{"id":2742,"date":"2008-10-04T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T09:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/take-two-images-of-the-virgin-and-call-me-in-the-morning.html"},"modified":"2008-10-04T09:59:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T09:59:00","slug":"take-two-images-of-the-virgin-and-call-me-in-the-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/take-two-images-of-the-virgin-and-call-me-in-the-morning.html","title":{"rendered":"Take two images of the Virgin, and call me in the morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some people might file this under the category of “Dog Bites Man” — not news, and not all that surprising. But it’s interesting that the subject of prayer and contemplation is generating some serious study. <\/p>\n

This comes from a Catholic website<\/a> in the UK: <\/p>\n

Catholics feel less pain than atheists and agnostics after contemplating the Virgin Mary, according to scientists at the Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Reporting their findings in the forthcoming edition of Pain magazine, researchers said feelings of safety produced by the devotional image allowed the faithful to access pain-relief centres in the brain.<\/p>\n

Catholics in the study felt 11 per cent less pain than atheists or agnostics after viewing Sassoferrato’s 17th century painting of the Virgin Mary \u2013 Vergine Annunciate. This is approximately equal to the soothing relief of a hot flannel on a headache.<\/p>\n

A similar-looking non-religious picture by Leonardo da Vinci \u2013 Lady with an Ermine \u2013 had little effect on either believers or non-believers. Researchers suggested that this was because, for pain relief to occur, the picture had to trigger deep spiritual feelings.<\/p>\n

The pain meted out during the experiments was no worse than an injection.<\/p>\n

Volunteers had their heads strapped inside a brain scanner. Throughout, they received electric shocks, delivered via an electrode strapped to the back of their hand, shortly after viewing the religious or non-religious picture. After each series of shocks, participants recorded how bad the pain was, on a scale of zero to 100.<\/p>\n

The experiment was designed to measure the pain relief produced by the brain.<\/p>\n

Researchers expected to find increased activity in a part of the brain known to attach meaning to painful events, a region in the right temple that can also reduce pain. Brain scans taken during the experiment supported the theory \u2013 Catholics’ brains lit up in this area, but the brains of atheists and agnostics did not.<\/p>\n

Researchers believe the results showed that Catholics contemplating the Virgin Mary felt safe, with the result that they were less afraid of the pain and therefore felt it less. <\/p>\n

Although this study focused on Catholics, the findings may also apply to the faithful of other religions that involve a strong belief system and use devotional images.<\/p>\n

Researchers said they would expect similar results from Hindus, although a test surrounding the analgesic power of Islam would require a different approach because Muslims focus not on iconic images but on sacred texts in their devotions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can find more on the report in The Financial Times<\/a> and The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people might file this under the category of “Dog Bites Man” — not news, and not all that surprising. But it’s interesting that the subject of prayer and contemplation is generating some serious study. This comes from a Catholic website in the UK: Catholics feel less pain than atheists and agnostics after contemplating the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"\nTake two images of the Virgin, and call me in the morning - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/take-two-images-of-the-virgin-and-call-me-in-the-morning.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Take two images of the Virgin, and call me in the morning - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some people might file this under the category of “Dog Bites Man” — not news, and not all that surprising. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}