Candles and transduction
The Christian use of votive candles offers a good example of transduction, as it transforms the substance of prayer across semiotic modalities from inner thought to physical sign, emphasising a movement from the invisible and immaterial to the visible and material. These candles are commonplace objects in Christian churches, they are found across denominations, and are conventionally used as instruments in the practice of prayer. Prayer is of course a central practice when it comes to grasping and mediating “the relationship between the immanent world of familiar sense perceptions and the transcendent world of divinity” (Keane, 2013, p5) . The practice of prayer is not merely a contemplative act, as it will generally consist in an ongoing and engaging process by which individuals cultivate a set of dispositions and attitudes that are essential to religious experience. In Evangelical Christian communities, for example, prayer is generally “treated as a skill”, a spiritual technique enabling individuals to acquire and develop capacities that are fundamental to the experience of God as an inner voice. (Luhrmann, 2012, p47). Now language is a central component of Christian prayer, as one will usually pray to God through inner thought in the form of a private dialogue, whilst kneeling down at an altar for example, and through outer speech, as in the act of saying grace before or after eating. Prayer can be seen as a discursive practice which deals with the problem of making present the supra-sensible realm of divinity, and coping with its silence and opacity. We read in the Book of Psalms that “the Lord is near to all who call on him” (Sternhold and Hopkins,1999, 145:18). The act of prayer is a ritual means by which congregants call upon God in an effort to experience divinity as a real presence, as something that one may interact with and potentially perceive.
Now the lighting and burning of votive candles constitutes an externalisation and materialisation of something that would otherwise remain within the bounds of the individual mind as an instance of inner thought. The burning candle embodies the private dialogue established in prayer between a congregant and God, materialising the congregant’s call upon God, and giving to this call a tangible and tactile dimension. Christians blogs and educational platforms insist heavily on the semiotic dimension of votive candles as a physical sign of faith and prayer. They emphasise that the light emanating from votive candles “signifies our prayer offered in faith coming into the light of God. With the light of faith, we petition our Lord in prayer (Saunders, 2020). Lighting up a candle in church is considered a “tangible sign of faith” (Holyart.co.uk Blog, 2020). The burning candle “signals the prayer and love of the person who lit it” (Pope, 2020). The act of lighting the candle thus transforms the substance of prayer from inner thought to physical sign, crossing semiotic modalities in a movement from the immaterial and invisible to the material and the visible. This process of transduction reinforces the fundamental aim and purpose of prayer, namely, to experience God as a real presence, and to negotiate the boundary between the immanent world of human dwelling and the transcendent world of divinity. Votive candles are a good example of how “people produce the immaterial using the material means available to them” (Keane, 2013, 4). The material quality of the candle enables the congregants to actualise the immaterial and invisible qualities of both inner thought and divinity. The transformation of inner thought into physical sign thus parallels the materialisation of spirit in the form of the burning candle and its light, which symbolises both the individual’s faith and the presence of God within the Church.
Bibliography:
Holyart.co.uk Blog. (2020). Why lighting up a candle in church? – Holyart UK. [online] Available at: https://www.holyart.co.uk/blog/religious-items/why-lighting-candle-church/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].
Keane, W. (2013) On Spirit Writing: Materialities of Language and the religious work of transduction
Luhrmann, T.M. (2012) When God Talks Back, Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Alfred A. Knopf
Pope, M. (2020). Why Are Votive Candles Used?. [online] Simplycatholic.com. Available at: https://simplycatholic.com/why-are-votive-candles-used/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].
Saunders, W. (2020). The History of Votive Candles. [online] Catholiceducation.org. Available at: https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/the-history-of-votive-candles.html [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].
Sternhold, T. and Hopkins, J. (1999). The whole book of psalms. Corby Glen: SG Pub.
Contributed by williamgoodchild on 03/02/2020
One response to “Candles and transduction”
A bit late now, but thinking about the mutability of candles reminded me of Plato’s discussion of ‘Chora’ in Timeaus, where there’s some talk about materials (like wax) which may express many different forms *in* them without any of them ever being *of* them . . .
just a thought – thanks for a cool contribution!