Monthly Archives: April 2021

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A core concept on the Road to Religion (and the Road to Rulers) is Ritual. What exactly is it, and why is ritual so important?

In my storied life, I’ve happily participated in plenty of rituals that, to an outside observer, must look extremely silly. But they sure meant a lot to those of us doing them. But there are plenty of rituals that look even sillier, out of context. Some of my favorites come from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books… like these two from The Mauritius Command:

But they crossed the line itself in style, with studdingsails aloft and alow, and with more than the usual merriment, for when they reduced sail to let Neptune come aboard, accompanied by an outrageously lewd Amphitrite and Badger-Bag, he found no less than a hundred and twenty-three souls who had to be made free of the equator by being lathered with rancid grease—tar was forbidden, being in short supply—and shaved with a piece of barrel-hoop before being ducked.

and

Our law, in its wisdom, has preserved much of this, and it is particularly remarkable in the customary tenure of land, and in petty serjeanty. Allow me to give you an example: in the manors of East and West Enbourne, in Berkshire, a widow shall have her free-bench—her sedes libera, or in barbarous law Latin her francus bancus—in all her late husband’s copyhold lands dum sola et casta fuerit; but if she be detected in amorous conversation with a person of the opposite sex—if she grant the last favours—she loses all, unless she appears in the next manor-court, riding backwards on a black ram, and reciting the following words:

Here I am
Riding on a black ram
Like a whore as I am;
And for my crinkum-crankum
Have lost my binkum- bankum;
And for my tail’s game
Am brought to this worldly shame.
Therefore good Mr Steward let me have my lands again.

My uncle owns one of these manors, and I have attended the court. I cannot adequately describe the merriment, the amiable confusion of the personable young widow, the flood of rustic wit, and–which is my real point–the universal, contented acceptance of her reinstatement, which I attribute largely to the power of poetry

How about you? Got any rituals of your own? Share them in the Class Participation below!

My incredibly good-looking patrons got to see this last week, in all its full high-rez detail. Join my Patreon, and you too can experience all those feel-good hormones washing over you!

NARRATOR: When we think of religion, we tend to think of rites and ritual.

PANEL: We’re in a dark cave tunnel, the only light comes from a man up ahead with a torch. Something is BOOMING somewhere. A young teen is glancing back at us nervously.

NARRATOR: Ever since we humans became humans, we seem to have felt compelled to mark the transitions of life with deeply meaningful ceremony.

MAN WITH TORCH: Stay close, boys. The cavern has many false ways. If you want to come out as men—or at all—you must learn to follow the one true path.

PANEL: The tunnel has opened up to a large cavern, with prehistoric art painted on the rock. Men stand near a fire, and the BOOMING is getting louder.

NARRATOR: Take the coming-of-age initiation ceremony: After a dozen or so years of childhood, learning how your world works, it came time to learn the secret knowledge, the stuff the adults had been keeping for themselves.

It was also time to prove you were ready to join them, and take on all the responsibilities of protecting and serving your people.

It was time for a big ceremony, one loaded with symbolism.

FIRST MAN: Welcome! You have endured much together this month—and together you have demonstrated your worth.

SECOND MAN:: Truly, you are a band of brothers. Now for the good stuff. Here in the earth’s beating heart, you will join our brotherhood.

PANEL: Against the wall, one man is indicating a stone pit with a skeleton embedded in the floor, two men are beating a large gourd drum, and another man is seated, while in the foreground young teens are reacting to what they say.

PIT MAN: In this grave, the child you are will die, and you will be reborn as a man.

DRUM MAN: You will learn our secret songs of valor, or wisdom, of the hunt.

SEATED MAN: And I guess we’ll tell you everything you ever wanted to know about sex.

NARRATOR: For thousands of years, initiation rituals made puberty and adolescence relatively easy to go through. Instead of a confusing period, it was ordered and expected. Instead of teen angst, wondering who you were supposed to be, what you were supposed to do, you knew.

It was entirely sensible, and it made for very well-adjusted, happy people. People who felt intensely loyal and bonded to each other, which made for a very successful community.

Ritual made it a meaningful experience.

PANEL: Images of a graduate receiving his diploma, a bride tossing her bouquet, and a graveside funeral.

