A Body of Evidence

EVIDENT BODIES

What makes something "stick"? What are those experiences in our lives that become touchstones for the life that follows? How might the answer to these questions help shape how we use spirituality to form our ministry and seminary students? This paper sits at the intersection of three areas. First, it draws upon the field of embodied cognition for an anthropological paradigm that would at least have a perichoretic understanding of matters of the body and matters of the "soul," if not a "nonreductive physicalism."¹ Second, it focuses upon current applications of embodied cognition in learning and formation. Third, it applies these theories to the question of the efficacy of spiritual formation through spiritual practices.

The thesis arising from embodied cognition studies is that the impact (depth) and significance (duration) of learning spiritual practices would be greater if one's engagement with the spiritual practices introduced are intentionally embodied.² This thesis was then tested in two study groups of seminary students on two separate retreats, both introducing the same five spiritual disciplines to the retreatants. The one group had these disciplines processed through content distribution and group conversation. The second group had these five practices introduced through content distribution, but the practices were processed through overtly embodied actions. It is important to note that these practices were not embodied practices, so the variable was the embodiment involved in experience of exploring, assessing, and assimilating the practice, not the embodied quality of the practice itself. The subjects were then surveyed about their experiences of utilizing one particular practice over the next four months.³

CONSCIOUS BODIES

A pivot in the turn toward embodied cognition and away from Cartesian "mind over matter" duality came with the application by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget's work, together with Gilbert Ryle's,⁴ would soon become the foundation upon which many future philosophical and psychological works would be based.⁵ Piaget's work Biology and Knowledge⁶ explored the relationship between mind and knowledge. Piaget claimed that some knowledge is instinctual, or that which is innate or hereditary. A second category of knowledge is logico-mathematical, which is knowledge of the relationship between objects. The last category is the largest which is acquired knowledge and physical experiences. All three forms of knowing provide us with intelligence: our understanding of society, allowing us to live within its values, norms, and behaviors. The third category is rooted in our physicality.⁷ Cognition, even of abstractions, is a systemic experience of the environment which creates abstract thoughts such as concepts, questions, or possibilities.⁸ Through our logico-mathematical capacities, we are able to identify the structures and patterns of the environments we encounter, as well as create structures such as categories and patterns to enable us to negotiate that environment.⁹

Piaget asserted that changes to our bodies and/or our environment require adaptation, such as assimilation or accommodation. We are constantly negotiating our "somatic" and "external" environments as both are in flux. Learning and knowing arise out of ongoing adaptation.¹⁰ To survive, humans must adapt behaviorally and cognitively, and both are equally connected to somatic experiences.¹¹ Human cognition is not only bound to our physical reality, it is also bound by the constrictions of time. Cognition allows us to encounter, remember, and anticipate; all of which are crucial for making adaptive decisions through a lifetime.¹²

Piaget's understanding of the embodied nature of our cognition and learning has been crucial in the subsequent development of psychology and educational theory. His is one of the pioneering voices of creating the field of embodied cognition in psychology and philosophy as an applied discipline and a method for research and testing. Embodied cognition is beginning to make incursions into the theological world as well. A fine example of such research would be the recent work of Kathryn Reklis.¹³ Reklis' work explores the meanings of the embodied ecstatic movements of those who attended the revivals in New England's Great Awakening of the eighteenth century. To get at this question, Reklis uses performance theory, in particular concepts of "kinesthetic imagination," "scenarios," and...