Narrative and Dissociation’. In P. Antze and M. Lambek (eds), Tense Past: Cultural Essays on Memory and Trauma, 173–98. London: Routledge, 1996. Kirmayer, L.J. ‘Culture and the Metaphoric Mediation of Pain’. Transcultural Psychiatry 45 (2008): 319–39.

  WHO, Health Promotion Glossary. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1998.   WHO, Promoting Mental Health.

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Marsella, A. ‘Culture and Conflict: Understanding, Negotiating, and Reconciling Conflicting Constructions of Reality’. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29 (2005): 651–73. Mezzich, J.E. and Caracci, G. Cultural Formulation: A Reader for Psychiatric Diagnosis. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, 2008. Mezzich, J. and Salloum, I. ‘Clinical Complexity and Person-centered Integrative Diagnosis’, World Psychiatry 7, no. 2 (2008): 1–2. Silove, D. ‘From Trauma to Survival and Adaptation: Towards a Framework for Guiding Mental Health Initiatives in Post-conflict Societies’. In D. Ingelby (ed.), Forced Migration and Mental Health: Rethinking the Care of Refugees and Displaced Persons, 29–51. International and Cultural Psychology Series, Dordrecht: Springer, 2005.. Summerfield, D. ‘Childhood, War, Refugeedom and “Trauma”: Three Core Questions for Mental Health Professionals’. Transcultural Psychiatry,37, no. 3 (2000): 417–33. UNHCR. Global Trends 2011, available at UNHCR website: http://www.unhcr. org/4fd6f87f9.html. WHO. Health Promotion Glossary. Geneva: WHO, 1998. WHO. Promoting Mental Health: Concepts, Emerging Evidence, Practice, Summary Report. Geneva: WHO, 2004. WHOQOL Group. ‘The World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL): Position Paper from the World Health Organization’, Social Science & Medicine 41 (1995): 1403–9.

Chapter 8

Identity Under Pressure: Motivation and Emotional Dynamics in Cultural and Religious Groups Marc Cleiren

Religion is not what it was for past generations.1 For most in the Western world religion is no longer the widely shared and only source of truth, relied upon for answers to life’s questions and as an ultimate consolation. In this chapter I will address some of the possible mechanisms of the motives and emotions that people go through in such changing societies. I will, in particular, focus on how negative emotionality is involved in getting to grips with new realities and, to a lesser extent, with how positive emotionality constitutes another pathway. Just what mechanisms underlie the changes that people individually and collectively undergo when their personal situation and, most particularly, their social environment changes? One goal of this current chapter is to offer a model that helps understand religious isolation, extremism and terrorism in psychological terms. It will allow us to see them as a possible result of psychological processes that are more common than we would perhaps like them to be. I will focus on the dynamics of emotion and motives in relation to changes occurring in secularised cultural as well as religious groups. I will begin by outlining the frameworks of Koestler2 and Wilber3 relating to the principle of holarchy. The principles of self-preserving and self-transcendent orientation will be addressed, and linked to psychological theories on human motivation.4 I will, subsequently, give an illustration of the possible dynamics associated with individuals moving between groups, and of their how identity is

1   I am very grateful to Dr Winnie Gebhardt for the repeated proofreading and stimulating comments on earlier versions of this chapter. 2   Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine: The Danube Edition (New York: Random House, 1976). 3   Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (New York: Shambhala, 2001). 4   E.L. Deci and R.M. Ryan, ‘The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior’, Psychological Inquiry 11 (2000): 227–68; C.S. Carver and T.L. White, ‘Behavioural-Inhibition, Behavioural Activation, and Affective Responses to Impending Reward and Punishment: The BIS BAS Scales’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994): 319–33.

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influenced. I will elaborate on a number of negative emotions that constitute the driving forces in self-preserving behaviour. In the second part, I will explore the unique position of religion in holarchic terms against the backdrop of the structural rigidity or flexibility of cultures, referring to Pinto’s5 structure theory on coarse- and fine-meshed cultures, and following Batson’s differentiation in types of religious orientation.6 The last part of the chapter will be dedicated to the question of how contemporary society challenges identity definitions. I focus on the processes that build towards extremist views and actions which, at their extreme, result in terrorist acts. I describe how perceived lack of specific resources may influence the level of alienation and potentially radicalisation in individuals and groups. Living Systems as a Holarchy7 To comprehend the complex relations between individual, family, society, and cultural and religious groups, the so-called ‘holon’ approach may be of great value. Koestler8 developed the Open Hierarchical Systems (OHS) model, where the term ‘holarchy’ is first introduced. Central to his model is the concept that everything in our universe is not a collection of ‘things’, but rather should be considered as holarchy: a hierarchical organisation of ‘holons’. The term ‘holon’ was used by Koestler as a short form for ‘whole-part’. Each holon in the universe is considered to be a coherent functional unit in itself and at the same time a meaningful part of a higher-level organisation. Units are defined in an abstract manner. They may be anything: departments within a company; atoms within molecules; cells within organs; organs within a living body. Holons are self-organising, quasi-autonomous systems that on the one hand strive to maintain their existence on a given n level (self-preservation). On the other hand, each holon has a ‘transcendent’ function: it produces a quality that is useful elsewhere, on a higher (n + 1) level within the system (self-transcendence). Holons consist of elements that themselves in turn are holons on the next lower (n – 1) level. Each higher holarchic level has more complexity, since it incorporates a diversity of other holons. Each higher level has, therefore, more depth. For instance, a human body as a unit has more depth than a molecule, since it encompasses and includes the holonic levels of cells, organs, molecules and atoms, whereas the molecule only   David Pinto, Intercultural Communication: A Three-Step Method for Dealing With Differences (Leuven: Garant Uitgevers NV, 2000). 6   C. Batson, D. Denton and J. Vollmecke, ‘Quest Religion, Anti-Fundamentalism, and Limited Versus Universal Compassion’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47, no. 1 (2008): 135–45. 7   Arthur Koestler, ‘Beyond Atomism and Holism – the Concept of the Holon’, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 13, no. 2 (1970): 131. 8   Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine. 5

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has the last one (see Figure 8.1). Each higher level has less span: at higher levels fewer units exist than at the lower ones. There are fewer molecules than atoms, and fewer organs than cells in a human body.

Figure 8.1

Holarchy: the hierarchical organization of holons

Holarchic theory implies that the meaning and agency of a living creature cannot be reduced to any of the system’s organs. At the same time, an organ, such as the liver, performs a unique function, without which the body would soon cease to exist. The laws of relations between holons has been defined by Koestler and elaborated upon by, among others, Wilber.9 The concept of the holon is intended to reconcile atomistic and holistic approaches. Koestler10 saw it as the ‘missing, or rather missing series of links between the atomistic approach of the Behaviourist and the holistic approach of the Gestalt psychologist’. From this perspective, the

9   Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Boston: Shambhala, 2000). 10   Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine.

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approach has been proven suitable to study the behaviour of an individual within family, organisation and society – each constituting higher-level holons.11 Koestler12 lists 66 properties of Open Hierarchical Systems, of which some will be addressed here. Every holon has a tendency to preserve itself and to assert its individuality as a quasi-autonomous whole. This drive to survive is clearly discernible in human beings. A holon on the n level of an output-hierarchy is represented on the next higher (n + 1) level as a unit, and triggered into action as a unit. A holon, in other words, is a system of relata, which is represented on the next higher level as a relatum. Every holon has the tendency to function as an integrated part of an (existing or evolving) larger whole. The holon’s integrative tendencies (the vertical dimension in Figures 8.1 and 8.2) are inherent in the concept of hierarchic order and a universal characteristic of life. The tendencies on the vertical axis are the dynamic expression of the holon’s part-ness. Holons on successively higher levels of the hierarchy show increasingly complex, more flexible and less predictable patterns of activity, while on successive lower levels we find increasingly mechanistic, stereotyped and predictable patterns (see Figure 8.2). Holarchies, or ‘holons’ organised in a hierarchical way, can be regarded as ‘vertically’ arborising structures of which the branches interlock with those of other hierarchies at a multiplicity of levels and form ‘horizontal’ networks.13 The number of levels in a hierarchy is a measure of its ‘depth’, and the number of holons at any given level is called its ‘span’. The behaviour of holarchic systems can be seen in different aspects of biology, but also shown in sociology and anthropology. OHS states that, when the higher holarchic level, which defines the meaning of the holon, is lost, it disintegrates into its lower, semi-autonomous parts. For instance, in the body a decaying cell is reduced to a lower fragmented, but still organised, state which can be used for other purposes – for example amino-acids that have added value for the body – or it may be shed. On an organisational level, an example is the bankruptcy and dissolution of a firm. This dissolves the usefulness of the firm’s n–1 level holons, such as the management team or the sales department. A firm that ceases to exist will disintegrate as a meaningful structure, and workers will stop working in it. The workers’ function is lost and they will seek for new contexts in which they can be of value. On the lower level, the intrinsic value of their individual skills may remain. In bigger organisations, non-viable parts of the company may be shed or sold off and the ‘healthy’ parts may continue to function. The holon approach described above enables us to consider meaningful existence from a coherent set of relational rules. In the next section, we will explore how in the striving for meaningfulness, motives steer behaviour. How does the

  M.A. Edwards, ‘A Brief History of Holons’, 2003, http://www.integralworld.net/ edwards13.html. 12   Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine. 13   See ibid. 11

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Self-preserving and transcendent motives of holons

OHS framework apply to the emotions and motivation that guide behaviour of individuals and groups? Motivational Systems in Humans The past decades have brought support in psychological research and theory for distinct motivational systems that guide behaviour. This has also increased our insight into the diversity of human emotions. In the past, there was a tendency to consider the field of study in a bipolar way: positive versus negative emotions; functional versus dysfunctional cognitions; productive versus counterproductive behaviour; internal versus external motivation. However, more recent empirical evidence suggests that these opposites are qualitatively different, and belong to separate motivational dimensions.14 In contemporary theoretical and empirical approaches in psychology, empirical evidence has been found in a variety of fields for the existence of at least two

14   C.S. Carver and M.F. Scheier, On the Self-Regulation of Behaviour (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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Table 8.1

Prototypical qualitative dichotomies in psychological theory in the context of self-preserving and self-transcendent orientations

Life orientation Functional concepts Personal constructs15 Cognitive processing16 Affect17 Coping18 Goals19 Behaviour20 Self-regulatory focus21 Autonomy22 Social behaviour23 Motivation24 Motivation25

Provide self-preservation

Provide self-transcendence

Closed Assimilation Negative Assimilative Negative – avoid Behavioural inhibition Prevention Reactive Impulsive Controlled Non-organismic motives (power, wealth, status)

Open Accommodation Positive Accommodative Positive – approach Behavioural approach Promotion Reflective Reflective Autonomous Organismic motives (growth, relatedness, mastery)

  G. Kelly, ‘A Brief Introduction to Personal Construct Theory’, in Perspectives in Personal Construct Theory, ed. Donald Bannister (London: Academic Press Inc., 1970), 1–29. 16   J. Piaget, The Construction of Reality in the Child (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957). 17   Ed Diener and Robert A. Emmons, ‘The Independence of Positive and Negative Affect’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47, no. 5 (1984): 1105–17. 18   J. Brandstadter and G. Renner, ‘Tenacious Goal Pursuit and Flexible Goal Adjustment: Explication and Agerelated Analysis of Assimilative and Accommodative Strategies of Coping’, Psychology and Aging 5 (1990): 58–67. 19   J.T. Austin and J.B. Vancouver, ‘Goal Constructs in Psychology: Structure, Process and Content’, Psychological Bulletin 120 (1996): 338–75. 20   Carver and White, ‘Behavioural-Inhibition, Behavioural Activation, and Affective Responses to Impending Reward and Punishment’. 21   E.T. Higgins, ‘Promotion and Prevention: Regulatory Focus as a Motivational Principle’, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 30 (1998): 1–46. 22   R. Koestler et al., ‘To Follow Expert Advice When Making A Decision: An Examination of Reactive Vs Reflective Autonomy’, Journal of Personality 67 (1999): 851–72. 23   F. Strack and R. Deutch, ‘Reflective and Impulsive Determinants of Social Behavior’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, no. 3 (2004): 220–47. 24   M. Gagné and E.L. Deci, ‘Self-Determination Theory and Work Motivation,’ Journal of Organizational Behavior 26 (2005): 331–62. 25   E.L. Deci and R.M. Ryan, ‘Self-Determination Theory: The Iteration of Psychophysiology and Motivation. [Meeting Abstract]’, Psychophysiology 17, no. 3 (1980): 321; Gagné and Deci, ‘Self-Determination Theory and Work Motivation’; R.M. Ryan et al., ‘All Goals Were Not Created Equal: An Organismic Perspective on the Nature of Goals and Their Regulation’, in The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behavior, ed. P.M. Gollwitzer and J.A. Bargh (New York: Guilford, 1996), 7–26. 15

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relatively independent systems. One system is geared toward self-preservation by developing automatic responses, protective fight–flight activity, and a separative attitude in relation to the environment. The other system is aimed at growth and development through the accommodation of new information, openness to change, learning, transcending the familiar and therewith is basically self-transcendent in nature. These map surprisingly well onto the basic orientations of holons in a holarchy, as we discussed earlier: the dimensions of self-preservation and selftranscendence (see also Table 8.1). Self-preservation and self-transcendence each appear to have their proper motivational–emotional–cognitive-behavioural systems in the brain. Each system involves distinct and structurally different neurological pathways.26 Interestingly, both systems can, but do not necessarily , work together in the individual to produce behaviour. Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory distinguishes so-called ‘organismic motives’ from ‘controlled motives’.27 Organismic strivings are aimed at relative autonomy, mastery, growth and social relations. Controlled strivings are directed towards obtaining power, wealth or status. Starting from a behavioural and neurofunctional perspective, Carver and White identified a Behavioural Approach or ‘Appetitive’ System (BAS) and a Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS).28 The psycho-topology of the BIS appeared more clearly discernible in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans of the brain than BAS activity. The latter shows more left frontal lobe activity, but seems less restricted to specific parts of the brain.29 Similarly, findings in the field of cognitive neuropsychology provide support for the notion that there are two broad levels of executive functioning in humans.30 The workings and specific neurofunctional pathways of these levels of functioning are as yet not clearly identifiable,31 but have distinct elaborative network characteristics. They appear not be limited to one specific property of the system. From an evolutionary perspective, the oldest neurological systems are oriented towards survival and self-preservation. Basic self-protective functions can be discerned in low-level organisms. In humans and other primates, we find direct low-level neurological paths between thalamic and brain stem structures and our senses, aside from the higher, cortical and neocortical pathways. 26   Carver and White, ‘Behavioural-Inhibition, Behavioural Activation, and Affective Responses to Impending Reward and Punishment’. 27   Deci and Ryan, ‘Self-Determination Theory’ 28   Carver and White, ‘Behavioural-Inhibition, Behavioural Activation, and Affective Responses to Impending Reward and Punishment’ 29   Ibid. 30   O. Gruber and T. Goschke, ‘Executive Control Emerging from Dynamic Interactions Between Brain Systems Mediating Language, Working Memory and Attentional Processes’, Acta Psychologica 115, nos 2–3 (2004): 105–21. 31   K. Heyder, B. Suchan and I. Daum, ‘Cortico-Subcortical Contributions to Executive Control’, Acta Psychologica 115, nos 2–3 (2004): 271–89.

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Living organisms, from relatively low-level systems up, tend to defend anything that is considered to be part of the self. This ‘self’ in humans may be regarded as a cognitive construction (e.g. Kelly)32 rather than as a physical unit. Humans are, as far as we know, unique in their capability to form mental representations of themselves and construct a more or less stable ‘identity’ or ‘self’ by which, in some sense, they become the centre of their own world. In the next sections, I will explore how the self-preserving and self-transcendent systems are linked to human emotion in the holon perspective. One of the most important fields in psychology deals with the question of how external events elicit responses in an individual to deal with ensuing threats. The basic emotion relating to a threatened failure of the self-protective system is fear or anxiety. Anxiety can be seen as a basic protective emotion that kicks in in situations perceived as risky to the physical or social integrity of an individual. Related to this is a host of so-called ‘negative’ emotions. They are ‘negative’ in the sense that they have as a primary function to eliminate the threatening situation and bring back homeostasis, or status quo. They warrant the maintenance of individual agency in relation to the context. Related self-preserving emotions are anger, loathing, guilt, shame and fear. All have a ‘separative’ orientation: they imply a disengagement or discontinuation from the situation at hand. For example, fear is accompanied by a behavioural distancing from the feared stimulus (e.g. a spider or husband), or in a reflex attacking it (hitting the object of threat). Anger likewise prepares the body for action for a fight response to eliminate the threat by engaging in a fight, potentially also to ensure one’s social position in the group. When a threat is dealt with, either by fleeing from the situation or surmounting the danger in a confrontation, the positive affect related to this system is relief. The self-preserving system is generally considered to be monitoring situations for potential danger, using emotion as the primary instrument to signal it. In higher primates, the family is the most proximate holon. Survival of the family, for most mammals, is a central self-preserving goal of this system, which will be defended with the same vigour as the physical self. Likewise, love relationships, spousal, family, tribe, religious group or nation can be considered to be part of this (extended) self and are likely to be protected accordingly. In order to fulfil their drive to meaningfulness, people transcend the purely survival-oriented level of the (assumed) self. They find fulfilment and joy in belonging and contributing to a higher level of organisation of which they are a part. The perceived self is experienced as a valuable contribution to something broader than itself. One’s extrinsic value then lies in performing meaningful and valued services for a larger whole. For example, tightly knit religious communities on one hand provide self- protection. In intact groups, members are looked after or safe in day-to-day living with a social network present, which serves individual survival needs. At the same time, a higher-level unity encompasses, includes and explains the individual differences with other members of that community. Even   Kelly, ‘A Brief Introduction to Personal Construct Theory’.

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people who are viewed as very dissimilar to oneself may be considered kin (brother or sister) on a higher level of meaning. In this sense, intact religious communities may offer need-fulfilment of both self-preserving and self-transcendent needs. In most religious settings, each individual counts and has a value to the bigger whole. Unselfish behaviour on the personal level may reflect a higher self-interest on the social level. Emotions related to the self-transcendent system are of a more ‘integrative’ nature. They have as a general aim to relate to the unfamiliar (that what transcends their self-centred attention) in a positive way. From the self-transcendent perspective, learning new crafts or skills, getting acquainted with new people or situations implies acceptance, hope, trust, surrender and love as qualities that reconcile the self with the non-self. Although sometimes described as emotions, they may perhaps more adequately be seen as attitudes. The Buddhist brahma vihāras, the four mental states of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity, can be seen as belonging to this orientation.33 As is true in the Sufi traditions,34 these positive states may be developed by training into stable attitudes in life. On the negative emotive end of the self-transcendent system we find feelings of worthlessness, despair and depressed mood.35 Most religious systems stress that the positive attitudes need to be trained and developed. Our self-preserving system develops automatically and continually, since it basically acts on external impulses. In order to develop the positive attitudes to become more stable, people must be able, among other things, to tolerate uncertainty, discrepancies, and not act on the corresponding pain-avoidant/pleasure-seeking impulses from the, mostly automatised, self-preserving system. In summary, we can discriminate between two consistent motivational orientations with accompanying emotions that drive human behaviour. The selfpreserving and self-transcending orientations operate relatively independent of each other, even on a neurological level. Since, however, their preferred courses of action may be contradictory and we have only one body, the question is: what system rules our behaviour in relation to our environment? Emotional Dynamics in the Holarchy From the perspective of self-preserving and self-transcendent motives, we can discriminate specific emotional dynamics in a holarchy. Some conditions may lead to a preference for self-protection, others to self-transcendent behaviour. Emotions are functional in helping us to maintain or change our position in the holarchy. They literally steer our thoughts and behaviour and set them in motion, often in a   Peter Harvey, ‘Emotions in Buddhism’, Chapter 3 in this volume.   M. Derkse, Uit Vrije Wil (Out of Free Will) (Deventer, Netherlands: Ankh-Hermes, 2000). 35   Carver and White, ‘Behavioural-Inhibition, Behavioural Activation, and Affective Responses to Impending Reward and Punishment’. 33 34

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pre-conscious, pre-verbal way. Positive emotions lead us to seek proximity to an external event or stimulus. They are integrative in nature, and seek proximity and conciliation between the known and the unknown. They are related to welcoming new stimuli. Negative emotions lead us away from harm and psychologically and/ or physically separate us from a stimulus and do this automatically, since acting as quickly as possible heightens the chances of survival of the organism in dangerous situations. Anxiety makes us flee; anger engages us to make a feared stimulus harmless by attacking or removing it. At any given n level in a holarchy, things will be at relative peace when the criteria for operating as an independent efficacious whole are met – that is, when autonomy (right arrow in Figure 8.3), as well as affiliations with other holons at the same level are intact (left arrow in Figure 8.3). Under such homeostatic conditions, no self-preserving motive or striving for discrepancy-reducing activity is necessary, and emotions such as fear and anger will be relatively rare. When this is the case, one’s attention is free to engage in self-transcendent, goal-directed activities that are actually discrepancy enlarging. If these conditions are met in an individual, the meaning of one’s n + 1 position (in family, society, life) is a given, and not questioned. However, even under ideal external conditions, continuous stability may not be possible. There may be an intrapersonal struggle between the drives for affiliation and autonomy on the n level. It should also be noted that homeostasis in relation to the environment is based on perception and not necessarily an objective situation. For instance, analogous to the body improperly perceiving a category of its own cells as intruders (auto-immune deficiency), a person may inadequately perceive next of kin as enemies (e.g. when good intentions of others are misinterpreted). Taking the body as a metaphor, imbalance may be experienced on a physiological level: if a blood clot prevents the liver from being oxygenated, the liver risks losing efficacy (right arrow in Figure 8.2) and ultimately its existence because the ‘affiliation’ (left arrow in Figure 8.2) is lost with the heart as a provider of blood. Both are at the same holonic level. The existence of the body (n + 1 from this perspective) is under threat when this breach of affiliation happens or when an organ ceases to function and its operative autonomy is threatened. Likewise, when a family member (n level) converts to a different religion, the affiliation of the family (n + 1) level is threatened. When either the autonomy or affiliation aspect of the holon comes under perceived threat, attempts to restore security result. Elements regarded as ‘alien’ to the system will most likely first elicit vigilance and, subsequently, emotions that prompt action. Another Path: Higher Meaning The former process is described from the viewpoint of a given n level. However, integration can also take place by developing a higher vantage point. Higher-level perspectives may help both to avoid the struggle by accepting differences and to provide a meaningful existence. This we see, for instance, in the intrapersonal

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changes brought about by maturation. These may provoke a misbalance on the n level, but in that process there may be more ease in disengaging from the formerly meaningful n + 1 level. A maturing adolescent may decide that living at home is no longer the best higher-order level of integration, leave home and independently start a new life. He or she may not disqualify the earlier situation, but rather see it as a developmental phase, placing it in a larger context, and letting go of the familiar situation with some ease. Wilber36 sees the human development of self as a series of steps, each possessing three phases: the first is the identification of the self with a particular level of consciousness, followed by a differentiation (a fulcrum) where it deidentifies with that level, and third. a phase of re-identification with a higher level of meaning. Ideally, this level surmounts and includes the former level. At that higher level, here is no struggle to maintain or defend the former ‘belief’ system. It is simply recognised as part of a bigger whole. We may, for instance, exhibit a certain personality in our family circle, with a number of characteristics quite different from the role we play in our circle of friends. If at a party both groups mix, we may experience a role conflict. From the self-preserving level we may be preoccupied with choosing the best line of action, but on the self-transcendent level we may watch this with detachment (the downward arrow in Figure 8.2), acknowledge with a smile the differences and see that we are identified with neither the one nor the other role, and obtain a deeper understanding of the self that transcends our own roles (the upward arrow in Figure 8.2). This rise towards another level implies less predictive power, but also more freedom of action. Most living systems will go through transitions that are sequences of first dissolution and detachment, and subsequent reintegration. Humans have the unique capability of constructing levels of meaning that tolerate discrepancies and contradiction at lower levels. Wilber37 states that, in normal evolution, every higher holon includes and transcends the previous one. Normally, an adult does not hate or ridicule the child, but incorporates the child’s world perspective into a higher-level view of what a person is. Still, every next n level requires people to ‘rewrite’ the story of their life when they embrace a new level of meaning. Conversion as an Example Examples of the above transitional processes can be traced also in religious converts who, in a history of addiction, suffering illnesses and misery, experience a breakdown of the n + 1 level (e.g. the family, relationships). They thus experience the invalidation of that level. Parallel to this, they may socially and personally disintegrate, losing their affiliation and sense of autonomy (breakdown of the n level). These conditions may pave the way to finding a new higher-order (n + 1) system that they embrace as the (new) truth. The new system needs to offer meaning to their life, their suffering,   Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.   Ibid.

36 37

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and restore functioning on the n level. Vital and illustrative of this is that salvationoriented religious communities validate and value the existence of the former ‘sinner’ and provide pathways for him/her to become a full-functioning member of their community. The process may also be regarded as the advent of ‘super-plausibility’, as described by Davies:38 the transcendence of a state that defines the former reality as more limited than the current. Inherently, the area of function of a holon limits its perception, and determines its dependence upon specific inputs. From a superplausible perspective (the n + 1 level), we may ‘understand’ incomprehensible and contradictory impressions on the n level. In that sense ‘super-plausibility’ is really ‘other-worldly’: non-reducible and non-translatable into relations at the n level. In summary, the spectrum of human emotions can be mapped onto the holarchic model, reflecting the basic strivings of maintaining efficacy and relations on the selfpreservation (n) level, as well as the striving for a meaningful existence and value on the (n + 1) level. In the next part of this chapter, we will consider how the holarchic principle works in the dynamics of groups and group-membership in society. The Dynamics of Change When Moving Between Groups When, for an individual, a situation on the n level changes in terms of affiliation or autonomy within a group, it typically elicits emotional and behavioural responses that prompt attempts to restore homeostasis. As an example, we may consider the situation of a man moving to a country with a different culture from the one in which he was brought up. Let’s say he encounters a society where a different norm and value system applies and the prevailing religion is different. In the preceding section, we described personal development in terms of Wilber’s three-phase steps.39 The process here has a slightly different start, since it is not the inside world that primarily changes (as in maturation), but there may be an impulse, or ‘shock’, from the new social context. Again we may see three phases, which vary in time and persistence. The first phase consists of identification with the former identity, with attempts at assimilation/accommodation into the new n + 1 context. The second phase may start when these attempts fail to bring homeostasis. It consists of de-identifying with the particular n + 1 construction: a deconstruction of its meaning and importance. The third phase is the reconstruction of a differently shaped n + 1 or n + 2 level that allows the individual to both survive as an autonomous unit and lead a meaningful existence.

