Journal articles: 'Secular ritual'

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Liu, Huwy-Min Lucia. "Ritual and pluralism: Incommensurable values and techniques of commensurability in contemporary urban Chinese funerals." Critique of Anthropology 40, no. 1 (January 8, 2020): 102–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308275x19899447.

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The default funeral in Shanghai today consists of religious variations of a secular socialist civil ritual. Within this ritual, however, is a clear paradox: how can one create religious “variations” of a secular and socialist funeral that explicitly denies any recognition of spirits or the afterlife? How do socialist, religious, Confucian, and even Christian ideas of personhood and death become commensurable in one single ritual? This paper explores the relationships between incommensurable values through commemorations of the dead in Shanghai. This article not only shows how a single ritual can realize multiple seemingly incommensurable values but also details two different techniques for making such incommensurable values commensurable. My findings show that what makes value pluralism possible depends on how people conceptualize rituals. When people see rituals as following social conventions, there is more space for pluralism, but when people treat rituals as making personal testimonies, the possibility for pluralism decreases.

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Austern, Linda Phyllis, John Taverner, and Hugh Benham. "Ritual Music and Secular Songs." Notes 43, no. 2 (December 1986): 403. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/897398.

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van Ommen, Armand Léon. "Emerging ritual in secular societies: a transdisciplinary conversation / Crafting secular ritual: a practical guide." Practical Theology 11, no. 2 (March 15, 2018): 192–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1756073x.2018.1459120.

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Wojtkowiak, Joanna. "Ritualizing Pregnancy and Childbirth in Secular Societies: Exploring Embodied Spirituality at the Start of Life." Religions 11, no. 9 (September 8, 2020): 458. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel11090458.

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Birth is the beginning of a new life and therefore a unique life event. In this paper, I want to study birth as a fundamental human transition in relation to existential and spiritual questions. Birth takes place within a social and cultural context. A new member of society is entering the community, which also leads to feelings of ambiguity and uncertainty. Rituals are traditionally ways of giving structure to important life events, but in contemporary Western, secular contexts, traditional birth rituals have been decreasing. In this article, I will theoretically explore the meaning of birth from the perspectives of philosophy, religious and ritual studies. New ritual fields will serve as concrete examples. What kind of meanings and notions of spirituality can be discovered in emerging rituals, such as mother’s blessings or humanist naming ceremonies? Ritualizing pregnancy and birth in contemporary, secular society shows that the coming of a new life is related to embodied, social and cultural negotiations of meaning making. More attention is needed in the study of ritualizing pregnancy and birth as they reveal pluralistic spiritualities within secular contexts, as well as deeper cultural issues surrounding these strategies of meaning making.

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Parmadie, Bambang, and I. Gede Arya Sugiartha. "Expansion Of Value And Form Dol Musicality As Ritual Tabot In Bengkulu." Lekesan: Interdisciplinary Journal of Asia Pacific Arts 1, no. 1 (May 22, 2018): 45. http://dx.doi.org/10.31091/lekesan.v1i1.301.

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The expansion of value and form musicality in Tabot ritual music includes ideology, musicality and new sociocultural phenomena in the performing arts extend to all elements of Bengkulu society in general. The sacred music referred to in the Tabot rituals of Bengkulu is Dol music. The transformations in forms of Dol music and musicality are: sacred musicality becomes secular or profane. The physical form, function, and aesthetic of Dol music in Tabot rituals have an ever-increasing creativity in their development, musical progress and sociocultural-supporter progress. The commodification of Dol music transforms the artistic identity associated with new music from Bengkulu. The development of musicality moves freely, making changes in sacred ideology. This analysis reveals problems using social practice theory, hegemonic theory, and popular culture theory, applied eclectically by using a qualitative method. Data is collected Through observation, interview, and document study. The findings of this research are that there are forms of exploration and exploitation of Dol music from sacred to secular or profane and vice versa in the context of the commodification of physical musicality, function, and aesthetics in the ideological identity of the supporting community and the musical space dimension. The secular or profane Dol music permeates and indoctrinates the sacred Dol musical ideology as the musical ceremony of Tabot ritual. The counter-assumption about a sacred art form that will experience a shift into secular or profane is not entirely true for Dol music in Bengkulu.

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Tegos, Spyridon. "Civility and Civil Religion before and after the French Revolution: Religious and Secular Rituals in Hume and Tocqueville." Genealogy 4, no. 2 (April 10, 2020): 48. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4020048.

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In his critique of religion, Hume envisages forms of religious ritual disconnected from the superstitious “neurotic” mindset; he considers simple rituals fostering moderation. In this paper, I claim that one can profitably interpret Hume’s obsession with secular rituals, such as French highly ceremonial manners, in the sense of anxiety-soothing institutions that bind citizenry without the appeal to a civil religion, properly speaking. Let us call this path the Old Regime’s civil ritualism”. Overall, Tocqueville conceives rituals in a Humean spirit, as existential anxiety-soothing institutions. Moving beyond the Humean line of thought, he focuses on the ambiguous role of religious rituals in the context of democratic faith and the Christian civil religion that he deems appropriate for the US. Yet, he also detects novel forms of superstition firmly embedded in secular, democratic faith.

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Koster, Jan. "Ritual performance and the politics of identity." Journal of Historical Pragmatics 4, no. 2 (June 6, 2003): 211–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jhp.4.2.05kos.

