The Dynamic Spatiality of Cinema and the Religious Belief: a Short Comparison

The Dynamic Spatiality of cinema and the religious belief: A short comparison

by Rita Mascialino

This paper aims to highlight how the Dynamic Spatiality of cinema has a deep unconscious basis in religion as it consists in images without body which seem to have a normal life as concrete human beings have. Cinema and religion as they are here considered regard both the general spatiality of the moving pictures and the religious spiritual world rather than specific film contents or specific theological topics, respectively. After an introduction upon an early beginning of the way of understanding the world by non-speaking great apes and speaking great apes as well as of the religious thinking as animism, a comparison between the nature of cinema and some correspondences regarding the religious belief takes place in order to point out the way cinema contributes to unconsciously support a religious perspective upon human life also in those humans who think not to believe in religion and in ghosts.

The scientific background of this paper mainly consists in evolution and evolutionary semiotics of language, in basic neurophysiology of language, in philosophy of language and mind, including the theory of meaning concerning Dynamic Spatiality and Spatial Schemes (Mascialino 1997 ff), in historic and prehistoric sciences specifically referring to the presence of religions in human culture.

This study aims to briefly offer a summary bird’s eye view from the animistic comprehension of the environment in non-speaking great apes and speaking great apes to the consideration of cinema with its flat images as an unconscious link to the ancient Dynamic Spatiality(Mascialino 1997 and ff.) of animism regarding incorporeal beings.

In this respect, it is particularly important to preliminarily stress that the speaking man of most ancient times was the same great ape that did not speak, with no differences in the experience of the environment which had been and was the same for both great apes. This implies the presence of a shared basis for meanings and symbols coming from archaic cognitive perspectives as there is still evidence a.o. in lots of words and figures of speech still living in modern languages. For instance, all the world says that night and shadows fall from heaven although all the world has known for long times that night and shadows do not fall from anywhere, but this was the old point of view of the animistic non-speaking great apes and this is whatstays depicted in the pictograms of the animistic speaking primates, when darkness and night were seen and symbolized as a kind of rain falling from the vault of heaven, i.e., as it was perceived in non-speaking and believed in speaking primates. Also the expression concerning the going down of the sun reflects what it seemed to happen in ancient times whereas actually the sun does not go down, and so on with lots of interpretations and of symbols coming from the perception of reality produced by old animistic trials to understand the environment and all phenomena, then linguistically expressed in ancient times. Non-speaking great apes see the environment, as it cannot be otherwise, in an animistic way, i.e., they do not distinguish predators from natural phenomena in their world view. In other words, the world is felt by the brain of the great ape as generally consisting both in predators as well as harmless living beings, anyhow in living beings, which is the animistic perspective on life and environment.

When some great apes began to speak, they had at disposal the cognitive heritage of non-speaking great apes, i.e., ultimately of themselves when they had been non-speaking great apes and were still in all circumstances, in any case the unconscious input for the linguistic conceptualization was that of the heritage of non speaking great apes. New experiences were done, but lots of old experiences came out from the mute heritage of the non-speaking great ape providing the speaking great ape with a basically animistic world view to form language and to decode life and environment.

Therefore, with the development of speech the old unconscious heritage began to gradually come to consciousness or to a more detailed consciousness. Thanks to speech there arose abstract concepts and also a multitude of invisible living beings personifying on the animistic level of conceptualization natural and psychological phenomena and having the very nature of the phenomena themselves as earthquake, wind and breath a.o., also animals which were thought to be the embodiment of such incorporeal living beings. These incorporeal beings were then considered as powerful leaders of human groups, sometimes more powerful than the human corporeal leaders, this in general and without going now into more details. Even important humans were thought to be embodiments of supreme invisible leaders that were called gods and goddesses in the new conceptual area of so-called religion.

