Ritual practice and peoples' understanding of the world

hco · 08-01-2011 3:00pm #1

Hi,

So am doing an anthropology course on Religion and Politics and have been set this essay but have no idea how to approach it! At all! Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! At this point I would write anything at all that came into my head, which is nothing!

'Assess the relationship between ritual practices and peoples understanding of the world.'

Even some case studies to look at?
A point in the right direction!?

Thank you in advance,

X.

looksee · 08-01-2011 10:09pm

No idea! But I am not an anthropologist. Small, but could be important, point - is that people's or peoples' understanding?

hco · 09-01-2011 3:06pm

It is peoples'. Sorry about that confusion.

sarkozy · 10-01-2011 2:05am

I'd hit the library if I were you. Start with your reading list. Look for what 'ritual' is understood as and apply to practices within a given community/people.

looksee · 10-01-2011 9:30pm

Since you haven't got any concrete suggestions, I will throw in a guess

. Don't take this as a definite suggestion as I have no knowledge of anthropology, but it seems to me that if a race of people believed that the sun disappeared into the underworld every night they would be nervous that one day it might not reappear. So if an imaginative and charismatic person persuaded them that they should make, say, offerings or sacrifices to make sure it came back every morning, they would be likely to accept the idea.

Similarly if they were accustomed to regular rain, and organised their farming according to that rainfall, they might be persuaded to engage in activities that would convince the rain to come when expected.

If they believed there was an all powerful Being who could make their next life miserable they would go to some lengths in this life to tell that Being how wonderful it was and how much they respected/worshipped it.

If they believed that the Being gave authority to Certain People to tell other people what the Being wanted, those Certain People would be given all sorts of privilages to organise society the way they had been 'told' the Being wanted it.

That's an interesting topic, I would be interested to know if that's how other people would interpret it!

sarkozy · 11-01-2011 3:30pm

Like I said, 'ritual' and 'peoples' understanding of the world' is a wide open topic. Hit the library to find an interesting example of this. It may not even be from a faraway land. Eric Hobsbawm's 'The Invention of Tradition' is an interesting set of parables linking 'new' rituals with political legitimacy.

But maybe your anthropology course exclusively fetishises the 'other'.

S_Snail · 12-01-2011 7:23pm

I would recommend Victor Turner, particularly the Ritual Process.

krd · 12-01-2011 10:23pm

Look up Cargo cults

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

sarkozy · 13-01-2011 1:45am

Ah, yeah, good call. But a bit over-done/clichéed?

krd · 13-01-2011 3:08am

sarkozy wrote: »

Ah, yeah, good call. But a bit over-done/clichéed?

It's a really good starting point.

It's also important perspective in anthropology. It's been years since I've read anything about it but if you go down the trail - you get to a point where you start asking how much of what we do, in our enlightened 21st century society, is cargo culting.

How much of what we do - and believe is absolutely necessary for our existence - is actually magical ritual. And there isn't an easy way out of this - Wearing a business suit to a business meeting may be a magical ritual. You could turn up in a tracksuit. It shouldn't make any difference - but by turning up in a tracksuit and not the priestly robes of the business suit, you violate the ceremony. The other participants are disturbed by your lack of observance, your irreligiosity - you're not dressed for turning water into wine. They'll think something is wrong with your magic. They may even think you're mad for defying the gods.

In consumerism, cargo culting is used to sell products. Ads on television show magical rituals involving consumer products - boy buys magical car (wrapped up in all kinds of consumerist magic and promises) - In the ads the boy gets the girl because of his observance to accepted ritual. And this repeats itself in real life. The better a consumer you are - the more magical you are.

The best example would be people who believe if they pay more for something the thing is better because they've paid more for it. They'll even convince themselves there is an extra magical quality to their purchase. That their designer jeans are worth more or qualitatively better than the jeans Dunnes Stores sell. They're not. And both Jeans are more likely than not produced by the same factory in China and from the same materials. The more expensive jeans may even be of a lower quality - there is an economics to the magic.

It doesn't matter if the magic is real or not, it's who believes it. The man who drives a BMW is more magical than the man who drives a ford escort. And should be treated with more respect and reward for their extra cachet of magic.