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The theory of ritual presented in this article is based on the notion of “territory.” Ritual performance encompasses a set of techniques to affect the identity of participants: away from individuality and by communal demarcation of a symbolic territorial model in space or time. The form of ritual is seen as autonomous, i.e. as relatively independent of meaning. As a set of identity-affecting techniques, the elements of ritual can be integrated into both religious and secular settings. There is a natural tension between individuality, responsibility and the potentially totalitarian implications of ritual discourse. Ritual is claimed to be relatively harmless with respect to the symbolic territories of designated “sacred spaces”, while it is considered dangerous under conditions of “overflow”, when the elements of ritual are brought into public space. The harmful secular religions of the past two centuries are discussed, culminating in a plea for the separation between Ritual and State.

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Acabado, Stephen, and Marlon Martin. "The Sacred and the Secular: Practical Applications of Water Rituals in the Ifugao Agricultural System." TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 4, no. 2 (June 1, 2016): 307–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/trn.2016.7.

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AbstractWater symbolisms permeate Ifugao religion, rituals, and oral tradition. Water plays a part in death, rebirth, and cleansing in Ifugao cosmology. As such, Ifugaos consider water as sacred. However, water is also central in Ifugao economy and politics. As a culture that highly values intensive wet-rice production in a mountain environment, managing access to water is necessary to maintain stability. Ifugao practices follow what Richard O'Connor described as the “agro-cultural complex” in which agricultural practices, social systems, and political, historical, and, cultural changes are understood as interlocking processes (O'Connor 1995). In this paper, we focus on the relationship between Ifugao water and agricultural rituals with the synchronizing and sequencing of agricultural activities. Using the concept of self-organization, we argue that water and agricultural rituals in Ifugao are not only meant to reinforce community cohesion, they also synchronize the farming activities crucial to a terraced ecology. Utilizing the practice of puntunaan (a ritual plot or parcel in the centre of an agricultural district) and the institution of tomona (the ritual leader of an agricultural district) as a case study, we observed that disruptions in the water and rice rituals stimulated great change in Ifugao sociopolitical organization.

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Sroczyńska, Maria. "Rituals of entering adulthood in the religious and secular space (sociological reflections)." Studia z Teorii Wychowania XII, no. 2(35) (July 1, 2021): 57–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0015.0455.

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The text deals with the rituals of passage, granting and approval accompanying entering adulthood. These considerations refer to both theoretical issues, taking into account the typology of rituals proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, and to selected results of own research (quantitative and qualitative) carried out at the end of the first decade of the 21st century among high school graduates of the Świętokrzyskie region. The ritual practices that are still important for young people (confirmation, "eighteenth" and high school graduation) were taken into account, although the manner of their celebration and the functions performed are subject to more or less significant transformations.

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Rohmaniyah, Inayah, and Mark Woodward. "Wahhabism, Identity, and Secular Ritual: Graduation at an Indonesian High School." Al-Jami'ah: Journal of Islamic Studies 50, no. 1 (June 26, 2012): 119–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2012.501.119-145.

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This paper concerns the social and ritual construction of social identities at Pondok Pesantren Madrasah Wathoniyah Islamiyah (PPMWI), a theologically Wahhabi oriented pesantren (traditional Islamic school) in Central Java, Indonesia. We focus on the inter-play of religious and secular symbols in the school’s graduation ceremonies (wisuda) for secondary school students and the ways it contributes to the construction of individual and social identities. Our analysis builds on Turner’s studies of the processual logic of rites of passage, Moore and Meyerhoff’s distinction between religious and secular ritual and Tambiah’s application of the Piercian concept of indexical symbols to the analysis of ritual. Theoretically we will be concerned with ritual, cognitive and social processes involved in the construction of religious identities. Empirically, we critique the common assumption that Salafi, and more specifically, Wahhabi, religious teachings contribute to the construction of exclusivist identities, social conflict and violence. In the case we are concerned with, religious tolerance and non-violence are among the defining features of Wahhabi identity.[Tulisan membahas konstruksi identitas ritual dan sosial pada sebuah pesantren yang berorientasi teologi Wahhabi, yaitu Pondok Pesantren Madrasah Wathoniyah Islamiyah (PPMWI). Diskusi akan difokuskan pada saling silang simbol-simbol agama dan sekuler dalam peringatan wisuda siswa menengah pertama serta signifikansinya dalam konstruksi identitas sosial dan individual. Analisis tulisan ini berdasarkan studi Turner mengenai logika proses dalam daur ritus (the processual logic of rites of passage), pembagian ritual agama dan sekuler oleh Moore dan Meyerhoff serta konsep Piercian mengenai indek simbolis dalam ritual oleh Tambiah. Secara teoritis, artikel ini akan mendiskusikan ritual, kognisi, dan proses sosial yang menjadi bagian dalam konstruksi identitas agama. Selain itu, penulis juga melakukan kritik terhadap pandangan umum mengenai Wahhabi yang dituduh sebagai identitas ekslusif, biang-kerok konflik sosial dan kekerasan. Penulis menemukan sebaliknya, bahwa toleransi antar agama dan anti-kekerasan adalah salah satu ciri identitas Wahhabi.]

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Yu, Shiao-ling. "Sacrifice to the Mountain: A Ritual Performance of the Qiang Minority People in China." TDR/The Drama Review 48, no. 4 (December 2004): 155–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/1054204042442035.

