Chanting and Dancing into Dissociation

doi:10.1017/9781009019927.008

Chapter 5 - Chanting and Dancing into Dissociation

The Case of the Salian Priests at Rome

from Part II - Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2022

Edited by

Armin W. Geertz and

Esther Eidinow: Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Armin W. Geertz: Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
John North: Affiliation:
University College London

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Starting from a cognitive point of view, this paper provides an entirely new reading of the dances and chants of the Salian priests. By focusing on their dances and chants in the perspective of embodied cognition and by putting a diligent analysis of (a) the reports and (b) the prayer texts into historical comparisons with other ‘prophetic’ practices of that time, this study is able to elucidate the Salian performances as body techniques that go beyond a mere facilitation of sociality. These techniques alter the practitioners’ states of mind and thereby elicit an experience that one may call religious experience, divine experience, or ‘possession’.

Keywords

carmen Saliare priesthood Roman religion Salii prayer possession dissociation tripudium dance religious experience

Type: Chapter
Information: Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience , pp. 118 - 142

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019927.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvar, Nuño, Alvar, A. J. Ezquerra and Woolf, G. eds. 2021. SENSORIVM: The Senses in Roman Polytheism. Leiden.Google Scholar

Andersen, M. 2019. ‘Predictive Coding in Agency Detection’, Religion, Brain, and Behavior 9: 65–84.Google Scholar

Andersen, M. and Schjødt, U.. 2017. ‘How Does Religious Experience Work in Predictive Minds?’ Religion, Brain, and Behavior 7: 320–323.Google Scholar

Andersen, M., Pfeiffer, T., Müller, S. and Schjødt, U.. 2019. ‘Agency Detection in Predictive Minds: A Virtual Reality Study’, Religion, Brain, and Behavior 9: 52–64.Google Scholar

Atran, S. 2002. ln Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford.Google Scholar

Azari, N. P., Missimer, J. and Seitz, R. J.. 2005. ‘Religious Experience and Emotion. Evidence for Distinctive Cognitive Neural Patterns’, The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 75: 263–281.CrossRef Google Scholar

Barsalou, L. W., Barbey, A. K, Simmons, W. K. and Santos, A.. 2005. ‘Embodiment in Religious Knowledge’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 5: 14–57.Google Scholar

Borgna, E. 1993. ‘Ancile e arma ancila: osservationi sullo scudo dei Salii’, Ostraka 2: 9–42.Google Scholar

Bremmer, J. 2008. Greek Religion and Culture: The Bible and the Ancient Near East. Leiden.Google Scholar

Bremmer, J. 2017. ‘Roman Maenads’, in Coleman, K. M., ed. Albert’s Anthology, 23–25. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar

Bremmer, J. 2019. ‘Greek Maenadism’, in Bremmer, J., ed. The World of Greek Religion and Mythology. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 433, 251–271. Tübingen.Google Scholar

Burton, R. F. 1897. Catullus. Carmina. London.Google Scholar

Caillois, R. [1958] 2001. Man, Play and Games. Chicago, ILGoogle Scholar

Calame, C. [1977] 2001. Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions. Oxford.Google Scholar

Cary, E. 1937. Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, Vols 1–7. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar

Ceccarelli, P. 1998. La pirrica nell’antichità greco romana: studi sulla danza armata. Pisa.Google Scholar

Chalupa, A. 2014. ‘Pythiai and Inspired Divination in the Delphic Oracle: Can Cognitive Sciences Provide Us with an Access to “Dead Minds”? Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1: 24–51.Google Scholar

Chaniotis, A. 2013. ‘Staging and Feeling the Presence of God: Emotion and Theatricality in Religious Celebrations in the Roman East’, in Bricault, L. and Bonnet, C., eds. Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Graeco-Roman Empire. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 177, 169–189. Leiden.Google Scholar

Chiarini, S. 2016. ‘Ἐγώ εἰμι ῾Ερμῆς: Eine dramaturgische Facette der antiken Zaubersprache’, Tyche 31: 78–101.Google Scholar

Cirilli, R. 1913. Les prêtres danseurs de Rome: étude sur la corporation sacerdotale des Saliens. Paris.Google Scholar

