Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T21:04:00.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction - Experiencing Rituals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2024

By
Abigail Graham  and
Blanka Misic
Edited by
Blanka Misic  and
Abigail Graham
Blanka Misic
Affiliation:
Champlain College, Lennoxville
Abigail Graham
Affiliation:
Institute of Classical Studies, London
Get access

Summary

How do we experience ritual? What role does this experience play in the perception and codification memory? This chapter begins by considering the relationship between senses, cognition, and memory in ritual experiences, in particular, the complex interplay between ritual performance, emotions, and material objects, together with the limitations of script-based approaches to surviving accounts. Situating the volume within current debates on religious ritual in the ancient world from the perspectives of cognitive science of religion and sensory studies, this chapter explores how variability in ritual experiences can be assessed through cognitive approaches to rituals as lived experiences. Having outlined why this volume is timely, necessary, and how it contributes to challenging established views and furthering debate surrounding ritual experiences in the Roman world, the introduction also addresses the challenges of cognitive assessments and how these challenges are met across the volume, through a variety of different contexts and approaches. Lastly, the introduction briefly presents each of the five case studies, drawing on common themes and issues explored in each case study, and considering the global relevance and transdisciplinary applications of scholarship in this volume.

Keywords

Ritualcognitionsenseslived experiencecognitive science of religionmemoryperformanceemotionsarchaeologyhistory.
Type
Chapter
Information
Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World , pp. 1 - 26
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambasciano, L. 2016. ‘The gendered deep history of the Bona Dea cult’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 3(1–2): 134–56.Google Scholar
Ambasciano, L. 2017. ‘What is cognitive historiography, anyway? Method, theory and a cross-disciplinary decalogue’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4(2): 136–50.Google Scholar
Ambasciano, L. 2022. ‘Who is the Damiatrix? Roman women, the political negotiation of psychotropic experiences, and the cults of Bona Dea’, in Eidinow, E., Geertz, A. W. and North, J., eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience, 167–90. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Anders, L. 2009. ‘The Cybele and Attis religion and the theory of modes of religiosity’, in Martin, L. H. and Pachis, P., eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research, 179–202. Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Anderson, M., Cairns, D. and Spevak, M. 2018. Distributed Cognition in Classical Antiquity. Edinburgh.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, R. 2004. ‘Four men, two sticks, and a whip: image and doctrine in a Mithraic ritual’, in Whitehouse, H. and Martin, L. H., eds. Theorizing Religions Past: Archaeology, History, and Cognition, 87–103. Walnut Creek.Google Scholar
Beck, R. 2006. The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun. Oxford.Google Scholar
Beck, R. 2014. ‘“Star-Talk”: a gateway to mind in the Ancient World’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 90–7.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. 1994. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. London.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. and Liénard, P. 2006. ‘Precaution systems and ritualized behavior’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29(6): 635–41.Google ScholarPubMed
Bulbulia, J. 2004. ‘Religious costs as adaptations that signal altruistic intention’, Evolution and Cognition 10(1): 19–38.Google Scholar
Cairns, D. L. and Nelis, D. 2017. Eds. Emotions in the Classical World: Methods, Approaches, and Directions. Vandoeuvres.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairns, D. 2019. ‘Introduction’, in D. Cairns, ed. A Cultural History of the Emotions in Antiquity, 1–16. London.Google Scholar
Casey, E. 2001. ‘Body, self and landscape: a geophilosophical inquiry into the place-world’, in Adams, P. C., Hoelscher, S. and Till, K. E., eds. Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, 403–25. Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Chalupa, A. 2011. ‘What might cognitive science contribute to our understanding of the Roman cult of Mithras?’, in Martin, L. H. and Sørensen, J., eds. Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography, 107–24. London.Google Scholar
Chaniotis, A. 2006. ‘Rituals between norms and emotions: rituals as shared experience and memory’, in Stavrianopoulou, E., ed. Rituals and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World, Kernos Supplement 16, 211–38. Liège.Google Scholar