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In 2002, a group of Qiang in China's Sichuan Province performed an ancient ritual combining the sacred and the secular. This ritual remains an integral part of the Qiang people's religious and social lives

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Wijaya, I. Kadek Merta. "THE SEMIOTICS OF BANYAN TREE SPACES IN DENPASAR, BALI." International Journal on Livable Space 4, no. 2 (November 28, 2019): 48. http://dx.doi.org/10.25105/livas.v4i2.5564.

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ABSTRACT The concept of Banyan space (spaces under Banyan tree) possesses both secular and ritual values. Secular values are related to the use of space for socio-economic activities, such as trading to others and meeting with friends. Ritual values are related to activities that take place around the Banyan tree as an expression of belief on the tree’s “tenget” (sacred) values. Secular and ritual values create the concept of space on Banyan tree, based on the elements of space and the conception used of these spaces. A system of signs (signifier and signified) mark the values or meanings of “sekala” and “niskala” space. This research aims to find out the elements that create the “sekala” and “niskala” space by analysing the space system of signifier and signified. “Sekala” is tangible or visible space which can be perceived by five senses. “Niskala” is intangible or invisible space, yet it exists and Balinese Hindus believe in its presence. The research focuses on the system of activities from selected cases by purposive sampling using qualitative naturalistic method and approach. The results of this research emphasize that (1) there are elements (signifier and signified) that create the “sekala” and “niskala” space and (2) there are normative and scientific concepts of Banyan trees as the background for the creation of the “sekala” and niskala space. Keywords: sekala space, niskala space, secular and ritual values, signifier and signified space

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Alexander, Bobby C. "Turner's Definition of Ritual Reconsidered: Grotowski's Experimental Theatre as Secular Rituals of "Spiritual" Healing." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 3, no. 1 (1991): 62–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006891x00085.

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Hess-Lüttich, Ernest W. B. "Kultur, Ritual, Tabu – und das Zeichen des Schleiers." Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik 8, no. 2 (December 20, 2017): 119–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.14361/zig-2017-0211.

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Abstract Following the refugee crisis 2015 and the terror attacks by Islamists in Europe, there was a media debate in Germany on the yashmaks of female Muslims in Summer 2016, called the burqa-debate. Taking this debate as a starting point, the chapter discusses rituals and taboos of religious communities in a secular society. Proceeding from a sociological definition of rituals, the paper then attempts to present a terminological framework for the analysis of taboos in intercultural communication and applies the critical discussion of stereotypical assumptions to the current debate in secular countries in Europe on women wearing a burqa in public. The example serves for dealing with the problem of asymmetry in taboo discourse.

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Kasselstrand, Isabella. "‘We Still Wanted That Sense of Occasion’: Traditions and Meaning-Making in Scottish Humanist Marriage Ceremonies." Scottish Affairs 27, no. 3 (August 2018): 273–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/scot.2018.0244.

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As a secularising nation in Northern Europe, Scotland has, over the last few decades, experienced a steep decline in religious belonging, church attendance, and beliefs. Ritual participation, which is arguably an understudied dimension of secularisation, follows a similar pattern of decline, with a significant majority of Scottish marriage rituals now being conducted in secular ceremonies. Using data from semi-structured in-depth interviews with 17 married couples, this study examines the decisions that secular Scots make when planning their wedding. Moreover, it places a particular focus on humanist marriage ceremonies, which have seen a noteworthy increase in popularity since they became legally recognised in Scotland in 2005. The secular participants emphasised the role of personal convictions and family expectations in choosing a particular type of marriage ceremony. The narratives also revealed how positive attitudes toward humanist ceremonies, in contrast with civil ceremonies, are centred around their ability to create personalised, nonreligious, celebrations that nevertheless give attention to culture and heritage. Ultimately, the findings suggest that repeating history through cultural traditions are an important aspect of both secular and religious rites of passage.

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Turbott, John. "The Meaning and Function of Ritual in Psychiatric Disorder, Religion and Everyday Behaviour." Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 31, no. 6 (December 1997): 835–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/00048679709065509.

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Objective: Ritual is a central feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and is found in other psychiatric conditions. Defined in a general sense, it is seen in the everyday behaviour of animals and of humans, in secular ceremonies, and in religion. This paper examines the various types of ritual. It considers the common features and differences. Method: Material from psychiatric, biological, sociological, anthropological and religious studies literature is reviewed and discussed. Results: The term ‘ritual’ describes a wide variety of phenomena. These include the rituals of OCD and range from relatively simple animal signals to profoundly meaningful human behaviour. A common feature is stereotyped physical activity which conveys information. Some clinical, developmental, evolutionary and religioud historical evidence suggests that stereotyped motor behaviour may be the primary phenomenon. Conclusions: The study of ritual in all its manifestations provides insight into the basis of important human behaviours. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a likely paradigm for this study. Psychiatry, with its clinical orientation and biopsychosocial perspective, is a discipline within which the study might occur.

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Gordienko, Elena. "From Revived Traditions to Modern Practices: The Religious Boom in Post-Secular Vietnam in an Anthropological Perspective." State Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide 38, no. 4 (2020): 373–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2020-38-4-373-385.

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This article gives a review of two books examining the religious situation in “post-secular” Vietnam. The book of American anthropologist Shaun Malarney “Culture, Ritual, and Revolution in Vietnam” (2002) offers a research of the transformations of religious practices and morality caused by the 1945 communist revolution: the author shows the polyphony of understanding of morality and ritual in Vietnamese society. The edited volume “Religion, Place and Modernity: Spatial Articulation in Southeast Asia and East Asia” (Ed. by M. Dickhardt and A. Lauser in 2016) examines, within an “anthropology of space and place,” the emergence of new “secular religions” in Vietnam.