38   Douglas James Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 39   Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.

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Seeking to be a Part: Assimilation and Accommodation Say that a male immigrant tries to integrate into the new culture (the n + 1 level). Most likely, initially integrative, or ‘upward’ actions in the model (the bent-up arrows in Figure 8.3) may occur, in an attempt to reconcile his existing identity with the newly entered society. He starts with his own values and norms (on the n level) as a given, and tries to obtain a meaningful position in the new cultural context. Integrative attempts, of course, imply that the man recognises the n + 1 level of the new culture as a structure he wants to take part in. Being a participant in that context, he obtains new information on the sociocultural rules and habits. He may furthermore attempt to position and integrate himself by engaging in affiliative actions with others: seeking adherence and recognition of neighbours and co-workers in the new societal context, while maintaining his original autonomy (integration in the top left quadrant). This upward movement represents a mind-set where both the individual and the new societal level are perceived as valid, viewed from the n level. Finding that he is not easily accepted, for example in the group of workers, or the environment where he lives, he may make various attempts to become reconciled with the n + 1 level. The immigrant may, from the ‘affiliation motive’, try to imitate other individuals who are members of that society, and behave in such a way that he becomes accepted. This would constitute an assimilative path of action. He may try to persuade others in relating to him. However, within the n level this will be weighed against the fear of loss of integrity and autonomy, and is likely to produce tension and personal stress. He may feel that society violates what he stands for and believes. The same individual may also, or alternatively, attempt to give priority to the ‘autonomy’ motive (the upper right bent arrow in Figure 8.3) and try to integrate in society by conquering a powerful position. He may even attempt to change the ‘rules of the game’ (e.g. requesting new laws, exemptions that honour his own belief system). He may combine this with seeking affiliates. In order to maintain autonomy, the individual is also likely, whether consciously or not, to seek out the fights that he estimates he is able to win, and actively avoid parts of that society that are more prone to damage his position (hence the flight component). Giving Up Wanting to be Part: Separative Actions and Deconstruction of Meaning The down-bent arrow pathways in Figure 8.3 reflect a situation where there is no striving for social integration and acceptance by the group or society. The individual no longer considers the current n + 1 context as valid. Our immigrant may have started out engaging in upper-half efforts, but may experience despair when failing to either become part of the current social–cultural context, or to change it. His efforts to fit in or to change the rules cease.

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Figure 8.3

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Individual motivation and action in holarchic perspective

The lower right quadrant reflects the effect on the autonomy side: the man may perceive himself as no longer a useful contributor to the larger whole and may be unable to be of value in supporting his family. This outcast position creates the basis for depressed mood and helplessness on the autonomy side: a negative self-evaluation (lower right quadrant). Depression may set in, characterised by hopelessness, helplessness and even self-destructive behaviour. In general, on an individual level, we may consider depression in terms of the decay of meaning of individuals in their context. The efforts to maintain homeostasis are generally initiated and directed by the negative emotions. Depressed mood, sadness, feelings of loss, anger, flight and fight can also be more general and occur on a group level, in subcultures, in families, or in couples. It should be noted, however, that giving up the validity of the values and rules of the new society may also be experienced as liberation from a straitjacket such as culture or environment. The lower left quadrant reflects disengagement from the affiliative aspect. Our immigrant may decide that there is no way to be connected to the people in the new context and, in turn, he may devaluate the laws and rules in that society. This may occur, for instance, because he feels discriminated against or ‘left out’. In the affiliative sense, he may socially dissociate and withdraw. Emotions involved in setting this in motion may be loathing, devaluating the social context, and rage,

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which may lead to active deconstruction and dismantling of the n + 1 level. People considered representatives of the n + 1 level may now be perceived as inhuman, or non-human (animals), to whom the rules of human interaction no longer apply. Therefore destructive rebel or terrorist action may be or more readily become part of the repertoire. When the societal (n + 1) level is no longer perceived as intact, this poses a threat to individual survival in the longer run. This may come to consciousness only when it disappears. Reconstructing Meaning (Redefining Identity) Adherence to a larger meaningful context is necessary for humans. People need to make sense of their experiences. They need to have a ‘sense of coherence’.40 Consciousness of the human condition, in particular of its diversity, prompts people to (re)find a meaningful construction. Reconstruction of meaning is, in holarchic terms, a necessity for self-preservation. If we do not have a clear understanding of our ‘self’ in the world, our behaviour is futile with regard to the next-higher level of organisation. We need to ‘make sense’ of our relation to others, other cultures, other influences; otherwise we have no way to orient our behaviour. The demise of one’s coherent belief system may come as a disaster to a sentient being. ‘Losing your religion’ is not a paradigm shift: it is paradigm loss, one that effectively calls for re-ligion (literally: re-connection) of the parts of reality into a new whole. Homeostasis in holarchic terms cannot be reached in the absence of a higher-level coherence: experiencing life as meaningless is related to depression and a negative self-image. Reconstructing meaning is an essential activity to make sense of the world in order to survive. Fear of death of the context one believed in implies impending death of the individual as well. The meaning of oneself as a meaningful entity is breached, and the first reaction is to try to save the entity currently referred to as the ‘self’. Once meaningfulness of the context has dissolved, our immigrant may act in different ways to reconstruct a new coherent self-transcendent meaning. One way is to find a safe haven on the same consciousness level. Although, originally, he may not have particularly identified with the former nationality or religious background, the current breakdown of meaning may prompt him to integrate more closely with people from the same background or religious affiliation, and seek out or identify with splinter groups. Alternatively, on this level he may even search to move back to his homeland and/or family. This way, no transcendence of the level occurs, but an alternative construction appears that simply disavows or rejects the former meaning. Quite a different path in the same situation may be taken in this third phase. This is the letting go of the situation with equanimity, without struggle, detachment 40   Aaron Antonovsky, Health, Stress, and Coping (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979); Robert Cloninger, Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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without resistance (the arrow straight down in Figure 8.3). Neither the old nor the new social context provides the ultimate answer. Detachment from both may occur, without fear of loss of integrity. Empathy and understanding (tolerance) of a different sociocultural construction and meaning of the new society may occur, while at the same time the immigrant understands and values his own needs. From this position he may see the events more simply in terms of playing different roles in different contexts. The specific path chosen by our immigrant to restore homeostasis will depend largely on his personality and internalised cultural background. Action paths involving the upper quadrants require vigour and effort. The lower quadrants imply relinquishing effort, giving up certainties, letting go of pre-conceived images. This is the danger zone for psychological integrity. Surmounting the deconstruction requires the capacity for resilience, hope and trust. Now where does religion fit in all this, assuming that both self-preservation and self-transcendent needs are present at all levels of the holarchy? In the next section, I will consider religion from this perspective as representing a high level of meaning in the holarchy. Religion as a Means, End or Quest Batson,41 refining Allport’s42 definitions, differentiates three psychological types of religious orientation. One he calls ‘religion as an end in itself’ or ‘end orientation’. Analogous to Allport’s ‘intrinsic’ dimension, this attitude is led by the desire for finding meaning and value of life by means of an explanatory frame of reference to comprehend one’s experiences and events. The second orientation Batson calls ‘religion as a means’, or ‘means orientation’. In this orientation one directs life along the religious rules and procedures to reach personal or societal goals. Both the means and the end orientations provide an explanatory and/or operative function, which can be linked to the holonic self-preserving orientation. Religious values correspond to applied norms for what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The literal ‘word of truth’ and prescriptions for behaviour and rites are important. In-group and out-group are well defined, and different levels of orthodoxy may apply. The third orientation Batson introduces is ‘religion as a quest’. The quest orientation entails readiness to face existential questions without reducing their complexity, a perception of religious doubts as positive, and openness to future change in one’s religious views. This quest orientation can be seen as paralleling the holonic self-transcendent orientation in the religious domain. The attitude is marked by recognising and accepting the world as it is, and at the same time exploring its meaning, which lies outside immediate comprehension. The quest   Batson et al., ‘Quest Religion’.   G.W. Allport, The Individual and His Religion: A Psychological Interpretation (New York: Macmillan, 1950). 41 42

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orientation implies the explicit exercising of non-judgemental qualities, such as equanimity, striving to remain peaceful in the face of conflicting interests, maintaining a loving attitude with respect to all living beings and giving up ‘negative’ emotions. The growth aspect is considered in terms of surmounting the ‘good–bad’ dichotomy. Acknowledging one’s often conflicting needs, on one hand, but de-identification with those at the same time on the other, tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty can be viewed as an explicit striving to disengage from lower-level or mechanistic entanglement, and striving for a perspective from a higher holonic level. In quest orientation, exercise and contemplation on the nature of reality are sought, as well as de-identification with any ‘mentally constructed’ n + 1 level. Practices geared towards explicitly giving up preconceived concepts of reality can be found both in Dharmic religions (Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism) and in Abrahamic traditions (e.g. in Mevlevi Sufism and the mystical paths in the Christian tradition). Elsewhere in this volume, Barney Palfrey (Chapter 6) shows a strongly developed quest orientation in the Jesuit Lonergan, who views ‘Being in love without restriction’ (the mutual love between God and man) as including all intelligence and capacity for cognitive reasoning and moral self-questioning.43 None the less, the scriptures of most Abrahamic traditions (those stemming from Judaic belief, such as Islam and Christianity) may lend themselves more easily for ‘means and end orientations’ in religion. Interestingly, empirical experimental evidence has shown that people who maintain a religious quest or transformation orientation (as Wilber calls it) are also more tolerant towards others who maintain means and end approaches to religion.44 From the holarchic perspective, we may speculate that individuals holding a religious quest orientation have an advantage in adapting to new situations. In terms of holarchy, we may consider a religious belief system as a highestlevel holon, with almost infinite depth (all levels of life are represented in a meaningful way), and very little span (e.g. there is one God who governs all possible phenomena). It is not hard to imagine that religious belief systems are inherently tolerant of uncertainties, contradictions and diversity on their lower holonic levels (depth). However, when sharing the same reality with other religions, in particular when the individual has a different religious orientation, this may give rise to tensions. In that case, different belief systems risk competing for the same ‘all-encompassing’ position and are likely to clash at the top level. By definition, most monotheistic religious models in the world include an allencompassing explanatory perspective: a super-model of reality. In that sense, religious systems can be seen to claim to be the top holon in the holarchy: the highest level of meaning. It explains the entire diversity within the cosmos, from the most complex structures and processes to the smallest and simplest mechanistic level, both seen and unseen. In holarchic terms the top holon has infinite depth.   Barney Palfrey, ‘Being in love without restriction’, Chapter 6, this volume.   Batson et al., ‘Quest Religion’.

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All diversity is included within one single concept. In holarchic terms: the top level has a span of 1. Therefore religious beliefs, when used as an explanatory framework for reality, take a unique position. The top-level claim in particular predestines this holon to play an important role in human emotion and motivation. First of all, since the span of that holon is defined as 1, from this perspective no other holons at the same level can logically exist. Inherently, in this cosmology, it may be that other religions are recognised as part of the total picture (such as Islam recognising Adam, Moses, Abraham and Jesus, central in Christian religion, as prophets in the line that culminates in Mohammed, the last and ‘seal’ of the prophets). One implication from this perspective is that one’s own religion is perceived as ‘more true’ than all others. These exist, from that perspective, at the n – 1 level. Alternative belief systems competing for a role at the same top level may be disqualified as non-valid representations of the world, denied in their value, or even denounced as evil. This contrasts with the orientation of ‘religion as a quest’ where belief systems as such may coexist and one belief is not truer than another. A holarchic top-level claim, a ‘monopoly on the truth’, could historically go uncontested in many societies, where means of obtaining information were limited, many of the cultural codes were under the control of the ruling class, and events and behaviours were religiously interpreted. Definition of the Self and Individual Motives for Behaviour What an individual perceives as ‘self’ is of vital importance when interpreting behaviour. What reference value applies to a person as the most salient level of unity? Is this the self physically defined by the body, or is the self a larger entity, maybe including the family, the physical home and social network? Maslow (1943),45 in his well-known hierarchy of needs, describes a layered priority of needs, starting from physiological needs, such as safety, through belongingness and love, esteem, to self-actualisation needs. Although the needs themselves are relevant, the order of the hierarchy is found to be of little value when considering other than Western societies. Moreover, some needs may not be represented.46 In some societies, the importance of protecting one’s image in relation to the group to avoid shame is of higher value than the survival of the physical self. An example of this on an individual level is the Japanese traditional ritual of Seppuku (involving cutting the belly): a form of suicide that restores the harmony of a family or group. On the social level, honour killings in order to restore the social equilibrium are still performed in some Arab subcultures. They reflect a low regard for individual life, mostly that of women, connected to what is considered immoral behaviour and a threat to the family or clan. 45   A.H. Maslow, ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370–96. 46   Pinto, Intercultural Communication.

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A different image of the self translates into a different order of the hierarchy, even within Western society. Giving one’s life for a noble cause is considered heroic. A father jumping into freezing waters to rescue his child, with little chance of personal survival, may be praised. Failure to sacrifice oneself for one’s children may be considered socially as cowardly behaviour, and inspire severe guilt in the parent. For people entertaining a means–end, rather than a quest orientation in religion, the belief in a meaningful, gratifying hereafter, with the promise of a high societal status for oneself and for the family after individual death, may be sufficient to promote a desire to become a martyr. This may simultaneously bring the psychological satisfaction of escape from a detrimental personal situation, as well as a movement towards higher unity. From a psychological view, it is almost certain that ambivalence exists, as dying as an individual would mean the ultimate sacrifice, but survival of the larger self (family or clan) on a higher holarchic level would make this same ‘self’ triumphant or exceptionally valuable to the broader group. This battle between personal survival and the good of the collective self is, however, to some extent a question for every individual, rather than an exception. Structural Rigidity of Cultures: Security and Freedom Now let us move to the perspective of the cultural level: the n + 1 holonic level for the individual. Pinto47 in his structure theory on culture, defines the structure of cultures on a continuum of structural rigidity. At one end we find fine-meshed (or F) cultures, with strict regulations and rules for the individual for behaviour and communication. Examples of these are rural communities and African traditional cultures. At the other end we find coarse-meshed (or C) cultures, where these rules are more open, broadly defined and loose. American and many West European cultures are at this end. Examples of cultures that have an intermediate position (M or mixed) are Caribbean and Eastern European cultures. The advantage of F cultures is that they provide more security at the individual level. The advantage of a C culture is that it provides more individual freedom. In F cultures there is a greater need for clarity, an emphasis on prescriptions, ‘what to do when’, and consequently less nuance in evaluating individual action. In F cultures, the group, rather than the individual, is central. The benchmark for ‘good and bad’ is given from the outside, rather than internally. The emphasis is on the form and relationship, rather than on the content of the communication. The group is what basically motivates the individual. Looked at from a motivational psychological perspective: for an individual within an F culture, a group rule may be experienced as an intrinsic motive, whereas from a C-cultural standpoint the motivation would be external. C cultures, from this point of view, can tolerate more differences within the boundaries of their own cultural definition. An individual attempting to change the rules within an F culture is far more threatening to   Ibid.

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the meaning (n + 1) level than one within a C culture, where social cohesion is inherently less strong and the expression of individuality has meaning in itself. Pinto48 attributes the fact that some people belong to an F subculture and others to a C subculture to different factors: economic welfare, religion, social environment and genetic make-up of the individual. Changes in any one of these factors (in any direction) may occur, with corresponding shifts in culture. Within a given cultural context, subcultures may differ strongly based on religious adherence, social background and change, according to age. In Western-type societies, we see that youth often move from an F culture in adolescence (strict adherence to subgroup rules on clothing, language, music style) towards a more open C culture in young adulthood. Adults from F cultures migrating to C cultures may either cling to their original cultural style, sometimes intensifying it in the context of the new, different dominant culture. For instance, Roman Catholic communities may emphasise the unique characteristics of their practices (such as veneration of the Virgin Mary, or celebrating the service in Latin) when the surrounding area is predominantly Protestant. Stereotyping and Acceptance of New Individuals Looking from the holarchy perspective of the new culture (this time taking society as the n level to which the immigrant as an individual represents the n – 1 level), things are interpreted differently. If the society has a relatively open, C-cultural structure, there is a bigger chance of its members tolerating the person, treating him or her as ‘familiar’ rather than ‘alien’, since diversity is the rule rather than the exception. Group members of C cultures re unlikely to become alarmed, fearful or angry about the new member’s actions, reactions and presence. In strong F cultures, however, the discrepancy may meet with resistance, since the differing characteristics mean that rules will be violated more easily, implying that part of the predictability and usefulness of the F- cultural system will be lost. This threatens the efficacy/autonomy aspect of the culture (right side of Figure 8.3). ‘Unknown’ not only means ‘unloved’, but also implies that little cognitive differentiation is present about which aspects reflect the ‘sameness’ and which reflect ‘otherness’ in an individual. The more fine meshed a (sub)culture, the more likely it is that an immigrant will be deviating from tacit rules and customs and will be perceived as a ‘stranger’ and a potential threat. The particular individual may not be considered as a personal threat, but as a protagonist, a forerunner from a culture or religion that ‘wants to take over’. The same may, however, occur in an open Western culture when its values are perceived to be under threat. In that respect, the call for introduction of Sharia (Islamic orthodox) law may be experienced as a major threat in more Westernized C cultures, since it directly affects the perception of personal freedom, which is one of the leading values in Western culture.   Ibid.

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Changing Societies, Information Technology and Communication In the field of religious experience, psychology and anthropology, the shake-up of existing contexts and profound systemic changes are not new. From colonial times, Western Christian-oriented countries have been making their mark in cultures with entirely different religious systems. The entwinement has never stopped, with the involvement of Western multinational corporations pervasive in daily life for people in cultures with a traditionally different religious coherence and meaning. However, today the ever-increasing accessibility of information and increased mobility of people has made destabilisation or homogenisation of cultural contexts the rule rather than the exception. In the past century, availability within most cultures of new sources of information, such as radio and television, enabled first-hand individual observation and interpretation of other cultures, rather than interpretations of these cultures by a ruling class. More recently, this has developed into individual means of intercultural exchange: the widespread interactive possibilities offered by the Internet have enabled two-way communication, opening direct opportunities to interrogate many long-standing norms and truths. Information and communication possibilities at an individual level have disclosed realities that earlier were hidden in many cultures; C–F culture differences nowadays cut through religious differences. Even the rural (F) versus metropolitan (C) differences are ceasing to exist, with real-time communication through Facebook and Twitter reaching even the remotest regions. It is no surprise that, in a world with ample media access to information about alternative ways of constructing reality, alternative interpretations to the top-level holon occur. This may give rise to a desire for the familiar and secure worldview to survive. For people and groups who hold a ‘religion as an end’ orientation, the intimate confrontation with loosened ethics, in particular when these influence their daily life, produces uncertainty, emotions and struggle. As we saw, at the top level of a holarchy, there is basically no room for alternative explanations of the same phenomena. Only inherently non-conceptual religious (quest) approaches, accentuating religious practice instead of belief, are likely to be able to transcend and maintain their integrity in the face of such diversity. Monotheist quest orientations may encompass and include different belief systems, and do not claim a unique definition of the truth. They inherently tolerate and even endorse very different religious practices, considering them as ‘expressions of the same Oneness’. However, most religious systems are entwined with F-cultural settings and propagate, at least to some extent, a monopoly on the truth. They developed prescriptions and precise do’s and don’ts in a prescriptive way, and historically provided an ultimate explanation of the world and its relations. Nowadays, the biggest difference in holarchic terms lies in the ways in which each monotheistic religion is interpreted: as a system of rules and beliefs providing a means-and-

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ends framework, or as a quest, a method for transformation, essentially devoid of one specific meaning. In the next section, we will attempt to understand the dynamics and behaviour of these systems in transition starting from the viewpoint of human motivation – in particular the drive to survive that dominates the self-preserving orientation. The Drive towards Isolation and Extremism How and why is it that people who have lived happily together for a long time are suddenly regarded differently, as strangers or even as enemies? How to understand, for instance, the situation of the Jews in early twentieth-century Germany, or the Serbs and the Croats in the Balkans a few decades ago? A number of characteristics of sociocultural contexts heighten the chances that our self-preserving mechanisms start to function and lead to destruction. These are recognisable by heightened stress levels and emotions such as fear, anxiety and anger. Different factors may contribute, such as scarcity of natural and financial resources, little opportunity for cognitive differentiation in terms of individual capability, lack of educational opportunities and low levels of literacy, limited information on alternative realities, and no access to the written word and the Internet. This may be part of a cocktail that predisposes to extremism in religious fervour. Kruglanski and Fishman stress that extremism and terrorism are not ‘syndromes’ or pathologies, but can rather be seen as ‘tools’ that individuals and groups use to reach goals that are otherwise unattainable.49 Terrorism can be seen as the top of a staircase that consists of many steps of powerlessness and deprivation.50 To understand what happens psychologically when old systems of unity dissolve in (religious) groups, we may learn from the group on the smallest scale: the romantic love relationship. The Breakdown of Higher-Level Unity: the Case of Divorce The field of marital relationships and divorce enables us to look closely at the dynamics of the loss of higher-level unity and its consequences. Ideally, being in a couple means for both individuals a satisfaction of a higher meaning, such as the natural context for having children. It also warrants self-preservation at the individual level: covering the need for affiliation and relative autonomy, and on a functional level the sharing and division of household tasks. Sue Johnson51 49   Arie W. Kruglanski and Shira Fishman, ‘The Psychology of Terrorism: “Syndrome” Versus “Tool” Perspectives’, Terrorism and Political Violence 18, no. 2 (2006): 193–215. 50   F.M. Moghaddam, ‘The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration’, American Psychologist March (2005). 51   Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2008).

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insightfully describes, on the basis of attachment theory, how perceived loss of intimacy and trust of the spouse brings about primal fears of death and loss. The new understanding of how attachment bonds work in adult relationships points towards fundamental mechanisms of aggressive and protective behaviour that come into play when there is a threat to the existing ‘self-as-a-couple’.52 We know that the threatening loss of intimacy with a spouse in most humans kindles strong, evolutionary-based survival mechanisms aimed at self-preservation. Within the context of the love relationship these fights may be catastrophic, and destructive to the ‘couple-self’ defined as the unique unity of two people. Attacks, verbal and physical, aggression and withdrawal patterns then predict that the couple will separate and efforts turn away from maintaining the relationship towards work to ‘stay in one piece’ at the individual level (n – 1 from the couple’s perspective). Spouses tend to engage in fierce battles, and if the mechanism operates unguided by consciousness, this leads to separation, grief, and often to a broader loss of trust and belief in others. Meaningful existence at the level of the couple ceases to exist. Literally, the former partners alienate from each other. The other person becomes a stranger, and even a potential threat to individual existence. Each of the partners, in order to survive, subsequently has to recreate a coherent self-image where the other person is at least defined as different, and not seldom branded as alien and reinterpreted as ‘bad’, ‘untrustworthy’ and ‘mean’. Fights over property, children and heritage can be viewed as hallmarks that each individual wants to keep the resources that enable personal survival as an intrinsically coherent, valuable unit. My Group under Threat: Engaging the Self-Preserving Mode The same behaviour we see in the break-up of couples is visible when the homeostasis of more complex social units is being threatened, such as families and religious groups. Typically, we find that dissolution of the n + 1 unity results in reactions of protest, emotions of anger and fear. The new uncertain situation bears inherent insecurity on the self-transcendent dimension: ‘Where do I belong, what can I rely on?’ Extremist tendencies, eventually ending in terrorism, are likely to occur gradually. Moghaddam, in an excellent article on the psychological genesis of terrorism, describes this process as a narrowing staircase, where at the top floor we find terrorism. In the next subsections I will integrate his developmental view with the holarchic perspective.53

52   Also see J.M. Gottman and R.W. Levenson, ‘Rebound from Marital Conflict and Divorce Prediction’, Family Process 38 (1999): 287–92. 53   Moghaddam, ‘The Staircase to Terrorism’.

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Perception of One’s Context Being Threatened First, a given meaningful level of social integration, directly relevant to the self, is at some point perceived as being under threat. Human neural wiring and deeply ingrained survival orientation in life lead us to search for an explanation of mishap and disaster that may threaten our status quo. In order to restore the predictability of our environment, crucial to survival, we are strongly motivated to construct a reality, and subsequently organise our actions accordingly. Survival in times of perceived danger has priority over growth. In particular, when danger is perceived as imminent, living organisms tend to fall back on highly automated, stereotyped responses that will take prevalence over conscious action, and over adequate elaboration and differentiated perception of the situation. Scarcity of resources within society increases interdependence, puts relationships under pressure, and renders sociocultural prescriptions stricter. However, objective material resources appear not to be important: it is the perception of deprivation that is psychologically salient. In line with our holarchic model, it has been found that this discontent is better predicted by fraternal (group) deprivation than by egoistic, personal deprivation.54 Under Threat: Stereotyping to Cope When an organism perceives something as a threat it sharpens its sensitivity to cues that have to do with the threatening stimulus, and blunts others that are deemed less relevant for immediate response. If little information is available on the source of the threat, we will work with whatever information is available in order to optimise our response to minimise danger. In stress situations, when information is provided on a specific threat, there is a bias to search for information that confirms this, instead of evidence to the contrary (Fischer et al., 2011).55 This basically elicits stereotyping and stigmatising activities. Our self-transcendent system may be open to change and new information, but our survival system needs to have quick (automated) responses available in order to ward off danger considered imminent. With a threatening loss of resources, and first-hand information scarce, the tendency for contemplation and self-transcendence diminishes. The anxietydriven survival system starts focusing on signs of potential threat, culprits and causes that are easily identifiable. Wearing a scarf, having a different skin colour, accent or habit may suddenly become the hallmark of suspected ‘otherness’ and thus insecurity. These are conducive to quick actions, distancing and avoiding the feared stimulus, or, in acute cases, attack (a fight–flight response).

  Ibid.   Edwards, ‘A Brief History of Holons’.