Chaniotis, A. 2007. ‘Theatre rituals’, in Wilson, P., ed. The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies, 48–66. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaniotis, A. 2011. ‘Introduction’, in Chaniotis, A., ed. Ritual Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean: Agency, Emotion, Gender, Representation, 9–16. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Chaniotis, A. 2012. ‘Moving stones: the study of emotions in Greek inscriptions’, in Chaniotis, A., ed. Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World, 91–129. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Chaniotis, A. 2013. ‘Staging and feeling the presence of God: emotion and theatricality in religious celebrations in the Roman East’, in Bricault, L. and Bonnet, C., eds. Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Roman Empire, 169–89. New York.Google Scholar
Chaniotis, A. 2017. ‘The life of statues: emotions and agency’, in Cairns, D. and Nelis, D., eds. Emotions in the Classical World: Methods Approaches and Directions, 143–158. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Corrigan, J. 2007. Ed. Oxford Handbook on Religion and Emotion. Oxford.Google Scholar
Cresswell, T. 2015. Place: A Short Introduction. 2nd edition. Oxford.Google Scholar
Cusumano, N., Gasparini, V., Mastrocinque, A. and Rüpke, J. 2013. Eds. Memory and Religious Experience in the Greco-Roman World. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Day, J. 2013. ‘Introduction: making senses of the past’, in Day, J., ed. Making Senses of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology, 1–31. Carbondale.Google Scholar
Dignas, B. and Smith, R. R. R. 2012. Eds. Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillion, M., Eidinow, E. and Maurizio, L. 2016. Eds. Women’s Ritual Competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. London.Google Scholar
Driediger-Murphy, L. G. and Eidinow, E. 2019. ‘Introduction’, in Driediger-Murphy, L. G. and Eidinow, E., eds. Ancient Divination and Experience, 1–14. Oxford.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. 2021. ‘Religiosity and religious attendance as factors in wellbeing and social engagement’, Religion, Brain & Behavior 11(1): 17–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eidinow, E. 2022. ‘Ancient Greek smellscapes and divine fragrances: anthropomorphizing the Gods in Ancient Greek culture’, in Eidinow, E., Geertz, A. W. and North, J., eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience, 69–95. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eidinow, E., Geertz, A. W., Deeley, Q. and North, J. 2022. ‘Introduction’, in Eidinow, E., Geertz, A. W. and North, J., eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience, 1–16. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Elsner, J. 2007. Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text. Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feder, Y. 2016. ‘Defilement and moral discourse in the Hebrew Bible: an evolutionary framework’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 3(1–2): 157–89.Google Scholar
Fischer, R., Xygalatas, D., Panagiotis, M., Reddish, P., Tok, P., Konvalinka, I. and Bulbulia, J. 2014. ‘The fire-walker’s high: affect and physiological responses in an extreme collective ritual’, PloS One 9(2): e88355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, J. and Richardson-Klavehn, A. 2000. ‘Remembering and knowing’ in Craik Tulving, E. and Craik Tulving, F. I. M., eds. Oxford Handbook of Memory, 229–44. Oxford.Google Scholar
Garner, S. B. 1994. Bodied Spaces: Phenomenology and Performance in Contemporary Drama. Ithaca.Google Scholar
Geertz, A. W. 2010. ‘Brain, body and culture: a biocultural theory of religion’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22(4): 304–21.Google Scholar
Geertz, A. W. 2010b. ‘Too much mind and not enough brain, body, and culture: on what needs to be done in cognitive science of religion’, Historia Religionum 2(2): 1000–17.Google Scholar
Geertz, A. W. 2017. ‘Religious bodies, minds and places: a cognitive science of religion perspective’, in Carnevale, L., ed. Spazi e luoghi sacri espressioni ed esperienze di vissuto religioso, 35–52. Bari Santo Spirito.Google Scholar
Geertz, A. W., van Mulukom, V. and Laigaard Nielbo, K. 2017/2019. ‘The cognitive science of religion: wherefrom? whereto?’, Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion 5(1): 1–4.Google Scholar
Gibson, N. J. S. 2008. ‘Once more, with feelings: the importance of emotion for cognitive science of religion’, in Bulbulia, J., Sosis, R., Harris, E., Genet, R., Genet, C. and Wyman, K., eds. The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, 271–7. Santa Margarita.Google Scholar
Giovanni, C. 2009. ‘Dionysus’ image in the post-modern age’, in Martin, L. H. and Pachis, P., eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research, 89–112. Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Graff, F. 2011. ‘Ritual restoration and innovation in the Greek cities of the Roman Imperium’, in Chaniotis, A., ed. Ritual Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean: Agency, Emotion, Gender, Representation, 105–17. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Griffith, A. B. 2014. ‘Dead religion, live minds: memory and recall of the Mithraic bull-slaying scene’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 72–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallvard Korsvoll, N. 2017. ‘Same, same, but different? A cognitive analysis of an early Christian apotropaic amulet’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4(1): 79–99.Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Y. 2013. ‘Afterword: eleven theses on the archaeology of the senses’, in Day, J., ed. Making Senses of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology, 409–19. Carbondale.Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Y. and Theou, E. 2013. ‘Enacted multi-temporality: the archaeological site as a shared, performative space’, in Gonzalez-Ruibal, A., ed. Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, 181–94. London.Google Scholar