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Brück, Joanna. "Ritual and Rationality: Some Problems of Interpretation in European Archaeology." European Journal of Archaeology 2, no. 3 (1999): 313–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/eja.1999.2.3.313.

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This paper argues that the conception of ritual employed in both archaeology and anthropology is a product of post-Enlightenment rationalism. Because it does not meet modern western criteria for practical action, ritual is frequently described as non-functional and irrational; furthermore, this designation is employed as the primary way of identifying ritual archaeologically. However, this evaluation of ritual action must be questioned. Contemporary modes of categorizing human practice are not untainted by socio-political interest but enable the reproduction of certain forms of power. It is argued that many other societies do not distinguish ritual from secular action. In fact, what anthropologists identify as ritual is generally considered practical and effective action by its practitioners. This is because different conceptions of instrumentality and causation inform such activities. For archaeologists, use of the concept of ritual has resulted in a serious misapprehension of prehistoric rationality such that ‘secular’ activities (for example subsistence practices) are assumed to be governed by a universally-applicable functionalist logic. In order to address this problem, what is required is an approach that explores the essential difference between prehistoric rationality and our own notions of what is effective action. A discussion of some finds from middle Bronze Age settlements in southern England will provide a working example of how one might begin to move towards this goal.

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Reenberg Sand, Erik. "Rituals between religion and politics: the case of VHP’s 2001-2002 Ayodhya-campaign." Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 18 (January 1, 2003): 162–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67290.

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The present paper deals with rituals in a political discourse, namely the rituals employed by the right wing, Hindu nationalist movement, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in its campaign for a Rama temple in the north Indian town of Ayodhya. As is probably well-known, VHP is part of a group of organizations known as the Sangh Parivar, or sangh family, which also includes the presently ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the ultranationalistic organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. The rituals of VHP are instruments of the construction of an ideal Hindu society and part of an encounter between Hindu-nationalist tenets and the secular, political establishment. However, the rituals employed by VHP can not be said to represent a separate ritual genre, since they are not different from similar, traditional Hindu rituals. What makes them different is their context and their motives, the fact that they do not serve ordinary material, eschatological, or soteriological aims, but rather political aims, as well as the fact that the ritual agents in this case do not seem to have a satisfactory juridical legitimacy to perform the rituals.

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Middleton, Deborah. "'Secular Sacredness’ in the Ritual Theatre of Nicol´s Núñez." Performance Research 13, no. 3 (September 2008): 41–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528160902819315.

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Prior, Jason, and Carole M. Cusack. "Ritual, Liminality and Transformation: secular spirituality in Sydney's gay bathhouses." Australian Geographer 39, no. 3 (September 2008): 271–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00049180802270473.

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HARRISON, SIMON J. "ritual hierarchy and secular equality in a Sepik River village." American Ethnologist 12, no. 3 (August 1985): 413–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ae.1985.12.3.02a00010.

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Knuf, Joachim, and John Caughlin. "Weighty issues: Semiotic Notes on Dieting as a Secular Ritual." Health Communication 5, no. 3 (July 1993): 161–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327027hc0503_2.

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Rapp, Claudia. "Ritual Brotherhood in Byzantium." Traditio 52 (1997): 285–326. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0362152900012010.

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Kinship networks and social hierarchies provide an important key to the Byzantine Empire's tenacious survival over the course of more than a millennium. This study concentrates on one such social networking strategy, that of ritual brotherhood. No investigation of ritual brotherhood can overlook the Byzantine evidence, for Byzantium is unique among medieval societies in having formally incorporated into its ecclesiastical ritual the ceremony by which the priest's prayers and blessing make ‘brothers’ of two men. Further, the history of the empire provides ample evidence for the concrete implementation of this bond. Hagiographical and historical narratives as well as regulations of secular and ecclesiastical authorities attest to the importance of ritual brotherhood as it was practiced by holy men and patriarchs, aristocrats and emperors. The Byzantine evidence is, unsurprisingly, at the core of John Boswell's argument in his Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe,' Boswell drew attention to this interesting and multi-faceted relationship, but he did not explore the full range of sources for ritual brotherhood, nor did he attempt to show how this relationship related to others within Byzantine society.

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Frie, Adrienne C. "Insignia of power." Documenta Praehistorica 45 (January 3, 2019): 166–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/dp.45-13.

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Bird symbolism in the Dolenjska Hallstatt culture had strong associations with ritual and hierarchy, as demonstrated by bird imagery on insignia of power such as bronze vessels, wagons, and sceptres. The elaboration of such items with birds may have elevated items of prestige to items of ritual potency, highlighting the sacred and worldly power of the elite males with whom these items were associated. Avian depictions on bronze vessels, sceptres, and wagons with important cosmological and ritual associations indicate that birds were deeply entangled in presentations of status, particularly those that blurred the lines between the secular and sacred realms.

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Frie, Adrienne C. "Insignia of power." Documenta Praehistorica 45 (December 29, 2018): 166–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/dp.45.13.

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Bird symbolism in the Dolenjska Hallstatt culture had strong associations with ritual and hierarchy, as demonstrated by bird imagery on insignia of power such as bronze vessels, wagons, and sceptres. The elaboration of such items with birds may have elevated items of prestige to items of ritual potency, highlighting the sacred and worldly power of the elite males with whom these items were associated. Avian depictions on bronze vessels, sceptres, and wagons with important cosmological and ritual associations indicate that birds were deeply entangled in presentations of status, particularly those that blurred the lines between the secular and sacred realms.

