A theory of ritual says the calm bookish kinds of rituals we are most familiar with started with farming; forager rituals were much more intense. There seems to be lots of supporting data: Whitehouse believes rituals are always about building community — which arguably makes them central to understanding how civilization itself began. … Whitehouse’s theory [is] that rituals come in two broad types, which have different effects on group bonding. Routine actions such as prayers at church, mosque or synagogue, or the daily pledge of allegiance recited in many US elementary schools, are rituals operating in what Whitehouse calls the ‘doctrinal mode’. He argues that these rituals, which are easily transmitted to children and strangers, are well suited to forging religions, tribes, cities and nations — broad-based communities that do not depend on face-to-face contact.
Anyone that has Latin or Portuguese such as Brazil or the Americas such as South and Central...and because the Philippines( was once under the rule of Spain) for so many years has SIMPATIAS!!! Brazil practices it and so is the Philippine Islands which has another name for it (KULAM) but is exactly the same!
"rituals are always about building community" - clearly a misconception. The in my view most (actually only) important rituals are always about changing one's consciousness (or as i prefer to say one's being) and are performed in solitude.
Besides in our time the "community building" rituals Whitehouse describes are actually community destroying as they increase the amount of 'balkanization' on this small planet. The last things we need are more flags and cults.
High density is one of the features of farming that is hyper-farmer, and not at all forager like. This ritual change seems driven mainly by density, and industry folks can't give up high density without losing industry. So, like high workplace domination and ranking, density is one of those features of industry that industry era folks don't give up.
Robin's thesis that we are gradually returning to a forager mentality should then predict that "imagistic" rituals would be on the rise. Is there any such evidence? It would be interesting. I have the impression that our tolerance for such rituals is actually decreasing. Hazing, for example, ain't like it used to be.
Farmers’ New Rituals
Anyone that has Latin or Portuguese such as Brazil or the Americas such as South and Central...and because the Philippines( was once under the rule of Spain) for so many years has SIMPATIAS!!! Brazil practices it and so is the Philippine Islands which has another name for it (KULAM) but is exactly the same!
"rituals are always about building community" - clearly a misconception. The in my view most (actually only) important rituals are always about changing one's consciousness (or as i prefer to say one's being) and are performed in solitude.
Besides in our time the "community building" rituals Whitehouse describes are actually community destroying as they increase the amount of 'balkanization' on this small planet. The last things we need are more flags and cults.
High density is one of the features of farming that is hyper-farmer, and not at all forager like. This ritual change seems driven mainly by density, and industry folks can't give up high density without losing industry. So, like high workplace domination and ranking, density is one of those features of industry that industry era folks don't give up.
Robin's thesis that we are gradually returning to a forager mentality should then predict that "imagistic" rituals would be on the rise. Is there any such evidence? It would be interesting. I have the impression that our tolerance for such rituals is actually decreasing. Hazing, for example, ain't like it used to be.
This distinction between "doctrinal" and "imagistic" appears to be a re-capitulation of the Apollonian/Dionysian idea.