Are the rituals of the Church psychological? (Holy Spirit, quote, faith)

[inspiringmind]

I am sure that everyone throughout their life has watched an evangelist on television and they brought people up to the stage and put oils on their forehead and then they fall down after a few seconds. They believe that it is caused by the holy spirit going through the person.

My question is what other possible explanations can there be?

Psychological? Physiological?

Like acupuncture, is there a spot on your forehead when pressed long enough just allows your legs to go out from under you?

Do people give in and fall just because it is something like Pavlov's dog? (Everyone else falls, so I should fall too.)

Just wanted some thoughts on the subject.

[scarmig]

Willing psychological peer pressure. Humans are social animals, and we are very hard wired to respond to social pressure.

All you need is a couple of plants in the audience to get the ball rolling, and people will convince themselves to pass out on stage.

[catman]

Or they could be intentionally 'acting'.

[Thomas R.]

That might be overly cynical.

I think if you are excited enough about something for a long enough period you may go into hysteria or faint. Many of these religions have long services that involve bringing out strong emotional responses. Therefore there may be an anticipation of a cathartic moment when you get to the end of it. I'm not necessarily saying it can't be from God, but if you want a psychological explanations it's not tricky to figure one here.

Although you may argue that falling over shouldn't be the only response to this. That there really should be people who "freak out" or start screaming or do something unexpected. However I think if you are expected the "moment" to be one of losing control of your body than that might effect how you respond. Also I know from people in this world that they don't universally and always fall over. In fact I knew a woman in that world who felt down on herself because she didn't fall over, or do much extraordinary at all, and assumed that meant she was of poor faith.

Granted I'm very outside the charismatic/Pentecostal world. To me most of what I've heard can be explained by fairly normal psychological processes you can see in any highly emotional group activity. Now if that process truly is cathartic/meaningful for the person and helps them get off drugs or deal with their childhood or turn their life around than that's good. My concern though is that I've often heard people from that spectrum feel down on themselves because they did not have that kind of experience and that they may emphasize that emotional experience to the exclusion of too much that's important.

Still it's not my world, so whatever works for you so long as you don't bother me.

[catman]

Yeah, I know I was being rather cynical. I was just mentioning it as another possibility.
Perhaps I was envisioning the crocodile tears of Robert Tilton, a local TV evangelist who made the big time for a while, when I said it. The psychological effect is like any mass meeting, be it a Nuremberg Party Rally or a Haitian voodoo, can produce.

[FredNotBob]

Originally Posted by inspiringmind

I am sure that everyone throughout their life has watched an evangelist on television and they brought people up to the stage and put oils on their forehead and then they fall down after a few seconds. They believe that it is caused by the holy spirit going through the person.

My question is what other possible explanations can there be?

Psychological? Physiological?

Like acupuncture, is there a spot on your forehead when pressed long enough just allows your legs to go out from under you?

Do people give in and fall just because it is something like Pavlov's dog? (Everyone else falls, so I should fall too.)

Just wanted some thoughts on the subject.

The effects you mention are primarily psychological in nature -- a lot can be said of 'herd mentality' and psychosomatic effects (psychosomatic reflex, for those not up on psychology, is a body's imagined response to non-existant stimuli; your mind convinces your body that it's truly happening).

The intensity that I usually see in those 'oil healings' is usually high enough to trigger an autonomous nervous response; the subject is usually worked up into a high state of agitation and anticipation, and that much adrenaline, mental pressure and circulatory stress can be dangerous if the body doesn't regulate it. As a result, the subject's mind will shut the body down to prevent cirulatory distress and to keep toxic levels of neurochemicals from accumulating and causing damage to the brainstem.