ABSTRACT
In human cultural evolution, ritual behaviour appears to have been primary – to some extent shared with other non-human primates. Then, later, rituals were shaped by religious dispositions and world views. The study of ritual has fluctuated between viewing religious behaviour as demonstrations of piety to neurotic activities and obsessive actions. Rituals are often considered illusory by outsiders and so their imagined ‘efficacy’ must be explained. More recent theories have centred on the functions of rituals, as instruments of power and social cohesion or the psychological benefits of ritual as coping mechanisms. Rituals have properties, structures and meanings that are comparable across ages and spaces and so a typology of rituals is explicated, with an emphasis on the special properties of ritual communication and signification. The functions of ritual in cultural reproduction and emotional life are highlighted, then follows a demonstration of the logic of structural relations of rituals and their concerns, that is, their ‘aboutness’, including an analysis of the special properties of sacrifice. Lastly follows a brief presentation of the curious case of mysticism as ‘true’ religion.
