But a sad truth has more value than an exciting lie. (after Maeterlinck)

A ritual is about abandonment of the self --it could be a Zen-like letting-go of thought, to deeply explore your universal feelings. In such a way, rituals could help us meditate. A "sharing-stone" when passed around, gives permission to safely share feelings.

Unfortunately, the letting-go-of-thought routine too easily became a path to power by the priesthood elite (of any religion). The first abuse was doubtless prehistoric.(see "Trappings") The abandonment of the self dictum let the authority maintain their own heirarchy. With that training of young minds to abandon self-reliant thought --to some degree-- by almost all organized religions --cults find well-prepared and fertile ground to take that vunerability much further. But then we must ask: which one --or both-- is the cult? Is it only a matter of degree?

It's hard to avoid some. We do so many without knowing that we do it. Walk down the avenue where a victorious army once marched; or just onto a campus... and you go thru a gate, an arch. You have... entered, re-experienced. You're supposed to feel something, but we do it too often. Too often --that's the problem. You can't perform a ritual too often or it becomes just a routine.

A ritual emphasizes importance, as in marriage or graduation. It confers to the event a high place in memory. In a rite of passage, we want to feel the change, not think about it.

Ritual is used as a marker of the time when things change. Rites of passage. Hey, world, this person is now an adult! Treat her/him that way now! Hey, world, this person is now married. ... now a parent. ...now in a new house. ...now a year older. ... now remembered.

In a court of law, especially, rituals are used to emphasize seriousness and authority. We've even eased up on a few: no more powdered wigs, tho we still use robes.

Some rituals are minor --some seem so, but aren't. A traditional Japanes bow seems simple, but it confers status --a social placement-- to the participants. The minutest details of it contain important differences, and are still taught there. Certain people, certain events, demand different angles to bend the upper body. A few degrees off can offend.

Rituals can be used to control or influence social interactions, which can ease difficult situations. A handshake is a ritual, little as westerners think of it. Originally done perhaps as a proof that no weapons were in hand, it still conveys social info as to intention of action and extention of feelings. To another culture, it may seem as strange as those bows do to an American.

It's all for psychological effect, isn't it. It changes nothing but our emotions. But that's its intent, and it's not always a bad thing. We often want our emotions effected. We buy romance novels; we see a scary movie. But those are our decisions. We'd volunteered to be effected.
. I'm trying to think of rituals that have become laws/rules, but it's difficult --it's fish-water. Ok: getting a licence (for anything). Marching an army practices instant, unquestioning obedience --which is probably the strongest good-and-bad combo I can think of. It also promotes a bonding between "units" of troops --helpful in combat.

Ritual provides and enforces structure --a framework of reference (as rites of passage), and can be a framework for values--hence a fit into religion. A child, especially, needs structure to feel safe. But we need to outgrow that: "ships are not built for the harbor", nor humans for the crib. Security is not necessarily a good thing. I object to platitudinous rituals that intend to give security to the fearful. (See "Desirability of Insecurity") We also have rituals to help us procrastinate (busy-work).
. Insecure people add pseudo-"security-words" --they'll end a sentence with a superfluous "at". (Where is it... at?) They add "like" in the middle of sentences, so nobody will think they're actually saying something. Is there more fear of actually saying something lately?
. Ritual provides only pseudo-security. You're not really any safer, but many people will pay to feel like they are. But the "pay" is more than money --it's their identity they give up.

Is ritual natural? It is certainly man-made, and we think of that as unnatural. I wonder why? It is natural if it comes straight out of our inborn healthy behaviors and needs. This begs the question: what's psychologically healthy?

There's a grey area between rituals and instinctive behavior. Other animals have rituals --mostly for mating. Not all are instinctive --some are cultural (if there's really a distinction).

Big hint: it's not natural to people when there's a strong "Happy-face" pretense to it all. A blatant hypocrisy. I find that revolting. (Come on; it won't kill you to respectfully express a contrary opinion, or at least be aware of your feelings!)

There are negative aspects to ritual. (I don't mean the largely-mythical satanists.)

Ritual can bring us together, but it's also something to divide us. Think of how many different churches there are. Divisions within divisions, some differing only in rituals, or in beliefs engendered or strengthened by them. Brought together in small groups to emphasize how they are apart from other groups. I have to think that people purposely look for (even minor) things to purposely separate them from others, perhaps in the vain hope that they can feel superior to them. Heck, they're not only accepted by a group, but that group is so right that all other groups are wrong.

Ritual gives one security in that it seems to make one a part of a group who do the same things and seem to believe one thing. In other words, it seems to provide "belongingness and affection", but that's not necessarily a good thing. Often, people will submerge their own identity to have a part of someone else's (or pretend to) if it looks good. Finally I have to ask them: what do you mean when you say "I"?

I fear that symbols are not just a handy way to represent a thing. Not just a way we can deal with a subject more simply. I feel that it is more a barrier to a connection with the real thing. And perhaps this is because we fear the real thing!