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Perceived Inability to Survive within the System When the options to influence one’s own situation as an individual or group are perceived as few or none, as exemplified in failed attempts of a person on the n level to influence or adapt the n + 1 level (the upward-bent arrows in Figure 8.3), the self-preserving orientation mode sets in. As we saw, giving up this battle may result in depressed mood and social isolation if the current ruling social definition is not questioned. One may, however, search for a new alternative framework within the existing context. This will go hand in hand with what Moghaddam considers to be a next step in radicalisation, when others are not only blamed for one’s misery, but also deemed morally inferior. Devaluating the Threatening System: Moral Superiority At this point, extremist organisations may sketch a perspective where effective disengagement from ‘illegitimate’ government or social policies and behaviour occurs (the current n + 1 context is dismantled), and a morally higher-standing ideal is proposed. Recruitment for terrorist action basically starts with constructing a more valid holon of higher meaning. During this process, the stereotyped others are solidly defined as ‘bad’ and one’s own group as ‘good’. The use of a religious definition of the ‘cause’ of extremist justification is logical, since this association more easily lends moral credibility to their plans. Categorical thinking (us–them), a prototypical characteristic of the self-preserving system, is furthered and legitimacy of the new context and the extremist/terrorist organisation is established. Stereotyping here also means: fit potential destructive action towards ‘them’ as legitimate within a moralised framework of meaning. Limited, one-sided or manipulated information has been consciously spread in the past. This has been used as propaganda tactics in many wars: creation of an enemy by spreading (false) information of rape and murder of one’s own kin. The new, morally superior n + 1 level may be fortified by negating or reinterpreting information that does not fit the explanatory model of the higher meaningful unit, for instance portraying the ‘others’ as non-human. It has been shown that de-humanisation of the enemy helps to justify killing them.56 This is necessary in violent destructive action against these others, or else the selfpreserving system on the n + 1 level (one should not kill another human being) may hinder execution of destructive deeds.

56   A. McAlister, A. Bandura and S. Owen, ‘Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in Support of Military Force: The Impact of September 11’, Journal of Social Clinical Psychology 25 (2006): 141–65.

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Encapsulation within an Extremist Context The transitional process is complete when the individual has totally accepted the new n + 1 level. Now, not acting towards others who represent the despised system has become an offence to the salient group. A person who wishes to escape from the extremist organisation may even have to pay with his or her life for that. Basically, in the new context, preservation of esteem, love, group-membership, as well moral integrity, the individual depends on preparedness and actual execution of terrorist action. Society Reacting to Destructive Action As a reaction to propagation of extremist and isolationist views, members and formal representatives of the established culture or social group may engage in different repressive actions. These are likely to be instigated by suspicion of an alien individual breaching and threatening societal and legal rules. This may also invoke fight–flight actions, based on anxiety and anger on the social level. Stereotyping to Uphold Meaning Extremist groups elicit extreme reactions within the established social context. Loss of predictability of structures once considered to be safe leads within the population at large to cognitive activity aimed at finding explanations and solutions to improve chances for self-preservation. Under a perceived threat, this is also guided by selective observation and stereotyping. When a member of a perceptually identifiable group (e.g. by skin colour, clothing, dialect) shows signs of being better off in adverse circumstances, and we lack more precise information on the individual background of this person, we will probably use generalised information to make inferences about the aetiology of the specific situation and our suffering, and be more likely to blame the identifiable group for the situation. The basic problem is that we will over-estimate the likelihood of this person evidencing these characteristics. Superficial knowledge (or lack of information) of a group and its motives inspires fear that needs to be dealt with in fight or flight terms. Lack of cognitive differentiation, in particular under perceived threat, leads to more stereotyping. Insufficient information or clear insight into the moral standards, habits and rituals, and the background of an unknown person inspires fear: will people who slaughter a lamb in their home not as easily slaughter their neighbours as well? Changing Cultural Definitions: On the Defence In times of threat, not only organisms but also societies tend to pull together, developing a heightened sensitivity to potentially threatening situations and expelling alien elements as much as possible. On a large scale this was visible in

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the German political and economic situation in the 1920s and 1930s. Moghaddam calls this the ‘displacement of aggression’, where it is too threatening to attack those really responsible, and focus is displaced towards out-groups.57 In recent years, the growing popularity of right-wing extremist parties in Europe can partly be attributed to this. For example, in the Netherlands, for many years,the multicultural society was more or less officially politically advocated and defended. After the financial–economic crises of 2008, wealth decreased and scarcity of resources and employment possibilities appeared. At the same time the borders opened to receive more (Eastern European) workers, and immigration from non-Western societies still rose. This measure was prepared years before, when the economy was booming, and multiculturalism was accepted as the rule. The tide changed, and right-wing parties started blaming diverse cultural groups for the worsening economic situation. In June 2011, the Dutch Secretary of the Interior, Donner, even ‘denounced’ the multicultural society as ‘not ours’ and stressed the need for immigrants to learn and respect the value system of Dutch society. Conversely, a single crime committed by a member of a recognisably different cultural group may spark widespread anger and repercussions among the very members of this culture. The videotape of police excessively beating a black man (Rodney King) led to large-scale uprising and riots in the USA, resulting in more than 50 dead and thousands wounded. The unrest started not after the event, but after a predominantly white jury acquitted most policemen involved. The doubtful acquittal suddenly changed the incident into a relevant threatening situation for many black people, easily engaging self-preserving cognition: ‘I or my family can be beaten up by white people without any reason and without repercussions.’ In some predominantly Islamic states, repulsion of all that is Western is easily inspired by a combination of the cognitions: ‘They want to destroy us’ (engaging the self-protective system at the n level) and ‘They are violating God’s rules’ (violating the self-transcendent system at the n + 1 level). With strong beliefs in place, the perception of Westerners as ‘alien’ or non-human, taking the fight–flight path becomes more logical: we fear most what is strangest to us. Conversely, in a comparable way, we find this attitude in extremist Western populist groups that inspire fear of other religious groups in the population by stating that these ‘others’ have ‘beastly ‘practices, picturing other religions as ‘savage’ and ‘retarded’. Final Considerations We have looked from a holarchic perspective at emotion and identity formation in psychological terms. What can the perspective tell us about religious extremism? From what we have discussed, simply reacting to terrorism or religious extremism in terms of ‘crushing’ or ‘eradicating’ it is perhaps the best way to enable it to flourish. From the holarchic understanding, it is clear that this taps directly into the   Moghaddam, ‘The Staircase to Terrorism’.

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basic existential threat that probably underlies most extremist actions: a deeply felt threat to the ‘self’ or ‘self-group’. The message of burning flags and aggressive rhetoric may be expressing and ritualising ‘You will not destroy me nor have control over me.’ Although founding an Islamic state may be on their agenda, terrorist groups spread terror probably primarily to annihilate the (experienced) threat to survival of their own world, rather than create an alternative one. Terrorists, by definition and de facto, are operating as underdogs. On the other side, the extremes are not less. The influential Internet magazine Wired brought to light how the FBI misinformed its agents about the dangers of Islamic belief and revealed extreme response patterns within the US Army, where a high-ranking army instructor taught prospective high officers of all branches about the goal of ‘total annihilation of Islam’.58 To understand what is happening, we must acknowledge the emotions that move individuals and groups as sincere, including their genuine experience of being devaluated. They are at the heart of a separative movement of mutual anger and loathing that ricochets to the West. The action–reaction sequences in aggressor–saboteur or culprit–victim relations keep all participants imprisoned in a mechanical, self-preserving mode on one holonic level. This prototypically destructive emotional, but fundamental psychological, mechanism, already recognised by Paul Watzlawick59 and his colleagues, is as true in marital interactions as it is in national and international policies. Mechanistic action action–reaction sequences we may understand as the direct result of the inability to address the higher-level meaning of behaviour. Religious groups may be driven to extreme action and orthodoxy when the pressure to self-preservation increases. There are discernible factors that heighten the risk for radicalisation. Societal rules and regulations that forbid or hinder religious practices directly challenge identity, and are prone to elicit self-preserving actions. When, in a society, certain groups are excluded from participation in decision making and judgement, this may constitute a threat to self-preservation and separative movements are likely to occur. Likewise, when specific groups are treated as out-groups, being viewed as contestants rather than as participants in society, stereotyping and reinforcement as well as rejection and anger are triggered more easily. When individuals within a multi-religious society hold a strong ‘religion as a means’ or ‘religion as an end’ orientation, there is also additional risk of conflict. We also saw that the twentieth and twenty-first centuries brought a seemingly ever-increasing C society, which required repositioning the religious perspective of many. On the one hand, access to information has revealed the local validity of once-universal claims, necessitating coping mechanisms to bring about a new   N. Shachtman and S. Ackerman, ‘U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use “Hiroshima” Tactics for “Total War” on Islam’, Wired (10 May 2012). 59   Paul Watzlawick, Janet Helmick Beavin and Don D. Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication (New York: Norton, 1967). 58

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balance between self or group identity and the environment. On the other hand, manipulation of the information on other religious, cultural or ethnic groups, for example through faked media reports, contributes to labelling one’s own aggression as justified self-defence. Understanding what is going on is one thing; changing it is quite another. However, from a psychological viewpoint, there are conditions that can improve the situation. It is not sufficient to prescribe a norm that ‘we should all be friends’ or ‘in the end we are all human’. Our self-preserving simply counteracts this in an automatic, mechanistic way. Rejection inspires rejection, and entrenchment in one’s own, self-preserving perspective results. Attempts to integrate immigrants by having them adopt alien standards are not likely to succeed either. Given the nature of holarchic systems, focus on participation60 rather than integration in immigration prevents self-preserving mechanisms from being prompted into action. Integration implicitly expects the other person or group to take a holonic n – 1 position, while participation values the other person on the same n level, and requires playing by shared rules, rather than succumbing to preconceived ones. In the continually changing global context, which challenges us to redefine our identity on a regular basis, it is difficult not to jump to conclusions in response to uncertainty. Stereotyping and quick action is what our self-preserving motivational systems prescribe. To counteract disastrous mechanistic escalations, it helps to train and educate our self-preserving systems to tolerate ambiguity by addressing and developing self-transcendent qualities. Fortunately, the number of people taking to the dead-end street of extremism is relatively small. As Eleanor Nesbitt points out, an integrated plural identity among immigrants may be the rule rather than the exception.61 From a holarchic perspective, a strong religious quest orientation, with longing and love for the One that unites all phenomena in the universe, accompanied by engaging in practices that strengthen the capacity to take a self-transcendent perspective, may be a strong component enabling people to combine multiple identities in today’s society. We may perhaps learn from the wise. Those may not only be the elders who have seen the futility of battle without succumbing to indifference, but also those immigrants and nomads who combine the many perspectives on life and society, play their roles without losing touch with who they are, however difficult it is to ‘catch’ this essential identity. Westerners may begin by recognising the things we should not do as an automatic response to changing situations, inspiring responseprevention on a behavioural level. This way, we may gain the confidence to develop self-transcendent faculties. When people realistically accept the unpredictability of their world, this opens possibilities to enter new vistas on the next higher order of coherence. Inhabiting our world from a self-transcendent perspective offers a more stable peace of mind than trying to restore homeostasis by defending self  Pinto, Intercultural Communication.   Eleanor Nesbitt, ‘Sikh Spectrum: Mapping Emotions in the Panth’, Chapter 2 in this volume. 60 61

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preserving belief systems that no longer fit the divergent realities that present themselves in daily experience. References Allport, G.W. The Individual and His Religion: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Macmillan, 1950. Antonovsky, Aaron. Health, Stress, and Coping. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979. Austin, J.T., and J.B. Vancouver. ‘Goal Constructs in Psychology: Structure, Process and Content’. Psychological Bulletin 120 (1996): 338–75. Batson, C., D. Denton and J. Vollmecke, ‘Quest Religion, Anti-Fundamentalism, and Limited Versus Universal Compassion,’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47, no. 1 (2008): 135–45.  Brandstadter, J., and G. Renner. ‘Tenacious Goal Pursuit and Flexible Goal Adjustment: Explication and Agerelated Analysis of Assimilative and Accommodative Strategies of Coping’. Psychology and Aging 5 (1990): 58–67. Carver, C.S., and M.F. Scheier. On the Self-Regulation of Behaviour. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Carver, C.S., and T.L. White. ‘Behavioural-Inhibition, Behavioural Activation, and Affective Responses to Impending Reward and Punishment – The BIS BAS Scales’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994): 319–33. Cloninger, Robert. Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Davies, Douglas James. Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Deci, E.L., and R.M. Ryan. ‘Self-Determination Theory: The Iteration of Psychophysiology and Motivation. [Meeting Abstract]’. Psychophysiology 17, no. 3 (1980): 321. Deci, E.L., and R.M. Ryan. ‘The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior’. Psychological Inquiry 11 (2000): 227–68. Deci, E.L., Vallerand, R.J., Pelletier, L.G. and Ryan, R.M. Motivation and Education: The Self-determination Perspective. US: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. (1991) Derkse, M. Uit Vrije Wil (Out of Free Will). Deventer, Netherlands: Ankh-Hermes, 2000. Diener, Ed, and Robert A. Emmons. ‘The Independence of Positive and Negative Affect’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47, no. 5 (1984): 1105–17. Edwards, M.A. ‘A Brief History of Holons’, 2003. http://www.integralworld.net/ edwards13.html. Gagné, M., and E.L. Deci. ‘Self-Determination Theory and Work Motivation’. Journal of Organizational Behavior 26 (2005): 331–62.

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Gottman, J.M., and R.W. Levenson. ‘Rebound from Marital Conflict and Divorce Prediction’. Family Process 38 (1999): 287–92. Gruber & Goschke. ‘Executive Control Emerging from Dynamic Interactions Between Brain Systems Mediating Language, Working Memory and Attentional Processes’. Acta Psychologica 115, nos 2–3 (2004): 105–21. Harvey, Peter. ‘Emotions in Budhism’. Chapter 3 in This Volume. Heyder, K., B. Suchan and I. Daum. ‘Cortico-Subcortical Contributions to Executive Control’. Acta Psychologica 115, nos 2–3 (2004): 271–89. Higgins, E.T. ‘Promotion and Prevention: Regulatory Focus as a Motivational Principle’. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 30 (1998): 1–46. Johnson, Sue. Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2008. Jost, J.T., J. Glaser, A.W. Kruglanski, and F.J. Sulloway. Exceptions that prove the rule. Using a theory of motivated social cognition to account for ideological incongruities and political anomalies: A reply to Greenberg and Jonas. Psychological Bulletin 129 (2003): 383–93. Kelly, G. ‘A Brief Introduction to Personal Construct Theory’. In Perspectives in Personal Construct Theory, edited by Donald Bannister, 1–29. London: Academic Press Inc., 1970. Koestler, Arthur. ‘Beyond Atomism and Holism – the Concept of the Holon’. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 13, no. 2 (1970): 131. Koestler, Arthur. The Ghost in the Machine: The Danube Edition. New York: Random House, 1976. Koestler, R., I. Gingras, R. Abutaa, G.F. Losier, L. DiDio and M. Gagné. ‘To Follow Expert Advice When Making a Decision: An Examination of Reactive vs Reflective Autonomy’. Journal of Personality 67 (1999): 851–72. Kruglanski, Arie W., and Shira Fishman. ‘The Psychology of Terrorism: “Syndrome” Versus “Tool” Perspectives’. Terrorism and Political Violence 18, no. 2 (2006): 193–215. Lazarus, R.S. and Folkman, S., Transactional Theory and Research on Emotions and Coping. European Journal of Personality Vol.1, 3, (1987): 141–69. Maslow, A.H. ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’. Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370–96. McAlister, A., A. Bandura, and S. Owen. ‘Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in Support of Military Force: The Impact of September 11’. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 25 (2006): 141–65. Moghaddam, F.M. ‘The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration’. American Psychologist March (2005). Nesbitt, Eleanor. ‘Sikh Spectrum: Mapping Emotions in the Panth’. Chapter 2 in this volume. Palfrey, Barney. ‘Being in Love Without Restriction: Emotion and Embodiment in the Twentieth-Century Canadian Jesuit Theologian, Bernard Lonergan and in Two Recent Empirical Human Scientists’. Chapter 6 in this volume.

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Piaget, J. The Construction of Reality in the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957. Pinto, David. Intercultural Communication: A Three-Step Method for Dealing With Differences. Leuven: Garant Uitgevers NV, 2000. Ryan, R.M., K.M. Sheldon, T. Kasser and E.L. Deci. ‘All Goals Were Not Created Equal: An Organismic Perspective on the Nature of Goals and Their Regulation’. In The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behavior, edited by P.M. Gollwitzer and J.A. Bargh, 7–26. New York: Guilford, 1996. Shachtman, N., and S. Ackerman. ‘U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use “Hiroshima” Tactics for “Total War” on Islam’. Wired (10 May 2012). Strack, F., and R. Deutch. ‘Reflective and Impulsive Determinants of Social Behavior’. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, no. 3 (2004): 220–47. Watzlawick, Paul, Janet Helmick Beavin and Don D. Jackson. Pragmatics of human Communication. New York: Norton, 1967. Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. New York: Shambhala, 2001. Wilber, Ken. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. Wilber, Ken. Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role For Religion In The Modern And Postmodern World New York: Shambala.

Chapter 9

William James on Religion and Emotion Robert A. Segal

Introduction1 The American philosopher Robert Solomon devoted his career to the establishment of emotions as rational. He never denies that emotions include feelings and bodily manifestations. But he maintains relentlessly that they involve far more. Above all, they are decisions to act a certain way. They are strategies. Far from impulsive or beyond our control, emotions are our chosen reactions to situations. They are calculated. They are a sensible means to an end. They stem foremost from thinking, not feeling. Because we choose our emotions, we are responsible for them. As Solomon sums up his position, I want to argue that emotions are not disruptions or irrational or occurrences, not forces or feelings or mere tendencies to behave. I will analyze the emotions as constitutive structures of our world. Through our passions [which he equates with emotions], we constitute our (subjective) world, render it meaningful and with it our lives and our Selves. The passions are not occurrences but activities. They are not ‘inside’ our minds but rather the structures we place in our world. My anger – even that simmering suppressed anger that is allowed no expression – is my projection into the world, my silent indictment of someone who has wronged me, my judgment of the offensive state of the world. My control of my anger is not (as the very concepts of ‘suppression’ and ‘repression’ suggest) the containment of an invading force from the mysterious depths ‘within’ me. The anger [itself] is my own as well as the control. The ‘suppression’ is but part of the structure which I am imposing upon the world through my anger. To think otherwise is to view my anger as not mine, not my responsibility, allowing me to abuse other people and self-righteously condemn them (whether silently or publicly) without ever taking responsibility for my own judgment.2

Solomon’s view of emotions follows closely that of Jean-Paul Sartre, especially in the emphasis on our responsibility for our actions. Solomon pits his view against   I want to thank Dr Tony Milligan, philosopher at the University of Aberdeen, for invaluable help with this chapter. 2   Robert C. Solomon, The Passions: The Myth and Nature of Human Emotion (Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976), 169. 1

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the views of both behaviourists, for whom emotions are either sheer actions themselves or dispositions to act, and physiologists, for whom emotions are either sheer feelings or bodily actions causing feelings. Solomon takes William James, together with C.G. Lange, as the classical exponent of the physiological view: ‘Thus James explicitly argued that emotions were nothing other than the affects of neurological processes, in particular, neurological disturbances demanding expression in action of some kind.’3 Others have taken James as the classic exponent of the behaviourist view, and behaviourists themselves pit their position against a physiological one.4 But Solomon associates James with the physiological view only, which he maintains was refuted long ago by Walter Cannon: Cannon showed that ‘the same visceral and neurological changes accompanied very different emotional states and that artificial induction of these changes did not produce the appropriate emotions’.5 The apparent refutation of the James–Lange physiological theory coincided with the rise of behaviourism. Solomon, while equating James’ position with the physiological one, is arguing against both positions. Whether James’s position, which is not quite identical with Lange’s, comes to fit Solomon’s characterisation of emotion is the subject of this chapter.6 ‘What Is An Emotion?’ In ‘What Is an Emotion?’ (1884) James stresses the non-cognitive side of emotion. For James, the non-cognitive side means the bodily side. James’s overall psychology roots states of consciousness in the body. Independently of Lange, he famously argues against the then-conventional and doubtless still conventional view of emotion: that first comes ‘the mental perception of some fact’, which ‘excites the mental affection called the emotion’, which ‘state of mind [in turn] gives rise to the bodily expression’.7 James argues the opposite: ‘that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same [bodily] changes as they occur is the emotion’.8 Where common sense assumes that ‘we lose our fortune [perception of fact], are sorry [emotion] and weep [bodily expression]’ or ‘meet a bear, are frightened and run’ or ‘are insulted   Ibid., 142.   Gerald E. Myers, William James: His Life and Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 226, who himself rejects this reading of James. 5   Walter B. Cannon, ‘The James–Lange Theory of Emotions: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory’, American Journal of Psychology 39, no. 1/2 December (1927): 106–24; Solomon, The Passions, 152–3. 6   A view of emotions at least as intellectual as Solomon’s is that of Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Her approach is not, like Solomon’s, existentialist. On her differences with Solomon, see Nussbaum (2001): 22n2. 7   William James, ‘ What Is an Emotion?’, Mind 9, no. 34 April (1884): 189. 8   Ibid., 189–90. 3 4

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by a rival, are angry and strike’, James reverses the order of the last two stages in each case.9 He does not deny that the perception, which is mental, comes first, but he contends that the bodily ‘manifestation’ comes between the perception and the emotion rather than that the emotion comes between the perception and the bodily manifestation. Thus ‘we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful’.10 We are frightened of the bear because we run. James does not deny a place to cognition in emotion. But he limits the place. Without the bodily state, emotion would be merely cognitive and would thereby lack feeling, which is indispensable to emotion: ‘Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely [i.e. merely] cognitive in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth.’ We might still ‘see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it right to strike, but we could never actually feel afraid or angry’.11 The emotion is the feeling itself of fear. But there is no fear without, say, sweating. Fear is the feeling that comes when one sweats. True, without perception, no emotion, but perception is merely preliminary rather than key. Emotion is at heart bodily. James’s emphasis on the body as the way we encounter the world is akin to that of phenomenology. James seems to conflate the issues, of which there are at least three. The first issue is whether there is emotion without feeling. James says no, but so do many others, including Solomon. The second issue is whether there is feeling without bodily expression. James says no, but so do many others, again including Solomon. The third issue is whether the feeling causes the bodily expression or the bodily expression the feeling. Here is the originality of James’s claim. But James’s argument rests, at least initially, on the sheer indispensability of bodily expression, not on the priority of it. Surely the bodily expression can be indispensable to feeling even if chronologically it follows and expresses the feeling. Objecting to the characterisation of the bodily expression as a mere expression of feeling is confusing chronology with importance. Indeed, Solomon is happy to grant the chronology precisely because he separates chronology from importance and from definition: We all accept, in some form or another, the neurologist’s claim that all of our emotions have their neurological causes. And even though we don’t have the foggiest notion what such causes might be, we accept the claim that every emotion has its sufficient neurological cause … [But] whether I am angry or not, in love or not, jealous or not, has nothing to do with whether or not my anger, my love, or my jealousy has been caused. We may presume, in every case, that it has. But my emotion has nothing to do with the fact that it is caused.12

  Ibid., 190.   Ibid. 11   Ibid. 12   Solomon, The Passions, 155. 9

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James asks rhetorically what would grief be ‘without its tears, its sobs, its suffocation of the heart, its pang in the breast-bone?’ It would be a ‘feelingless cognition that certain circumstances are deplorable, and nothing more’. Put summarily, ‘A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.’13 But the conventional view opposed by James could itself grant that ‘whatever moods, affections, and passions I have, are in very truth constituted by, and made up of, those bodily changes we ordinarily call their expression or consequence’ – simply by separating definition from chronology.14 James tries to counter examples in which feelings seem inculcated rather than spontaneous and thereby arise prior to bodily expressions. For example, ‘shame, desire, regret’ seem to be ‘ideas … attached by education and association’ to the objects that arouse them ‘before the bodily changes could possibly be awakened’.15 Here the perception itself of an instance of shame seems to produce the feeling of shame. Seemingly, bodily effects at most accompany, not cause, the feeling. James counters that even our expression of shame involves bodily movements. On the one hand we feel shame only in response to the bodily movements of others. On the other hand we cannot feel shame without evincing shame bodily. James asserts not merely that even in the cases of seemingly inculcated emotions are bodily effects indispensable but also that there are cases of emotions in which ideas come only after bodily movements: ‘If we abruptly see a dark moving form in the woods, our heart stops beating, and we catch our breath instantly and before any articulate idea of danger can arise.’16 The order here is: perception, then bodily movement and emotion, and finally idea. ‘If our friend goes near to the edge of a precipice, we get the well-known feeling of “all-overishness,” and we shrink back, although we positively know him to be safe, and have no distinct imagination of his fall.’17 Here the bodily effect not merely precedes but contradicts our cognition. Even though I know there is no danger when I look down from a tall, sturdy guard rail on a bridge, I still feel fear: feeling trumps intellect. This is not cognitive dissonance, which is a contradiction between belief and perception. This contradiction is between intellect and feeling. In other cases ‘the emotion both begins and ends with what we [mistakenly] call its effects or manifestations. It has no mental status except as either the presented feeling … of [i.e. the feeling stirred by] the manifestations [themselves]; which latter thus constitute its entire material, its sum and substance, and its stockin-trade.’18 Now James is arguing that in some cases there is just the manifestation, which itself produces the feeling rather than is produced by the feeling. James generalises to all cases of emotion: ‘the feeling of [i.e. stirred by] the [seemingly     15   16   17   18   13 14

James, ‘ What Is an Emotion?’, 194. Ibid. Ibid., 195. Ibid., 196. Ibid. Ibid., 197.

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mere] manifestations [themselves] may play a deeper part in the constitution of the emotion than we are wont to suppose’.19 James offers telling examples of bodily manifestations that on their own seem to cause or at least intensify emotions: ‘Everyone knows how panic is increased by flight, and how the giving way to the symptoms of grief or anger increases those passions themselves.’20 ‘Refuse to express a passion, and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech.’21 Furthermore, James argues that not only ‘standard emotions,’ or emotions with bodily accompaniments, but even ‘those inward sensibilities’ that seem ‘devoid at first sight of bodily results’ in fact have bodily manifestations, just inward ones. ‘Unless in them [too] there actually be coupled with the intellectual feeling a bodily reverberation of some kind, unless we actually laugh at the neatness of the mechanical device, thrill at the justice of the act, or tingle at the perfection of the musical form, our mental condition is more allied to a judgment of right’ than to an emotion.22 The sheer judgement is an entirely ‘cognitive act’ and so not an emotion. ‘But as a matter of fact the intellectual feeling hardly ever does exist thus unaccompanied.’23 In sum, in ‘What Is an Emotion?’ James, while not excluding intellect, downplays it. He actually labels an ‘intellectual emotion’, which might have seemed for him a contradiction in terms, an emotion in which ‘long familiarity with a certain class of effects has blunted emotional sensibility thereto as much as it has sharpened the taste and judgment’.24 Emotion thus ‘pure and undefiled’ intellectually is emotion eviscerated. ‘The Psychology of Belief’ In ‘The Psychology of Belief’ (1889) James goes further than he does in ‘What Is an Emotion?’ Compare James here with the members of the group of sociologists of science, initially based at the University of Edinburgh and so named the Edinburgh Strong Programme. These sociologists – David Bloor, Barry Barnes and Steven Shapin – maintain that even scientists hold the beliefs they do, including true and rational beliefs, for largely sociological rather than, as might be assumed, intellectual reasons. Similarly, James argues that we, presumably including philosophers, hold the beliefs we do, including metaphysical beliefs of the deepest kind, for largely emotional rather than, as might be assumed, intellectual reasons.     21   22   23   24   19 20

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 195–6. Ibid., 201–2. Ibid., 202. Ibid.

