ABSTRACT
Religion is the contact of the human spirit with an unseen world, a contact which gives rise to some kind of worship. In all communal worship there must be a recognised procedure, whether under the guidance of a recognised leader or performed by him on behalf of the rest. Religious ritual has a double purpose: first, to serve for protection to the worshippers, by avoidance of anything that might offend the deity approached and by ensuring a proper state of body and mind in which to come; secondly, by the influence of special surroundings, ceremonial, and mass-suggestion, to stimulate the worshipper's religious emotion and strengthen his spiritual life. All the great religions of historical times have their sacred books: the Hindu Rigvedas and Upanishads, traditional accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha, Chinese classics embodying the teaching of Laotse and Confucius, the Jewish Scriptures, the Mohammedan Koran, and the Christian Bible.