Many religions are like the don't-burn-the-flag amendment: mistaking the menu for the meal. A made-up god (insert standard disclaimer here), a personification to stand in for nature/what is. In any ritual, there is a danger of mistaking the menu for the meal. Ya can't eat it. The symbol isn't really the thing. It's the map, not the territory. To the degree that you see the symbol, you've missed the real thing. "This" means "that" only if it's how you already feel. Ritual amplifies the feeling and usually makes it very public. It demands an obligation, not a committment. It attempts to guarantee that the ends are met by the means. Well... whose ends?

Like marriage, the end is often for the good of society as a whole. But sometimes, ritual is used to inculcate a minority opinion that is a minority opinion for good reason! Cults use ritual extensively and "professionally". Politicians' speeches use it, and, most of all: TV ads! The advertizing industry knows well the manipulative power of symbols. They give us an entertaining diversion while the subliminal message sneaks into your brain. Remember cigarette ads that were filmed in green meadows and talked about "springtime" and "fresh taste"?! Laughably ridiculous, if you thought about it. They assumed you couldn't.

A procedure can control people's behavior. A store may offer a big rebate... if you'll jump thru a set of hoops. Then, after you've bought, you find that they set up the hoops so that it's very difficult to do.

There's no need for a ritual to be based on... or include--a mystery. Such rituals usually deserve suspicion.

Ritual can very easily lead to superstition, and vice versa, in the notable case of Aztec sacrifices. Rituals can easily feed into obsessive-compulsive disorder --which is, really, an over-attachment to rituals.

There is no purely beneficial ritual. None (?) are designed that deliberately, and we are never fully aware of all the effects it can have. People differ; what's good for one can hurt another. I would nominate meditation as the most beneficial and least harmful, but someone else would fear it.

Rituals often celebrate mystery. The big Zen secret is... there are no big mysteries of life. Some people "want" mysteries enough to invent them or buy books to convince themselves of one, but no.... The real secret is... all human feeling and action stem from the same motivations, and I can put all motivations and answers into one paragraph.

Survival and reproduction. Survival is air, food, water, protection, sex. (listed by degrees, there, from shortest time, and least number of people) To get all those ('cept air), it's so much easier to band together in tribes/communities. So to be in them, we are forced to put up with politics. Politics --from national to personal-- is the heirarchy of various powers that we try to use for more security in our supply of... food, water, protection, and sex. Sex: For survival of the species, nature provides hormonal pressures to do it, and gives a big orgasmic reward for doing it right.

I tried to think of other motivations. "Curiosity" seems to be a separate one, but the brain, in primitive times, survived better if curiosity was a strong trait. "What was that noise in the jungle?!" So people who had it lived long enough to have offspring. Curiosity is a survival-motive. That's evolution.

There you are. All motives, from petty to cosmic, spring from mixtures of those needs. That's reality. No mystery.

Ritual is "important" activity built around symbols. A symbol is a manufactured distancing from the real thing. A safer substitute. (like a euphemism) The danger is--when the symbols are understood only subconsciously, we lose the power to know what's being done to our mind. Curiously, the one doing it to us (if even present) likely doesn't know it either!

There is a comforting type of ritual gives us something to do when there is nothing that can be done... and you feel that something has to be done. A funeral.
. . Ritual is repeated, even prayers. As if any-god-there-be is NOT omniscient, is deaf, and has a short attention span. The essence of stupidity is to exactly repeat an action and expect a different result. (especially on a computer!)
. . Repetition is at the base of my main problem with ritual. As a therapist who used hypnosis, I'm very aware of how repetition--in an environment that discourages critical thought--can lead to beliefs and behaviors that the person didn't have in mind at all--and might not find desirable, if he used free thought. A virtuous person who has been given the power of ritual --will naturally tend abuse that power. Beware of virtuous people with power!

Shared songs and responsive-readings seem innocent. They give a sense of community, ...but... it makes it easy to feel that all those other people share the same opinions that they --and that group-- are supposed to have. (I'm an X, and we believe Z.") It's a conformist pressure, and when beyond your attention, the words sneak into your brain. Realize and celebrate your differences. Nobody agrees with everything!

A ritual should, most of all, help us learn and feel our relationship to other life on Earth (reality). In short, to realize who we are. Secondarily, help us learn and feel our relation to our community of people. A ritual should never "sneak in" a set of opinions from other people. It may help us discover a value, but should never try to push one we're not fully aware of.

That's the hard part. When is it that way? How can you know when a value expressed in a ritual is being taken in (helplessly) by a person who wouldn't want that value if he thought it through?

People fear a moment of emptiness of mind--perhaps because of a primal imperative for alertness. Perhaps, feeling unworthy, they expect society/authority to fill their mind for them. Yet without that occassional emptiness of mind, we cannot know ourselves, or the world.

============O=================

Why do Unitarians do so poorly singing hymns? They're always reading ahead to see if they agree with the words! This is a good thing.