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No more here than in ‘What Is an Emotion?’ is James excluding intellect. Rather, he is again downplaying it: ‘The “depth” [of our beliefs] is partly, no doubt, the insight into wider systems of unified relation, but far more often than that it is the emotional thrill.’25 James starts with non-philosophical beliefs and recycles some examples from the 1884 essay: ‘The thought of falling when we walk along a kerbstone awakens no emotion of dread, so no sense of reality attaches to it, and we are sure we shall not fall. On a precipice’s edge, however, the sickening emotion which the notion of a possible fall engenders makes us believe in the latter’s imminent reality, and quite unfits us to proceed.’26 Turning to philosophical beliefs, James asserts that ‘The reason of the belief is undoubtedly the bodily commotion which the exciting idea sets up. “Nothing which can feel like that can be false.”’27 By the ‘reason of our belief’ he, like the members of the Edinburgh Strong Programme, does not mean the reasons that justify our beliefs. He is sidestepping, not challenging, the cogency of sheerly intellectual reasons for beliefs. He is confining himself to human nature, not to our beliefs themselves. He is referring to what in us makes us accept the beliefs we do. We do not act wholly or even primarily intellectually. We mainly act emotionally.28 However good the reasons we could offer for holding the beliefs we do, those reasons function as rationalisations for our desire to hold those beliefs. We believe what we want to believe. James declares that ‘All our religious and supernatural beliefs are of this order. The surest warrant for immortality is the yearning of our bowels for our dear ones; for God, the sinking sense it gives us to imagine no such Providence or help.’29 Of our ‘political or pecuniary hopes and fears’30 the same is true. Despite these examples, James is not equating emotion with wish fulfilment. The emotional allure of a belief need not be its desirability. It can be the emotional power itself. Among the array of proffered philosophical systems, we choose the one that makes the strongest emotional impact on us, not necessarily the one that we most want to be true: ‘The conceived system, to pass for true, must at least include the reality of the sensible objects in it, by explaining them as effects on us, if nothing more.

  William James, ‘ The Psychology of Belief’, Mind 14, no. 55, July (1889): 342.   Ibid. 27   Ibid., 343. 28   James’s analysis of religion and emotion, like his analysis of religion generally, is of the individual and not of the group. In, most grandly, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Emile Durkheim also makes emotion central to religion, but he deems it consummately social: ‘effervescence’, his favourite term, stems from the group and is nothing other than the experience of the group by its members. By no coincidence all of James’s examples of religious emotions are of individuals, not groups. For Durkheim, only groups can produce religious emotions and thereby produce religion itself. 29   James, ‘The Psychology of Belief’, 343. 30   Ibid. 25 26

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The system which includes the most of them, and definitely explains or pretends to explain the most of them will, ceteris paribus, prevail.’31 James quotes five pages of an earlier article of his32 and near the end of the quotation puts his assertion even more strongly: Nothing could be more absurd than to hope for the definitive triumph of any philosophy which should refuse to legitimate, and to legitimate in an emphatic manner, the more powerful of our emotional and practical tendencies. Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behaviour is ‘All striving is vain,’ will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness and shadowy determination of expectancy.33

Clearly, then, James is distinguishing emotional from intellectual appeal, even if the two are inseparable. James’ scepticism towards the power of reason over us matches that of Freud. But where Freud, especially in The Future of an Illusion, bemoans the emotional appeal of religious belief, James celebrates it. Freud starts with the irrationality of religious belief and enlists wish fulfilment to explain how beliefs so conspicuously tenuous are so hard to dislodge. Freud’s disdain for philosophy stems not from his own indifference to intellectual arguments but from his cynicism towards their appeal to the proverbial masses. Perhaps because James, unlike Freud, was a philosopher as well as a psychologist, he does not pit intellect (philosophy) against emotion (psychology) but on the contrary tries to bring them together. At the same time James takes as paradigmatic conscious, even obvious, emotions. If elsewhere James ventures into the domain of the unconscious, he does not do so in this essay. Here we cannot be mistaken about our emotions because, so Freud might argue, we are unaware of them. We are fully aware of them. Likewise we cannot be mistaken because, so Freud might argue, we intellectualise our emotions. In this essay intellect plays a minor role. ‘The Physical Basis of Emotion’ In ‘The Physical Basis of Emotion’ (1894) James, while distinguishing his position in detail from Lange’s, defends their common view against critics. He clarifies his famous example from ‘What Is an Emotion?’: that we are frightened of a bear because we run. He denies that he is contending that we fear a bear simply because we run from it. Rather, the sight of the bear – in the open, not in a cage – stirs   Ibid., 345.   William James, ‘Rationality, Activity and Faith’, Princeton Review 2, July (1882): 64–9. 33   James, ‘The Psychology of Belief’, 350. 31 32

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many bodily reactions, some of them internal and so invisible. Running is the culmination of our reactions, not the first or sole reaction. And yet running can increase our fear.34 James also counters the criticism that not all bodily expressions spell emotion. His claim, he explains, is not that wherever there is a bodily manifestation there is an emotion, but that wherever there is an emotion there is a bodily manifestation, which of course is for him more than a mere consequence of the emotion.35 At the same time James rejects the association of an emotion with any fixed bodily movement. There can be variation in which emotions coincide with which movements.36 What matters is that there are effects – which of course means more than effects. The Varieties of Religious Experience In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) James in part repeats what is by now his litany on the tie between emotion and belief: ‘Conceive yourself, if possible, suddenly stripped of all the emotion with which your world inspires you, and try to imagine it as it exists, purely by itself, without your favourable or unfavourable, hopeful or apprehensive comment. It will be almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of negativity and deadness.’37 Our minds ‘endow’ our worlds with ‘value, character, expression, or perspective’ by infusing them with emotion. If we love someone, the endowing ‘transforms the value of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment’.38 But there are three sharp departures in this work from previous pieces. First, James now scorns (in the first lecture on ‘Religion and Neurology’) what he famously labels ‘medical materialism’, or the attribution of a belief, here a religious belief, to a bodily ailment: ‘Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate.’39 Where previously James sought to stress the centrality of the body to emotion and of emotion to belief, now he seeks to sever both the body and emotion from belief. Mockingly, he writes: ‘Alfred   See William James, ‘ The Physical Basis of Emotion’, Psychological Review 1, no. 5, September (1894): 519. 35   See ibid., 522. 36   But is Cannon not criticising James for failing to recognise variations? 37   William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience; A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902 (London and New York: Longmans, Green. Reprinted New York, 1936), 147. 38   Ibid., 148. 39   Ibid., 14. 34

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believes in immortality so strongly because his temperament is so emotional … William’s melancholy about the universe is due to bad digestion – probably his liver is torpid.’40 To reply that James is merely opposing the sheer reduction of belief to either the body or emotion is hardly persuasive, for previously he was insisting on almost exactly this reduction. And previously he argued from origin to significance, so that to reply that James is now merely opposing the bodily or emotional origin of belief rather than the bodily or emotional concomitant of belief is likewise scarcely persuasive. Second, James departs even more from previous work in his focus now not at all on the origin of religious belief but instead on the effect, or ‘fruit’, as befits his increasingly pragmatic outlook on what religion does. In his lectures (XI, XII and XIII) on ‘Saintliness’ he even bestows the term ‘saintliness’ on ‘the ripe fruits of religion in a character’. The fruits are the habitual emotional responses that stem from character traits, or virtues, like saintliness. The fruits are still emotions – better, dispositions to respond with certain emotions and bodily movements – but now they are tightly tied to beliefs, and to metaphysical beliefs: ‘The saintly character is the character for which spiritual emotions are the habitual centre of the personal energy.’41 James identifies four main emotions that not merely express but constitute the state of saintliness: 1. A feeling of being in a wider life than that of the world’s selfish little interests … 2. A sense of the friendly continuity of the ideal power with our own life, and a willing self-surrender to its control. 3. An immense elation and freedom, as the outlines of the confining selfhood melt down. 4. A shifting of the emotional centre towards loving and harmonious affections, towards ‘yes, yes’ and away from ‘no’ where the claims of the non-ego are concerned.42 Third and above all, where previously James kept separate our reasons for holding religious beliefs – their emotional power – from the justification for the beliefs, now he appeals to the emotional power of our religious beliefs as justification for their truth. Emotion no longer merely explains the hold our beliefs have on us but now outright justifies the beliefs themselves. In his analysis not of saintliness but of mysticism he goes so far as to cite the fruits, which, to be precise, are no longer exclusively emotional, as proof of the reality of the object of mystical experience.43   Ibid., 11.   Ibid., 266. 42   Ibid., 266–7. 43   Still, for James, truth is a matter not just of the correspondence of our beliefs to the world but of our making of the world. I thank Tony Milligan for this point and many others. 40 41

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James writes about mysticism in two combined lectures (XVI and XVII) in The Varieties of Religious Experience and again in the ‘conclusions’ (lecture XX). While he recognises non-religious cases of mysticism, he focuses on religious cases. He even goes so far as to root all religion, or at least all individual, noninstitutionalised religion, in mysticism: ‘One may say truly, I think, that personal religious experience has its root and centre in mystical states of consciousness.’44 For James, mystical experience is at once a feeling and a state of knowledge. So central for James is the feeling that he characterises mystical states ‘as more like states of feeling than like states of intellect’.45 But he also notes that ‘although so similar to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge’.46 Presumably, mystical states must be states of knowledge for truth claims to be based on them and for James to be able to assess those claims. James considers three ways of evaluating the truth claims of mystics: by the origin of their experiences, by the function of their experiences, and by the content of their experiences. In considering origin, James reprises his attack on ‘medical materialists’, for whom mysticism need only be shown to have a physiological or psychological correlate to be exposed as delusory: ‘To the medical mind these [mystical] ecstasies signify nothing but suggested and imitated hypnoid states, on an intellectual basis of superstition, and a corporeal one of degeneration and hysteria.’47 James’s response is in effect to invoke the genetic fallacy: ‘Undoubtedly these pathological conditions have existed in many and possibly in all the cases, but that fact tells us nothing about the value for knowledge of the consciousness which they induce.’48 James goes further. He is prepared to argue that physiological and psychological conditions are relevant to mystical experience and even indispensable – but to inducing it, not to falsifying it. For example, ‘the sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.’49 Similarly, ‘nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide, when sufficiently diluted with air, stimulate the mystical consciousness in an extraordinary degree’.50 James, ever open and flexible, allows for any possible spur to mystical experience – this in contrast, for example, to the far more doctrinaire R.C. Zaehner, for whom the claim, made by Aldous Huxley, that mescaline can yield the same     46   47   48   49   50   44 45

James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 370. Ibid., 371. Ibid. Ibid., 404. Ibid. Ibid, 377–8. Ibid., 378.

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level of mystical experience as lifelong training in meditation is an affront. James even grants unabashedly that insanity can hail from the same psychological source as genuine mysticism: Open any of these [textbooks on insanity], and you will find abundant cases in which ‘mystical ideas’ are cited as characteristic symptoms of enfeebled or deluded states of mind. In delusional insanity, paranoia, as they sometimes call it, we may have a diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down …It is evident that from the point of view of their psychological mechanism, the classic mysticism and these lower mysticisms spring from the same mental level, from that great subliminal or transmarginal region of which science is beginning to admit the existence, but of which so little is really known …To come from thence is no infallible credential. What comes must be sifted and tested, and run the gauntlet of confrontation with the total context of experience.51

James can be so cavalier about the origin of mystical experience exactly because he, like most authorities, separates origin from truth.52 But where conventional authorities proceed to evaluate the truth claims of mysticism on the basis of the content of the experience, James evaluates truth claims on the basis of the function – better, the effect – of mystical experience. His term for effect is, again, ‘fruit’. Against medical materialists, he declares, ‘To pass a spiritual judgment upon these states, we must not content ourselves with superficial medical talk, but inquire into their fruits for life.’53 James names two main fruits: ‘stupefaction’ and ‘energy’. Not both but either is to be found among the accounts of mystics worldwide. James acknowledges that these fruits can come from delusion as well as from reality: Mystical conditions may, therefore, render the soul more energetic in the lines which their inspiration favors. But this could be reckoned an advantage only in case the inspiration were a true one. If the inspiration were erroneous, the energy would be all the more mistaken and misbegotten. So we stand once more   Ibid., 417–18.   In contrast to present-day approaches, James does not consider sociological or cultural origins of mysticism. For him, mysticism occurs to individuals, not to communities, and however varied mystical experiences can be, they vary with the individual, not with time and place: ‘In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed, … which brings it about that the mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native land’ (James, 1936: 410). Anyone anywhere can have the same kind of mystical experience as anyone else – a position at odds not only with that of contemporary ‘contextualists’ like Steven Katz but also with that of classical authorities like Gershom Scholem. 53   James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 404. 51 52

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before that problem of truth which confronted us at the end of the lectures on saintliness. You will remember that we turned to mysticism precisely to get some light on truth. Do mystical states establish the truth of those theological affections in which the saintly life has its root?54

Yet despite this unflinching caution about relying on effects to determine truth, James proceeds to rely further on effects to help decide the issue. The effects to which James appeals are the states of ‘optimism’ and ‘monism’. While, strictly, these states are not ‘fruits’ they are consequences, and consequences with philosophical ramifications: In spite of their repudiation of articulate self-description, mystical states in general assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift. It is possible to give the outcome of the majority of them in terms that point in definite philosophical directions. One of these directions is optimism, and the other is monism. We pass into mystical states from out of ordinary consciousness as from a less into a more, as from a smallness into a vastness, and at the same time as from an unrest to a rest. We feel them as reconciling, unifying states.55

That is, true mystical experience has these effects on mystics, who, for James, are always passive rather than active.56 In his ‘conclusions’ James relies even more on effects to determine truth. Appealing, though with typical caution, to the numbers – to the large number of mystics worldwide with similar experiences – he cites, as one similarity, the ‘feelings of security and joy’.57 While once again recognising that these feelings may be merely psychological – ‘this [set of feelings] may be nothing but [the mystic’s] subjective way of feeling things, a mood of his own fancy, in spite of the effects produced’ – he still uses them.58 He argues that effects so powerful in so many can probably come only from a real encounter with a deeper reality – a tamer version of the argument by supporters in 1964 of losing US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater that so many millions couldn’t be wrong. While James calls this conclusion an ‘over-belief’, going as it does beyond the evidence, he is proposing it as more likely true than false. And he is basing the over-belief on, above all, the effects: Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite   Ibid., 406–7.   Ibid., 407. Later in Varieties James acknowledges that optimism and monism are by no means characteristic of all brands of mysticism; see James (1936): 416–17. 56   On passivity as one of the four ‘marks’ of mysticism for James, see ibid.: 372. 57   James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 499. 58   Ibid. 54 55

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personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal.59

James puts the point bluntly: ‘God is real since he produces real effects.’60 James’s focus on effects tallies with his pragmatic philosophy – that is, with the difference that belief makes. It is hard to accept James’s argument from effects, and elsewhere I have questioned it.61 What counts here is that, far from downplaying intellect in his analysis of emotions, he is using emotions to justify the deepest philosophical claims.62 True, optimism and monism are as much beliefs as emotions, but they are emotionally tinged beliefs. And stupefaction, energy, and ‘the feelings of security and joy’ are just that: feelings. Were James arguing that these feelings are the consequence of belief, he would be conventional. But instead he is arguing that they are the justification for belief. True, James is not doing what Solomon and Sartre do. He is not making emotions themselves rational. Still, he is enlisting emotions for consummately rational ends – as reliable evidence for beliefs. He is therefore not the nemesis of Solomon and of Sartre, at least not by the time of Varieties. There he brings together emotions with intellect rather than, as before, setting them apart. How James comes to reverse himself on their relationship is, as the American historian William Langer declared years of psychohistory, ‘the next assignment’.63   Ibid., 506–7.   Ibid., 507. 61   See Robert A. Segal, ‘James and Freud on Mysticism’, in William James and ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ : A Centenary Celebration, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 124–32, esp. 128. 62   Linda Woodhead, a fellow member of the AHRC Workshop, has reminded me of James’s lament near the beginning of his final lecture that ‘In re-reading my manuscript, I am almost appalled at the amount of emotionality which I find in it’ (James, 1936: 476). But James is referring to the emotionality of the accounts of religious experience that he has continually quoted, not to the use to which he has put them. As he adds, ‘The sentimentality of many of my documents is a consequence of the fact that I sought them among the extravagances of the subject. If any of you are enemies of what our ancestors used to brand as enthusiasm, and are, nevertheless, still listening to me now, you have probably felt my selection to have been sometimes almost perverse, and have wished I might have stuck to soberer examples’ (ibid.). No sooner does James acknowledge the emotionality of his examples than he proceeds to resume his appeal to emotion as evidence for the reality of mystical experience. 63   By contrast to my view that James’s view of emotion becomes ever more intellectual is that of Matthew Ratcliffe, Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), who argues that James makes intellect 59 60

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References Cannon, Walter B. ‘The James–Lange Theory of Emotions: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory’, American Journal of Psychology 39, no. 1/2 December (1927): 106–24. James, William. ‘Rationality, Activity and Faith’, Princeton Review 2, July (1882): 58–86. James, William. ‘The Physical Basis of Emotion’, Psychological Review 1, no. 5, September (1894): 516–29. James, William. ‘The Psychology of Belief’, Mind 14, no. 55, July (1889): 321–52. James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience; A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. London and New York: Longmans, Green. Reprinted New York, 1936. James, William. ‘What Is an Emotion?’ Mind 9, no. 34, April (1884): 188–205. Myers, Gerald E. William James: His Life and Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Nussbaum, Martha. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Ratcliffe, Matthew. Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Segal, Robert A. ‘James and Freud on Mysticism’. In William James and ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’: A Centenary Celebration, edited by Jeremy R. Carrette, 124–32. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Solomon, Robert C. The Passions: The Myth and Nature of Human Emotion. Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976.

inseparable from emotion from the outset: see Ratcliffe (2008), ch. 8. Ratcliffe maintains that James, even in ‘What Is an Emotion?’, has been caricatured. According to Ratcliffe, emotions for James are never mere twinges but instead are representations of mental life. But see Myers (1986): 226: Myers blames James for any misinterpretation.

Chapter 10

The Knowing Body: Structuralism and the Somatic Aspects of Biblical Sacrifice Seth D. Kunin

Recent discussions have returned to the status of implicit myth within structuralist theory and methodology.1 These discussions have focused on the structured nature of both ritual practice and other aspects of material culture. The argument developed suggests that, like explicit myth, these elements characterised as implicit myth gain their meaning by being part of a culturally structured universe, and that there is no theoretically useful reason for distinguishing the structure found in the different cultural realms. The discussions, however, while not making a distinction in structure, did suggest that implicit myth may have a significant role in the ‘communication’ of underlying structure due to its ability to mobilise aspects of the person to which explicit, narrative myth has less immediate access. This chapter takes up this suggestion, exploring the differing ways in which implicit myth has somatic impact, particularly in relation to the different senses, and their ability to introduce emotions as a important part of the ritual process. In one key sense this chapter is responding to an aspect of structuralist argumentation that has focused on the ‘rational’ or cognitive aspects of underlying structure. While not challenging the importance of this aspect of structural instantiation, we are proposing that adding a somatic or emotional embodied aspect to the ‘communication’ of structure both allows for a fuller application of structure to the embodied nature of human experience, and provides an important additional component to the means by which underlying structure gains salience.2 The chapter presents a brief discussion of emotion theory, following the lead   These discussions took place in a panel at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in April 2011. Several of the papers are in preparation for publication in 2013. The discussion attempts to move away from the preference often found in structuralism to focus on explicit myth rather than the implicit myth often associated with ritual or other cultural elements. The typical hostility towards implicit myth and ritual in particular is exemplified in Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Naked Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), 667–75. 2   It should be noted that we are not suggesting that other areas of anthropology have lacked this somatic emphasis; indeed, it has been an important factor in many anthropological analyses. We are, however, suggesting that it has not been given due prominence in structuralist discussions, and this chapter in part hopes to open this debate in that specific area of anthropological theorisation. 1

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of Scheer3 and Reddy,4 and suggests that an understanding of emotion within the context of practice theory may provide an avenue for rethinking the role of embodiment within structuralist theory. It then presents an extended discussion of the underlying structure of sacrifice within the Israelite context. This discussion plays two roles in our argument. It provides a concrete demonstration that implicit myth is a structure in an identical way to explicit myth. It also allows us to provide an ethnographic example (albeit both textual and historical) of a cultural practice that engages the body in a wide range of ways. The chapter concludes with a return to explicit myth, suggesting that it also needs to be understood in a somatic sense, and that although its access to embodiment may be less direct, the practices of telling and hearing myths (narratives) are also inherently embodied and thus must be understood in that way – thus structure in both implicit and explicit myth is both logical and somatic. The primary ethnographic data utilised in this chapter are from Israelite/ Jewish culture.5 The reason for this is that this material has already been analysed from a structuralist perspective, by both myself and other structuralists. As this chapter does not intend to present entirely new structuralist analyses, it relies on previous structuralist analyses, building on them to explore the somatic aspects. The previous analyses have examined both explicit narrative myth and implicit myth. In the cases of implicit myth, the analyses have particularly focused on the logical structures found within rituals or cultural practices. Cases in point are the analyses of Israelite food rules. All the analyses have discussed the nature of the categorisation of the different foods, and the relations between the categories. In effect, they have treated the cultural practice as if it were identical to narrative myth, ignoring the fact that the food rules related to quotidian practices of eating, and are perhaps the most embodied aspect of any ritual practice. This chapter, in contradistinction, foregrounds the somatic and the emotional states that may be associated with different sensory states. Within the context of Israelite religious practice, as depicted in biblical texts (and discussed in retrospect in rabbinic texts), the formal role of implicit myth is particularly significant. Although the existence of narrative mythological texts   Monique Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and Is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion’, History and Theory 51, no. 2, March (2012): 193–220. 4   William M. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 5   It should be emphasised from the outset that historical textual sources are not unproblematic. Biblical texts provide little direct access to the emotions that played a role in the ritual processes. Thus, if particular emotions are attached to any experience, we are faced with attributing emotion rather than observing or being given other direct information about it. In this light, I am intentionally not focusing on the specific emotions but rather on the locations within the ritual process that may have served as the focus of emotion. Where information is available, as in the case of blood, more specific discussion, to the extent possible, is developed. 3

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within the biblical text testifies to their existence, and suggests that they had a role in Israelite society, the practices described in the text focus on the ritual, bodily aspects rather than narrative or verbal practices.6 Some practices are associated with verbal or liturgical elements, but very few are directly associated with narrative content. Thus the instantiation of underlying structure must have significantly depended on affect of the ritual practices. These practices ranged from the quotidian practices that governed almost every aspect of bodily experience to the major set pieces of Israelite religion, particularly the sacrificial cult eventually (and mythologically) centred in the Temple in Jerusalem. Given the focus on implicit myth rather than explicit narrative myth, the material provides a useful case to examine the application of the practice theory of emotion. It suggests that through the quotidian practices, as well as the large set pieces, an emotional repertoire is developed and indeed put into practice. On this basis the non-quotidian practices are given meaning and structure on the basis that the emotions engendered are executed by ‘a knowing body’.7 And, from our persepective, that underlying structure is instantiated in the embodied experience of both the quotidian and nonquotidian practices in which emotions as cultural practices are part of a structured and structuring universe. Israelite Sacrifice as Implicit Myth While there are already detailed structuralist analyses of some of the quotidian areas of Israelite implicit myth, for example, Israelite food rules and to a lesser extent purity law, the sacrificial cult, which was the central aspect of Israelite practice, has only been briefly analysed.8 The sacrificial cult, however, provides a very dramatic example of implicit myth. Although some aspects of the cult were specifically associated with mythological narratives, much of the cult was independent of such explicit associations. This is not to say that the practices were not narrativised9 in a secondary sense, that of formally expressed meanings and explanations, but rather that they were not directly associated with specific explicit narrative myths. The sacrifices associated with the festival of Passover, 6   The text from Deuteronomy 26.5 is one of the few clear examples that provides a narrative context for Israelite religious ritual practices. 7   Scheer, ‘Emotions a Kind of Practice’, 199. 8   The most detailed analysis is found in Edmund Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’, in Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament, ed. Bernhard Lang (London: SPCK Publishing, 1985), 136–50. 9   ‘Narrativised’ is used here to refer to different though interrelated areas of verbalised meaning. Primary narrativisation in this case would be the direct association of the practice with specific narratives or narrativised events. Secondary narrativisation is that provided by either individuals involved in a practice, both specialists and non-specialists, which explains or contextualises a practice to allow it to fit into a system of meaning.

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particularly the Paschal sacrifice, are the exception to this general statement, and are discussed specifically below. The practices associated with the cult, as described in biblical, rabbinic and other texts of the rabbinic period, suggest that it was designed to be a very dramatic instantiation of Israelite religious culture. While sacrifices were made at many times in the year, in relation to vows and expiation of sin, and the daily sacrifices of the Tamid, the high points of the cult occurred at set times, particularly the pilgrimage festivals – times at which significant numbers of Israelites would be gathered at the cultic centre (or centres). The texts suggest that significant numbers of animals were slaughtered, in the context of a dramatic ritualisation, and that, at least in the case of Pesach (Passover), the sacrificial event was followed by a ritualised eating of the sacrifice by all Israelites present.10 Given the very dramatic nature of the practice, not to mention embodiment associated with eating, it is hard to dismiss the role of drama and at the very least ritualised emotion as a key part of the power of this ritual practice. Thus, given the arguments introduced above, suggesting that implicit myth is structured, it is important to understand how the drama and somatic impact of the sacrificial cult play a role in the communication and articulation of this underlying structure. Introducing the Somatic to Structuralist Analysis Discussion of the somatic and emotional aspects of cultural experience within the context of structuralist analysis has hitherto been problematic due to both the conceptualisation of emotions and underlying structure. Many discussions of emotion have divided the general category into two separate and distinct categories, that is, emotions that are bodily experiences, and feelings that are a cognitive experience conceptualising these experiences. In part the distinction has been strengthened by the association of emotions with an acultural bodily experience and feelings as being culturally constructed, or shaped.11 Alongside these discussions, structuralism has tended to focus solely on the conceptual universe, in effect the cultural world of language, and as such has been solely concerned with culturally constructed objects. Within this paradigm it is possible to construct a structualist analysis of feelings, but not of emotions.