Corre, N. 2013. ‘Noms barbares et “barbarisation” dans les formules efficacies latines’, in Tardieu, M., van den Kerchove, A. and Zago, M., eds. Noms barbares, Vol.1 Formes et contextes d’une pratique magique, 93–108. Turnhout.Google Scholar

Crippa, S. 1999. ‘Entre vocalité et écriture: la voix de la sibylle et les rites vocaux des magiciens’, in Batsch, C., Egelhaaf-Gaiser, U. and Stepper, R., eds. Zwischen Krise und Alltag: Antike Religionen im Mittelmeerraum, 95–110. Stuttgart.Google Scholar

Czachesz, I. 2015. ‘Religious Experience in Mediterranean Antiquity: Introduction to the Special Issue’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 2: 5–13. CrossRef Google Scholar

Czachesz, I. 2016. Cognitive Science and the New Testament: A New Approach to Early Christian Research. Oxford.Google Scholar

Damasio, A. 2010. The Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York, NY.Google Scholar

Deeley, Q., Oakley, D. A., Walsh, E., Bell, V., Mehta, M. A. and Halligan, P. W.. 2014. ‘Modelling Psychiatric and Cultural Possession Phenomena with Suggestion and fMRI’, Cortex 53: 107–119.Google Scholar

Dell’Isola, M. 2019. ‘“They Are Not the Words of a Rational Man”: Ecstatic Prophecy in Montanism’, in Gasparini, V., Patzelt, M., Raja, R., Rieger, A.-K., Rüpke, J. and Urciuoli, E., eds. Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from Archaeology, History and Classics. Berlin.Google Scholar

Duff, J. D. 1928. Lucan. The Civil War (Pharsalia). Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar

Dumézil, G. 1966. La religion romaine archaïque. Paris.Google Scholar

Feldt, L. 2017. ‘The Literary Aesthetics of Religious Narratives: Probing Literary-Aesthetic Form, Emotion, and Sensory Effects in Exodus 7-11’, in Grieser, A. K. and Johnston, J., eds. Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, 121–143. Berlin.Google Scholar

Forbes, C. 1995. Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and Its Hellenistic Environment. Tübingen.Google Scholar

Geertz, A. W. 2010. ‘Brain, Body and Culture: A Biocultural Theory of Religion’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22: 304–321.Google Scholar

Gill, C. 1985. ‘Ancient Psychotherapy’, Journal of History of Ideas 46: 307–325.Google Scholar

Gordon, R. 1987. ‘Aelian’s Peony: The Location of Magic in Graeco–Roman Tradition’, Comparative Criticism 9: 59–95.Google Scholar

Gordon, R. 1990. ‘From Republic to Principate: Priesthood, Religion and Ideology’, in Beard, M. and North, J., eds. Pagan Priests, 179–198. London.Google Scholar

Gordon, R. 2020. ‘(Re-)Modelling Religious Experience: Some Experiments with Hymnic Form in the Imperial Period’, in Gasparini, V., Patzelt, M., Raja, R., Rieger, A.-K., Rüpke, J. and Urciuoli, E., eds. Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from Archaeology, History and Classics, 23–48. Berlin.Google Scholar

Gorea, M. 2013. ‘Des noms imprononçables’, in Tardieu, M., van den Kerchove, A. and Zago, M., eds. Noms Barbares, Vol.1 Formes et contexts d’une pratique magique, 109–120. Turnhout.Google Scholar

Graf, F. 1995. ‘Tanz und Initiation in der griechisch-römischen Antike’, in Möckel, M. and Volkmann, H., eds. Spiel, Tanz und Märchen, 83–96. Regensburg.Google Scholar

Graf, F. 1996. Gottesnähe und Schadenszauber: Die Magie in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Munich.Google Scholar

Grieser, A. and Johnston, J.. 2017. ‘What Is an Aesthetics of Religion? From the Senses to Meaning and Back Again’, in Grieser, A. K. and Johnston, J., eds. Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, 1–49. Berlin.Google Scholar