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Reinke, Jens. "Sacred Secularities: Ritual and Social Engagement in a Global Buddhist China." Religions 9, no. 11 (October 31, 2018): 338. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel9110338.

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The Taiwanese order Fo Guang Shan is a major representative of renjian Buddhism. The order maintains a global network of over 200 temples and practice centers that spans over not only most of the Asian continent, but also includes Oceania, the Americas, Europe and Africa. This article examines how the order negotiates the modern secular/religious divide by considering the example of its flagship diaspora temple Hsi Lai Temple in L.A., California. Particular attention is given to two prevalent religious practices at the temple—ritual and social engagements—that are often associated with the ‘religious’ and the ‘secular’ respectively. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, the article aims to assess the relationship between the two practices and discusses how they resonate with a new generation of highly educated, affluent Chinese migrants.

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Armbrust, Walter. "When the lights go down in Cairo: Cinema as secular ritual." Visual Anthropology 10, no. 2-4 (January 1998): 413–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08949468.1998.9966742.

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Sethi, Manisha. "Ritual death in a secular state: the Jain practice of Sallekhana." South Asian History and Culture 10, no. 2 (April 3, 2019): 136–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2019.1609261.

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Rijal, Shiva Ram. "The Death Rite in New Republic Nepal: Should It Be Shortened?" SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities 1 (August 1, 2019): 91–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/sjah.v1i0.34451.

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I introduce an on-going debate on whether and how should rituals be tamed in the contemporary Hindu society of Nepal. In this paper, I point out intellectuals who espouse secular thoughts hesitate to talk about rituals in public. On the other hand, there are also many who believe these rituals as their forte. Out of this trajectory of thoughts, I develop an argument that there is a lack of force that could promote interpretative understanding of rituals in Nepal. Based on a line of thoughts propounded by Roy A. Rappaport, Catherine Bell, and Hannah Arendt, I maintain that rituals need to be taken as part and parcel of ritual-making zeal of humankind. With a brief introduction about the historicity of ritualization in Nepal, I highlight the adoptable characteristics of rituals in the Kathmandu Valley and the role the people of the valley have started to point out a possibility of bringing reformation in death rituals.

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Reichl, Karl. "The search for origins." Journal of Historical Pragmatics 4, no. 2 (June 6, 2003): 249–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jhp.4.2.06rei.

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Although in some traditions (notably in India) oral epics are performed as part of a religious ritual, there is no overt ritual function of the epic in most oral traditions known today. However, even in a purely secular and seemingly non-ritual context, the performance of oral epics can have ritual dimensions. This is discussed with reference to the oral epic poetry of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. It is argued that the performance of oral epics is a particular type of communicative event, of which the comparatively rigid act sequence can be seen as being on a par with the patterning of ritual. A second important aspect linking epic performance to ritual is that both events are meaningful in a similar way. It can be shown that in the performance of heroic epics tribal and cultural origins are explored and that hence the primary function of epic is not entertainment but the search for ethnic and cultural identity.

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Passantino, Bob, and Gretchen Passantino. "Satanic Ritual Abuse in Popular Christian Literature: Why Christians Fall for a Lie Searching for the Truth." Journal of Psychology and Theology 20, no. 3 (September 1992): 299–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009164719202000330.

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The focus of this article is on some of the lay and secular popular literature that supports belief in satanic ritual abuse. The effects of SRA “survivor” stories and the importance of historical perspective on the SRA phenomenon are discussed. The approach of Christian investigative writing underpinning the article is that believers should promote a higher, not lower standard than the secular press. Biblical and common sense principles are enunciated for the sorting out of truth from untruth in relation to SRA sensationalism.

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Köllner, Tobias. "Ritual and commemoration in contemporary Russia." Focaal 2013, no. 67 (December 1, 2013): 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2013.670105.

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Since state atheism was abandoned in the 1990s, the Russian Federation entered what can be called a postsecular phase. Religion, formerly limited to the private sphere, reappeared in the public and underwent an astonishing religious revival. During the time of my fieldwork in 2006/2007, a tendency to favor the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and to facilitate its return to the public reached its climax. In this article I draw attention to how the political, the secular, and the religious are interconnected and allow for new vernacular forms of legitimating power and authority. One example is the introduction of new public holidays and public rituals. They connect local and national narratives and relate to ideas about the communality of the Russian people. They create new forms of a divine kinship, which draw heavily on religious and national symbols and merge the sacred and the profane.

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McLaren, Peter. "Making Catholics: The Ritual Production of Conformity in a Catholic Junior High School." Journal of Education 168, no. 2 (April 1986): 55–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002205748616800206.

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A great deal of conceptual confusion still surrounds the meaning of the word “ritual.” Consequently, ritual continues to have an ambiguous status in social science research. This is especially true of studies which attempt to analyze modern institutional life and contemporary cultural formations. This paper critically reconsiders the concept of ritual, particularly in the light of anthropologist Victor Turner's discussion of root paradigms. The author draws from recent work in ritual studies to analyze classroom instruction in a junior high school in downtown Toronto, Canada. Classroom instruction was discovered to be part of an intricate ritual system and was differentiated along religious and secular dimensions. Pervading all of classroom life, two root paradigms—which the author calls “becoming a Catholic” and “becoming a worker”—nested the values of the larger society. Corporate capitalist values associated with “becoming a worker” were discovered to complement closely those values associated with “becoming a Catholic.” Furthermore, the dialectical relationship between the root paradigms served to create the “ritual charter” of the school known as “becoming a citizen.”

