Stephanie Keith, a Rolling Stone photojournalist, has been covering Christian rock festivals since 2002, and the magazine's Web site currently sports a photo gallery heavy with divinely inspired pathos captured at shows around the country.
I genuinely hope that teenyboppers like this one -- a concert-goer at "Acquire the Fire," a Christian Rock event in Virginia -- are as spiritually enriched by such events as they say they are, because it is tempting to conclude, as does Sean at "God is for Suckers!", that many of them appear ready for a gurney and a shot or three of haloperidol. Notes Keith:
"People get really, really into it and they'll fall on the floor and pass out. The term they use is 'extreme worship' -- they're just so overcome with love of Jesus that they can't believe his power. It is eerie. They get that ecstatic drug sort of feeling."
Actually, although the object of adulation here is a deity rather than a magical fungus or plant, the transcendental experiences claimed by Christian concert attendees are surely no different at the neurotransmitter level than those soulless atheists such as myself enjoy while in the grip of, say, a particularly good 17-mile run accompanied by one's own favorite tunes or beatific post-coital bliss. Music can do funny things to people of a similar mindset clustered in large groups. Perhaps the biochemistry is similar to that of a "near-death experience." What's going on here? According to studies involving transcendental meditation, lots of stuff:
- Increase in brain neurotransmitter, serotonin (think SSRIs)
- Change in secretion and release of several pituitary hormones "similar to the effects of synthetic anxiolytic and tranquilizing agents such as benzodiazepines" (mediated via GABA receptors, a la ketamine)
- Increased secretion of arginine vasopressin (AVP), a by-product of behaviorally induced stress
- Loss of normal diurnal rhythm for the hormones adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and beta-endorphin
- Increased phenylalanine (an amino acid), reflecting "high arousal" (I don't know if a can of aspartame-containing diet soda does the same thing)
- An increase of carbon dioxide (But not if you hyperventilate over the bass player)
Neurohormonal funny business aside, if these kids think their spiritual orgasms are being fired straight into their mental loins from Christ himself, then for all practical purposes this is what is happening. My source of endorphins is different, but if acting out the rudiments of the Book of Revelation at 90 beats a minute were the darkest side of Christianity in America, I'd have no complaints about it.
Comments
As someone who was raised by fundamentalist Christians of the Pentacostal persuasion, I've seen my share of this phenomenon firsthand. I once watched my own mother pass out in front of me; they claimed she was "slain in the spirit," which isn't exactly comforting to a 9-year-old girl. ["Slain? Doesn't that mean dead?!?"] :)
I find your analysis of what might actually be going on physiologically quite fascinating, and was wondering if perhaps there are any similar studies of the "speaking in tongues" phenomenon. There seems to be something neural going on there; are certain people able to tap into some particular part of the brain that induces these sorts of fits? I was always reminded of the Oracle of Delphi when I saw it...
Finally, as someone who drinks a lot of Diet Coke, I can report with great confidence that I don't find it the least bit "arousing" in anything but the "wake me up" sense of the word. :)
Posted by: Jennifer Ouellette | September 2, 2006 2:14 PM