What do you think?
Rate this book
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2022
If people claim to beieve in Santa Claus but do not engage in any regular worship to honour him, even small children will eventually realise that Santa is not a supernatural being of high standing. But if those who claim to believe in Lord Murugan [Mauritius] walk the walk by putting skewers through their cheeks for him, this conveys not merely that those individuals are truly commited but also that Murugan is a god worthy of commitment. Actions speak louder than words.There is a custom apparently practiced in the Deep South until the end of the 20thC that he says has died out now, of tying mourning crepes onto a mailbox to signify a death in the household. He says that the closest we get now is a yellow ribbon around a tree or balloons tied to a mailbox. On the island we make giant multi-looped purple bows, like the ones you put on gifts. We put them on doors, gates, businesses, private homes, to indicate a loved one has passed away.
He had been serving as a pastor at the St Lawrence parish in Utica, Michigan. In 2020 he was going through his father’s collection of family videos and found an old tape of his baptism from when he was an infant. When he played it, he noticed that the deacon who performed the baptism had used the words ‘we baptise you’ instead of ‘I baptise you’, which Hood was accustomed to.The book is very interesting, I just wish that I could rely on it as fact rather than unchecked stories. It is almost a 10 star read because I learned so much and people are so fascinatingly irrational. But 4 star...
Alarmed, he went to the archdiocese of Detroit. ‘We talked to some theologians and canon lawyers, and we thought it was probably valid,’ he said. But a statement from the Vatican said otherwise. The deviation from the script meant that Hood had never been baptised. As a consequence, his confirmation was not valid either, which meant that his ordination as deacon was void, and therefore his ordination as priest as well. To return to his job, Hood would have to be baptised anew, then confirmed, made a deacon and ordained priest all over again. He did all this within a week, but there was more to the story.
The mistake meant that he had not been a real priest before, and therefore any sacraments he administered during his ministry were also rendered null. His church had to contact thousands of people with some unexpected news: those who had been confirmed by Father Hood were informed that they were not full members of the Catholic Church. Those who had been ordained by him found out that they were not legitimate clergy. Those who went to confession before him learned that their sins had not been absolved. People who attended Holy Communion were told that they had not received the Eucharist, as they thought. As for the marriages at which he officiated, things were unclear, because in some cases non-ordained Catholics are allowed to perform weddings.
Ironically, those who were baptised by him had no reason to worry: when it comes to baptism, it does not matter who administers it, as long as they use the right formula.
In Indonesia, the Toraja people have a remarkable tradition that involves keeping the bodies of their dead relatives in their homes for months or even years until they prepare an elaborate funeral for them.Excuse me for my crudity, but how long do they smell terrible and attract flies and maggots and things for before they mummify? I'd think they would need industrial strength air-fresheners, not just a few plants to actually manage to sit next to them and chat.
During that time the corpses dry and become mummified but the relatives treat them as if they were still living. They keep them on a bed, change their clothes, offer them food and drinks and have daily conversations with them.
When all the preparations have been completed, a large public gathering is attended by the entire community and the corpse is finally laid to rest. But the interactions with the deceased do not end with the funeral. Each year the mummified body is exhumed, dressed up and paraded around town.
"...These behaviours, which we call rituals, either have no explicit purpose at all, or, even when they do, their stated goals are causally disconnected from the actions undertaken to achieve them. Performing a rain dance does not cause water to fall from the sky; stabbing a voodoo doll cannot harm people at a distance; and the only thing a Tarot card reader can reliably predict is that your wallet will be lighter after your consultation. It is this gap between means and goals that led the professor to infer that because an object which required hard labour to make had no obvious function, it probably served a ritual purpose."