Magic doesn't stop their. Our police and our bus conductors, as well as our priests and nuns, wear magical clothing to give themselves magical powers.

sarkozy · 13-01-2011 12:58pm

I guess it links to 'fetish'. Incidentally, I've started again to read Capital Vol: 1 and the sections on fetish still make me think after thinking I understood it in college all those years ago.

I like putting things like uniforms in the category of 'magic'. It brings 'magic' out of the enchanted realm and into the world of material and meaning. (Great) books like 'The Social Construction of Reality' approach this phenomenon but through blending a sociological epistemology and phenomelogical framework. It's fine, but 'magic' is a great way to frame things because, dare I say, it's a word that links to the primordial, somehow linked to our DNA (another new myth). I also find some of Marshall Sahlins' writing on the resurgence of 'tradition' in the context of globalised consumerism really interesting.

krd · 13-01-2011 5:25pm

All religious ceremonies are magic ceremonies. The priests dress up as wizards and incant spells in strange language. (The strange anachronistic language is important to give the ceremonial language a magical otherness - to place it just outside the everyday material realm - it's a reason the tridentines were against the end of the Latin mass. They believe the Latin language is more magical. Then there are Christians and Jews who believe the bible is the absolute magical word of God. The Kabbalah Jews believe there is mathematical magic hidden in the text of the Torah).

As we understand the word magic to mean something illusory, or superstitious, definitely something that is not real - it is never used by our Christian churches. Instead the magic tricks of Moses and Jesus are described as miracles.

Jesus magically turned water into wine at the wedding in Canna. Very literally; a party trick. Jesus was the magician of Nazerth.

Moses parted the red sea - Moses even had a magical wand. His staff, he could tap off rocks and make water magically flow from them.

When it comes to consumerism and the post-religious world. I don't believe the belief in magic has disappeared. It's just taken on new forms. Now products and brands have taken on the magical power religious relics once had. There's no mistake the Nike logo looks like an obscure magic symbol. Or the BMW badge or marc.

We've transferred magical beliefs to science. Homoeopaths do a brisk trade in selling Holy water - backed up by some magical pseudo science. In the past all was needed was a priest to say some abrekedabra over a barrel of water - or for the water to come from the vicinity of some magical occurrence, like the magical apparitions in Lourdes. The homoeopaths now use "science" to make their holy water.

The gullibility doesn't only stop at people paying 15 quid for little 20ml bottles of homoeopathic remedies. People concerned about their health buy bottled water - thinking their is something more magical in bottled water than tap water. When in fact, nearly all bottled water comes from the same treated source as domestic supplies - it's tap water. But it's Holy Water - with magical health enhancing properties.

Personally I've been bitten on the ass enough times by my own magical thinking to realise anyone can be a sucker for it. So I try to be more rigorous in my thinking these days. But it's hard - your own illusions can seem very real. And you still have to contend with the magical beliefs of the society around you, just as you would as if you lived in an ultra-religious society, like the Ireland of the past. The ceremonies and relics may have changed but a lot of the same thinking and living remains the same.

Pablo_ · 13-02-2011 4:36pm

great post krd ....
so would you say we are predisposed to this type of thinking, a kind of magic which bonds the society? makes them move in one way?

I used to find myself trying to side-step all mass movements, seeing them as a trick ... but that individuality is itself a bigger social construct of what i like to call the ' individual consumer unit cell'. A bit of a cycnical label on the person having to want all the time ( at a loss and needing satisfaction in future) and get his/her fix by buying things, keeping the market rolling. i don't know maybe it works, but the magic krd was talking about definitely seems to motivate all societies...

Mahatma coat · 15-02-2011 9:10am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLFZzInXAWI

Some interesting food for thought there lads,

Mahatma coat · 15-02-2011 9:13am

if you think Sidestepping the Groupthink of Beliefs and rituals are you really? arent you just switching from one System to another, you May convince yourself that now yer free, but it was a Voluntary improsenment you had previously, y've just changed the view.

Pablo_ · 15-02-2011 11:14am

Mahatma coat wrote: »

if you think Sidestepping the Groupthink of Beliefs and rituals are you really? arent you just switching from one System to another, you May convince yourself that now yer free, but it was a Voluntary improsenment you had previously, y've just changed the view.

thats kind of what i said dude, when i was young i thought i was sidestepping but one cannot

Ritual practice and peoples' understanding of the world

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