Decoding Rituals Rituals and the performance of rituals form an integral part of our lives. Right from reciting hymns to going for a jog every morning, constitute as rituals. Rituals are regular habits that have a set pattern or rhythm to it which if altered feels incorrect. The word ritual by itself points to a symbolic action, a repetitive enactment. According to a research paper on the structure of ritual practice, ritual is a “..social action that (a) includes predefined sequences of action characterized by rigidity, formality and repetition, which is (b) embedded in systems of meaning and symbolism, and which (c) contains non-instrumental elements (i.e. causally opaque and goal demoted elements)”.(1) In this section we hope to better understand the characterization and underpinnings of rituals, looking at it through a universal lens.
Kapitány R, Kavanagh C, Whitehouse H. 2020 Ritual morphospace revisited: the form, function and factor structure of ritual practice. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 375: 20190436. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0436 (1)
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