Ritual

Key people

• Einar ThomassenNorwegian coptologist
• Anders KaliffSwedish archaeologist (born 1963)
• Jone SalomonsenNorwegian professor

Timeline

• 1973Douglas Foley Went to North Town, Texas, between 1973 and 1974 to study public high school culture.
• 1982(1982, 2013) Beginnings in Ritual Studies.

Read

• Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1Andrew Lang · 1887Book
• The Ritual BathFaye Kellerman · 1986Book
• From Ritual to RomanceJessie L. Weston · 1920Book
• Interaction ritualErving Goffman · 1967Book

Listen

• RitualsSpotify StudiosPodcast
• RitualKatherine LeungPodcast
• Ritual The PodcastOlamide MichellePodcast
• Ritual AlchemistBrittany Loeser and Ellee BestPodcast

Voices to follow

• Lonbraj Witcher@Lonbraj_inc · XA practicing dark magician in the traditions of European witchcraft, blogger, occult researcher, and founder of the School of Dark Magic.

Debates

• What is the primary purpose of ritual?One view: Rituals primarily reinforce social cohesion and group identity within a community. · Another: Rituals primarily facilitate individual spiritual transformation and connection to the divine.Open question
• Are rituals inherently conservative or can they be agents of change?One view: Rituals are often designed to maintain tradition, established social order, and existing beliefs. · Another: Rituals can be adapted or created to challenge norms, express dissent, and promote new ideas or social structures.Open question
• Is ritual distinct from everyday habit?One view: Rituals are distinct due to their symbolic meaning, formal structure, and often sacred or intentional context. · Another: Everyday habits can also carry symbolic weight and structure, blurring the line with what is considered a ritual.Open question

Glossary

• RitualA set of actions performed in a prescribed order, often with symbolic meaning and a specific purpose.
• Rite of PassageA ceremony marking a person's transition from one social status or life stage to another.
• SymbolismThe use of objects, actions, or words to represent abstract ideas, qualities, or beliefs.
• SacredConnected with a deity or dedicated to a religious purpose, thus considered holy and deserving veneration.
• ProfaneRelating to that which is not sacred or religious; secular or ordinary.
• LiturgyA form or collection of forms of public worship used by a particular church or religious denomination.

Careers

Roles this can lead toward

Threads 7

Where this connects to other fields — and why it's worth knowing.

• Big Data & Data Science Technology

  A scientist once fed pigeons food at totally random times, and they started repeating whatever they happened to be doing when it arrived, like spinning or bowing, as if it caused the food. Computers do the exact same thing: a program can 'learn' a lucky fluke and treat noise as a rule. Both are superstition, a dance built around pure chance.

• Psychotherapy Psychology

  For thousands of years people knelt in a booth and confessed their secrets to a priest sworn never to repeat them, and walked out lighter. The modern therapy session is basically that same ritual with the religion taken out: a private hour, a trusted listener, your burdens spilled and kept safe. New setting, ancient recipe for relief.

• Organizational Design & People Business

  Temples figured out long ago that chanting or praying in sync makes a crowd feel like one body. Armies and companies quietly copied it: marching drills, team chants, the daily morning standup. Moving and speaking together builds group loyalty faster than any speech or logical argument ever could.

• Power, Authority & Legitimacy Politics

  Even countries that split church from state still lean on religious gear: flags, anthems, oaths, tombs of unknown soldiers. That's because loyalty has to be felt in the body through ritual, not just argued in your head. The nation gets worshipped using the exact tools religion invented.

• Biotechnology Science

  Bread rising, wine fermenting, cheese ripening, humans were running living microbe factories for thousands of years before anyone knew microbes existed. It's arguably our oldest biotechnology. And we placed those very products, the bread and the wine, right at the heart of our most sacred rituals.

• Digital Health & Telemedicine Health

  The placebo effect, where a fake treatment still makes you feel better, gets stronger the more dramatic the ritual is. Two sugar pills beat one, and a (fake) injection beats a pill. That means the theater around medicine, the ceremony and the needle, isn't just decoration; it's an active ingredient your brain responds to.

• Positive Psychology Psychology

  Scientists found that writing down what you're grateful for actually boosts happiness. But religions had people giving thanks through daily rituals for thousands of years. The lab basically rediscovered in ten years what old routines figured out long ago.