Guittard, C. 2007. Carmen et prophéties à Rome. Turnhout.Google Scholar

Guittard, C. 2013. ‘From the Curia on the Palatine Hill to the Regia on the Forum’, in Cusumano, N., Gasparini, V., Mastrocinque, A. and Rüpke, J., eds. Memory and Religious Experience in the Greco-Roman World, 177–184. Stuttgart.Google Scholar

Habinek, T. 2005. The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order. Baltimore, MD.Google Scholar

Hardie, A. 2005. ‘The Ancient Etymology of Carmen’, Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 12: 71–94.Google Scholar

Harkins, A. K. and Popović, M., eds. 2015. Religious Experience and the Dead Sea Scrolls [Special issue]. Dead Sea Discoveries 22(3): 247–357.Google Scholar

Harvey, S. A. 2006. Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination. Berkeley.Google Scholar

Harvey, S. A. 2014. ‘The Senses in Religion: Piety, Critique, Competition’, in Toner, J., ed. A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity: 500 BC – 500 AD, 91–114. London.Google Scholar

Heinzel, E. 1996. ‘Über den Ursprung der Salier’, in Blakolmer, F., ed. Fremde Zeiten: Festschrift für Jürgen Borchhardt, Vol. 2, 197–212. Wien.Google Scholar

Helbig, W. 1905. Sur les attributs des Saliens. Paris.Google Scholar

Hick, J. 2010. The New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experience, Neuroscience and the Transcendent. Basingstoke.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hohwy, J. 2013. The Predictive Mind. Oxford.CrossRef Google Scholar

Jegindø, E.-M. E., Vase, L., Jegindø, J. and Geertz, A.W.. 2013. ‘Pain and Sacrifice: Experience and Modulation of Pain in a Religious Piercing Ritual’, International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 23: 171–187.Google Scholar

Konvalinka, I., Xygalatas, D., Bulbulia, J., Schjødt, U., Jegindø, E.-M., Wallot, S., Van Orden, G. and Roepstorff, A.. 2011. ‘Synchronized Arousal between Performers and Related Spectators in a Fire-Walking Ritual’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108: 8514–8519.Google Scholar

Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford.Google Scholar

Kundtová Klocová, E. and Geertz, A. W.. 2019. ‘Ritual and Embodied Cognition’, in Uro, R., Day, J. J., DeMaris, R. E. and Roitto, R., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual, 74–94. Oxford.Google Scholar

Laderman, C. 1996. ‘The Poetics of Healing in Malay Shamanistic Performances’, in Laderman, C. and Roseman, M., eds. The Performance of Healing, 115–142. London.Google Scholar

Linforth, I. M. 1946. ‘The Corybantic Rites in Plato’, University of California Publications in Classical Philology 13: 121–162.Google Scholar

Maurenbrecher, B. 1894. Carminum Saliarum Reliquiae. Leipzig.Google Scholar

Mauss, M. [1936] 1979. ‘Techniques of the Body’, in Sociology and Psychology: Essays, 97–123. London.Google Scholar

McNamara, P. 2009. The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. Cambridge.Google Scholar

Meyer, B. ed. 2010. Aesthetic Formations: Media, Religion, and the Senses. Basingstoke.Google Scholar

Münster, D. 2001. Religionsästhetik und Anthropologie der Sinne: Vorarbeiten zu einer Religionsethnologie der Produktion und Rezeption ritueller Medien. Munich.Google Scholar

Newberg, A., Wintering, N. A., Morgan, D. and Waldman, M. R.. 2006. ‘The Measurement of Regional Blood Flow during Glossolalia: A Preliminary SPECT Study’, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 148: 67–71.Google Scholar

Pachis, P. 1996. ‘Γαλλαῖον Κυβέλης ὀλόλυγμα (Anthol. Palat. VI, 173): l’élément orgiastique dans le culte de Cybèle’, in Lane, E. N., ed. Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M. J. Vermaseren. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 131, 193–222. Leiden.Google Scholar

Panagiotidou, O. 2014. ‘The Asklepios Cult: Where Brains, Minds, and Bodies Interact with the World’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1: 14–23.Google Scholar

Panagiotidou, O. 2017. The Roman Mithras Cult: A Cognitive Approach. London.Google Scholar