Harkins, A. K. 2015. ‘Ritual mourning in Daniel’s interpretation of Jeremiah’s prophecy’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 2(1): 14–32.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. 2009. ‘The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion’, Evolution and Human Behavior 30(4): 244–60.Google Scholar
Hobson, N. M., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Xygalatas, D. and Inzlicht, M. 2017. ‘The psychology of rituals: an integrative review and process-based framework’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 00(0): 1–25.Google Scholar
Hüsken, U. 2007. ‘Ritual dynamics and ritual failure’, in Hüsken, U., ed. When Rituals Go Wrong: Mistakes, Failures, and the Dynamics of Ritual, 337–66. Leiden.Google Scholar
Konvalinka, I., Xygalatas, D., Bulbulia, J., Schjoedt, U., Jegindø, E.-M., Wallot, S., Van Orden, G. and Roepstorff, A. 2011. ‘Synchronized arousal between performers and related spectators in a fire-walking ritual’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108: 8514–19.Google Scholar
Kundtová Klocová, E. and Geertz, A. W. 2019. ‘Ritual and embodied cognition’, in Uro, R., Day, J. J., Demaris, R. E. and Roitto, R., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual, 74–94. Oxford.Google Scholar
Lang, M., Krátký, J., Shaver, J. H., Jerotijević, D. and Xygalatas, D. 2015. ‘Effects of anxiety on spontaneous ritualized behavior’, Current Biology 25(14): 1892–7.Google Scholar
Lang, M., Krátký, J. and Xygalatas, D. 2020. ‘The role of ritual behaviour in anxiety reduction: an investigation of Marathi religious practices in Mauritius’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 375(1805): 20190431.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larson, J. 2016. Understanding Greek Religion: A Cognitive Approach. London.Google Scholar
Latham, J. A. 2016. Performance, Memory, and Processions in Ancient Rome. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lawson, E. T. and McCauley, R. N. 1990. Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Legare, C. H. and Nielsen, M. 2015. ‘Imitation and innovation: the dual engines of cultural learning’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19(11): 688–99.Google Scholar
Liénard, P. and Boyer, P. 2006. ‘Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection model of ritualized behavior’, American Anthropologist 108(4): 814–27.Google Scholar
Lundhaug, H. 2014. ‘Memory and early monastic literary practices: a cognitive perspective’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 98–120.Google Scholar
Mackey, J. 2017. ‘Roman children as religious agents: the cognitive foundations of cult’, in Vuolanto, V. and Laes, C., eds. Children and Everyday Life in the Roman and Late Antique World, 179–97. London.Google Scholar
Martin, L. H. 2006. ‘The Roman cult of Mithras: a cognitive perspective’, Religio 14: 131–46.Google Scholar
Martin, L. H. 2015. The Mind of Mithraists: Historical and Cognitive Studies in the Roman Cult of Mithras. London.Google Scholar
Martin, L. H. 2022. ‘Identifying symptoms of religious experience from ancient material culture: the example of cults of the Roman Mithras’, in Eidinow, E., Geertz, A. W. and North, J., eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience, 218–42. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Martin, L. H. and Pachis, P. 2009. Eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research. Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Martin, L. H. and Sørensen, J. 2011. Eds. Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography. London.Google Scholar
Masseglia, J. 2013. ‘Emotions and archaeological sources: a methodological introduction’, in Chaniotis, A., ed. Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World, 131–50. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
McCauley, R. N. 2020. ‘Recent trends in the cognitive science of religion: neuroscience, religious experience, and the confluence of cognitive and evolutionary research’, Zygon 55(1): 97–124.Google Scholar
McCauley, R. N. and Lawson, E. T. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNamara, P. 2014. The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Misic, B. 2015. ‘Cognitive theory and religious integration: the case of the Poetovian Mithraea’, in Brindle, T., Allen, M., Durham, E. and Smith, A., eds. TRAC 2014. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Reading 2014, 31–40. Oxford. http://doi.org/10.16995/TRAC2014_31_40Google Scholar
Misic, B. 2019. ‘Cognitive aspects of funerary commemoration of soldiers and veterans in Roman Poetovio’, in Giangiulio, M., Franchi, E. and Proietti, G., eds. Commemorating War and War Dead: Ancient and Modern, 207–18. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Moghaddam, F. M. 2012. ‘The omnicultural imperative’, Culture & Psychology 18(3): 304–30.Google Scholar
