Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Cone Nebula, sometimes referred to as the Jesus Christ Nebula because of its resemblance to the popular depictions of Jesus with his hands in a prayer position.

People have been found to perceive images with

aniconic, may be the faces of religious notables or the manifestation of spiritual symbols in the natural, organic media or phenomena of the natural world. The occurrence or event of perception may be transient or fleeting or may be more enduring and monumental. The phenomenon appears to approach a cultural universal and may often accompany nature worship, animism, and fetishism
, along with more formal or organized belief systems.

Within Christian traditions, many instances reported involve

Qur'an. Many religious believers view them as real manifestations of miraculous origin; a skeptical view is that such perceptions are examples of pareidolia
.

The original phenomena of this type were

Turin Shroud and the Veil of Veronica. Later, the term came to apply more generally to simulacra
of a religious or spiritual nature occurring in natural phenomena, particularly those seen by believers as being of miraculous origin.

Explanations

Pareidolia

Scientifically, such imagery is generally characterized as a form of pareidolia. This is a false perception of imagery due to what is theorized as the human mind's over-sensitivity to perceiving patterns, particularly the pattern of a human face, in otherwise random phenomena.[1]

It is suggested that a tendency of religious imagery in Islam to be perceived as Arabic words is made more likely by the general simplicity of letter forms in the

Riq'a); a tradition of massive typographical flexibility in Islamic calligraphy; and the particular shape of the word Allah (الله). These factors make the word easy to read into many structures with parallel lines or lobes on a common base. [citation needed
]

C. S. Lewis

The author C. S. Lewis wrote about the implications of perception of religious imagery in questionable circumstances on issues of religious belief and faith. He argued that people's ready ability to perceive human-like forms around them reflects a religious reality that human existence is immersed in a world containing such beings. The principal reason he believed in religion was because he believed himself to be wired to believe it, just as he believed human beings are wired to perceive inference (if ... then) and other mental logical phenomena as representing truths about the external world that can be learned from, rather than representing purely internal phenomena to be characterized as error. He chose to believe in his wiring for religious perception in the same way and for the same reasons that he chose to believe in his wiring for logic, choosing to use and rely on both as guides to learning about the world rather than regarding them as purely random in origin and discarding them. People continue to have faith in the phenomenon of logic, despite the fact that they sometimes make demonstrably mistaken inferences.[2][3]

Perceiver as cultural filter

From an

etic
perspective, perception of an image, icon, or sign of religious or spiritual import to the perceiver is indelibly mediated or filtered through culture, politics, and worldview. As Gregory Price Grieve states:

What you see is not always what you get. Instead, what we see depends on mediation. That is, because our descriptions of religious images are culturally located, our "naïve" descriptions are neither innocent nor objective. Rather, all social objects are mediated by intervening socially grounded, culturally generated, and historically particular mechanisms. Moreover, these intervening mechanisms are not only by necessity material, but are marbled through and through with power relations.[4]

Psychology of the sacred, taking stock of the

human society
.

Christian examples

The Clearwater Virgin on Christmas Day 1996.

The

Houston, Texas.[12][13] A grilled cheese sandwich, a pretzel and a pebble said to resemble images of the Virgin Mary have been offered for sale on Internet auction sites, the former being purchased by Internet casino GoldenPalace.com, which is known for its publicity stunts.[14][15][16]

Another image often reported is that of

Jesus Christ. Sightings of this type have been reported in such varied media as cloud photos,[17] Marmite,[18] chapatis,[19] shadows,[20] Cheetos,[21] tortillas,[1][22] trees,[23] dental x-rays,[24] cooking utensils,[25] windows[26][27] rocks and stones,[28][29] painted and plastered walls,[30][31] and dogs' hindquarters.[32] Again, some of these items have been offered for sale on Internet auction sites,[33][34][35][36][37][38] and a number have been bought by the Golden Palace casino.[31][39][40] When such images receive publicity, people frequently come considerable distances to see them, and to venerate them.[41]

On April 30, 2002

Monoceros, is a region that contains cones, pillars, and majestic flowing shapes that abound in stellar nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust are buffeted by energetic winds from nurseries of newborn stars.[44][45]

One controversial incident that received considerable publicity was when the face of Mother Teresa was claimed to have been identified in a cinnamon bun at Bongo Java in Nashville, Tennessee[46] on 15 October 1996. Dubbed the "Nun Bun" by the press, it was turned into an enterprise by the company, selling T-shirts and mugs, which led to an exchange of letters between the company and Mother Teresa's representatives.[47] On 25 December 2005 the bun was stolen during a break-in at the coffee house.[48]

This phenomenon can even take political meanings, such as the cross-shaped reflection seen on the

cited by Ronald Reagan
as an example of the survival of religious ideas in the secular Communist society.

In at least two instances, the images of deceased

Anglican clergymen allegedly appeared on the walls of their church. In 1902, the image of a Dean Vaughan allegedly appeared on the walls of Llandaff Cathedral, while the image of Dean Henry Liddell allegedly appeared on the walls of Christ Church, Oxford in 1923.[49]

Another example, either a miraculous sign or a face recognition

fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, when a few observers claimed to see Jesus in the flames.[50]

Examples in Islam

In the Muslim community, a frequently-reported religious perception is the image of the word "Allah" in Arabic on natural objects. Again, the discovery of such an object may attract considerable interest among believers who visit the object for the purpose of prayer or veneration. Examples of this phenomenon have been reported on fish,[51][52][53][54] fruit and vegetables,[55][56] plants and clouds,[57] eggs,[58] honeycombs,[59] and on the markings on animals' coats.[60]

The Arabic script for the name of Allah is purported to be visible in a satellite photograph of the 2004 Asian tsunami. This was taken as evidence by some Muslims that Allah had sent the tsunami as punishment.[61]

Other examples

Several

Swayambhu. Most are lingams of Shiva
.

Monkey tree

In

Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy, and another resembles the Hindu elephant god Ganesha
.

Created depictions

In some cases, apparent religious images have been deliberately created from natural materials as part of an artistic endeavor or investigation into the phenomenon of perceptions of religious imagery. The "Pope Tart" was a hoax apparition created by Karen Stollznow in 2005 as part of an investigation into pareidolia for The Skeptic in Australia.[62][63] In other cases these deliberate images have been commercial ventures. The Jesus Toaster and The Virgin Mary Toaster were created by Galen Dively in 2010. These toasters create images of Jesus and Mary on bread.[64]

See also

References

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  2. ISBN 978-0-8028-0868-4
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  3. ISBN 978-0-345-32866-3
  4. ^ Grieve, Gregory Price (2005). "One and Three Bhairavas: The Hypocrisy of Iconographic Mediation"; cited in: Revista de Estudos da Religião, No.4, 2005, pp. 63–79. ISSN 1677-1222.
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  59. OL 2870334M, 0939660105 Explanation on the backcover: "In August 1982 a devout Muslim bee-keeper found this honeycomb in one of his beehives, in the village of Karakoy, Turkey. In the formation of the honeycomb the bees have written in large and clear letters the most beautiful name of the essence of God: Allah." This is followed by a quotation from [Quran 16:68-69
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External links

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