George's reply:

"Ritual", is it possible that we are talking nuances of the same term? When searching for various descriptions and uses of the term "ritual" in such places as Thomas Moore's,"Care of The Soul" or Ed Hall's (Anthropologist) work or Gregory Bateson's systems stuff or the dictionary, I get slightly different pictures of what it entails and how its viewed: psycho-spiritually, anthropologically, cyberneticly, and as often used in lay person's language.

Hall, for example, suggests that ritual is akin to an "action chain" or predictable chain of events between humans and the inanimate environment, between humans and living things (including other humans), and within humans: intrapsychically. He discusses it as a "dance" of sequential events that must be completed to reach the goal.

Moore, a psycho-spiritual authority, narrows the definition to fit the realm in which he works: that of 'human to living things' and 'within the human psyche':

"Spirituality doesn't arrive fully formed without effort. Religions around the world demonstrate that the spiritual life requires constant attention and a subtle, often beautiful 'technology' (rituals and contexts) by which spiritual principles and understandings are kept alive. For good reason we go to church, temple, or mosque regularly and at appointed times: it's easy for consciousness to become lodged in the material world and to forget the spiritual. Sacred 'technology' is largely aimed at helping us remain conscious of spiritual ideas and values." So, my thought for your consideration is that there are rituals and there are

Rituals: we measure their value by their relevance to our lives, and when it comes to religious rituals, we like those that fit our values, beliefs, chosen modes of worship and/or contemplation and our personal definitions of reality. These definitions are related and they all speak to the kinds of religious ritual I was hearing about in the previous posts.

Does ritual then have a transforming or transcending function? Is it possible that some older rituals which were developed in a very different time and social context no longer have meaning for some of us because "we don't dance that dance" anymore? Because the underlying values and beliefs that the ritual is supposed to help us get in touch with are viewed as archaic, irrelevent, or futile? Is religious ritual not often the point at which we as youth found most disconcerting as we found science and literature and our own abilities to reason?

And yet if that is the case, why is Zen ritual so popular and functional still today? Does music and the other fine arts help us get in touch with the spiritual?

Hall suggests that the rituals of the dramatic performance, the novel, musical movements and religious ceremonies among other things are all predictable rituals that help us complete the goal(s)of the authors and the audiences.

For me, I find rituals that are as far afield as anyone's. While most traditional Christian rituals are tiring and unproductive for me; Mozart, Beethoven and countless others help me to get in touch with the "Awe-ful", quite readily, and nearly every morning, as I drive across the desolation of the Big Horn Basin, watching glorious sunrises coming up over the mountains. My mind and spirit can wonder to various places in this "House of worship".

The rituals of singing, praising, sharing joys and concerns in UU Services, hearing a well thought out challenging sermon and visiting with new folks and old friends over a cup of coffee, are all rituals that I definitely look forward to and that definitely nourish my mind and soul. I feel wonderful all day and it gives me a sort of catalytic start by just thinking back to Sunday, when I need it during the week.

The ritual of eating with loved ones is very important to me. The ritual of giving thanks for the meal and each other's company is a very important one for me and my family, (this may be in the form of a toast, a prayer or just a few well-meant comments) It is important and very functional in terms of its ability to touch my soul in wondrous ways.

I have Icons on the earth [I love that phrase! Jon] that I ritually stop to visit, contemplate and resynthesize my thinking about. These include a vast array of geological formations from folds and faults to glacial lakes, drumlins, moraines, and on and on. In these places, I can get "in touch" with our Mother the Earth. I can "see" the glaciers, the earthquakes, the people that went here before. I can think about the animals that once roamed this area and the climates that existed here from ice ages to tropics. I can get in touch with what this place was.

Summing it all up, religious ritual is very important to me IF it is relevant and IF it helps me complete the goal of connecting with spirit in the world or in myself.

George in Cody, Wyoming

The value of a ritual is certainly an individual matter.

To the extent that ritual is a time-ordered sequence of behaviors designed to bring about a certain end, or to represent and reinforce a certain value system or other form of substance, it can be worthwhile.
. . The problem is that after a point, it seems that ritual becomes routinized, and merely represents memorized behaviors and parroted words. At that juncture, it loses its value. Ritual may be helpful in initially teaching some things to many people. Witness the ritualistic type of repetition used in teaching young children certain behaviors such as shoe tying, math problem solving, learning how to spell, keyboarding, etc. At some point, however, it has to be determined when ritualistic repetition has fulfilled that function, and is no longer necessary. This is obviously a highly individualistic thing.
. . I see this as no less applicable in the field of religion. It occurs that this may be what is meant by the concept of "idolotry"; i.e., where the form of ritual is focused on over its more fundamental meaning. When the form becomes the center of attention instead of the meaning, then the symbol becomes valued over the substance. Hence the focus on the "idol" or superfluous form, rather than on the substance represented by that form.
. . Mark.