Consequently, on the model a.o. of wind and breath, there arose the very belief in the existence of an incorporeal spirit or soul within the body of humans which gave humans life and motion and which abandoned their body with the entry of death, this in order to get their incorporeal independence from the body. Breath was considered by the animistic man as the soul itself. Non-speaking great apes saw motionless or dead bodies decaying on the ground, and speaking great apes considered breath as the spirit which gave life to bodies by getting into their bodies and which was considered to go out of their bodies when these died.

Coming now to the previous announced comparison between the Dynamic Spatiality of animism including the religious belief and cinema, the link between them is given by the Dynamic Spatiality of images without a body, i.e., incorporeal. The flat images imitate life as to animal, people and objects by creating virtual worlds of incorporeal images which associate on the unconscious neurological paths with the ancient Dynamic Spatiality of the animistic world. This unconscious association consolidates the ancient animistic root of the belief in the existence of incorporeal living beings related to the above mentioned phenomena, which stays at the core of all religions in human culture and which bases on incorporeal or virtual worlds.

If once dreams and tales as well as visions happening as a consequence of diseases were an important way for humans to believe in virtual worlds of gods and souls, man has got today lots of virtual worlds created by cinema, web and the like. All this strengthens more and more the old habit to the virtual, to the incorporeal, so that the relationship with incorporeal beings is still shared on a large scale in modern life even if on a different level of cognition compared to what was once at disposal. This constitutes a parallel with the animistic worlds produced in ancient times. Man does not consciously believe in the real existence of these virtual worlds, but unconsciously, within the mute brain (MacLean 1973 ff) and thanks to the long memory ofDynamic Spatiality and Spatial Schemes (Mascialino 1997 ff), he nevertheless carries forward the animistic ancient knowledge concerning incorporeal living beings and powerful leaders as well as virtual worlds like in most archaic past times. In other words: Films offer with their tales a parallel with an animistic way of perceiving life and even when they tell stories against religion itself, this remains only on the conscious level, but the unconscious archaic brain associates anyhow the worlds offered by cinema with the animistic worlds and nurtures in addition the unconscious base for a religious feeling. This contributes to the persistence of the belief in visions, miracles and incorporeal living beings and unconsciously consolidates and continues developing it. Withthe presence of this unconscious association and consolidation, the religious belief can appear as something normal even in a time where sciences have already reached a level which make this belief unbelievable. On the contrary, the major part of mankind, also many scientists, continue really believing more and more fixedly in incorporeal and invisible beings like gods as well as incorporeal realms in incorporeal hereafters. It is most likely that cinema, internet, videogames and all the virtual contribute on their part and on the unconscious level to keep alive the archaic animistic way of understanding the world. It is this long memory of the triune brain (MacLean 1972-1990) which is carried by its Spatial Schemes that makes this illusion possible though all scientific achievements, and the Spatiality of cinema, web and the like unconsciously strengthens the animistic belief.

The modern and cultured man can appear free from archaic points of view which he considers as overcome, but in the inherited unconscious memory of the brain and DNA man is so to say still very animistic, and this presence of old kinds of knowledge is still active, as we can see every day in lots of behaviors.

Concluding, we can understand also by analyzing our culturein the farthest past and going back from linguistic to non-linguistic times, how the archaic animistic man was as to personality and world view and can compare him to the religious man of our days: Videogames, films and the like where there are incorporeal images of people who are endowed with extraordinary magic powers, strengthen the belief in religions, where there are also such creatures and incorporeal hereafters. This influence of cinema, web, videogames a.o. on religious beliefs mainly happens on the unconscious level, generally unbeknownst to most humans, but nevertheless or exactly for this very powerfully.

Concluding, what I wanted to briefly highlight in this paper is the importance of the unconscious connections between the religious worlds and the old animistic worlds, latter as a memory of an archaic inherited Dynamic Spatialityrelating non speaking and speaking great apes, former as the Dynamic Spatiality of the virtual reality of cinema and the like which contributes preserving in human culture the old animistic man neurologically connected with the ancient man and the heredity of the great non-speaking apes.

Rita Mascialino