SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS AND THE DEVOTION OF THE NAZZARENO OR REDENTUR; THE STORY OF HOW A SINGLE LOCUTION OR THOUGHT SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD THROUGH EMBODIED COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE.

Abstract

Here we describe one Locution-or thought - that Saint John of the Cross experienced, and how this locution led to the important devotion of the Redentur or Nazzareno, - Christ carrying the Cross - which still draws huge crowds of devotees worldwide. We have traced how this single thought of Saint John of the Cross has been transmitted across time and space to influence large groups of people across the centuries and continue to do so. To do this we have used numerous disciplines including Church History, Art History, Iconography, Anthropology as in Popular Religion and Story Telling and Neuroscience. In Neuroscience, we attribute this transmission through artworks to Embodied cognition, which is mediated via the Mirror Neuron System and the Default Mode Network, which also mediate Empathy and The Perception of The Self.