摘要：Teaching ritual is incredibly difficult because the subject is so vast with no general agreement on the basics, including what ritual is, how it works, what it feels like to perform a ritual or participate in one, and what its functions are. On the one hand, ritual is allied with the “sacred,” another difficult concept to define. On the other, evolutionary biologists find human ritual rooted in animal behavior. Which came first, the activity or the meanings attached to the activity? There is agreement that rituals are repetitive, rhythmic actions. But so is factory work and obsessive behavior—which have also been called ritual or “ritual-like” (whatever that means). There are the public rituals of the state and church; the social rituals of families, clubs, professions, and identity groups; and the more or less private rituals of small groups, couples, and individuals. It is not easy to specify what these share or to distinguish among them. Many acts are upgraded to ritual status because ritual is a positive value word, linking an activity to the sacred, another positive value word. But rituals can also be negative or bad, if they are associated with groups such as the Nazis, devil worshippers, and other pariahs.