  One text from the rabbinic period, Josephus, The Jewish War 2.14.3, suggests a figure of more than two million Israelites present at the Pesach. If we take the more conservative figures suggested by Sanders in Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE (126) of 300,000–500,000 people, the number of sacrifices and masses of people in and around Jerusalem would be very significant and have a dramatic impact on those participating. 11   Antonio R. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Orlando: Harcourt, 2003). 10

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Theories that focus more specifically on a more holistic view of embodiment provide an avenue for breaking down the dichotomies of emotion and feeling, cognitive and somatic, individual and cultural. These approaches bring cognition and bodily experience together through seeing them as part of a wider engagement with the world, in which consciousness arises out of ‘brain, body and world’.12 The implication of this, as expressed by Scheer, is ‘that cognition is itself always “embodied,” “grounded”, and “distributed.”’13 If we take these arguments seriously, it forces us to rethink the relationship of underlying structure and the somatic; underlying structure as the basis of cognition thus must both play a role in bodily experiences and to a significant extent be shaped and instantiated through them.14 Scheer and other researchers have argued for a practice-based theory of emotions, and indeed the study of the practice of emotions. The interrelationship of culture and the individual is clearly expressed in four points suggested by Scheer: Emotions are: 1. Designed to function in a social context … 2. Forms of skilful engagement with the world that need not be mediated by conceptual though; 3. Scaffolded by the environment, both synchronically, and in the unfolding of a particular emotional performance, and diachronically, in the acquisition of an emotional repertoire; 4. Dynamically coupled to an environment which both influences and is influenced by the enfolding of an emotion.15

Within this context emotions become part of a structured universe. Rather than being purely bodily biological functions, which they are as well, they are also part of a wider set of social relations, both learned and experienced within a social context. They remain essentially somatic, but are no longer solely within the realm of a cultural individual experience. The work of Bourdieu, as developed by Scheer, is particularly important in our discussion. His work highlights the fact that structure (in our terms) is instantiated in action, that is, in practice.16 The structure in a sense should be seen as providing the basis for the instantiation, but in Bourdieu’s sense both the structure and the subjects exist only though social practices. Alongside structure/culture, the body and nature, as suggested above, are indispensable – all three are given being in practice – allowing both individual emotional improvisation and shared cultural understanding. Bourdieu particularly emphasises the unconscious nature of the   Alva Noë, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 10. 13   Scheer, ‘Emotions a Kind of Practice’, 197. 14   As suggested by the focus on practice theory below, Bourdieu’s rethinking of structuralism has already provided an important foundation for understanding the interface between the body and culture – through the instantiation of both in action. 15   Scheer, ‘Emotions a Kind of Practice’, 198. 16   Ibid., 202. 12

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shared patterns of behaviour and in this case emotional experience, with each instantiation being based on ‘feel’ rather than deliberate action. The practices and the process of developing skilful behaviours are learned through a process of instantiation, that is, practice, until they become largely ‘second nature’.17 As we highlight above, the significant point in Scheer’s discussion is the emphasis on bodily knowledge rather than conceptual knowledge. Scheer also raises the question of the relationship between the emotions experienced and the other elements or information being presented in the ritual context. This creates the possibility of emotions serving both to support and validate structure, or on other occasions to undermine and challenge it. In this context, dissonance or consonance may play a significant role in the politics of emotion.18 In the context of the rituals discussed here, the emotions are part of a highly structured event in which they are in general terms consonant with the structure, and expressive of power and hierarchy. They do, however, at least in the case of the use of blood, allow for a nuancing of emotion, and the creation of tension that counterbalances the normative explanation of blood in the context of the rituals. The approach suggested here therefore allows us to move beyond discussions distinguishing culturally constructed emotions and ‘real’ emotions that are individual and play no role in culture. All emotions are both culturally constructed and individual. This approach is particularly useful when analysing rituals that are essentially implicit myth. The experience of these rituals relies on the organisation of different bodily experiences, and, as suggested here, the organisation of a range of emotional experiences. The emotions and somatic experiences as embodied practices must be analysed as part of any structuralist analysis. The implications, however, take us one step further. If all cognitions are embodied, then both implicit and explicit myth are equally embodied, though utilising different cultural means. On this basis, explicit myth must also be analysed in the context of emotion practice theory, and thus the somatic must become part of the analysis rather than excluded from it, as found in most structuralist analyses. This chapter develops this argument in two stages. First, it presents an analysis of the underlying structure of the sacrificial cult in general and specifically of the Pesach sacrifices. The discussion highlights the key points of articulation of the structure. Second, it analyses the points within the practice at which the dramatic and somatic aspects are particularly salient and suggests that these are articulated with the underlying structure so as to present a particularly salient, though albeit unconscious, communication of underlying structure.

 Ibid.   Ibid., 208.

17 18

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The Structure of the Israelite Sacrificial Cult Two main structuralist analyses of sacrifice are introduced and discussed in some detail here, those of Leach and Davies.19 While both these discussions have significant problems, they highlight the traditional structuralist emphasis on the cognitive and symbolic aspects of sacrifice rather than the somatic. None the less, each of them also develops some of the key aspects of the analysis of sacrifice, particularly Davies’s arguments, which become the basis for the structuralist analysis developed here. Leach’s Analysis: Return to the Liminal The most developed structuralist analysis of biblical sacrifice is found in a short discussion by Edmund Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’.20 While Leach’s arguments have several inherent problems, particularly his emphasis on liminality, they allow us to highlight several of the key factors in biblical sacrifice as a whole. In his discussion, Leach presents two interrelated arguments, one in relation to space21 and the second relating to time.22 While the two arguments focus on different models of conceptualisation, both are ultimately based on van Gennep, utilising liminality as their key trope. While their content and conceptualisation are somewhat different, structurally they are almost identical.23 The model relating to space focuses on the   Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’; Douglas James Davies, ‘An Interpretation of Sacrifice in Leviticus’, in Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament, ed. Bernhard Lang (London: SPCK Publishing, 1985), 151–65; Lévi-Strauss only briefly touches on sacrifice in general, associating it with metonymical substitution rather than metaphorical thinking – as opposed to totemism, which is at the heart of his structuralism, in which metaphorical thinking comes to the fore. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 227. While in some cases substitution is fundamental, and indeed is a key aspect of Leach’s arguments, which are touched on below, in the case of biblical sacrifice there is little evidence of substitution. The metaphorical aspect plays a key role, with the logic relating to categories established primarily by eating and not eating. 20   Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’. 21   Ibid., 137. 22   Ibid., 138. 23   Interestingly Leach does not actually make a structuralist argument (in the terms generally and theoretically understood); rather his arguments focus on a liminal ritual process, utilising, as suggested, moves through space and time. None the less, it is possible to reconstruct the structuralist argument that underlies his discussion. If we focus on the initial diagram used to illustrate space, ibid., 137, we see an oppositional structure with positive, though perhaps limited, mediation. On this basis we can present his structure as A n B, that is two oppositional categories, with mediation being an essential part of the structure, allowing elements to move from one category to the other. The diagram and equation can be used to illustrate the second model based on time – both models, although utilising different narrative material, are structurally identical. It is interesting to note that structuralist analysis of a wider selection of biblical material suggests a different equation, 19

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relation of this world and the next, with the Tabernacle functioning as mediating space. The model relating to time, fitting closely to van Gennep, focuses on the transformation of the individual, with liminal time, within the ritual context serving as the location of transformation before the individual returns to mundane time. It is significant that Leach’s discussion of the models is initially placed in an abstract context, not specifically relating to Israelite ethnography. It suggests that either sacrifice is narratively a similar phenomenon in any cultural context, or that the structure of sacrifice is identical in any context. Both of these are problematic. The narrative level – that is, the rituals as practised within a particular time and place – must be analysed in their own terms before fitting them into a general category; and structurally, at least from a neo-structuralist perspective, different cultures develop their own nuanced structures that must be analysed in their own terms before moving to a comparative level of analysis. It is important to emphasise from the outset that Leach’s arguments both in this chapter and in other discussions of biblical myth rely on a model of transformation and movement between categories. I have demonstrated in analyses of a wide range of other biblical and rabbinic material24 that Israelite myth and social practices are based on a non-transformative structure, and that liminality, if present, is very limited.25 Leach’s models and discussions as a whole often seem to approach the material from a Christian perspective, in which transformation plays a key role; this is seen particularly in his discussions in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth26 in which he specifically uses Christian mythological material to interpret Israelite biblical texts. An important difference between Israelite and Christian underlying structure, and the narrative nature of ritualised action, which is also fundamental to understanding sacrifice, is the differential role in the two of demonstration and transformation. In Israelite/rabbinic material ritual practices usually serve the role of demonstration and validation of identity; thus pilgrimage does not transform the individual but rather provides a validation and demonstration of Israelite A – B with little or no mediation, and when mediation is present it is negative; analysis of Christian gospel texts presents a structural equation identical to the one utilised by Leach. Seth Daniel Kunin, We Think What We Eat: Structuralist Analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Mythological and Cultural Domains (London: T&T Clark, 2004). 24   Seth Daniel Kunin, The Logic of Incest: A Structuralist Analysis of Hebrew Mythology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995); Seth Daniel Kunin, God’s Place in the World (London: Cassell, 1998); Kunin, We Think What We Eat. 25   While liminality is generally problematic, the narrative level of ritual practice required humans to be able to relate to God through sacrifice, and God to relate to man via prophecy. The danger of liminality is reduced by separating these two process – and symbolising them by different mountains. Mount Zion at the heart of Israelite polity becomes the locaton for upward liminality, sacrifice. Mount Sinai, situated in the wilderness, outside of society, becomes the location for downward liminality, prophecy. 26   Edmund Leach and D. Alan Aycock, Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

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identity as a whole. In Christian contexts (as demonstrated by Turner) pilgrimage is primarily about individual transformation. It can be argued that other Catholic practices are equally about transformation of individuals from one category to another more positive category. Leach’s discussions draw primarily but not exclusively on texts relating to the consecration of the priests from Exodus and Leviticus,27 focusing on the spaces in which biblical sacrifices are performed and presenting a complex model of six different spaces each of which is characterised by differing degrees of liminality. The model also addresses the nature of sacrifice as a gift; Leach argues that the object sacrificed – that is, an animal or even a grain – is in a sense unimportant, as God/s do not need objects or presents.28 Thus the meaning of the sacrifice is inherent, he suggests, in the manner of sacrifice as an expression of submission.29 While his analysis develops a complex division of space into six levels, it can be more simply encapsulated into three. The three spaces are differentially related to the ‘other world’,30 the relationship to the other world being directly associated with a more restricted understanding of sacred place, and increasingly liminal. The most important and liminal space is zone three, which is also the location in which the rituals occur. His six levels of differentiation are difficult to sustain, as more detailed discussion of Israelite sacred place suggests that the key demarcations were directly related to social structure, with Israel divided, maximally, into four social groupings: Israel as a whole; the Levites; the Cohanim; and the High Priest. If the camp is added into Leach’s model (and the rules of purity relating to the camp suggest that this is appropriate), then his model of space maps on to a wider structuralist analysis of Israelite understanding of self and space. This mapping of space and self is significant to our arguments about sacrifice, as we suggest that sacrifice, like sacred place, is a part of a wider system of demarcating Israelite identity, with God included as part of the system of identification.

  Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’, 140–50.   Ibid., 1930. 29   It is interesting that Leach is rather emphatic about the nature of God’s or gods’ needs. He specifically states ‘Gods do not need presents from men, they require submission’, ibid., 139. This statement seems over-general, and ethnographically unsupportable outside of the Judeo-Christian context. It is likely that it is not even supportable in the context of the biblical material that Leach is analysing. While it is arguable that one level of the biblical text presents a view of God that requires no material gifts or objects, other levels seem to suggest that God does gain some benefit from sacrifices, if only in the nature of a ‘sweet savour’. A key factor of the majority of the sacrificial texts is that animals are used – these animals are a tiny subset of permitted animals and, as we shall argue below, are in some sacrifices specifically divided up into parts to be eaten by the priest and parts to be burnt, perhaps eaten in a sense by God. The act of eating seems to be an important factor in sacrifice, and we argue that it is the key to understanding the underlying structure of sacrifices as a whole. 30   Ibid., 141–2. 27 28

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The analysis, however, moves beyond the demarcation of space, suggesting that the different sacred places are increasingly liminal and set in relation to the ‘other world’. Although this may be taken in a minimal sense of moving from the mundane to the sacred, Leach’s arguments suggest an understanding of sacred geography that places God in the ‘other world’, clearly differentiated from ‘this world’. While Leach’s argument may be applicable to some rabbinic or Christian views of sacred geography, it seems anachronistic when applied to the biblical texts he is discussing, in which there is little clear or consistent support for this view. Many of the texts, instead, suggest that God in some sense either dwells or is present in the Tabernacle, thus providing the sacred centre for the camp and a definitional aspect of sacred place, without depending on the existence of another world parallel or in opposition to this world (although the concept of such a world set in opposition to this would fit well into Israelite structure). The key aspect of his discussion, however, is the association between these liminal spaces and cultic activity, with rituals being the means by which the mundane and the sacred are brought together. He argues, correctly, that each space is characterised by specific rules and practices. The problem with his argument is not with the characterisation of the spaces or the observances that occur within them – indeed on this level his point is well made, and part of the intrinsic differences between differing sacred places; it is with his assumption of liminality and ambiguity. If the sacred places and the groups/individuals empowered to act within them are examined, the ambiguity associated with liminality is absent. The places in the camp are clearly defined, with each place set in structural relation and opposition to the other places – for example, the camp is set in opposition to the world, the court of the Tabernacle in opposition to the camp. The individuals acting within the spaces are also clearly defined; thus Israel acts within the camp, the Levites within the court, the priests within the Tabernacle, and the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. On these levels the boundaries are clear and essential, with no liminality or mediation between them. The sacrificial cult and related rituals, however, appear to include liminality, with animals/sacrifices moving between the sacred places, and from the mundane to the sacred, from human to God. The analysis of the way animals are used, and who can use them or eat them, suggests that Leach overstates the liminal aspect. Animals, like places and the human actors who utilise these places, are also categorised in differing ways into clearly demarcated categories. Thus, at the widest level, sacrificable animals are a specifically demarcated category within the wider category of animals that are fit to be eaten. This sub-category includes animals (first-born) that are forbidden from consumption by Israelites, and given by definition to be sacrificed. On a narrower level, different parts of sacrificable animals have different uses, with specific parts being given to different ritual actors – with God, not in another world, but as an actor and

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consumer within this system. The practices suggest that consumption, including the consumption by God of burnt offerings, plays a major role (and is not unimportant, as suggested by Leach’s initial comments about the needs of gods, or the lack thereof) in the ritual system. Our argument below suggests that the embodied aspect of consumption, who consumes (including God) and what they consume, provides the fundamental structural and somatic impact of much of the sacrificial system. Leach presents a summary of some of the key sacrifices (the ‘Meat Offering’ [Lev. 2], the Peace Offering [Lev. 3], and the Sin Offering [Lev. 4]), and highlights elements that elaborate on his discussion of the general theory, but are not fully developed in his discussion.31 These are in addition to the Burnt Offering (Lev. 1), which was entirely consumed by fire, and was of a category of animals reserved for the Temple. In discussing the three main forms of burnt offerings (a significant point for Leach as fire is his main trope for movement between the two worlds), he briefly touches on the consumption of the animals. Thus, in the case of the Meat Offering, although no animal is ritually killed, in Leach’s understanding of the sacrifice, food is given to the priests who burn a portion of it, and the remainder is eaten solely by the priests;32 the Peace Offering, he suggests, was primarily consumed by the donor (with whom it has a metonymic relation), with specific

  Ibid., 144. His discussion is rather incomplete even in the context of the section of Leviticus on which he focuses. Thus, for example, he omits the guilt or trespass offering – which covered a range of crimes, many of which were related to becoming impure while others were infringement of rights of other Israelites. It may be that Leach elided this with the Sin offering as the text occasionally seems to bring the two together, as in 5.7. The two sacrifices, however, are distinct: the Hataat (sin offering) and the Asham (trespass or guilt offering). Equally the sin offering relates to inadvertent sins, often against God; the guilt offering often relates to trespasses against other people. The animals sacrificed and their fate is also different; the sin offering is a bull, which is burnt in its entirety – the chosen elements are burnt on the altar (Lev. 4.8–9) and the remainder is burnt outside the Temple precincts. The guilt offering in contrast was a female lamb or goat. The elements that were not burnt were given to the priest to be eaten in the holy place (Lev. 7). In line with our arguments presented below, the consuming of the animal by both the priests and God is significant – the atonement is made on behalf of the community, as the impurity endangers the community, and God and the priests consume it as there is both a human and divine element in the sin. Leach also ignores the whole set of sacrifices connected with festivals other than the Day of Atonement; the Paschal sacrifice is briefly touched on below. 32   While Leach’s general characterisation is correct, he ignores the fact that the text primarily focuses on offerings from the plant world – thus grain and other items including the first fruits, which are reserved for the Temple. 31

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portions, forbidden for consumption by Israelites, being burnt on the altar;33 the Sin offering he suggests was completely burnt.34 Although in the case of these sacrifices consumption of the animal is mentioned, who is allowed to consume, and which parts, plays little or no role in Leach’s analysis as a whole.35 Similarly he merely mentions that blood is both burnt on the altar and sprinkled on the altar and tabernacle in the context of the sacrifices, but does not analyse its implications. Blood, which was forbidden to Israelites as food, plays a very significant role in many of these sacrifices. Blood being burnt and used becomes particularly significant if God is seen as a consumer alongside the human participants; it suggests that within the category of permitted animals (and only perfect permitted animals were sacrifices) there were elements, for example blood and specific fats, that were only permitted by definition to God to consume. Leach’s discussion of the specific sacrifices within this context, as befitting his view that the sacrifice serves no intrinsic purpose for the divine, focuses specifically on the offering in which the metonymic relation between the sacrifice

  The text itself does not mention what happens to the meat that was not burnt on the altar – which would have been consumed by either the priests and/or the Israelites. In many texts (for example Ezek. 14.17) the communal meal is given particular prominence, highlighting the importance of consumption in the ritual as a whole. It is also significant to notice the type of animal – it was a perfect animal, either male or female. It was not, however, an animal that was the priests’/God’s by definition. Thus the consumption of the non-reserved part of it by Israelites is structurally consistent. It is also significant that Leach, focusing on the mechanics of sacrifice, ignores the specific nature of the Peace Offering, which in the context appears to be an offering that, while being initially an individual offering, is ultimately a communal offering, symbolised by the meal at which both God and the wider community (symbolised by the invitation to the Levite and the wider domestic unit (Deut. 12.17–18)) – but equally limited to people in a state of purity, by implication Israelites – are present. 34   The animal used in this offering was a bull without blemish, but not specifically reserved for the Temple (Lev. 4.3). It was a public or private sacrifice, relating to sins committed out of ignorance. While some texts suggest that the meat was given to the priests for consumption, Lev. 4, in contradicting Leach, clearly indicates that it was forbidden, and the bits not utilised in the ritual were burnt outside the Temple (Lev. 11–12). It is also important to note that the animal was killed by the one who was offered the sacrifice, and thus by implication the inadvertent sinner. 35   This lack of focus is found in many discussions of sacrifice, which seem to see it, as Leach does, as incidental to the process. See, e.g., Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 62. He presents two outlines of the sacrificial process, those of Anderson and Gerstenberger, neither of whom focuses on or includes consumption. Klawans, however, includes consumption within his own discussion (ibid.: 65). He also agrees with the contention expressed here, that God is one of the consumers in the sacrificial process. Interestingly, however, his discussion ignores the human actions of consumption, perhaps seeing this, as do Anderson and Gersteberger, as incidental to the sacrificial rite. 33

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and its donor, that is, the Peace Offering.36 He assumes that, in effect, the sacrifice’s donor is being symbolically sacrificed. His arguments are based on Lev. 3.2, in which the donor places his hands on the head of the sacrificial animal. Given that the cultic reason for this specific sacrifice was either thanksgiving, or represented the fulfilment of a vow, there seems to be little ethnographic support for Leach’s argument. The metonymic argument, however, is fundamental to his arguments as a whole, and plays a significant role in his interpretations of Lev. 8 and the consecration of the priests. This argument is associated with his general view that sacrifices are part of a system of transformation: if the donor stands in metonymic relation to the sacrifice, then he is symbolically killed and transformed through the process of sacrifice. If the system, as we suggest, is about demonstration rather than transformation, then the symbolism of the act, that is, the placing of the hands, must be seen in that light rather than as a transformative act. The metonymic argument is further developed in Leach’s discussion of the consecration of the priests (Lev. 8).37 As in the case of the peace offering, he argues for an association between Aaron and his sons and the animals sacrificed, seeing the process of one of transformation from non-priest to priest.38 His argument focuses on Lev. 8.22–3, suggesting that the waving of the sacrifices over the altar by Aaron and his sons suggests the aforementioned metonymic relation. This argument ignores the fact that waving of sacrifices was a common practice in the Israelite cult, and related to all manner of sacrifices, including grain, which would be difficult to fit into his argument. Given that the metonymic argument finds little ethnographic support, it provides little evidence that Aaron and sons were transformed via a symbolic death and rebirth. Instead, it seems more likely that the ritual represents a consecration into a role, and is demonstrating a status rather than transformative. Due perhaps to his focus on the transformative nature of sacrifice, either for the common Israelite in the case of the peace offering or the priests in the consecration ceremony, Leach ignores the somatic elements of the rituals. Inasmuch as he interprets the physical actions of consumption, waving, or even placing of hands, his interpretation focuses on the symbolic meaning rather than the potential physical or emotional impact. As we suggested, he also ignores the aspect of ingestion by both humans and the divine, as he sees that as incidental to the symbolic meaning of the ritual as a whole.

  Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’, 145.   While this section of his argument utilises a set of sacrifices found in Lev. 9 as part of a structured process, the process is perhaps more closely related to a rite of passage in which sacrifices are used to mark different points rather than a discussion about the sacrifices themselves. Leach focuses on the different sacrifices as a means to further his argument about transformation, that is, of Aaron and his sons into priests. 38   Leach, ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’, 146. 36 37

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It is interesting to note that Leach discusses consumption in his discussion of Lev. 10.1–7.39 The texts relate to the deaths of Nadab and Abihu. Leach argues that these deaths serve as a means by which Aaron can move from sacred time back into mundane time, in order to mediate the two for the people. He suggests that this move required something of Aaron to be sacrificed, with the sons serving in metonymic or structural relation to Aaron. The imperfect, sinning sons are sacrificed, burnt by fire, and are symbolically replaced/reborn as the perfect sons. Leach associates this text with Lev. 10.16–20, in which the newly consecrated priests do not eat the sin offering, suggesting that it was symbolically their two brothers. His arguments are problematic on many levels. His main assumption that the deaths are sacrifices, and sin offerings, finds little textual or ethnographic support. The only association of the deaths with sacrifices is that the sons are completely burnt by fire. This, however, cannot be seen as symbolic of sacrifice as it is a common biblical punishment for evil actions. Similarly the argument that they are in effect a sin offering belies the fact that sin offerings were for non-intentional sins, not for the intentional acts carried out by the brothers. The main problem relates to the transformation of imperfect to perfect. As we have suggested, transformation does not appear to be an aspect of Israelite structure, and, furthermore, the removal of imperfect elder sons is a common biblical trope, and in all other cases includes no possible aspect of transformation; indeed if death/rebirth is found it is in the perfect sons rather than the imperfect sons, and serves as a means of defining them rather than transforming them from imperfect to perfect. Thus, on the whole, Leach’s argument conforms to our expectations of a traditional structuralist analysis, almost completely ignoring the bodily aspects of the ritual. His over-emphasis on liminality and transformation also presents difficulties in the specifically Israelite ethnography. None the less, his arguments allow us to see some signigicant aspects that will play a role in any structuralist analysis: the differences between the sacrifices in terms of the fate of the animal and its consumption, and the role of humans within the sacrifice both as ritual actors and consumers. Additionally, liminality, through its association with communitas and tension, if not potential social chaos, provides an important area in which religious experience and the body come together, even if limiality is not present to the extent suggested by Leach. Many of these elements are taken up and developed in the work of Douglas Davies. Davies’s Analysis: Restoration of Social Order Douglas Davies’s chapter in the same volume provides an interesting contrast with Leach, although sharing a view of mediation. Davies’s argument is much closer to that of Mary Douglas in her discussion of Israeli purity and food rules.40 His  Ibid.   Davies, ‘Sacrifice in Leviticus’, 151–62.

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overall argument focuses on the use of various sacrifices as a means of restoring social/religious order within a covenantal context. The covenantal context is based on a number of significant relations: God–Nation, God–Priesthood, God–Israelite, Israelite–Nation.41 The significant factor of these relations, and his argument as a whole, is that both sides of the relation are significant participants – although he does not discuss the consumption of the sacrifice as such, his argument provides a basis for seeing God as well as humans as consumers in the process of rebalancing or restoring appropriate covenantal relations. Davies’s most developed arguments relate to the atonement ritual. He suggests that the ritual and its sacrifices are a means by which Israel as a whole, and the priests in particular, move from a profane state, which is set in stark opposition to the absolute purity and sacredness of God, and through the scapegoat ritual, which creates an equation of blood, the life with the covenant, the people move to a state of relative sanctity; with the priests and the sacrifices in effect serving a mediating function to allow the restoration of covenantal balance.42 While Davies’s argument shares the problematic concept of transformation and mediation with Leach, it contains a variety of elements that play a significant role in a non-transformational structuralist view of Israelite sacrifice, as well as hints at the significant role beyond the symbolic that emotions might play within the sacrificial cult as a whole. From our perspective, the main points in Davies’s argument relate to the key relations, and the potential analogies between the different relations; and that the ritual actors play different roles, that is, stand in different structural positions as we move through the ritual process. While these changes in role, for example moving from the role/status of profane to the role/status of sacred (as exemplified by Aaron in this ritual process, and equally in the consecration ceremony discussed by Leach), may be seen as transformations, within a non-transformational structure, they may also be seen as exemplifying different structural relations. Thus in one part of the ceremony Aaron and the priests stand with Israel in structural opposition to God, and are thus profane; in another part of the ritual, the Israelites are set in structural opposition to the priests and in this context the priests are holy while Israel is profane. Within the ritual as discussed by Davies, each level represents a different potentially unstable relation, which through the process of atonement is set back into proper covenantal relations. Building on this aspect of Davies’s analysis, neo-structuralist analysis of Lev. 16.1–28 suggests that the ritual process must be understood as moving through a set of structural oppositions, which through the sacrifice and rituals are instantiated and defined. The ritual moves from the least inclusive, that of the High Priest and God, to the most inclusive: all of Israel and God. The sacrifices are a dramatic exemplification of this relation, restoring or establishing the logic (and emotion) of the covenantal relation.   Ibid., 156.   Ibid., 156–8.

