The Cognitive Phenomenology of Doors in the Book of Revelation: A Spatial Analysis

Abstract

Following Rowland’s and Foucault’s respective observations that apocalypses are not necessarily temporal, and that historical analyses have diverted attention unduly from spatial phenomena, this paper examines Revelation using a spatial hermeneutic, comparing it to the semi-contemporaneous Parables of Enoch. Analyzing ostensibly similar spaces that are presented divergently, the paper focuses particular attention on “doorway” phenomena in Revelation. Recent research in cognitive psychology by Radvansky et al. suggests that passing through a doorway has a measurable cognitive effect, inducing forgetfulness of prior thoughts. Revelation employs doorway and gateway language repeatedly, while Parables of Enoch does not. The respective spatial emphases of Revelation and Parables suggest diverging engagements with a traumatized material world. References in Parables of Enoch to oppressive landowners and transformative goals for the earth suggest a continuing critical engagement with the material world. The lack of comparable language in Revelation suggests a comparatively more escapist perspective. Revelation combines polemic against all the “inhabitants of the earth”, an emphasis on the replacement of the old order, and the use of compensatory cultic language to orient the reader away from the existing material world. The parallel narrative employment of doorway language suggests an operative governing psychology of separation and forgetfulness in Revelation.

Rethinking Environmentalism and Apocalypse: Anamorphosis in The Book of Enoch and Climate Fiction

“…In a series of recent studies, Jolyon Pruszinski has developed Rowland's position significantly by examining the role played by what he calls textual "ecologies" in Biblical apocalyptic and related literatures. Drawing on perspectives from cognitive psychology and phenomenology, Pruszinski digs deep into the connection between theologies of resistance and what Rowland identified as Biblical apocalypse's "concern with the situation as it is" (Pruszinski 2019(Pruszinski , 2021. In Revelation, the imagery of doors opening and closing "leans towards forgetting and disengagement with the known, and traumatised, material world" (Pruszinski 2019, p. 10).…”

“…Recently, however, Enoch has featured prominently in the ecotheological interpretation of apocalypse by Micah Kiel (2017). Enoch has also been discussed in the environmentally oriented readings of apocalypse by Matthew Goff (2010), Daniel Assefa (2017), Loren T. Stuckenbruck (2017), Mebius (2018Mebius ( -2019Mebius ( , 2020, as well as being mentioned by Pruszinski in his study of Biblical ecologies of perception (Pruszinski 2019(Pruszinski , 2021.…”

“…For Rowland, attention to the earth "as it is" indicates a significant but overlooked way in which Enoch performs a theology of resistance. Pruszinski discusses this aspect of Enoch in more detail in his spatial analysis of Biblical apocalypse (Pruszinski 2019). Pruszinski compares the eschatological visions in Enoch to those in Revelation.…”

“…Typically, ecocritical readings of Biblical apocalypse rely on a definition of the genre focused on eschatological themes related to species annihilation precipitated by the judgement of the world and the end of time. In this article, we offer an alternative engagement with Biblical apocalypse by drawing on Christopher Rowland's and Jolyon Pruszinski's argument that apocalypse is not necessarily concerned with temporality (Rowland 1982;Pruszinski 2019Pruszinski , 2021. We compare this research to Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenological analysis of Biblical apocalypse as a way of seeing the world that worries human assumptions about the nature of things and thereby instigates an "anamorphosis" of perception (Marion 2016).…”