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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9542256" data-attributes="member: 8461">I just finished reading <a href="https://anthropology.uconn.edu/person/dimitris-xygalatas/" target="_blank">Dimitris Xygalatas</a>' 2022 book Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living, and came away quite impressed with it.This one was loaned to me by a close friend, who read it as part of her anthropology coursework. I'd mentioned that I was reading more nonfiction now than ever in my life, and as this was the only such item from her classes that she'd hung onto, having been deeply impressed by this particular title, she urged me to give it a try. And in hindsight, I'm quite glad that I did.Ritual is a multidisciplinary work, looking at the nature and impact of rituals—both personal and communal, in religious and secular contexts—on both individuals and societies. This goes from measuring changes in physiology (e.g. hormone levels and heart rates) to the impacts on group dynamics ranging from Hindu rituals in Mauritius to office workers in Denmark. In this regard, it struck me as being similar to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel for how it neatly wove together things that initially appeared rather disparate, demonstrating how in they're actually interconnected in profound ways.While I doubt I can do this book's ideas justice, I'll try to make a quick summary of the major topics: humans are predisposed (thanks to evolution) to look for rituals, finding them to be an intrinsic aspect of our lives. These rituals feed in to our desire to feel in control of our personal circumstances, not because we necessarily think that they operate in terms of cause-and-effect relationships, but because they make us focus on what's under our control more than what isn't.In this regard, rituals come in two forms: low-intensity and frequently repeated, or high-intensity and fairly rare (e.g. annually, or even less frequently). Going to Mass on Sunday is a regular part of weekly life, whereas walking across burning hot coals may only be done during a yearly holiday. Both types of rituals comfort us in different ways, evoking different responses in participants, but both adhere to the same structure (which is important, since the exacting nature of rituals is part of what defines them as rituals).In this regard, another part of rituals is how they serve to bind groups together. Even rituals that are performed alone can create a sense of solidarity with fellow practitioners (i.e. people who you know also perform that ritual in solitude). In this regard, low-effort/regular rituals serve as easy ways of identifying members of the groups that you're a part of, in a "shares our values" style of affiliation. By contrast, high-effort/rare rituals bring forth a blending of personal and group identities among the practitioners; whether it's soldiers who repeatedly go through intense drilling or Hindu worshipers piercing their skin with hundreds of needles before carrying a 100-pound shrine barefoot to a temple during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavadi_Aattam#Practice" target="_blank">Kavadi Aattam</a>. Rituals, insists Xygalatas, act as glue (and in some cases, superglue; he makes the distinction more in his book) that holds societies together.I'll note that this book was far more accessible than I'd initially expected. Despite my friend having read it as part of a college course, it's in no way a textbook. Moreover, Xygalatas' writing style is remarkably engaging, being more conversational than I expected without sacrificing its didactic quality. Rather notably, Xygalatas does make several personal notes here, which I thought I'd frown at, but to my surprise I didn't. That's largely because he almost always does so with regard to having personally participated in the topic under discussion, rather than holding forth on it, such as a very amusing anecdote where the people whose rituals he'd been studying for months during a bout of fieldwork got together and—having decided that he was an honorary member of their group—cajoled him into personally walking barefoot across burning coals, rather than just observing the ritual.All of which is to say that this book is an excellent and accessible read, and I highly recommend it. While it can be tempting to look down on "dusty old traditions" or "superstitious hokum," this book does an excellent job of showcasing not just why people engage in ritual practices, but the personal and social value in doing so.</blockquote>

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