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The recapitulating structure of this process is described in the following equation: A(x):B(y) ≈ B(x):Y(a–1) In the beginning of the ritual A represents God, defined by the function x, which is holy or sacred. B is the High Priest, defined by the function y, which is profane (or in wider terms outside). This half of the equation represents the initial structural opposition, in which in opposition to God the High Priest is defined as profane. The second half of the equation represents the next recapitulating level of relation. In this level, B, the High Priest, is now in the structural position occupied by God in the first half of the equation. He is defined by function x. This change in position is not due to transformation; rather it relates to the category against which B is set in structural relation. In this half of the equation we are given a description of that category – that is, Y, profane defined by the function A inverted, that is the opposite or inversion of God. It is however important to emphasise that the A and B are not associated with a specific category; thus at the next level of recapitulation the category defined by Y is defined by A and the process of recapitulation continues. At the widest level the A category is filled by Israel, defined at this level as sacred/ holy and set in opposition to the nations, which are intrinsically defined as profane. It is at this level that Israel can be described as a kingdom of priests, holy in opposition to the nations, but not at lower levels of recapitulation. Sacrifice within this context thus plays a number of different roles. At one level it is a dramatic and bloody exemplification of each of the structural roles. At neither end is a sacrifice performed. Thus God makes no sacrifices; the initial sacrifice sets the priests in opposition to God. At the other level of recapitulation, the opposition between Israel and the nations, the nations make no sacrifices, as they are excluded from the system.43 If Davies is correct, and the neo-structuralist analysis confirms his suggestion, then the process of sacrifice within this ritual, on both the narrative level and the underlying structure, serves as a means of reifying order and covenant in the face of possible chaos and the breakdown of relations between human and God or between humans. Structurally, the sacrifices provide dramatic support for the maintenance or communication/reification of structural relations, which is the basis of the meaningfulness of covenantal relations. Davies’s introduction of the potential for chaos as part of the narrative level of the ritual process is significant.44 While it is problematic to discuss unstated narrative motivations and the emotions that may arise from such motivations, it seems likely that Davies is correct in his analysis. Each of the different levels within the ritual examines the relations between different covenantal partners. At   In one ritual context, Sukkot, sacrifices are made on behalf of the nations, but even in this context it remains Israel that performs the sacrifices and offers them rather than the nations, who are specifically not part of the covenant. 44   Davies, ‘Sacrifice in Leviticus’, 157. 43

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each level, the possibility that the covenant has broken down is presented; for example, the High Priest describes himself as sinning. Thus, even at the most significant level, and at each subsequent level, the possibility of chaos is presented as a reality. The ritual resolves this crisis through the act of sacrifice: a dramatic public killing and burning that brings the relations back into their ordered state. It seems likely that, at least at the level of publicly or socially accepted expression of emotion, this ritual, posing the real potential of chaos, would have evoked strongly expressed emotions, and through the emotions and their resolution through sacrifice, reify both the covenant at the narrative level, and at the same time the unconscious underlying structural relations. If, at this point, we reintroduced both Leach’s and Davies’s utilisations of van Gennep, the potential of liminality, in this case the bringing together of order and chaos within the Israelite structure, would create, at the very least, structural tension, and thus the sacrifice, rather than expressing liminality, would express its end and the return to an ordered state. In the context of the covenantal role of sacrifice, Davies provides an interesting analysis of the use of blood.45 Blood played a major role in sacrifice, both in being a ‘food’ reserved for God, and in the dramatic actions of sprinkling the blood on the horns of the altar and the door posts of the Temple or Tabernacle. Davies focuses on the definition of blood as a symbol for life, and sees it as being a material representation of the covenant, and an expression of order or structure in the terms used here. While Davies’s analysis develops one significant aspect of the symbolism of blood, it misses an additional symbolic value and the rather dramatic use of it that may be in part associated with the mixed symbolic message. While blood indeed is a symbol of life, the biblical texts suggest that this relates to blood in its proper place. When it is in the body it is clean and life giving. When, however, blood is in the wrong place, that is outside the body, it becomes potentially dangerous and for humans a source of impurity. This is seen in the case of rituals surrounding menstruation, in which blood is in the wrong place and becomes dangerous for both the woman and her community. Thus blood can be seen as simultaneously a symbol of order and disorder. Although, in the context of sacrifice, in which blood was properly a ‘food’ for God, and a key if not essential aspect of animal sacrifice, the ambiguity of the symbol would remain, leading to somatic tension, and perhaps a feeling of the tension and need for resolution that is inherent in the ritual as a whole. Sacrifice and Embodiment: The Importance of Consumption The covenantal role of sacrifice, as well as the tension and need for resolution, is also found in the other forms of animal sacrifice discussed above. In each case different forms of potential social disruption require resolution, that is, in the case of the personal sin offerings, the atonement for an inadvertent sin, and in the case of peace offerings, the reestablishment of proper social order after the  Ibid.

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fulfilment of a vow, or other similar contexts.46 Depending on the significance of the potential disorder, and perhaps the nature of the covenantal relation that has become disordered, there are different patterns of consumption. In the sin offering, at least in its most developed state, the entire animal is burnt, and thus consumed by God alone – relating perhaps to the fact that the sins atoned for are inadvertent sins, with God as the plaintiff. The peace offering, on the other hand, is consumed in a covenantal meal that explicitly includes the individual’s wider community and perhaps God as well. The tensions resolved by peace offerings are most often social, that is they involve an individual taking a vow, which might move him out of normal social relations; thus the covenantal relations that become problematic are both at the human and the divine level, with both the community and God consuming the sacrifice. The role of consumption is particularly highlighted in a sacrifice looked at by neither Leach nor Davies, that is, the Paschal sacrifice (described in Exodus 12). The eating of the Paschal lamb was a key aspect of the ritual; it was eaten communally within the family and was required to be completely consumed on that day, with any remainder being burnt. The question of who is not permitted to eat it is as significant as the eating itself. As a representation of the covenant, only those who were obligated by the commandments were permitted to eat it. Thus the uncircumcised man, including uncircumcised Israelites, as a category represents the nations that were forbidden to eat of it, as were the servant and the apostate (Exodus 12.43–5). Although this ritual did not primarily serve as a resolution of covenantal tensions, but rather as a reaffirmation of the basis of the covenant, it highlights the role of consumption as a means of defining and affirming communal/ covenantal relations as a key aspect of the sacrificial ritual process. As in the other sacrifices, blood plays an important role here. The blood of the lamb is placed on the lintel of every Israelite house, in effect mirroring the placing of blood on the lintel of the Temple. An interesting aspect of the Paschal sacrifice in the form presented in both Exodus and Leviticus is that of the sacrifices discussed: it has a significant narrativised aspect. It is closely associated with the events described in the opening chapters of Exodus, about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. This narrativised element is closely associated with a set of bodily practices that play a key role in the ritual. Thus the lamb is eaten with unleavened bread and marror or bitter herb. It is also required that the meal be eaten in haste, mirroring the haste with which the Israelites left Egypt. These bodily practices alongside the explicit narrative continue to play a significant role in the Jewish rituals on the feast of Passover.   In this context it is interesting to note that the process of cleansing the leper includes a sin offering. This suggests that the disruption posed by the leper, although communal, also included a more significant rupture between the leper and God, which required the sin offering as a means of resolution (see Lev. 14). The ritual also includes extensive use of blood, in this case to anoint the leper on his ear, hand and foot. 46

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Returning to sacrifice in general, we can now highlight a set of somatic/ emotional practices and their relation to underlying structure. The killing and burning of the sacrificial animal is clearly the focus of the ritual. As in many agrarian societies, the killing of animals is rare, and often (as biblical texts suggest) only done in a sacrificial context. Thus the public act of sacrifice itself gains impact as it becomes an occasional rather than frequent event, and one in which the animal represents economic value. This impact is further emphasised by the large set-piece ceremonies, in which hundreds if not thousands of animals would be sacrificed (witness the Passover rite discussed by Josephus mentioned above). Such an event would be punctuated by the sound of dying animals as well as the smell of blood and burning flesh. While it is hard to judge the nature of the emotional impact of such an event, it seems likely that it would be significant – bringing together sight, sound and smell alongside the killing of the animal. The emotional responses that are part of this practice may have been developed through a hierarchy of sacrificial events. Some biblical texts (particularly those that present a progression of local identities and holy places, moving towards a ‘national’ identity and holy place) suggest that the experience of sacrifice on the private or small scale may have been trained at these different levels of social engagement; initially at the home and progressing through local shrines to the national shrine or shrines. Thus, perhaps alongside the quotidian processes of eating and purity that trained emotions and body in those areas, a hierarchical process may have served the same purpose in the case of the sacrificial cult. By the time individuals were at the Temple or other shrines, their emotions were already largely automatic and part of a knowing embodied practice. The second element is the use of blood, sprinkled or thrown about, that is characteristic of most sacrifices. As indicated, blood was a double-edged symbol, which would engender mixed emotions, highlighting the tension inherent in the ceremony as a whole. The final, and perhaps most significant, element relates to the consumption of the animal. This process includes God, priests and the Israelite community as a whole. Depending on the sacrifice, different actors are allowed to consume it. This, however, does not extend beyond the covenantal boundaries; only Israel is allowed to partake. The act of eating as a social or covenantal rite allows for a very embodied representation of the covenant, and defines the different structural boundaries inherent in it – it focuses on who eats, and with whom one is allowed to eat.47 The emotions and somatic experience of eating is one that is clearly shaped. All eating is part of a structured experience, in which what is eaten and who eats it play an important role. This aspect becomes especially salient in the context of sacrifice; much of what is sacrificed is specifically forbidden from Israelite consumption. In this context it is essential to view God as a consumer within a 47   A similar embodied element is also found in the Israelite food rules in which the focus is on what one eats rather than with whom one eats; in either case the very act of eating allows for the instantiation of the underlying structure.

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structured set of consumers. At one end the nations consume food that is forbidden from Israel as being unclean; and the prohibitions surrounding it build on the emotional impact of food that is unclean and polluting. The food eaten by Israel, and the quotidian experience connected with it, trained and built up over time, provides the basis for the emotional and somatic experiences of foods, connected with sacrifices that are eaten by priests, but forbidden to the remainder of Israel, and ultimately food solely permitted to God. The role of eating and the creation of social communion cannot be understated as an emotional experience. This experience, like that of food in general, arises from a knowing bodily practice – with different rituals building up from the family and concluding with larger communal settings, which include God as a consumer. In this context it is equally important to emphasise those experiences in which humans are not allowed to consume; for example, in the case of the burnt offerings that were completely consumed, exclusion is an important emotional experience alongside inclusion. The aspect of communality associated with eating is closely connected with the experience of communitas, which in the Israelite context creates a feeling of connectedness within the community as a whole, again building up from local communities, to (at least symbolically) Israel as a whole. Again, this aspect is shaped by inclusion and exclusion, which is closely connected with underlying structural categories. God, as the sole consumer of specific items, is set in an intrinsic category against which Israel (and the rest of humanity) is set. Similarly the priests are defined by aspects of the sacrifice that are intrinsically theirs, allowing them by inclusion and exclusion to be defined, with God in opposition to the category of Israel. Finally Israel, through its right to consume parts of specific sacrifices, like the Paschal sacrifice, with the priests and God, gains a feeling of communitas and community in opposition to the world as a whole. Each category and its somatic experience is intrinsic and oppositional. As, argued above, Davies’s suggestion that sacrifice becomes a mechanism for resolving covenantal crisis allows us to bring this system of somatic experiences and structures together at both the narrative and structural levels. The different embodied experiences allow the Israelite to move from a state in which the covenant has potentially broken down, through a period of tension to the final resolution with the consumption of the animal. At each point, emotional responses to death, blood and eating punctuate and highlight the key aspects of the ritual. As an emotional practice, each of these experiences and the emotions with which they resonate are learned processes, with the emotions and somatic experiences both being shaped by and shaping the ritual process – and becoming an essential structuring principle in the knowing body. At the beginning of this chapter we suggested that explicit myth, like implicit myth that is more clearly bodily and experiential, is also essentially somatic and shapes and is shaped by emotional practices. While the somatic aspects of these practices deserve a chapter to themselves, it is important to introduce here some of their key elements. We have already begun to touch on this aspect in discussion

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of practices associated with Passover and the Paschal sacrifices. In that context, the telling of the myth is closely associated with rituals that bring different bodily elements into play, particularly eating – both of the Paschal lamb (in biblical times, though not in current practice, due to the lack of a temple and sacrificial cult in modern Judaism) and the unleavened bread and bitter herb. The bitter herb in particular, which in current practice is often horseradish, is meant to create a specific bodily response mirroring the harshness of slavery. The unleavened bread is fascinating in this respect, as it is simultaneously experienced as the poor bread of slaves and a symbol of redemption associated with the exodus – thus at different points in the ritual the narrative gives the unleavened bread a different meaning, and the eating of it engenders a different somatic response. Within modern Jewish practice, the ritual also includes both the drinking of wine, and pouring it out (nine drops of wine are removed in connection with the plagues visited upon Egypt). Thus both drinking and not drinking shape the experience of the ritual. While most myths in the Israelite or other ethnographic contexts are not as specifically associated with practices that engage the body in this way, it is essential to understand that in many societies myths are part of experiential culture, they are told rather than read, experienced rather than merely thought. The act of telling and the shared modes of listening and responding play to different bodily responses and are as clearly emotional practices. The range of such practices of telling and listening is very wide, and includes acting out physically, utilising different voices or registers, evoking verbal/non-verbal responses in the audience, and utilising different means of building and releasing tension. Poetry or songs may also be used to punctuate the telling of the narrative. In this sense the structure of myth, and the narrative experience of hearing a myth, are clearly implicated by the trained socially constructed emotional practices of the community – it is possible that these emotional practices are equally important as the cognitive practices through which underlying structure is unconsciously instantiated. Conclusions: Emotion as a Key Structuralist Element In this chapter we have begun to explore the relationship between underlying structure and emotion. A key aspect of our discussion is that emotions are not purely individual and biological, but grow out of a complex interrelationship of the body, the community and the world. Although we are not suggesting that the individual be entirely removed from emotional experience, the significant element for our argument is that emotion arises in an almost dialectical way between the different levels, in which the individual always exists in the interaction between the body, culture and world. Within this theoretical framework, emotions are both trained and shared, and in this sense can become significant parts of shared religious somatic experience – and become significant or primary means through which underlying structure can be instantiated and validated. We introduced an extended discussion of sacrifice, and a structuralist analysis of it, to highlight

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the fact that implicit myth, whether specifically narrativised or not, is a highly structured object in the same way as explicit myth. We then touched on some of the significant actions and experiences of sacrifice to highlight their somatic and emotional impact. Our discussion also highlighted some of the processes through which the body becomes trained within a set of emotional practices through which sacrifice is both experienced and given meaning, and indeed becomes through experience and feeling a highly structured practice. The discussion concluded by briefly touching on the practices relating to explicit myth, suggesting that it too is essentially a bodily practice, in which the cognitive works alongside the somatic. In this sense the two forms of myth can be brought together. In implicit myth the embodied aspect is given prominence, but must through its instantiation of structure also be a cognitive act. In explicit myth, in which language appears to be the primary trope, giving prominence to the cognitive, the bodily practices of telling and hearing provide an essential element that works alongside and shapes the experience and the structuring of the myth. References Damasio, Antonio R. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. Orlando: Harcourt, 2003. Davies, Douglas James. ‘An Interpretation of Sacrifice in Leviticus’. In Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament, edited by Bernhard Lang, 151–65. London: SPCK Publishing, 1985. Klawans, Jonathan. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Kunin, Seth Daniel. God’s Place in the World. London: Cassell, 1998. Kunin, Seth Daniel. The Logic of Incest: A Structuralist Analysis of Hebrew Mythology. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Kunin, Seth Daniel. We Think What We Eat: Structuralist Analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Mythological and Cultural Domains. London: T&T Clark, 2004. Leach, Edmund. ‘The Logic of Sacrifice’. In Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament, edited by Bernhard Lang, 136–50. London: SPCK Publishing, 1985. Leach, Edmund, and D. Alan Aycock. Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Naked Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Noë, Alva. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.

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Reddy, William M. The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Sanders, E.P. Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE. London: SCM, 1992. Scheer, Monique. ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and Is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion’. History and Theory 51, no. 2, March (2012): 193–220.

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Chapter 11

Death, Emotion and Digital Media Tim Hutchings

Introduction: Mediating Grief Death and bereavement are particularly interesting areas of study during times of cultural change, life events during which we may expect to see new practices and ideas embraced or resisted. This chapter focuses on the significance of digital media in contemporary bereavement practices, activities that traditionally have involved much attention to the management and expression of emotion. I will examine a range of practices – including funerals in online communities, newssharing, cybermemorials and the use of social network sites – to investigate some of the ways in which ‘emotional repertoires’1 are being preserved and transformed as digital media take on increasingly central roles in our daily lives. Death and Emotion Emotions, according to Davies, are ‘socially named feelings’.2 Groups organise feelings into categories, and mapping these categories offers ‘an important means of understanding how [the group] views the world and directs its members in their approach to their environment’. These categories constitute the ‘emotional repertoire’ of the group. Each individual develops their own personal repertoire, in greater or lesser alignment with the shared repertoire of the group. The socialisation of new members of a group partly involves learning which elements of the group’s emotional repertoire to perform in a given context. The emotional structure of a group focuses particularly around that group’s core values, and relating closely to those values and their associated emotions is one factor that leads to a strong sense of group identity.3 Socialisation, of course, is rarely completely successful: different individuals will internalise group expectations to different degrees, just as they feel different degrees of identification. Death threatens the community with dissolution, ending the participation of a group member and terminating relationships. Relationships with important others provide us with security, meaning and hope, and play a crucial role in generating   Douglas James Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 2. 2   Ibid., 16. 3   Ibid., 18. 1

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our sense of identity.4 Bereavement for many individuals is experienced as a personal loss that provokes intense feelings of grief, undermines any sense of meaning in life and leaves the bereaved at least temporarily unable to continue their participation in everyday activities. This threat must be overcome if the bereaved are to remain active contributors to the group, and multiple public and private practices therefore emerge at times of bereavement to manage and control the grieving process. The role of emotions and values in generating identity is intensified at moments of ritual. Communal worship is an example of this kind of ‘rite of intensification’, repeated regularly in most religious traditions to reinforce associations between group values, emotions, ideas and membership. Storytelling can also function in this way, generating narratives and ‘paradigmatic scenes’ that ‘compress complex ideas into easily remembered storylines and poignant symbolic motifs that become a paradigm, a model of and for that worldview’.5 Sharing these narratives encourages group members to frame their own personal stories within the worldview, value system and emotional repertoire of the group. Unsurprisingly, therefore, communities turn to ritual and storytelling at times of bereavement to reassert their shared values and manage the danger posed by grief. The emotional repertoire of the group plays a crucial role here, instructing members in the appropriate patterns of speech, dress and activity that must be upheld during times of bereavement, in what contexts they must be deployed and how long they should be maintained. Some feelings and expressions are validated and others marginalised or censored. Theories of Technology, Culture and Change Heidi Campbell’s recent work on the ‘religious social shaping of technology’6 suggests that we should expect a considerable degree of continuity in these emotion management systems as grief moves online. Campbell’s research demonstrates that the material form, social status and uses of new devices and services is not predetermined. Form and function are established iteratively over time, in dialogue between designers, manufacturers, marketers, consumers, interest groups, governments and other stakeholders. Consumers frame technologies within discourses of appropriate use, demand modifications, and in some cases reject them altogether. To be successful, a new technology must be accepted by users, and that means it mustn’t appear to threaten their values. Religious groups play a distinctive role in this shaping process, according to Campbell, because their evaluation of new technologies relies not only on perceptions of practical value and social impact but also on their compatibility with a religious tradition. Religious communities turn to their sacred texts and their   Ibid., 97.   Ibid., 42. 6   Heidi Campbell, When Religion Meets New Media (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010). 4 5

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history of technology use to help them evaluate new technologies. Just like other consumer groups, religious communities have sometimes pressured producers to create new devices that are better suited to their needs. In other cases, religious groups have relied on their traditions to help develop conversations about how to use technology effectively and safely. If we apply Campbell’s approach to the case of bereavement, it appears that the most successful new technologies will be those that support rather than transform common modes of grieving. The bereaved and the organisations that cater to them will make use of digital media in ways that are consistent with their values, including the range of emotional expression they consider appropriate to mourning. Communities validate particular feelings and displays of feeling during times of mourning, and they will find ways to use new technology within the same distinctive emotional repertoires. The concept of ‘media logic’ suggests an alternative possibility. In the late 1970s, David Altheide and Robert Snow suggested that the institutions of American society, including politics, sport and religion, were being transformed by their immersion in media culture.7 Communicators had changed the content, style and emotional tone of their messages and their definition of communication success to meet the demands of the media they were using. Organisations wishing to communicate with television audiences, for example, were forced to provide continual visual interest, to focus on entertainment, to employ large departments devoted to excellence in television production and to pursue the quantified measure of success generated by the ratings systems. Events or discourses that could not meet these requirements ceased to be televised. Stig Hjarvard has recently revitalised the idea of ‘media logic’ as a core component of his concept of ‘mediatisation’, a process of societal change driven by the adoption of media logic by institutions.8 According to Hjarvard, mediatisation has affected religion on three levels. The media now produce and circulate religious information and experiences; religious themes are appropriated and remoulded into content for the media’s own storytelling; and the media have become an environment that performs certain functions previously taken on by religion. Through these processes, ‘the institutional, aesthetic and technological characteristics of the media influence the framing of religion and the ways that audiences and users are supposed to interact with religion’.9 Altheide and Snow and Hjarvard all focus on print and broadcast media, where control over the means of production and circulation is tightly centralised and regulated, but their arguments can also be applied to the more fluid, grassroots communications supported by digital media. Even online, communication must

  David L. Altheide and Robert P. Snow, Media Logic (London: Sage, 1979).   Stig Hjarvard, ‘The Mediatisation of Religion: Theorising Religion, Media and Social Change’, Culture & Religion 12, no. 2 (2011): 119–35. 9   Ibid., 126. 7 8

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meet audience expectations, adapt to software and hardware limitations and comply with the requirements of companies that own software, sites and data. The idea of ‘media logic’ suggests that the agency of consumers and communicators may be more restricted than Campbell’s model suggests. Religious communities do have some power to shape the technologies they use, but that power is limited by institutional systems of media production and distribution, and by the expectations of audiences. The media can even serve as competitors, developing their own content with spiritual or supernatural themes – a phenomenon Hjarvard refers to as ‘banal religion’.10 If we apply this approach to bereavement, we can expect to see considerable transformations in grief practices and communication. Groups must look for ways to adapt their emotional repertoires to meet the requirements of new media logics. This chapter will examine the significance of these contrasting approaches for our understanding of the role of emotions in contemporary mediations of death and mourning. Individuals, communities and organisations are reshaping digital media to find support and express their bereavement, but the patterns of contemporary grief are shifting under the influence of digital media logic. I will explore this double theme through three case studies, examining online funerals, online cemeteries and the role of social network sites, before concluding with a discussion of the degree to which these mediated phenomena may be changing the emotional repertoires and spiritual imagination of contemporary communities. Digital Media in Everyday Life: Dying, Funerals, Obituaries and Memorials Communications media play an important role in almost every network in contemporary society, including friendship groups, businesses, churches and families. Letters, telephone calls, text messages, emails and Facebook updates are all deployed to manage relationships, helping to maintain ties and organise shared activities. Media have also been absorbed into practices of bereavement and mourning, functioning alongside organised events and informal face-to-face interactions. As digital media are integrated into networks and communities, a new set of mediated grief practices has emerged to meet specific needs and complement older media and face-to-face interactions. This section will illustrate some of these new practices, covering the dying process, the obituary, the funeral and post-mortem memorials. Technology can connect a dying person to friends, family and online audiences, helping to share information and access emotional support. Elizabeth Drescher has published an account of the death of one of her students, Kirstin, and argues that ‘the practice of blogging … can be one of integration, both personal and social, overcoming the separation and isolation that previously characterized the   Ibid., 128.

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existences of the sick and dying’.11 Following her diagnosis of cancer, Kirstin used her blog for two years to share a mixture of everyday details, spiritual reflections, health updates and prayer requests. Kirstin also used Facebook in the same way, and ‘friends across the country and around the world’ responded by offering ‘prayers, good wishes, inspirational photographs, videos, music, and so on’.12 When Kirstin announced her decision to stop chemotherapy and move to a hospice, ‘the Facebook wall became something of a sanctuary, a vigil site’ of constant prayer and mutual support – ‘members of her community engaged not only Kirstin herself, but each other, forming a network of care that, to a large extent, continued to extend support after her death’.13 At the very end of Kirstin’s life, a close friend took over the duty of publishing updates and communicating messages to her, acting as the intermediary between Kirstin and her online audience. ‘The prayers meant so much to her,’ the friend explained to Drescher. ‘Kirstin knew she is not alone … It was like the whole cloud of witnesses was with us both at the end of her life.’14 A similar story is told by Jane Moore, without this Christian theological framing. In Moore’s autobiographical case study, she and her two sisters set up a blog to share information with their family after their mother entered hospital. This family also used Skype extensively to allow the dying woman to spend time with her children and grandchildren across the country. Moore ‘sat with her using Skype to be present at her death’, and praises the opportunity ‘to “be there”, to say those important words, and to feel connected at the end of life’.15 Digital media have also led to resurgence of one much older form of bereavement practice. Many Victorian families commissioned photographs of their dead, particularly children, dressed and posed as if they were merely asleep. A number of hospitals and voluntary organisations now offer a contemporary version of this service to families after still-births or infant deaths. Where necessary, Photoshop is used to remove all visible traces of medical intervention, to ‘document what would previously have been impossible to show and create a sanitized view of a traumatic reality’.16 Another traditional bereavement role for communications technology is the sharing of news. Death announcements and obituaries are published in newspapers 11   Elizabeth Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine: The Mediation of Illness, Dying, and Death in the Digital Age’, CrossCurrents 62, no. 2 (2012): 212. 12   Ibid., 214. 13   Ibid., 215. 14  Ibid. 15   Jane Moore, ‘Being There: Technology at the End of Life’, in Dying, Death, and Grief in An Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, ed. Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit and Kathleen R Gilbert (New York: Springer, 2012), 82. 16   Angela Riechers, ‘Eternal Recall: Memorial Photos in the Digital Environment’ (presented at the Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Atlanta, 2010), dgp.toronto. edu/~mikem/hcieol/#papers, paper 1.