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Handke, Emilia. "Die forcierte Säkularisierung und ihre Nachwirkung. Das Bildungserbe der DDR am Beispiel Religiöser Jugendfeiern in Ostdeutschland." Zeitschrift für Pädagogik und Theologie 71, no. 1 (April 9, 2019): 39–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/zpt-2019-0005.

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AbstractIn the GDR, forced secularization led to a complex habitual posture of distance vis-à-vis explicit forms of religion and religious communitization. In order to initiate processes of religious communication and learning among families with no confessional affiliation, the church developed and shared responsibility for religious ceremonies for adolescents as an alternative to the secular »Jugendweihe« (coming-of-age-ceremony). These religious ceremonies were offered as a ritual in-between secular and religious traditions in order for the church to regain relevance for a broader part of the population.

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Singh, Sarinda. "Religious Resurgence, Authoritarianism, and “Ritual Governance”:BaciRituals, Village Meetings, and the Developmental State in Rural Laos." Journal of Asian Studies 73, no. 4 (November 2014): 1059–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021911814001041.

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Much productive scholarship across Asia has considered the links between religious resurgence and authoritarian governance. However, limitations persist in conceptualizations of state authority, which I examine in the literature on Southeast Asia. Noteworthy are the assumptions that central institutions are definitive of authoritarian states, and divides between study of the sacred and secular. I propose the notion of “ritual governance” to address these conceptual issues and illustrate this with an ethnographic case study from a major development project in Laos, the Nam Theun 2 hydropower scheme. I show how Lao government officials working with ethnic minority villagers used abaciritual and village meeting to combine a persuasive sense of unity with coercive use of hierarchy. Significantly, thebaciand other Buddhist rituals were suppressed by the early socialist state, but regained prominence with ideological shifts from socialism to modern developmentalism. This case study demonstrates the contemporary significance of state-sponsored ritual for development in Laos as well as the need for more nuanced conceptions of the state in discussions of religiosity and authoritarianism across Asia.

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Portefaix, Lilian. "Ancient Ephesus: Processions as Media of Religious and Secular Propaganda." Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 15 (January 1, 1993): 195–210. http://dx.doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67212.

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The significance of religious rituals often reaches beyond their strict religious intentions. Specifically a procession, performed in front of the public, is a most effective instrument of disseminating a message to the crowds. Consequently, this ritual, as is well known, has often been used not only in religious but also in secular contexts; a procession under the cloak of religion can even become a politically useful medium to avoid popular disturbances on peaceful terms. This was the case in ancient Ephesus, where Roman power conflicted with Greek culture from the middle of the first century B.C. onwards. In the beginning of the second century A.D. the public religious life in the city of Ephesus was to a great extent characterized by processions relating to the cult of Artemis Ephesia. The one traditionally performed on the birthday of the goddess called to mind the Greek origin of the city; it was strictly associated with the religious sphere bringing about a close relationship between the goddess and her adherents. The other, artificially created by a Roman, was entirely secular, and spread its message every fortnight in the streets of Ephesus. It referred to the political field of action and intended to strengthen the Roman rule over the city. The Greek origin of Ephesian culture was later included in the message of the procession, reminding the Greeks not to rebel against Roman rule.

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Stevanovic, Lada. "Religious and secular models of power achieved through funeral ritual: Ancient paradigms." Bulletin de l'Institut etnographique 64, no. 2 (2016): 375–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/gei1602377s.

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Stone, Emma Francis. "Incorporating spirit." Body and Religion 1, no. 2 (December 22, 2017): 185–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/bar.29112.

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The barrier that separates the spiritual and earthly worlds is paper thin in Brazil. The infusion of the spiritual into the secular manifests in diverse ways, but is perhaps best represented by the prevalence of ritual possession in the region, where the spiritual and material merge. This paper will focus on the phenomenon of ritual possession within Umbanda, an eclectic Afro-Brazilian spiritual tradition. It will first explore existing sociological and socio-functionalist analyses or ritual possession in Brazil, and then argue that there is a need for an analysis that makes sense of possession from an embodied perspective. Drawing on the testimonies of mediums from two Umbanda centers in Rio de Janeiro (the Casa da Caridade Caboclo Peri) and Sao Paulo (Templo Guaracy) in Brazil, the article will investigate the appeal of ritual possession as a spiritual practice located and experienced in the body.

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Meulenbeld. "Vernacular “Fiction” and Celestial Script: A Daoist Manual for the Use of Water Margin." Religions 10, no. 9 (September 6, 2019): 518. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10090518.

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This article maps out a sphere of ritual practice that recognizably serves as a framework for the famous Ming dynasty (1368–1644) vernacular narrative Water Margin (水滸傳 Shuihu zhuan). By establishing a set of primary referents that are ritual in nature, I question the habit of applying the modern category of “literary fiction” in a universalizing, secular way, marginalizing or metaphorizing religious elements. I argue that literary analysis can only be fruitful if it is done within the parameters of ritual. Although I tie the story’s ritual framework to specific Daoist procedures for imprisoning demonic spirits throughout the article, my initial focus is on a genre of revelatory writing known as “celestial script” (天書 tianshu). This type of script is given much attention at important moments in the story and it is simultaneously known from Daoist ritual texts. I show a firm link between Water Margin and the uses of “celestial script” by presenting a nineteenth century Daoist ordination manual that contains “celestial script” for each of Water Margin’s 108 heroic protagonists.

