The Rituals That Ward Off Bad Luck Aren’t Arbitrary
Substituting a judge for a priest, a parliament for the pope, a voting booth or attendance at school for Mass does not change this structure substantially. By enacting their rites again and again, human beings renew the social pact and, at the same time, anchor on a simple gesture their labile and vagabond thoughts about the world.
Carlo Rovelli • Anaximander: And the Birth of Science
We can define rituals as symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world. They transform being-in-the-world into a being-at-home. They turn the world into a reliable place. They are to time what a home is to space: they render time habitable. They even make it accessible, like a house. They structure time, furnish it. In his novel Citade
... See moreByung-Chul Han • The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present
The fundamental issue is that these are subtle and esoteric arts. These ways of experiencing and interrogating reality depend (almost) wholly upon our mental and emotional orientation to them, so the moment we dismiss it, we pinch off any further experience. The placebo effect, confirmation bias, and the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon are actually the b... See more
Sadalsuud • It's Called "Woo" Because It's Fun
Rituals stabilize life. To