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and featured on television and radio, often including accounts of the emotional reactions of families, friends and the public. Media logic is clearly apparent here in the difference of speed and depth of coverage observable between technologies, programme genres and channels, and in the kinds of unspoken information that an audience accustomed to death news can infer beyond what is explicitly stated. Digital media affect news sharing in three important ways. News can spread extremely quickly online: anyone can publish it; and audiences can add their own responses. When Michael Jackson died in 2009, worldwide eagerness for information caused such a spike in traffic to news websites that CNN later ran the headline ‘Jackson Dies, Almost Takes Internet with Him’.17 Fans took to social media to share their grief, forming temporary communities of mourning where their emotions could be validated.18,19 Communication technology also played a role in the funeral event. Jackson’s death was marked by a memorial service attended by 17,000 fans, many of whom used Twitter to publish their own running commentary. Whitney Houston’s funeral was broadcast on the Internet, just as state funerals are broadcast on television,20 and webcasts are now offered as an extra service by a number of funeral organisers.21 As Brian de Vries and Susan Moldaw point out, webcasting could be a valuable service in a world of international mobility: ‘as families and social networks become more geographically dispersed and find it harder to travel to the location of a funeral, webcasting allows everyone to participate’.22 Online memorials offer a more permanent online space for the bereaved to express and manage their grief, and – like webcasts – can be accessed even by mourners unable to visit the physical grave. A considerable number of websites – muchloved.com, gonetoosoon.org, last-memories.com – now function as cemeteries and multi-media books of remembrance. Memorial-builders are 17   Linnie Rawlinson and Nick Hunt, ‘Jackson Dies, Almost Takes Internet with Him’, CNNTech, 26 June 2009, http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-26/tech/michael.jackson.internet. 18   Tim Hutchings, ‘Wiring Death: Dying, Grieving and Remembering on the Internet’,in Emotion, Identity, and Death: Mortality Across Disciplines, ed. Douglas James Davies and Chang-Won Park (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 43–58. 19   Jimmy Sanderson and Pauline Hope Cheong, ‘Tweeting Prayers and Communicating Grief Over Michael Jackson Online’, Bulletin of Science Technology and Society 30 (2010): 328–40. 20   KABC-TV, ‘Whitney Houston’s Friends, Family Say Goodbye’, 18 February 2012, http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=8549082. 21   Kathleen Gilbert and Michael Massimi, ‘From Digital Divide to Digital Immortality: Thanatechnology at the Turn of the 21st Century’, in Dying, Death, and Grief in An Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, ed. Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit and Kathleen R Gilbert (New York: Springer, 2012), 20. 22   Brian de Vries and Susan Moldaw, ‘Virtual Memorials and Cyber Funerals: Contemporary Expressions of Ageless Experiences’, in Dying, Death, and Grief in An Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, ed. Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit and Kathleen R Gilbert (New York: Springer, 2012), 142.

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encouraged to use these sites to publish a collection of different media forms – video, music, photographs, poetry – and visitors are invited to add their own responses. Small ritual acts may also be offered, including the chance to light digital candles and leave virtual flowers. Pamela Roberts has surveyed creators of memorial pages and reports that most visited frequently, updating each time.23 Almost all had told someone else about the memorial, and most had sat beside another person to guide them through the site. Online memorials also offer an opportunity to connect to a wider audience with similar experiences. Some visitors are close friends and family, but Roberts’s research found that almost half of all comments on cemetery memorial books were written by strangers. This can be particularly important for individuals dealing with specific forms of grief, helping them to contact others who have shared experiences that offline friendship networks might be unable or unwilling to respond to. Tom Golden, founder of Web Healing, quotes one memorial creator’s description of a visit: It was a very special feeling. I felt as if I was entering a sanctuary. I’ve read the other stories before, often bursting into tears, feeling their grief and loss reflected in my own. Now reading about my experience with my own words, I feel affinity to a group of people scattered all over the world, linked by the common human experience of the loss of someone related to them with bonds stronger than death.24

Of course, not every encounter with an online memorial is so emotionally uplifting. Stefan Egglestone has written a moving account of his own experience with the memorial page of a memorial created for a close friend. He browsed the site almost every day, reading the messages uploaded by others, but couldn’t bring himself to write, handicapped partly by a concern that he did not have the right to express his feelings publicly. Eventually, he forced himself to add a message, justifying this as a sign of support for the family and a way to affirm his own place within his friendship network. Egglestone was able to return to the memorial years later to re-read those messages, an ‘intense emotional experience’ that ‘allowed me to connect to emotions that had been buried during a difficult time and to release them a process which helped my mental state considerably’.25

23   Pamela Roberts, ‘From My Space to Our Space: The Functions of Web Memorials in Bereavement’, The Forum 32, no. 4 (2006): 1–4. 24   Tom Golden, ‘Healing and the Internet’, The Forum 32, no. 4 (2006): 8. 25   Stefan Rennick Egglestone, ‘Online Memorials: a Personal Experience’ (presented at the Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Atlanta, 2010), available online from dgp. toronto.edu/~mikem/hcieol/#papers.

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Death and Grief in Online Communities Web memorials serve a dual function, addressing both close friends and unknown strangers. Memorials also appear among communities whose primary interaction occurs online, and here – just as in local communities – periods of bereavement are marked by efforts to reassert community values, manage the expression of emotion and construct an accepted memorial narrative of the life and character of the deceased. Because of this, death played a distinctive role among early studies of online communities, including online religion. The emotions expressed and events organised by community members in response to the death of a friend are cited by a number of writers as evidence that the online network really is a ‘community’, a network of relationships that matter – perhaps more so than the relationships formed by the deceased offline. For David Lochhead, for example, it was the impressive online funeral service organised by a Presbyterian group after the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986 that ‘demonstrated the power of the computer medium to unite a community in a time of crisis beyond the limits of geography or denomination’.26 I shall illustrate this theme here with four examples, each demonstrating the power of bereavement to crystallise key themes and tensions in the culture of an online community. Between 2006 and 2010, I conducted an ethnographic study of an ‘online church’ called St Pixels. St Pixels was founded in 2004, with a grant from the Methodist Church, and grew into a community of regular participants that exists to this day. The strength of the connections formed between members has been crucial to the durability of the church, and we see this strength revealed with particular clarity at times of bereavement. Mark Howe, one of St Pixels leaders, has written an account of the events that followed the death of a member he calls T: T was a regular participant in St Pixels … Then, suddenly, T stopped logging in. One of our members managed to piece together the story from local newspaper reports. T had been injured in an accident and died of complications a few weeks later. His funeral had been conducted by a minister he had never met. Another member contacted the family, who were unaware of T’s involvement in St Pixels, and asked if they would be happy for the community to hold a virtual memorial service. The family agreed, and registered on the website in order to attend. One Saturday evening, T’s virtual friends gathered in the sanctuary to share their stories about T and to pay their last respects.27

  David Lochhead, Shifting Realities: Information Technology and the Church (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1997), 52. 27   Mark Howe, Online Church? First Steps Towards Virtual Incarnation (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2007). 26

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In this tale, we see a barrier between T’s online and offline relationships broken down by bereavement. T himself apparently had no desire to introduce his family to his online activities, but after his disappearance his online friends used information he had revealed to find out what had happened and contact his family. T’s online funeral brought his online friends together with some of his family in a memorial event that – at least for Howe – was a much more appropriate commemoration than T’s physical funeral. In this case, T’s family appear to have responded well to this unexpected overture from the Internet. A second example of St Pixels bereavement service shows a different kind of relationship between online and offline worlds. S, unlike T, was open with his family about his online churchgoing. S was an elderly man, unable to attend a local church, and he and his wife both relied on radio and later on Internet ministry to participate in Christian worship. When S entered his final illness, his family took the initiative and contacted St Pixels with regular updates, which became the focus for community prayers at St Pixels over several weeks. When S died, St Pixels began a memorial thread that eventually amassed more than 200 responses. Almost all of these messages were addressed to S in person, sharing memories, praising his character or looking forward to a future reunion. Other messages expressed support for S’s family, who joined the community in person to respond to these messages and attended the online funeral. My third example is rather different. When C joined St Pixels, she explained to the community that she suffered from autism and had been cruelly treated by insensitive churches in the past. Community members befriended her, sympathised, supported her through times of crisis, and offered help by telephone with difficult tasks. The community was devastated when C revealed that she had been diagnosed with cancer, and began to offer prayers and emotional support as her condition worsened. Some of C’s friends and family now joined St Pixels, offering their own perspectives on her health struggles. But unlike T and S, C had a secret: she was inventing her entire story, and had done so before. Community leaders recognised curious similarities between tales of cancer sufferers on different Christian websites, tried to corroborate some of the details she mentioned, and eventually concluded that C was a hoax – and that her ‘friends and family’ were all hoaxes, too. The St Pixels community was, unsurprisingly, devastated. Their trust had been betrayed, and in an online community where communication relies entirely on words, trust is the only thing that allows participants to invest their emotions in meaningful relationships. Even when the details of a death are authentic, bereavement can lead to emotional chaos. One of the best-known events in the history of the online game World of Warcraft was a funeral, a disastrous collision of expectations that sparked a discussion that is ongoing.28 When the Warcraft player Fayejin died in 2006, her in-world friends announced a simple memorial event, to be held at her favourite 28   Tyler Nagata, ‘The WoW Funeral Raid – Four Years Later’, GamesRadar, 5 March 2010, http://www.gamesradar.com/the-wow-funeral-raid-four-years-later/.

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place in the game.29 Their announcement was spotted by members of a rival guild, who staged an ambush at the funeral, videoed the massacre and edited their recording to a soundtrack.30 Immediately after the event, angry mourners turned to Fayejin’s memorial thread to express their fury, and the most striking of these comments were quickly added to the ambush video as trophies demonstrating the visceral response the perpetrators had provoked. The most-viewed upload of the Fayejin funeral video has now amassed 5.5 million views and 45,000 comments, and – most surprisingly – new comments are still added every day to debate the merits of the funeral and the raid. These bereavement stories are worth noting on two levels. First, death features here as a moment at which community values and concerns are expressed with particular clarity. Each of these stories has been told and retold by the communities involved, functioning as a ‘paradigmatic scene’ demonstrating particular articulations of values and concerns. In these tales, deep emotional bonds are revealed, community members act with creativity and imagination, and online community promises to overcome offline disconnection. Tensions over appropriate forms of authenticity, deception and play are highlighted and discussed through narrative. Second, these tales also show some of the ways in which an online community can adapt its portfolio of communication options to respond to death in a way that refers to familiar offline traditions. St Pixels published a kind of obituary for T and for S, created forum threads that functioned like books of remembrance, and organised funeral services with key roles for the family. All of these layers focused closely on one of the core values of St Pixels – community – encouraging participants to share their memories of T and S as active community participants and keeping memorial activity within the community. Fayejin’s funeral was more unusual: a memorial thread did develop on the Warcraft forum, but her friends also organised a kind of procession in-world. We can see these game events as contemporary rituals, developed by groups with no connection to organised religion, but at least some elements have offline parallels. Death and Social Media Social networking sites like Facebook generate a rather different kind of community, based primarily – not exclusively – on connections formed offline. Just like the communities of St Pixels and World of Warcraft, Facebook networks have proven reluctant to let their friends disappear on death without some kind of memorial within their shared digital space. Users build up networks of contacts,   Yanoa, ‘Memorial to Fayejin’, Illidrama Forum Thread, 3 March 2006, http:// forums.illidrama.com/showthread.php?1826-Memorial-to-Fayejin. 30   ‘Serenity Now’, Serenity Now Bombs a World of Warcraft Funeral, n.d., http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHJVolaC8pw. 29

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assemble collections of their favourite images, videos and music, and publish regular updates about their thoughts and activities. When a user dies, this collage of tastes and experiences remains online, available for friends and family to continue to interact with – a ready-made memorial webpage. The styles of mourning that have been observed on social network sites combine elements of all the digital media themes we have examined so far, but some researchers have also detected indications here of some distinctive areas of social transformation. In Elizabeth Drescher’s account of the death of Kirstin Paisley, Facebook acts as a space for multiple forms of bereavement communication. Kirstin keeps her audience updated on her condition, then passes responsibility for the task to a friend. Her audience post prayers, messages of support and comments on her progress to her wall, generating a community that continues to interact through Kirstin’s Facebook page years after she died. Drescher suggests that Facebook’s role shifts over time, moving from one genre of bereavement talk to another, operating as a social network, then a vigil site, then a space for grief akin to a roadside memorial, and finally becoming an enduring online memorial.31 Drescher refers to this online presence as Kirstin’s ‘eternal digital body’,32 but we should not overstate the novelty of this phenomenon. The digital creations that survive us are the latest additions to the physical collections of clothing, handwritten notes and other belongings that make up our more traditional legacies – raising new problems, incidentally, for inheritance lawyers. It is common for memories of the dead to be triggered by unexpected encounters with familiar objects, smells, music, activities and places. Now we are also haunted by old emails, wall posts, and phone numbers that remain in our digital address books. One aspect of our digital legacies is worth noting. Unlike physical possessions, digital systems can be triggered by automated processes, confronting us with memories in a manner that some can find highly disconcerting. Facebook changed its policy toward the dead in 2009,33 when bereaved users began complaining that they had received messages inviting them to get back in touch with their dead friends. Not everyone objected: for some, this kind of serendipity is a muchvalued reminder of a friendship, and possibly even a sign that the deceased is trying to communicate. ‘I love that you are so often at the top of my friends list’, wrote one student observed by Drescher. ‘I smile every time. I know that you are keeping tabs on me.’34 Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, explores the eeriness of digital communication in her new book of short stories.35 In ‘Would You Like To   Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 215.   Ibid., 216. 33   Max Kelly, ‘Memories of Friends Departed Endure on Facebook’, The Facebook Blog, 26 October 2009, https://www.facebook.com/blog/blog.php?post=163091042130. 34   Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 216. 35   Joanne Harris, ‘Would You Like To Reconnect?’, in A Cat, A Hat, and a Piece of String (London: Doubleday, 2012), 60–69. 31 32

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Reconnect?’, a mother keeps in touch with her son through Twitter, hears the news of his death by tweet, refuses to unsubscribe from the automated emails she still receives from his account – and then replies to one of those emails, and receives a cryptic message in response. Elements of the story recall the Victorian ghost tales of M.R. James, who was also fascinated by themes of obsession, seclusion, memory and haunted technology. Many forms of digital mourning raise issues around ownership and enfranchisement, and Facebook and MySpace are no different. The openness of online media to public editing can challenge the right of traditional memorial gatekeepers to own and manage the memory of the deceased. When an individual dies, their funeral service and physical gravesite are likely to be designed and controlled by their close family, but their Facebook or MySpace profiles are open to any friend or contact who wishes to share memories and express their emotions. This possibility may be particularly valued by children and teenagers mourning their schoolfriends. Children and teens might be expected to be less familiar with traditional funeral routines, disconnected from the funeral organisation process, potentially motivated to dispute the narratives of the deceased’s life memorialised by parents, and very comfortable with social media as a communication environment. Surveying 200 MySpace profiles of dead users, Brian Carroll and Katie Landry identified five categories of messages, all seeking to construct a narrative of the life of the dead that unites all mourners into a bereaved community while according a prominent role to their authors. Most frequently, messages acted as visible public symbols of grief. Others expressed admiration for the dead, petitioned the dead for help, or retold a narrative featuring the author in a key role, and the final category includes messages that used MySpace as ‘a surface on which to write of the values, beliefs and meaning of the deceased’.36 Of course, the memorial page itself is only the most concentrated point in a much wider network of expressions of bereavement. A complete analysis of responses would need to attend also to the profiles of friends and family, who may change their own profile photos and status updates to express their grief and reaffirm their connection to the deceased. Carroll and Landry attempted to collect data regarding these practices through a survey of students, but direct access to all of these expressions would be extremely difficult to achieve. We can observe, at least, that social network sites include multiple surfaces for constructing and contesting memories of the deceased, owned by different individuals and visible to different audiences. Carroll and Landry’s third category – petition – is particularly interesting for scholars of religion. Similar phenomena have been observed across many online media during times of bereavement. In my own study of St Pixels, I found that the majority of postings to the memorial threads created for S and T were messages 36   Brian Carroll and Katie Landry, ‘Logging on and Letting Out: Using Online Social Networks to Grieve and to Mourn’, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 30, no. 5 (2010): 345.

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written for the dead to read. On memorial sites, according to Kylie Veale, ‘the living speak to the dead as if they were still alive’, turning each memorial into ‘a “living” social presence for the deceased’.37 Elizabeth Drescher reports that Kirstin’s friends used Facebook as a direct connection to her after her death was announced, ‘continuing to speak directly to Kirstin as she moved – their prayers expressing a shared theology – from this life to the next’.38 Jed Brubaker and Gillian Hayes have surveyed more than 1,300 MySpace profiles, looking to chart the trajectory of comments over time.39 Almost every message was addressed to the dead profile owner, and in some cases individuals who did not follow this convention were reprimanded by others. Frequency of postings peaked over the first 10 days after the death, primarily expressing shock; after this period, comments shifted to include more details of everyday life. Further spikes in posting occurred in subsequent years, on the dead user’s birthday, the anniversary of their death and major public holidays. For Brubaker and Hayes, the practice of addressing comments to the dead demonstrates the importance of social network sites as ‘a platform through which the deceased continue to play a role in the practices of the living’.40 There is a form of ‘technospirituality’ at work here, Brubaker has argued in collaboration with Janet Vertesi. ‘Just because users are dead does not mean they are not watching … present in the center of the action, continuously and spiritually involved in the lives of their friends.’41 Brubaker and Vertesi discern a consistent view of the afterlife in MySpace comments, ‘a symmetry wherein the dead are assumed to still be active “in heaven” and continuing to amass experiences’. Friends post regular updates about their everyday lives, in some cases asking the dead questions about their afterlife. One comment reveals a multi-layered relationship with the dead, involving physical cemetery visits and mobile phones as well as MySpace: ‘How was your Christmas? Mine was ok … got clothes and stuff what about you?? I’m going to see you tomorrow! Did u get my text message?’42

37   Kylie Veale, ‘Online Memorialisation: The Web as a Collective Memorial Landscape for Remembering the Dead’, Fibreculture 3 (2004): FCJ-014. 38   Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 215. 39   Jed Brubaker and Gillian Hayes, ‘”We Will Never Forget You [online]”: An Empirical Investigation of Post-mortem MySpace Comments’, in Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (Guangzhou: ACM, 2011): 123–32. 40   Ibid., 129. 41   Jed Brubaker and Janet Vertesi, ‘Death and the Social Network’ (dgp.toronto. edu/~mikem/hcieol/#papers, paper 3, presented at the Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Atlanta, 2010). 42   Ibid., 3.

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Analysis: What’s New about Digital Bereavement? As digital media become integrated into the activities and networks of everyday life, we should expect to see bereavement becoming increasingly mediated through digital technologies. This chapter has surveyed some of the major areas in which this shift is taking place. Digital media can help the dying and the bereaved to locate information, express grief and maintain connections, including connections to the dead. In this final section, we return to our initial discussion of emotion and technological change. Do these new developments actually reflect any important shift in how bereavement is experienced and performed? More specifically, do these digital forms of bereavement reflect any shift in how emotions of grief are felt and expressed? Death in Everyday Life A number of scholars have suggested that digital mourning breaks with the social and emotional norms of recent Western society. According to Carroll and Landry, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a shift toward carefully planned memorial events in which emotional display must be minimised, and then more recently toward informal vernacular memorials.43 Drescher emphasises ‘the silence and social isolation of the sick and dying’ in hospitals away from the flow of everyday life.44 All three authors see online memorials as the harbingers of a major shift beyond these trends toward a more connected, emotionally expressive, self-directed way of dying and grieving. For Carroll and Landry, digital media represent a ‘model of grieving’ that is ‘closer to many non-Western models’, in which ‘the deceased are remembered and included in the daily activities of the ongoing lives of their survivors’.45 For Drescher, ‘new media have made illness, dying, and death significantly more visible to those affected directly and indirectly as well as to the public more generally. The regular narration of illness, dying, death, and bereavement in social media sites has removed, at least at a very basic physical and psychological level, much of the mystery surrounding the end of life.’46 This integration of life and death is only one of the new styles of mourning identified by scholars of digital media. As noted above, school friends, online communities, fans of celebrities and complete strangers who feel connected through a similar bereavement experience can all plan, contribute to and engage with their own digital memorials, potentially contesting the right of the family to determine how the deceased is remembered. Categories of grief that are not understood or respected by local support networks can be expressed digitally.     45   46   43 44

Carroll and Landry, ‘Logging on and Letting Out’, 343. Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 209. Carroll and Landry, ‘Logging on and Letting Out’, 343. Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 209.

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At Rainbows Bridge, for example, online memorials can be created for pets, connecting bereaved owners and allowing them to express emotions of loss and hopes for future reunion that might not be sanctioned elsewhere.47 Individuals mourning specific kinds of loss – infant death, death by suicide, loss of a parent – may find online grief communities much more attuned to their emotions and needs than offline friends and family.48 Carroll and Landry also argue that the expected narrative of mourning has changed over time, and suggest that digital media can help mourners to craft their own alternative trajectories.49 The ritualised styles and periods of mourning dress and behaviour prevalent in the Victorian period have been replaced by expectations of a rapid return to ‘normal’ life, but online memorials and grief communities can help the bereaved to resist social pressure, acknowledge a different emotional response, and find a more personal way to relate to their dead. For some commentators, this freedom from social pressure may actually be dangerous, encouraging an unhealthy intensity or duration of grief.50 This approach emphasises transformations in forms of grieving, and is partly upheld by Tony Walter and his co-authors in their recent review of digital death literature. On social network sites like Facebook, Walter agrees, ‘pictures of the dead, conversations with the dead, and mourners’ feelings can and do become part of the everyday online world’. ‘Grief has become more public’;51 ‘the innovation of interactive social media is that grief is re-emerging as a communal activity, within existing social networks’, just as in pre-modern societies.52 Facebook is not the whole story, however, and the support promised by online grief communities may have quite the opposite effect. Online support groups could actually intensify the sequestration of socially problematic grief experiences, gathering the bereaved in private online spaces away from public view.53 Even where grief is made public, we should not assume that increased attention leads in every case to emotional empowerment. Some of the bereaved may not welcome the appearance of unsanctioned online memorials telling alternative narratives. Online communities have their own norms of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and their own emotional regimes, and attempts to breach those norms may be strictly policed. On Facebook and MySpace, posts   Rainbows Bridge, www.rainbowsbridge.com/hello.htm.   Ruth Swartwood, ‘Surviving Grief: An Analysis of the Exchange of Hope in Online Grief Communities’, Omega 63, no. 2 (n.d.): 161–81. 49   Carroll and Landry, ‘Logging on and Letting Out’, 342. 50   Jed Brubaker et al., ‘Grief-stricken in a Crowd: The Language of Bereavement and Distress in Social Media’ (presented at the ICWSM-12, Dublin, 2012), http://sm.rutgers. edu/pubs/brubaker-grief-icwsm2012.pdf. 51   Tony Walter et al., ‘Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn? An Overview’, Omega 64, no. 4 (2011): 288. 52   Ibid., 290. 53  Ibid. 47 48

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and updates expressing the wrong kind of emotion can lead to public reprimand from unsympathetic online contacts.54 Digital media have even been used by individuals and groups to conduct campaigns of harassment against the grieving.55 In one particularly unpleasant case in 2011, a British man was imprisoned for four months after targeting four recently deceased teenagers with mocking YouTube videos and posting a series of offensive messages and defaced photographs to their Facebook memorials.56 Death and the Digital Afterlife Another key theme of scholarship in this field has been the discovery that digital media can be used in attempts to communicate with the dead. As noted above, all kinds of online memorials – in online communities, at online cemeteries and on social networking sites – attract a high volume of messages addressed to the deceased. These post-mortem communications appear to propose a distinctive vision of the afterlife, in which the dead exist in a parallel realm of birthday parties, Christmas holidays and Internet access, able to watch the living, to receive their messages and to intervene with messages or helpful acts of their own. Some scholars have asked if the use of digital media to send messages to the dead might reveal a shift in popular thinking. According to Drescher, ‘new digital media, as they have begun to restructure day-to-day communication practices and, in turn, social relatedness, reform our understanding of modernity’s dichotomized relationships between illness and wellness, living and dying, the living and the dead, and the now and the hereafter’.57 This argument leads Drescher to pose a far-reaching question: ‘If … digital social media are inviting a dissolution of metaphorical and experiential boundaries between these states, what is the attendant effect … on concepts such as “eternity” and “salvation” that are subject to radical restructuring in postmodern, digitally integrated culture?’ This puzzle remains unanswered at the end of her article, but a list of quotations she includes from Kirstin’s Facebook wall do at least show that some of Kirstin’s friends are still treating her as an active agent in their lives after her death. ‘I know you are keeping tabs on me’, writes one. ‘Thank you for helping me find the right words to say to my grandmother’, writes another, ‘who is so very scared to die … Even after passing into the next, you and your life still helps minister to those in need.’58  Ibid.   Whitney Phillips, ‘LOLing at Tragedy: Facebook Trolls, Memorial Pages and Resistance to Grief Online’, First Monday 16, no. 12 (2011), http://firstmonday.org/htbin/ cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3168/3115. 56   Steven Morris, ‘Internet Troll Jailed After Mocking Deaths of Teenagers’, Guardian.co.uk, 13 September 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/13/internettroll-jailed-mocking-teenagers. 57   Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 206. 58   Ibid., 216. 54 55

