God and the Senses (1): Acts of Thomas
In an earlier post , I noted that while vision and audition are the predominant aspects of sacred or divine encounters (hierophany and theophany respectively) that there is a dearth of comment from a modern perspective on the engaging of other senses. It is not just seeing God or hearing God, but also smelling, tasting, and touching. Taste, indeed, will play an important role in Christian encounters, largely due to the Eucharist. But Jewish, Christian, and Islamic works (and I limit myself to these since I am most familiar with them; not because I think it is lacking elsewhere) often engage multiple senses at once when speaking of the self and God. Of these, perhaps smell is the most interesting: it permeates and envelops but is not enveloped by you; it is evanescent but ever-present; it may surround you, but you cannot grasp it. Touching often gives a sense of immediacy and intimacy, and tasting is perhaps most intimate, but also can be used to discu...