ABSTRACT
Ritual is a central feature of religion, charisma marks the holy, the religious sphere. We saw in Chapter 6 that beliefs are often expressed through ritual, symbolic behaviour like sacrifice and worship. Ritual and symbol are ways of expressing the inexpressible, the ‘key to the unknown’, the ‘gesture language of theology’ (Firth, 1973). There has been historical continuity back to the most primitive religion. More recently has occurred the emergence of various kinds of ‘charismatic’ religion, such as Pentecostalism, in many parts of the world, using glossolalia and religious healing, often involving high degrees of emotional arousal.
