Although this sense [smell] is not our primary sense, as it is in many other mammals, we still subliminally read and react to certain odors. For example "smelling fear," even if we cannot consciously detect its odor, is something we may do without thinking... this is a form of social communication...So, one of the things that this led me to was the thought that this may be a factor in why it is that we often think that church should involve face-to-face meeting: something about bonding and responding to each other in physical proximity is actually biologically important.
This is not to say no aspect of church and fellowship should be done any other way than by physical presence. After all, swathes of the New Testament are actually the remnants of first century social media -fellowship at a distance via letters and Roman roads. However, it should help us to value the dimension of physical presence.
What this article doesn't really go into is the effects of other kinds of subliminal smelling -assuming that there may be pheromones (I'm assuming that's what we're talking about here -but happy to be informed more fully) for enjoyment or other kinds of general affect. There is mention of hexadecanol in relation to calmness, so I guess there is something in this.
Of course, the other thing we need to notice is that this study is related to autism -and seems to suggest that those with ASDs may misinterpret these chemical signals. So that's a matter for us to consider in working out, as churches, how better to include them.
A further surprise was that
Research in recent years has turned up smell receptors like those in our nasal passages in all sorts of other places in our bodies -- from our brains to our uteri.Intriguing eh?
Autism and the smell of fear: Odors that carry social cues seem to affect volunteers on the autism spectrum differently -- ScienceDaily
'via Blog this'
No comments:
Post a Comment