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Drescher is writing for a Christian journal about a death in a Christian community, and emphasises the continuity of the writing practices of the bereaved with Christian theology, but these comments seem to show exactly the same kind of thinking about the afterlife that other scholars have discovered among online communities with no connection to organised religion. Walter takes Drescher’s question further, speculating that these shared themes of post-mortem communication might be emerging from an overlap between the form of digital media and the content of popular, post-Christian spirituality: The Copernican revolution may have eroded the plausibility of heaven being up there in the sky, but the digital revolution enables a plausible geography of the dead residing in cyberspace. Posting a Facebook message to the dead and posting a Facebook message to cyberspace feel just the same … Significantly, online references to the dead as angels or in the company of angels are frequent … This is not absurd. Angels are messengers, traveling from heaven to earth and back, and cyberspace is an unseen medium for the transfer of messages through unseen realms, so there may well be a resonance between how some people imagine online messaging and how they imagine angels.59

Unlike Drescher, Walter’s argument does not actually postulate a change in attitudes. Rather, he suggests that the sensation of writing online complements certain themes of the contemporary spiritual imagination, leading some writers to articulate those themes more openly. The Internet is not creating a new imaginary, but it is encouraging more public expression of certain ideas about the afterlife. Brubaker and Hayes make a similar argument, focusing not on the feeling or mythology of writing in cyberspace but on the established conventions of social media. Direct address is simply the standard mode of social networking. When writing on a person’s Facebook wall, one writes to that person – even when that person is dead. In some cases, this might reflect a genuine belief that the deceased is reading the message, but for others this style of writing is simply an established idiom. Even an idiom, however, can affect our perceptions: ‘The way in which post-mortem comments adhere to existing patterns in social network sites demonstrates the importance of technology in … shaping post-mortem practices and, in turn, our experience of death.’60 Two points should be made here. First, writing to the dead is not new, and nor is the idea that the dead watch and speak to the living. The bereaved have long written comments in books of remembrance, attached notes to flowers and tied them to roadside memorials, or tried to express their emotions in journals. Douglas Davies reports that almost two-thirds of British women and more than one-third of men believe they have experienced the presence of a dead relative.61   Walter et al., ‘Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn?’, 293.   Brubaker and Hayes, ‘“We Will Never Forget You [online]”’,132. 61  Davies, Emotion, Identity, and Religion, 138. 59 60

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Philip Esler, a prominent New Testament scholar, included a detailed account of his own family’s communications with a dead child in his influential study of New Testament theology, arguing – with support from Karl Rahner – that such views were commonplace among Christians until at least the mid-twentieth century.62 What seems to be happening when digital mourners speak to their dead – as so often online – seems to be a shift to make public something that until recently was widespread but private. Second, we should not try too hard to distinguish those who ‘really believe’ from those who do not. For some, writing to the dead may be intended as a literal act of communication, as Drescher and Walter suggest. For others, it may be a cathartic act or a literary convention. For many, the distinction between these two attitudes is likely to be unclear, blurred and shifting over time, as the fresh bonds of relationships with the dying are transformed into something else, condensed into certain memories, objects and occasional practices that tie the living to their dead within the routines of everyday life. Belief rarely forms a clear, stable, easily explained structure. Drescher expresses the ambiguity of belief rather well in this account of the birthday reminder email, set up by her now-dead mother, that she still receives each year: this automated guilt-inducer now has an eerie beyond-the-grave quality that … prevents me from blocking ‘anna1121’ from my account out of a sentimentality that I cannot quite sort out. I know the email is not really from my mother, and yet I can fully imagine her pecking away at a mystical keyboard in whatever sweet by-and-by she now inhabits.63

Conclusion This chapter began by considering two approaches to media and cultural change: Heidi Campbell’s emphasis on the agency of communities in the social shaping of technology, and Altheide, Snow and Hjarvard’s argument that any mediated communication must be subjected to an institutional, technological and aesthetic ‘media logic’ that can lead to major social transformation. The example of death and bereavement demonstrates that these different perspectives both have merit, offering complementary approaches to a complex problem. When a group of Warcraft players designs a funeral procession within the game, they are taking a technology designed for certain functions and creating something quite unexpected. When their rivals attack their funeral and slaughter the mourners, we see the limitations of their plan: Warcraft allows players to kill one another, and fosters a culture within which subgroups can take pleasure 62   Philip Francis Esler, New Testament Theology: Communion and Community (London: SPCK, 2005), 229ff. 63   Drescher, ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine’, 205.

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in killing, embedded in an ecosystem of forums, blogs and video-sharing sites through which accounts of startling achievements can be quickly circulated and discussed. Funerals at St Pixels take place in a chatroom custom-built for online Christian worship, a fine example of the religious–social shaping of technology, but this space has its own media logic too: only certain group members have the skills to write code, only some have the authority to decide what kinds of events are hosted, and the group’s social norms and rules strongly favour collaborative rather than hostile interaction. St Pixels has now relocated its activity to Facebook, introducing another important dimension of media logic: Facebook is ultimately in control, and St Pixels will have to adapt to any changes in rules or design that the site may undergo in future. The bereaved and the organisations that support them are turning to the Internet to explore a multitude of new ways to share and manage grief. Some, like digitally altered deathbed photography in hospitals and live webcasts of funerals, are closely integrated into existing networks of families and friends. Others, like the memorial practices emerging in online communities, address audiences who have common interests but might never meet offline at all. Online memorial pages and grief communities can bring complete strangers together around a common experience of loss. In all these spaces, technology and discourses about technology are being shaped to meet the needs of the bereaved, while exerting their own influences over the ways in which emotions are shared. Research into the relationship between death and digital media remains in its infancy, and serious scholarship from a religious studies perspective is almost non-existent, but there is certainly much here that would reward further study. References Altheide, David L., and Robert P. Snow. Media Logic. London: Sage, 1979. Brubaker, Jed, and Gillian Hayes. ‘“We Will Never Forget You [online]”: An Empirical Investigation of Post-mortem MySpace Comments’, in Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in Design (2011): 123–32. Brubaker, Jed, Funda Kivran-Swaine, Lee Taber and Gillian Hayes. ‘Griefstricken in a Crowd: The Language of Bereavement and Distress in Social Media’, presented at the ICWSM-12, Dublin, 2012. http://sm.rutgers.edu/ pubs/brubaker-grief-icwsm2012.pdf. Brubaker, Jed, and Janet Vertesi. ‘Death and the Social Network’. Dgp.toronto. edu/~mikem/hcieol/#papers, paper 3, presented at the Computer–Human Interaction Confernece, Atlanta, 2010. Campbell, Heidi. When Religion Meets New Media. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010. Carroll, Brian, and Katie Landry. ‘Logging on and Letting Out: Using Online Social Networks to Grieve and to Mourn’. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 30 (2010): 341–50.

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Davies, Douglas James. Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Drescher, Elizabeth. ‘Pixels Perpetual Shine: The Mediation of Illness, Dying, and Death in the Digital Age’. CrossCurrents 62, no. 2 (2012): 204–18. Egglestone, Stefan Rennick. ‘Online Memorials: a Personal Experience’, presented at the Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Atlanta, 2010. Available online from dgp.toronto.edu/~mikem/hcieol/#papers. Esler, Philip Francis. New Testament Theology: Communion and Community. London: SPCK, 2005. Gilbert, Kathleen, and Michael Massimi. ‘From Digital Divide to Digital Immortality: Thanatechnology at the Turn of the 21st Century’. In Dying, Death, and Grief in An Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, edited by Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit and Kathleen R. Gilbert, 16–30. New York: Springer, 2012. Golden, Tom. ‘Healing and the Internet’. The Forum 32, no. 4 (2006). Harris, Joanne. ‘Would You Like To Reconnect?’ In A Cat, A Hat, and a Piece of String, 60–69. London: Doubleday, 2012. Hjarvard, Stig. ‘The Mediatisation of Religion: Theorising Religion, Media and Social Change’. Culture & Religion 12, no. 2 (2011): 119–35. Howe, Mark. Online Church?: First Steps Towards Virtual Incarnation. Cambridge: Grove Books, 2007. Hutchings, Tim. ‘Wiring Death: Dying, Grieving and Remembering on the Internet’. In Emotion, Identity, and Death: Mortality Across Disciplines, edited by Douglas James Davies and Chang-Won Park, 43–58. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. KABC-TV. ‘Whitney Houston’s Friends, Family Say Goodbye’, 18 February 2012. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=8549082. Kelly, Max. ‘Memories of Friends Departed Endure on Facebook’. The Facebook Blog, 26 October 2009. https://www.facebook.com/blog/blog. php?post=163091042130. Lochhead, David. Shifting Realities: Information Technology and the Church. Geneva: WCC Publications, 1997. Moore, Jane. ‘Being There: Technology at the end of Life’. In Dying, Death, and Grief in An Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, edited by Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit and Kathleen R. Gilbert, 78–86. New York: Springer, 2012. Morris, Steven. ‘Internet Troll Jailed After Mocking Deaths of Teenagers’. Guardian.co.uk, 13 September 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/ sep/13/internet-troll-jailed-mocking-teenagers. Nagata, Tyler. ‘The WoW Funeral Raid – Four Years Later’. GamesRadar, 5 March 2010. http://www.gamesradar.com/the-wow-funeral-raid-four-years-later/. Phillips, Whitney. ‘LOLing at Tragedy: Facebook Trolls, Memorial Pages and Resistance to Grief Online’. First Monday 16, no. 12 (2011). http://firstmonday. org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3168/3115.

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Rawlinson, Linnie, and Nick Hunt. ‘Jackson Dies, Almost Takes Internet with Him’. CNNTech, 26 June 2009. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-26/tech/ michael.jackson.internet. Roberts, Pamela. ‘From My Space to Our Space: The Functions of Web Memorials in Bereavement’. The Forum 32, no. 4 (2006). Riechers, Angela. ‘Eternal Recall: Memorial Photos in the Digital Environment’, presented at the Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Atlanta, 2010. dgp. toronto.edu/~mikem/hcieol/#papers, paper 1. Sanderson, Jimmy, and Pauline Hope Cheong. ‘Tweeting Prayers and Communicating Grief Over Michael Jackson Online’. Bulletin of Science Technology and Society 30 (2010): 328–40. ‘Serenity Now’. Serenity Now Bombs a World of Warcraft Funeral, n.d. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHJVolaC8pw. Swartwood, Ruth. ‘Surviving Grief: An Analysis of the Exchange of Hope in Online Grief Communities’. Omega 63, no. 2 (n.d.): 161–81. Veale, Kylie. ‘Online Memorialisation: The Web as a Collective Memorial Landscape for Remembering the Dead’. Fibreculture 3 (2004). de Vries, Brian, and Susan Moldaw. ‘Virtual Memorials and Cyber Funerals: Contemporary Expressions of Ageless Experiences’. In Dying, Death, and Grief in An Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, edited by Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit and Kathleen R. Gilbert, 135–50. New York: Springer, 2012. Walter, Tony, Rachid Hourizi, Wendy Moncur and Stacey Pitsillides. ‘Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn? An Overview’. Omega 64, no. 4 (2011): 275–302. Yanoa. ‘Memorial to Fayejin’. Illidrama Forum Thread, 3 March 2006. http:// forums.illidrama.com/showthread.php?1826-Memorial-to-Fayejin.

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Index

Aaron 180−81 Abrahamic Traditions 137 absurdity 100 acedia 66 actualization 138 Adam 138 addiction 66, 131 adolescence 140 adultery 90 adulthood 140 affects 154 affiliation 132−4, 142 Africa 139 afterlife 203, 206−7 agape 54 age 140 agency 19, 20, 78, 89, 104, 206 aggression 143, 147 AHRC 2, 3 alcohol 33, 162 Alien(ation) 122, 143−7 all-overishness 156 Allport, G.W. 136 Altheide, D. 193, 208 altruism 53 angels 91 anger 19, 28, 34, 35, 40, 47, 64, 66, 68, 71, 79, 80, 90, 128, 130, 134, 140, 142−3, 153 Anglican 31 animals 176, 185 anxiety 28, 34, 67, 102, 128, 130, 142 appetites 79, 84 Aquinas 75, 89, 91, 101 Aristotle 5, 75, 78 Armstrong, K. 102 Arwek, E. 4, 9 asceticism 32, 101 atheism (ist) 97−8 atonement 181

attachment 35, 56, 117, 143 attitudes 129 authentic personhood 99, 102, 200 autonomy 130, 133−4, 142 avarice 66, 67 awakening 56 awe 17, 28, 97, 102 balance 32 Batson, C. 122, 136 behaviourist 123, 154 belief system 131, 157 belonging 116, 138, 143 bereavement 7, 191−209 betrayal 119 bhakti 35 birthday 203 blackmail 20 blogging 194−5 blood 2, 168, 172, 178, 183 Bloor, D. 157 Body 28, 187 Bolton, R. 91 bonds 143, 197, 200, 208 bonds, grief 208 boredom 59 Boswell, J. 8 Bourdieu, P. 18, 171 brahma viharas 52, 129 brain 127 breath 58 Brubaker, J. 203, 207 Buddha image 48, 97 Buddhism 5, 47−62, 137 calm 48, 56 Campbell, H. 192, 194, 208 Cannon, W.B. 154, 160 care 195 Carroll, B. 202, 204

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Casiday, A. 5, 63−73 Cassian, J, 65 caste 40 contentment 28 celebrity 41, 204 cemeteries online 194, 196 centred 71 Challenger Disaster 198 chanting 48, 56 chaos 183 Charismatics 66 Cherry, S. 7 children 9, 143, 195, 202 Christ 101 Christianity 10, 95−107, 174 Christmas 8 Church Fathers 63−73 circumcision 184 clash 31, 112, 132 Cleiren, M. 6, 121−50 CNN 196 coherence, sense of 135 comfort-zone 3 communication 139, 194−209 communitas 180, 186 communities 205 community 200 compassion 19, 28, 35, 37, 47, 52, 54, 55, 77, 81, 129 competence 113 confidence 79 consciousness 98, 106, 114, 135, 143, 154, 164, 171 contemplation 137, 144 control 90 conversion 2, 6, 34, 99, 131 Cook, C.C.H. 5, 63−73 coolness 39 Corrigan, J. 1 couple-self 143 courage 75, 157 course-mesh 122, 139 covenant 182–3 cross 2 culture 6, 20, 30, 111, 146, 167 cybermemorials 191 cyberspace 207

danger 128, 130, 144, 156, 192 Davies, D.J. 95, 105−6, 117, 132, 173, 180−83, 191 dead, 207 death 106, 143, 180, 186, 191−209 deception 200 Deci, E.L. 121, 127 decision making 148 delusion 48, 163 DeMarinis, V. 6, 109−19 demons 66 Denzin, N 14 depression 134–5, 145 deprivation 142 desire 49, 54, 58, 72, 78, 91, 106, 136, 156, 199 despair 101, 129, 133 destructive 60, 134 detachment 135 determination Theory 127 devil 70 diaspora 38 digital 201 digital media 191, 195 disaster 144 discrimination 134 dissonance 156 distress 116−18 Dixon, T. 63, 95 domestic 143 Douglas, M. 180 Drescher, E. 194, 201, 204, 208 drinking 187 DSM-IV 111 dukkha 59 dullness 49 Durham Cathedral 7 Durkheim, E. 158 Dusenbery, V. 34 eating 170, 175, 185 economic crisis 147 ecstasy 28, 102 Edinburgh Strong 157, 158 eeriness 201, 208 Eglestone, S. 197 ego 54

Index email 194, 201 embodiment 1, 14, 96, 106, 183 empathy 32, 52, 55, 129, 136 enemy 145 enlightenment 48 enmity 28, 142 entertainment 193 environment 129, 144 envy 19, 67, 90 equanimity 52, 55, 129, 135, 137 erotic 101 Esler, P. 208 esteem 138, 146 eternity 206 ethics 10, 75, 90, 141 ethnicity 20 ethnography 1, 3 Eudaimonism 76−7 Europe, 139, 147 Evagrius of Pontus 63−73 evil 2, 99, 138 excitement 49 exclusion 186 experiential 187 extremism 142, 143, 147 Facebook 141, 195, 200, 202, 205, 209 faith-communities 10 family 10, 128, 130 fear 28, 67, 79, 80, 128, 130, 135, 140, 142, 143, 146–7, 159 feeling 16, 58 Fenner, W. 80 fight domestic 127 flight 134, 143 fine-mesh 122, 139–40 fire 177, 180 flight 127, 134, 144, 146 folk religion 34 food 168, 180, 183 forgiveness 2, 77 formation 147 freedom 131, 139, 140 Freud, S. 159 friends 48, 87 funeral 39

215

Geertz, C. 28 gender 14, 18 genetics 140 Gethsemane 2 Ghuman, P. 30 gift 91, 97, 175 gloom 67 glory 2 gluttony 64, 67, 70 God 2, 68, 71, 79, 83, 90, 97, 137, 165, 175−86 Golden Temple 31 Golden, T. 197 Goleman, D. 60 grace 2, 69, 81, 89, 91, 101, 106 gratitude 77 greed 35, 47−8 Greek philosophy 63 grief 28, 34, 42, 54, 102, 156–7, 191–209 group-membership 146 guilt 128, 139 Guru Granth 36 Guru Nanak 29 hands, laying on 179 happiness 76−7, 109 Hardman, C. 3 harmony 48 Harris, J. 201 Harvey, P. 5, 47−62 hatred 48, 102 hearing 58 heart 51, 81 helplessness 134 heresy 65 Hervieu-Léger, D. 11, 20 hindrances 48 Hinduism 10, 21, 137 Hjarvard, S. 193−4, 208 hoax 199 Hochschild, A.R. 14 Holon (archy) 121−2 Holy Spirit 19 homeland 135 homeostasis 130−32 honour killing 138 hope 77, 101, 105, 118, 129, 137, 191

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hopelessness 106 hospice 195 hospitality 19 Houston, W. 196 Howe, M. 198 human nature 66 humiliation 35 humility 77 hunger 63 hurt 40 Hutchings, T. 7, 191−209 Huxley, A. 162 hymns 2 hypocrisy 42, 91 Idealism 104 identity 20, 29, 99, 105, 128, 149, 174, 192 idioms 207 Ignatius Loyola 97 illness 106 ill-will 49 imagination 79, 156, 194, 207 immigrant 134, 136, 147, 149 immortality 158 impurity 183 incontinence 84 information-technology 6, 141 inheritance 201 insanity 163 insider-outsider 29 insight 48 integration, social 149 integrity 136, 146 intelligence 60 intensification 192 inter-faith action 1 internet 141−2, 199 intimacy 143 Islam 10, 140, 147−8 Israelite 168−88 izzat 35, 39 Jackson, M. 196 James, M. R. 202 James, W. 18, 153−65 jealousy 47 Jerusalem 169 Jesus 88, 138

Jews 142, 168–88 Josephus 170, 185 joy 28, 52, 54, 91, 129 Judaism 187 justice 77, 117 karma 47, 55 Katz, S. 163 Kierkegaard, S. 102 killing 145 kindness 47 King, R. 147 Kirmayer, L.J. 116−17 Klawans, J. 178 knowledge 172 Koestler, A. 12133 Krause, I. 28 Kruglanski, A.W. 142 Kunin, S. 6, 167–88 Lévi-Strauss, C. 167 Lange, C.G. 154, 159 Langer, W. 165 Leach, E. 7, 169, 173–80 lethargy 49 Levites 175 life course 22 quality 110 story 131 liminality 173–4, 176, 180 listening 187 literacy 142 loathing 134, 148 Lochhead, D. 198 Lonergan, B. 6, 95−107 longing 5, 22, 28, 36, 149 loss 134–5, 197 Loughlin, G. 101 love 6, 19, 23, 28, 54, 68, 90, 91, 97–107, 128, 129, 137, 138, 146, 149, 160, 161 loving-kindness 52, 55, 129 lust 28, 35 Luther, M. 102 magnetic resonance 5, 60 Mahayana 52

Index malice 90 management 14, 22 Maranchi, G. 20 Mark the Monk 63–73 marriage 33 Marsella, A. 111 Martin, B. 18–19 martyr 139 Maslow, A.H. 138 McAlister, A. 145 McGuire, M. 16 mean, doctrine of 86, 89 meaninglessness 135 meaning-making 6, 109, 115, 128, 202 media 149, 192 logic 192−4, 196, 198 meditation 47, 163 memorial 196 memory 57, 116, 201−2 menstruation 183 mental health 109−19 Methodists 198 Metta 53 Mezzich, J. 112−15 migration 6, 109–19 Milton, K. 1 mind 64 mindfulness 5, 48, 57–60 misery 131 moderation 85 modesty 42 Moghaddam F.M. 143, 147 Mohammed 138 moods 64, 105, 164 Moore, J. 195 moral inferiority / superiority 145 Mormonism 2 mother 52 motivations 125 mourning 196, 202 multiculturalism 147 murder 90, 110 music 195, 197, 201 MySpace 202, 205 mystery 204 mysticism 1, 6, 101, 161−5 myth 167−88

narrative 168−88, 192, 198, 205 National Health Service 60 nationality 135 needs hierarchy 138 negative 48, 57, 86, 121, 125, 128, 134, 137 Nepal 3 Nesbit, E. 5, 9, 149 Netherlands 147 neural pathways 127 nitrous oxide 162 noble truths 59 Norway 31 nosology 112 nous 64, 70, 72 Nussbaum, M. 79–80, 154 obituaries 195 offence 51 online 194, 200, 202 religion 7 open hierarchy systems 123−4 optimism 28, 109, 164 other(ness) 99, 105−6, 144 Otto, R. 97, 102 over-belief 164 pain 114 Palfrey, B. 6, 95−106, 137 paradigmatic scene 7, 192, 200 Parekh, B. 12, 19 parenthood 22 Park, C. 4 passage 21−2 passions 63, 72, 77, 95 Passover 169−88 patience 77 peace 110 Pentecostalism 18, 66 personality 56 pets 205 phenomenology 155 Philokalia 65 photographs 195 Photoshop 195 PID 115

217

218 pilgrimage 174−5 Pinto, D. 122, 138, 140 pity 101 plants 78, 81, 177 Plato 64 play 200 poetry 187 posture 18−19 power 100 praise 70 prayer 65–73, 89, 195 preservation 122, 127, 146 pride 28, 35, 68 procession 208 Programme 157, 158 projection 153 propaganda 145 Protest(antism) 2, 140, 143 psychological types 136 PTSD 114 Puritans 4, 5, 75 purity rule 169, 180 Quaker 31 quest, religion as 136 Rabbinic factors 174 radicalisation 122, 145 ragas 36 rage 134 Rahner, K. 97 rasa 36–7 Ratcliffe, M. 4, 165 rational, the 66 reality 163 reason 83 rebirth 52 reciprocity 105 Redy, W. M. 168 Reformation 2 regenerative change 165 regime 103 regret 156 relief 128 religion 137, 160−61 remembrance book 200 remorse 101 repertoire 191, 194

Emotions and Religious Dynamics resilience 109, 137 restlessness 49 revenge 31 reverence 28 Reynolds, E. 78 righteousness 102 Riis, O. 102−5 ritual 17, 110, 112, 116, 148, 167, 176, 192, 197 demonstration 169 Rixon, G. 100 roadside 201, 207 Roberts, P. 197 Roberts, R. 86 role 117, 149 role, play, conflict 131, 136 Roman Catholic 140 romantic 35, 41, 142–3 sacred place 176 sacred text 192 sacrifice 6, 168, 173−88 sadness 28, 54, 66, 67, 134 safety 138 sahaj 32 saintliness 161 salvation 2, 98, 102, 132, 206 sangha 48 Sartre, J-P. 153, 165 Scheer, M. 168, 171 Scholem, G. 163 secularization 114, 121 security 117, 164 seeing 58 Segal, R. 6, 153–65 self 128, 138 seppuku 138 serenity 102 sermons 2 sexual desire 63, 67 Shagan, E.H. 85 shame 35, 128, 138, 156 shamelessness 96 Sharia law 140 shock 203 sickness 89 Sikhs 5, 10, 27−46 silence 7

Index sin 83, 176−8 sincerity 148 sinking (sense) 28, 158 sinner 132 skilful behaviour 172 Skype 195 slavery 187 smelling 58, 201 Snow, R. 193 sobriety 162 social class 41 social networks 191, 194 socialization 191 Solomon, R. 153, 165 somatic factors 168, 183 song 187 sorrow 54, 101 soul 64, 78−82 space 173, 176 spirituality 5, 6, 23, 32, 118 spite 90 St. Augustine 101 St. Paul 93, 160 St. Pixels 198−200, 209 St. Teresa 160 St. Francis of Assisi 160 startle reflex 60 stereotyping 144−6, 149 stigma 110, 144 still-births 195 Stoicism 63, 67 story-telling 192 stranger 140, 142, 143, 153, 197−8 Strenski, I. 4 stress 33, 39, 144 Structuralism 7, 167−88 struggle 135 stupefaction 163 success 55 suffering 114 Sufi 129, 137 suicide 35, 138 superplausibility 132 support 194 survival, personal 143−4 Sweden 109 symbols 104

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tabernacle 174, 176 tactile sense 58 Taoism 137 taste 58 tears 156, 197 techno-spirituality 203 teenagers 202 television 193, 194, 196 temperance 77 tension 187 terror(ism) 6, 67, 121−2, 135, 142−3, 146, 148 text messages 194 theft 90 theism 96 theology 203, 207 theory 64, 66 therapy 60, 70 Theravada 52 threat 138, 144, 148 threats 128 time 173 tone 58 Tracy, D. 95, 102 tradition 40 transcendence 99, 102, 122, 129, 134 transformation 179−80 trauma 6, 110, 112, 114, 195 trust 77, 105, 129, 136, 143, 119 truth 131, 136 Twitter 141, 196, 202 uncertainty 137, 149 USA 147, 193 vacillation 49 vainglory 67 validation 196 values 191, 200 Veal, K. 203 vengeance 28, 35 victim 148 vigil site 199 violence 31, 114 virtual memorial 197−8 virtues 161 visceral response 200

220 vocal register 187 Vries, B. de 196 Walter, T. 205, 208 war 145 Warne, N. 5, 75−94 Watzlawick, P. 148 wealth 147 web healing 197 webcast 196 Weber, M. 2 website 196 wellbeing 109 Wilber, K. 11−12, 121, 131 Williams, M. 60

Emotions and Religious Dynamics wisdom 52, 56, 106 withdrawal 143 wonder 28, 36 Woodhead, L. 3, 28, 102−5, 165 work 16 World Health Organization 109 World of Warcraft 199, 208 worthlessness 129 Wright, T. 78, 87 yearning 28, 36, 41, 158 YouTube 206 Zaehner, R.C. 162 Zeal 90