Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/253444
as when a chaotic brawl breaks out amongst players. That the game reflects a similar submerged tension within soci- ety at large is part of why the audience finds the ritual so compelling. • Sacral symbolism. Ritual is able to take ordinary or "profane" objects, places, parts of the body, or images, and trans- form them into something special or sa- cred. "Their sacrality," Bell writes, "is the way in which the object is more than the mere sum of its parts and points to something beyond itself, thereby evok- ing and expressing values and attitudes associated with larger, more abstract, and relatively transcendent ideas." Thus something like incense can be a mere mixture of plants and oils designed to perfume a room, or, when swung from a censer, can represent the prayer of the faithful ascending into heaven. • Performance. Performance is a particular kind of action – one that is done for an audience. A ritual always has an intended audience, even if that audience is God or oneself. Tom F. Driver, a professor of theology, argues that "performance… means both doing and showing." It is not a matter of "show-and-tell, but do-and- show." Human are inherently actors, who wish to see themselves as characters in a larger narrative, and desire the kind of drama inherent in every timeless tale. Rituals function as narrative dramas and can satisfy and release this need. In the absence of ritual, people resort to doing their "showing" on social media and cre- ating their own drama – often through toxic relationships or substances. The more of these attributes a behavior/ event/situation invokes, the more differ- ent from everyday life and ritual-like it will seem. The fewer of these attributes present, the more casual and ordinary it will feel. For a more simple definition of ritual, here's one that works: thought + action. A ritual consists of doing something in your mind (and often feeling something in your heart), while simultaneously connecting it to doing something with your body. Rituals fall into a wide variety of cat- egories. Theorist Ronald Grimes lists 16 of them: • Rites of passage • Marriage rites • Funerary rites • Festivals • Pilgrimage • Purification • Civil ceremonies • Rituals of exchange (as in worshipers making sacrifices to the gods in hope of receiving blessings from the divine) • Worship • Magic • Healing rites • Interaction rites • Meditation rites • Rites of inversion (rituals of reversal, where violating cultural norms is tem- porarily allowed, as in men dressing like women) • Sacrifice • Ritual drama The important thing to understand about rituals is that they are not limited to very big, very formal events. Rituals can in fact be large or small, private or public, personal or social, religious or secular, unit- ing or dividing, conformist or rebellious. Funerals, weddings, presidential inaugura- tions, church services, baptisms, fraternal initiations, and tribal rites of passage are all rituals. Handshakes, dates, greetings and goodbyes, tattoos, table manners, your morning jog, and even singing the Happy Birthday song can be rituals as well. Whither Ritual? In many traditional societies, almost every aspect of life was ritualized. So why is there such a dearth of rituals in modern culture? The Art of Manliness Continued JOBS for TEAMS | 20 www.jobsfor teams.com JobsForTeams0214_manliness.indd 3 1/6/14 1:33 PM