Pattison, E. M. 1968. ‘Behavioral Science Research on the Nature of Glossolalia’, Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 20: 73–86.Google Scholar

Patzelt, M. 2018. Über das Beten der Römer: Gebete im spätrepublikanischen und frühkaiserzeitlichen Rom als Ausdruck gelebter Religion. Berlin.CrossRef Google Scholar

Patzelt, M. 2019. ‘Praying As a “Woman among Men”: Reconsidering Clodius’ Failed Prayer in Cicero’s Speech On his House’, Religion in the Roman Empire 5(2): 271–291.Google Scholar

Pentcheva, B. 2014. ‘The Power of Glittering Materiality: Mirror Reflections between Poetry and Architecture in Greek and Arabic Medieval Culture’, Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Supplementa 47: 223–268.Google Scholar

Perrin, B. (trans.) 1914. Plutarch. Lives, Volume I. Theseus and Romulus. Lycurgus and Numa. Solon and Publicola. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar

Reichardt, A. 1916. Die Lieder der Salier und das Lied der Arvalbrüder. Leipzig.Google Scholar

Richlin, A. 2014. Arguments with Silence: Writing the History of Roman Women. Ann Arbor, MI.Google Scholar

Rouget, G. 1985. Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations between Music and Possession. Chicago, IL.Google Scholar

Samarin, W. 1972. ‘Variation and Variables in Religious Glossolalia’, Language in Society 1: 121–130.Google Scholar

Sarullo, G. 2014. Il ‘Carmen Saliare’: indagini filologiche e riflessioni linguistiche. Berlin.Google Scholar

Sarullo, G. and Taylor, D. J.. 2013. ‘Two Fragments of the Carmen Saliare and the Manuscript Tradition of Varro’s De Lingua Latina’, Zeitschrift für Buchgeschichte 91/92: 1–10.Google Scholar

Scheid, J. 2015. The Gods, the State, and the Individual: Reflections on Civic Religion in Rome. Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar

Schjødt, U. 2009. ‘The Religious Brain: A General Introduction to the Experimental Neuroscience of Religion’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 21: 310–339.Google Scholar

Sørensen, J. 2007. A Cognitive Theory of Magic. Lanham, MD.Google Scholar

Šterbenc Erker, D. 2011. ‘Stimme und Klang im Bacchuskult: Die ululatio’, in Meyer–Dietrich, E., ed. Laut und Leise: Der Gebrauch von Stimme und Klang in historischen Kulturen, 173–194. Bielefeld.CrossRef Google Scholar

Šterbenc Erker, D. 2013. Religiöse Rollen römischer Frauen in ‘griechischen’ Ritualen. Stuttgart.Google Scholar

Tambiah, S. S. 1968. ‘The Magical Power of Words’, Man 3: 175–208.Google Scholar

Taves, A. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar

Taves, A. 2016. Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths. Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar

Torelli, M. 1984. Lavinio e Roma: riti iniziatici e matrimonio tra archeologia e storia. Rome.Google Scholar

Torelli, M. 1990. ‘Riti di passagio maschili di Roma arcaica’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome – Antiquité 102: 93–106.Google Scholar

Trost, W. and Vuilleumier, P.. 2013. ‘Rhythmic Entrainment As a Mechanism for Emotion Induction by Music: A Neurophysiological Perspective’, in Cochrane, T., Fantini, B. and Scherer, K. R., eds. The Emotional Power of Music: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Arousal, Expression, and Social Control, 213–225. Oxford.CrossRef Google Scholar

Turner, V. 1974. The Ritual Process. Harmondsworth.Google Scholar

Ustinova, Y. 2009. Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth. Oxford.Google Scholar

Ustinova, Y. 2018. Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece. London.Google Scholar

Ustinova, Y. 2021. ‘Hirpi Sorani and Modern Fire-Walkers: Rejoicing through Pain in Extreme Rituals’, in Alvar Nuño, A., Alvar Ezquerra, J. and Woolf, G., eds. SENSORIVM: The Senses in Roman Polytheism, 71–89. Leiden.Google Scholar

Book contents

Chapter 5 - Chanting and Dancing into Dissociation

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive