damn you, now i got that melody in my head.
no point to damn me, J.hofer, I've been damned a million times already.
"Jesus is My Boyfriend" Christianity
by cofty 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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fulltimestudent
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fulltimestudent
jgnat:
oxycontin. Maybe it's the motherly hormone.
You may be on the right track, jgnat.
Oxytocin seems to perform many functions within the individual and therefore within human society.
From Science daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130731093257.htm
'Love Hormone' Oxytocin: Difference in Social Perception Between Men and Women
The hormone oxytocin is released in our bodies in various social situations, and it is better known as the "love hormone" since our bodies release it at high concentrations during positive social interactions such as falling in love, experiencing an orgasm or giving birth and breastfeeding. In her previous researches, Prof. Shamay-Tsoory discovered that the hormone is also released in our body during negative social interactions such as jealousy or gloating.
It is not far-fetched to think of it being involved in the intense emotional experiences that may be part of religious fantasies.
Refer also: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080208172104.htm
It is also becoming clear that oxytocin has a dark side, we need a lot more time to understand how this hormone affects humans.
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Band on the Run
I met a woman who served as a job coach. She invited a Jewish friend to her church which is a big violation of the rules of NY conduct. I thought her presentation was impressive. Since I heard about her evangelical zeal, I wanted to stress that we had a formal, business relationship. Religion was not an appropriate topic. We parted in the parking lot and she could not restrain herself. She was borderline orgasmic telling me about some hum drum story about her church. It shocked me. Her voice and body were seductive as though she were masturbating. I decided not to hire her. Her judgment was very poor. This was new behavior for me. I never met anyone so sexually smitten with Christ. Indeed, I did not know Christ was orgasmic.
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fulltimestudent
How can 20th/21st century Chistians understand the intensity of this particular religious experience?
Here's a common Christian symbol from medieval times, what does it say to you?
I'll post more later ...
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cofty
oxycontin
Which suggets that the theory is open to scientific investigation.
All we need to do is wait until the church is in full flow with ..
"You are my desire
And no one else will do
‘Cause nothing else can take Your place
To feel the warmth of Your embrace"and take a blood sample from a few of the female congregants.
FTS - I thought I was being provocative!
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Band on the Run
Wow. The illustration certainly makes its point. I read that mystics often used sexual language. It would be interesting to trace the development of erotic Christianity. Is the drawing illustrative of a certain form of Christianity or a geographical area?
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bohm
The most awesome part is he drew most of it with just one hand!
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fulltimestudent
BotR: T he illustration certainly makes its point. I read that mystics often used sexual language. It would be interesting to trace the development of erotic Christianity. Is the drawing illustrative of a certain form of Christianity or a geographical area?
This is the caption for the image in the essay, I copied it from:
Figure 1. Wound of Christ, Psalter and prayer book of Bonne of Luxembourg, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
And with the image we maybe entering the area of mystical Christianity, or perhaps ecstatic Christianity.
The stylised design seems based on a mandorla (defined as: an almond-shaped area of light, usually surrounding the resurrected Christ or the Virgin at the Assumption). And a similar shape can be found in Sheela na gig sculptures in certain Irish/English churches and across Europe. The sculptures may be similar to this:
A 12th century sheela na gig on the
church at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England
Refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_gig
What the connections may be is the subject of debate.
Martha Easton ( http://www.shu.edu/academics/profiles/faculty/360773 ) argues in her essay, “Was It Good For You, Too?” Medieval Erotic Art and Its Audiences" ** that ...
" The same question can be asked of the isolated and vertical side-wounds of Christ, which become popular in fourteenth-century Books of Hours (Figure 1). I have suggestedelsewhere that these images might be multivalent and connote sexuality as well as religion, inspiring responses beyond the theological.7 Specifically, I argue that the wound of Christ might be a vaginal image, especially for a viewer encountering such a sight in the private space of a manuscript. Certainly the image of the wound of Christ is in fact deeply informed by religion as the site of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice, the source of Eucharistic blood, and the inspiration for mystical conflations of wound and breast, informed by medical beliefs about the interconnectedness of blood and milk.8 The shape of the wound can be seen as mandorla-like, but it is also visually identical to the way the vagina was depicted in places such as medical manuals, as well as the type of sculpture called the sheela-na-gig, to be discussed below. The wound is also an entrance into and exit from the body, the devotional contemplation of which led to a kind of swallowing and engulfing, all encompassing experience, the liminal zone from which the Church is literally born, the inversion of the Satanic hell mouth.9"
** Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives in Medieval Art , Vol.1 (2009)
for those interested in further info, I add the footnote references provided in Easton's essay:
7 For discussion and images, see Easton, “The Wound of Christ.”
8 For more on medieval medical beliefs about blood and milk, see Marie-Christine Pouchelle, The Body and Surgery in the Middle Ages, trans. Rosemary Morris (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 156. See also the bibliography in Easton, “The Wound of Christ, the Mouth of Hell,” 399 n. 29.
9 I explore these inversions further in “The Wound of Christ, the Mouth of Hell,” 395-414
What could this image mean for a medieval Christian? Besides the personal appreciation for the imagined suffering of Christ as he made his sacrifice, the wound is the source of the mystical blood poured out on behalf of Christians, and celebrated in the Eucharist. Some (in those times) may even have imagined drinking from the wound.
the wound is also an entrance into and exit from the body, the devotional contemplation of which led to a kind of swallowing and engulfing, all encompassing experience, the liminal zone from which the Church is literally born
Contemplation of the wound, permits thoughts of access to the mystical body of Christ, the 'oneness' with Christ which was a goal.
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In posting this information, I neither approve nor disappprove of the notions held by Christans of that era. To me, its just that way things were, to be examined and studied in an effort to understand. I post here to illustrate that different notions held by contemporary Christians may not have represented 'truth' to those medieval Christians.
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fulltimestudent
A longer discussion on the 'wound of Christ' can be found at:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0pn6g8cz#page-3 a University of California site.
The title of the essay is: Medieval Female Spirituality and the Wound of Christ in Folio 331r of Bonne of Luxembourg’s Prayer Book
and the author is: Paige M. Walker.
