What is the importance of executing rituals ‘correctly’ and why do people continue to engage in them?

Abstract

Rituals, borne out of our embodied practical reason, are deeds that are counterintuitive in terms of cause and effect. From a cognitive point of view, two kinds of religious rituals can be identified: special agent rituals, where superhuman agents act on human patients (onceoff, highly emotional; e.g. initiations, weddings) and special instrument and patient rituals, where human agents act on superhuman patients (repeated, less emotional; e.g. sacrifices, Holy Communion). The idea of ‘correctness’ applies more stringently to the first kind than the second, for instance: Jacob’s blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh in Genesis 48. Rituals stabilise, reconstitute and replicate our ‘cosmos’ or imaginative worlds as they realign our intersubjective relations. They are tenacious and persistent, because they evoke, usually in an emotional and motivational way, our sense of urgency, our deeply felt need to maintain sound social relations and our intuitive ability to form notions of a counterintuitive world. The aim of this article was therefore to highlight and illustrate the role our evolved mental tools play when conducting rituals, especially when conducting some rituals ‘correctly’ and others less stringently so. Furthermore, the psychological appeal that rituals have on the human mind was also explained.

HTS Teologiese Studies/Teologiese, Studies 68(1), 2012