"...Rituals are central to virtually all of our social institutions. Think of a judge waving a gavel or a new president taking an oath of office. They are held by militaries, governments and corporations, in initiation ceremonies, parades and costly displays of commitment. They are used by athletes who always wear the same socks in important games, and by gamblers who kiss the dice or cling on to lucky charms when the stakes are high. And in our everyday life they are practised by each and every one of us when we raise a glass to make a toast, attend a graduation ceremony or take part in a birthday celebration. The need for ritual is primeval, and, as we shall see, may have played a pivotal role in human civilisation."
"After surveying various other domains of life in the Trobriand Islands, Malinowski began to discern a clear pattern. In general, rituals were largely absent from domains that had predictable outcomes but abundant in areas associated with danger and uncontrollable circumstances such as warfare, illness, love and natural phenomena. They were, for example, indispensable when planting garden vegetables that were vulnerable to diseases or bad weather but unnecessary when tending to hardier plants such as fruit trees. ‘We find magic wherever the elements of chance and accident, and the emotional play between hope and fear, have a wide and extensive range,’ he wrote. ‘We do not find magic wherever the pursuit is certain, reliable, and well under control of rational methods and technological processes.’"
In my attempt to resolve the ritual paradox I embarked on a two-decade journey to study some of the world’s most extreme rituals, as well as many commonplace ones. […] Rather than taking practitioners out of context by placing them in a laboratory, I often decided to bring the laboratory into context by moving it into the field. […] Biometric sensors and hormonal sampling allowed me to explore the neuro-physiological effects of various rituals; behavioural measurements helped me study how these bodily processes affect the way people interact with one another; psychometric tests and surveys revealed some of the motivations behind ritual practices; and participant observation provided insights into how people experience these pracices and how they find meaning in them. (pg 16-17)It seems to me you can divide non-fiction books into two broad categories: the author became interested in a subject and decided to write a book exploring their learning process, or the author is already involved in the subject and decides to write a book about what they know. Both books could cover similar topics, but you’d end up with two distinct narrative approaches. It feels like it’s been some time since I read a book that falls into the later category (i.e. the author is already a subject matter expert), so I found this to be a refreshing read in that way.
[R]itual allows [highly intelligent organisms] to deal with some of the challenges that come with havin ga complex psychology, such as mating and pair-bonding, coping with loss and anxiety, and achieving cooperation and social organisation.(pg. 27)The first chapter, The Ritual Species, documents ritual behaviour in animals and humans. This chapter alone was already an eye opener for me: Humans engage in ritual because we can, because we have the ability, the capacity, to choose to do something ‘meaningless’. We can afford to engage in ritual. The look at Göbekli Tepe (a religious archaeologic site built about 12,000 years ago) was particularly compelling to me. I couldn’t believe that was the first I’d heard of it!
Across various areas in which our evolved mechanisms are somewhat ill fitted to the challenges of life, rituals serve as mental tools that help us to overcome those challenges by bpassing or recalibrating thoe mechanisms. (pg 49)While reading, I kept the Shikoku Henro in mind throughout. That is a substantial religious ritual (worshipping at 88 Buddhist temples around the Japanese island of Shikoku) which I have participated in myself (and am preparingto get back to in two or three years 👀). For myself, that ritual was undertaken primarily as a cultural pursuit, bolstered by my interest in religious studies. But I still enjoyed participating in many of the religious elements, such as burning incense and chanting the Heart Sutra. I am starting to brush up on my Japanese so I can better engage with folks next time. If there’s one key takeaway from this book, it’s that rituals are a key way that we connect with one another.
By using symbolic markers of group membership, evoking notions of continuity, coordinating ideas and actions and creating meaningful experiences, rituals generate feels of unity that can transform individauls into communities. (pg. 110)Lastly, there is one chapter in Ritual that directly mirrors a chapter in Joyful: “Effervescence”. I loved Xygalatas’ description of his experience at a huge football game he attended as a child, and the experiences of ‘collective effervescence’. There is a unique power in congregating. That is why I enjoy being in a crowd filled with positive energy, even if I don’t engage with anyone directly.