Jesuit solemnities in the Southern Netherlands: immersion and experience

Since the celebrations for Ignatius’s beatification organized in Brussels in 1609, the Belgian Jesuits kept proposing processional performances characterized not only by their highly spectacular features, but also by their physical dimensions, in contempt of synodal summons that imposed a strong spiritualization of the processions. With Jesuit ceremonies, bodies are in movement, senses are awakened, and emotions are heightened. Processions establish themselves as immersional spatio-temporal frames where what matters the most seems to be the experience provoked by the saturation of special effects. I will seek to define the practical terms of this experience and to identify the devices used to make this experience possible and the purpose behind this activation of experience.