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Muna, Arif Chasanul, and Ahmad Fauzan. "Politisi Lokal dan Ziarah Menyingkap Hajat Melalui Alquran Kuno Bismo." Mutawatir : Jurnal Keilmuan Tafsir Hadith 10, no. 2 (December 15, 2020): 239–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.15642/mutawatir.2020.10.2.239-266.

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Ziarah merupakan aktifitas yang sudah menjadi tradisi di kalangan umat Islam di Jawa. Salah satu destinasi penting yang banyak dikunjungi adalah desa Bismo. Di desa tersebut terdapat peninggalan para wali, salah satunya adalah manuskrip Alquran kuno yang diyakini sebagai tulisan tangan sunan Bonang (1465-1525). Tulisan ini mengungkap bagaimana sejarah dan praktik ritual ziarah di Bismo, dan bagaimana resepsi para politisi lokal terhadap ritual ziarah dan Alquran kuno di Bismo. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan antropologis, tulisan ini berkesimpulan bahwa (1) praktik ritual ziarah di Bismo termasuk unik, selain membaca bacaan dan doa sebagaimana yang dilakukan di tempat lain, peziarah yang mempunyai hajat khusus melakukan ritual mandi membuang sial dan membuka Alquran kuno; (2) Ziarah yang dilakukan para politisi lokal di Bismo juga memiliki kekhasan sendiri. Motivasi yang mendorong mereka bukan hanya motivasi keagamaan namun juga motivasi sekular untuk melancarkan cita-cita dan tujuan. Pandangan mereka terhadap Alquran Bismo berkelindan antara pandangan sakralitas terhadap peninggalan wali dan pandangan pragmatis memposisikan Alquran Bismo sebagai instrument untuk menggapai hajat. Pilgrimage is an activity that has become a tradition among Muslims in Java. One of the most visited destinations is the village of Bismo. In the village, there are relics of the saints, one of which is an ancient Qur'an manuscript that believed to be the handwriting of Sunan Bonang (1465-1525). This paper aims to examine the history and practice of pilgrimage rituals in Bismo, and the reception of local politicians to the rituals of pilgrimage and the ancient Qur'an manuscript in Bismo. Using an anthropological approach, this paper concludes that (1) the practice of pilgrimage rituals in Bismo is unique, in addition to reading prayers as they are carried out elsewhere, pilgrims who have special intentions must perform bathing rituals to get rid of bad luck and open the ancient Qur'an; (2) Pilgrimage by local politicians in Bismo also has its own peculiarities. The motivation that drives them is not only religious enthusiasm but also secular impetus. Their visions on the Bismo Qur'an are intertwined between the view of the sacredness of the relics of the saints and the pragmatic view of positioning the Bismo Qur'an as an instrument to reserve their expectations.

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McNiven, Ian J., and Ricky Feldman. "Ritually Orchestrated Seascapes: Hunting Magic and Dugong Bone Mounds in Torres Strait, NE Australia." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13, no. 2 (October 2003): 169–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774303000118.

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People dwell in a world of their own subjective making. For many hunters, engagement with the ‘natural’ world is a negotiated affair because animals, like people, possess spirits. A critical part of the negotiation process is mediation of the human–prey relationship by hunting magic. Torres Strait Islanders of NE Australia are skilled hunters of dugongs, a marine mammal whose capture entails a broad range of ritual practices. Following ethnographic expectations, excavation of bone mounds reveals ritual treatment of dugong bones, especially skulls, to increase hunting success. Extensive use of dugong bones in ritual sites has important implications for the extent to which ‘secular’ midden deposits are representative of Islander subsistence practices. Since dugong bone mounds provide archaeological insights into Islander spiritual relationships with dugongs, chronological changes in use of these sites inform us about historical developments in Islander ontology and their ritual orchestration of seascapes and spiritual connections to the sea.

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Dyer, Jeffrey. "Popular Songs, Melodies from the Dead: Moving beyond Historicism with the Buddhist Ethics and Aesthetics of Pin Peat and Cambodian Hip Hop." Religions 11, no. 11 (November 22, 2020): 625. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel11110625.

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This article illustrates how the aesthetics of two types of Cambodian music—pin peat and Cambodian hip hop—enact Cambodian–Buddhist ethics and function as ritual practices through musicians’ recollections of deceased teachers’ musical legacies. Noting how prevalent historicist and secular epistemologies isolate Cambodian and, more broadly, Southeast Asian musical aesthetics from their ethical and ritual functions, I propose that analyses focusing on Buddhist ethics more closely translate the moral, religious, and ontological aspects inherent in playing and listening to Cambodian music. I detail how Cambodian musicians’ widespread practices of quoting deceased teachers’ variations, repurposing old musical styles, and reiterating the melodies and rhythms played by artistic ancestors have the potential to function as Buddhist rituals, whether those aesthetic and stylistic features surface in pin peat songs or in hip hop. Those aesthetic practices entail a modality of being historical that partially connects with but exceeds historicism’s approach to Buddhism, temporality, and history by enacting relations of mutual care that bring the living and dead to be ontologically coeval. Such relational practices bring me to conclude with a brief discussion rethinking what post-genocide remembrance sounds like and feels like.