NARRATOR: You can say the same for all the milestones of our lives. Ritual is how we’ve always marked these moments… these transitions from one stage of life to the next…

PANEL: Children trick-or-treating, a Superbowl party spread, and friends singing Happy Birthday to an older man whose cake has caught fire.

NARRATOR: or observances of the yearly cycle…

PANEL: A woman at her kitchen table enjoying a mug of coffee.

NARRATOR: Even the little moments can become a ritual.

PANEL: A group of prehistoric men and women.

NARRATOR: Ritual is pattern—a pattern of behavior we feel has meaning, or that we expect will have some sort of desired outcome.

MAN 1: We learn what’s real by spotting patterns, right? So patterned behavior feels true.

WOMAN 1: “Feels” true? As opposed to “is” true?

WOMAN 2: Is he implying that truth isn’t objective facts, but a narrative that subjectively fits your experience?

MAN 2: But… If truth is proved by our experience of reality, how can it be anything other than subjective?

OTHERS: No no. Truth is truth. It’s an objective fact, regardless of your personal perspective.

If it feels true to you, do I have to accept it as true?

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody’s there to see it, did it truly fall?

Can there be truth without language?

Oh shut up.

PANEL: A priestess is saying a prayer while flanked by two kneeling men, and a bishop is making that two-fingered gesture.

NARRATOR: Um, let’s try that again. Our most primal rituals—such as those where we leave one stage of life (and thus one social group) to join another—have always seemed far more solemn and momentous than other events.

KNEELING MAN: A religious person might say they are sacred.

BISHOP: Sacraments, even!

PANEL: Joe and Sis have their heads bowed.

JOE: But you don’t need religion to feel that such rituals are special, that they impart a sense of something bigger than us—something worthy of our respect.

NARRATOR: So ritual is not religion. It’s a cultural act, not a faith believed. That said, we can’t help but live our lives through rituals…

PANEL INSET: A classical Greek symposium drinking party, the host is wearing a balloon-animal hat.

NARRATOR: …life-affirming rituals…

PANEL: A neolithic Nordic couple is making love in freshly-tilled and planted fields.

NARRATOR: …rituals to please nature, (in the hope that nature will return the favor)…

MAN: This oughta encourage mother nature to make our soil fertile!*

WOMAN: I love it when you talk dirty.

FOOTNOTE: * A common practice among Indo-European peoples, from the Indian subcontinent to Scandinavia. (Still is, in places!)

PANEL INSET: A cornucopia.

NARRATOR: …rituals of thanksgiving when things go our way…

NARRATOR: And as we’ll see, ritual is a core concept od the roads to religion and rulers. But before we move on, just one more thought on rites of initiation:

PANEL: A boy huddles against a tree in a rainstorm, his bow and arrows on the ground.

NARRATOR: From time beyond memory, initiation rituals have required new members to endure some form of hardship… …an ordeal.

BOY (Thinking): I can take it… I can take it…

PANEL: A young man lies naked in a coffin surrounded by candles, a circle of men in hoods performing some ceremony.

NARRATOR: Ordeals involve some sort of stress: physical exertion, endurance, embarrassment, psychological abuse… extreme cases may even involve pain or mutilation.

YOUNG MAN (Thinking): I can take it… I can take it…

PANEL: A drill instructor is shouting at a new recruit.

NARRATOR: It’s impossible to overestimate how successful such ordeals are, taking advantage of our innate wiring to build a lifelong sense of unity and loyalty (especially so in young men).

RECRUIT (Thinking): I can take it… I can take it…

NARRATOR: Tribes and armies, faiths and football teams—even street gangs and secret societies…have recognized this since ancient times.

PANEL: Super-thrilled stick figure levitating with excitement, other stick figures welcoming him.

NARRATOR: Think of it as a high up-front membership fee: by investing so much of yourself in joining, you now have a huge stake in the group’s success.

HAPPY GUY: I’m at stake! “We” is now a huge part of who I am… it matters whether we succeed or not.

GROUP: But also, now that you’ve got skin in the game, your success (and your voive) mater to all of us!

PANEL: The happy hormones from before.

NARRATOR: More than that, going through this shared ordeal is a way of “taking one for the team.” In other words, you’ve sacrificed for your community. That has always been a source of great worth, both in your own heart, and in the hearts of others.

SARA T: Well, our hormones, anyway…

NARRATOR: And that leads us to the other core concept on the road to religion and rulers… sacrifice.

Transcript