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Johnson, E. F. "The Sacred, Secular Regime: Catholic Ritual and Revolutionary Politics in Avignon, 1789-1791." French Historical Studies 30, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 49–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00161071-2006-019.

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Thompson, Katrina Daly. "How to Be a Good Muslim Wife: Women’s Performance of Islamic Authority during Swahili Weddings." Journal of Religion in Africa 41, no. 4 (2011): 427–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006611x599172.

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Abstract The existing literature on women of the Swahili Coast has focused largely on their involvement in activities labeled as non-Islamic by both male peers and scholars. However, Islam plays an important role in these women’s lives and they often bring Islamic knowledge to bear on their participation in seemingly secular activities. In this study I address women’s role as sex instructors with a specific focus on instructing a bride in contemporary Swahili weddings. Contextualizing participant observation within the existing literature on Swahili puberty rituals, sex instruction, weddings, and language ideologies, I find that the ritual involves a discursive performance of Islamic knowledge and thereby offers women who act as instructors a form of religious authority. This provides an important counterpoint to decontextualized representations of Swahili Islam as excluding women from positions of authority.

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Trolle, Astrid Krabbe. "Winter Solstice Celebrations in Denmark: A Growing Non-Religious Ritualisation." Religions 12, no. 2 (January 24, 2021): 74. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12020074.

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During the last decade, local celebrations of winter solstice on the 21st of December have increased all over Denmark. These events refer to the Old Norse ritual of celebrating the return of the light, and their appeal is very broad on a local community level. By presenting two cases of Danish winter solstice celebrations, I aim to unfold how we can understand these new ritualisations as non-religious rituals simultaneously contesting and supplementing the overarching seasonal celebration of Christmas. My material for this study is local newspaper sources that convey the public sphere on a municipality level. I analyse the development in solstice ritualisations over time from 1990 to 2020. Although different in location and content, similarities unite the new solstice celebrations: they emphasise the local community and the natural surroundings. My argument is that the winter solstice celebrations have grown out of a religiously diversified public sphere and should be understood as non-religious rituals in a secular context.

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Topal, Semiha. "Female Muslim subjectivity in the secular public sphere: Hijab and ritual prayer as ‘technologies of the self’." Social Compass 64, no. 4 (October 5, 2017): 582–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0037768617727485.

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This article analyses the formation of multiple subjectivities during the self-cultivation process of Muslim women living in the secular public sphere of Turkey. Through interviews with highly educated, professional Muslim women who aim to build and maintain piety (a deep connection with the divine), it asks to what extent the practices of hijab (i.e. wearing the headscarf) and ritual prayer (salat, or namaz) can be considered as technologies of self-cultivation rather than mere markers and symbols of identity. The article aims to offer new ways to think about the religious-secular divide by providing an empirically grounded contribution to the complex interactions between religious identity and women’s agency in a Muslim-majority country with a secularist state establishment.

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Haynes, Maren. "Heaven, Hell, and Hipsters." Ecclesial Practices 1, no. 2 (October 10, 2014): 207–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22144471-00102002.

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Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll attracts unconventional churchgoers. Hipster youth ages 18–25 comprise the core of the church’s 12,000+ weekly attendees – surprising, amid Driscoll’s controversial promotion of strict gender binaries and fundamentalist theology. Furthermore, the Pacific Northwest boasts the country’s lowest rate of church affiliation (Killen 2004). How, in this so-called ‘religious none-zone,’ has Mars Hill grown rapidly among young adults? I suggest only a portion of Mars Hill’s regional growth relies on content preached in the pulpit. Using ritual theory (Collins 2008) and non-linguistic semiotics (Turino 2008), I posit a connection between Mars Hill’s music ministry and Seattle’s vibrant indie guitar rock scene. By identifying Mars Hill’s mimicry of local concert culture aesthetics, I argue that secular ritual in a sacred space has created a potent ritual environment (Sylvan 2002), contributing massively to the church’s appeal among a majority “unchurched” demographic.

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Klomp, Mirella, Marten van der Meulen, Erin Wilson, and A. Zijdemans. "The Passion as Public Reflexivity: How the Dutch in a Ritual-musical Event Reflect on Religious and Moral Discussions in Society." Journal of Religion in Europe 11, no. 2-3 (October 17, 2018): 195–221. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18748929-01102007.

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This article analyses the public significance of The Passion—a televised retelling of the Passion of Jesus, featuring pop songs and celebrities in the Dutch public sphere. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the authors demonstrate how performances like The Passion offer spaces in which the Dutch can reflect publicly on important identity issues, such as the role of Christian heritage in a supposedly secular age. The article contributes to deeper knowledge of how Dutch late-modern society deals with its secular self-understanding.

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Boynton, Susan. "A Monastic Death Ritual from the Imperial Abbey of Farfa." Traditio 64 (2009): 57–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0362152900002257.

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Lengthy and complex rituals surrounding illness and death were an important part of the collective experience of medieval monastic communities. In manuscripts from as early as the eighth century, the texts for Christian death rituals consist of prayers, readings, and chants for the visitation of the sick, unction, communion, the funeral mass, and burial. Even though many of the early medieval formularies were copied in monastic scriptoria, the texts could be performed in secular or monastic settings. The earliest death rituals that are explicitly written for monastic communities and contain extensive prescriptions for the actions that accompanied a monk from his final hours of life to his grave are transmitted in monastic customaries of the eleventh century.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Secular ritual'

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