Moser, C. and Feldman, C. 2014. Eds. Locating the Sacred: Theoretical Approaches to the Emplacement of Religion. Oxford.Google Scholar
Ng, D. Y. 2018. ‘The Salutaris Foundation: monumentality through periodic rehearsal’, in Longfellow, B. and Perry, E. eds. Roman Artists, Patrons and Public Consumption: Familiar Works Reconsidered, 63–87. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Pachis, P. 2012. ‘Induction into the mystery of “Star-Talk”: the case of the Isis cult during the Graeco-Roman age’, Pantheon: Journal for the Study of Religions 7(1): 79–118.Google Scholar
Pachis, P. 2014. ‘Data from dead minds? Dream and healing in the Isis/Serapis cult during the Graeco-Roman age’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 52–71.Google Scholar
Panagiotidou, O. 2012. ‘The cognitive route of “Star-Talk”: the scene of the tauroctony as a system of signs’, Pantheon: Journal for the Study of Religions 7(1): 70–8.Google Scholar
Panagiotidou, O. 2014. ‘The Asklepios cult: where brains, minds, and bodies interact with the world, creating new realities’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 14–23.Google Scholar
Panagiotidou, O. 2018. ‘Secrecy in the Mithras cult: concealment, cognition and social cohesion’, Acta Antiqua Hungaricae 58: 667–79.Google Scholar
Panagiotidou, O. 2022. Healing, Disease and Placebo in Graeco-Roman Asclepius Temples: A Neurocognitive Approach. Sheffield.Google Scholar
Panagiotidou, O. and Beck, R. 2017. The Roman Mithras Cult: A Cognitive Approach. London.Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, C., Hamilakis, Y., Kyparissi-Apostolika, N., and Guardamino-Diaz, M. 2019. ‘Digital sensoriality: neolithic figurines from Koutrolou Magoula, Greece’, Cambridge Archaeology Journal 29(4): 625–52. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774319000271Google Scholar
Patzelt, M. 2020. ‘Introduction to section one’, in Gasparini, V., Patzelt, M., Raja, R., Rieger, A. K., Rüpke, J. and Urciuoli, E., eds. Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from Archaeology, History and Classics, 11–22. Berlin.Google Scholar
Pred, A. 1984. ‘Place as historically contingent process: structuration and the time-geography of becoming places’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74(2): 279–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, S. 2012. ‘Memory in Ancient Greece’, in Dignas, B. and Smith, R. R. R., eds. Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World, 15–36. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, P. 2017. ‘Shadows in the New Testament: cognitive approaches to early Christian literature’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4(2): 199–222.Google Scholar
Rüpke, J. 2013. The Experience of the Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Meditteranean. Oxford.Google Scholar
Rüpke, J. 2016. On Roman Religion: Lived Religion and the Individual in Ancient Rome. Ithaca.Google Scholar
Schechner, R. 1988. Performance Theory, 2nd revised and expanded edition. London.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, E. 1998. ‘Problematising performance’, in Hughes-Freedland, F., ed. Ritual, Performance, Media, 194–207. New York.Google Scholar
Shear, J. F. 2012. ‘Review of Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World’, Bryn Mawr Classical Review online edition 12 December 2012. [https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012.12.36, accessed 14 April 2019]Google Scholar
Smith, C. Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward a Theory in Ritual. Chicago.Google Scholar
Sofer, A. 2010. The Stage Life of Props. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Sosis, R. 2004. ‘The adaptive value of religious ritual: rituals promote group cohesion by requiring members to engage in behavior that is too costly to fake’, American Scientist 92(2): 166–72.Google Scholar
Sosis, R. and Handwerker, W. P. 2011. ‘Psalms and coping with uncertainty: religious Israeli women’s responses to the 2006 Lebanon war’, American Anthropologist 113(1): 40–55.Google Scholar
Stavrianopoulou, E. 2006. Ed. Rituals and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World. Kernos Supplement 16. Liège.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taves, A. 2011. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton.Google Scholar
Totten, D. M. and Samuels, K. L. 2012. Eds. Making Roman Places, Past and Present: Papers Presented at the First Critical Roman Archaeology Conference Held at Stanford University in March, 2008, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement. Portsmouth.Google Scholar
Tuan, Y.-F. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Tyng, C. M., Amin, H. U., Saad, M. N. M. and Malik, A. S. 2017. ‘The influences of emotions on learning and memory’, Frontiers in Psychology 8: 1454 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454Google Scholar
Ulrich, B. 2009. ‘The imagistic tradition of Dionysos in the Graeco-Roman world’, in Martin, L. H. and Pachis, P., eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research, 25–54. Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Ustinova, Y. 2009. Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth. Oxford.Google Scholar
Ustinova, Y. 2018. Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece. London.Google Scholar
Van der Ploeg, G. 2016. ‘Reconstructing the sensory experience of Caracalla’s supplication at the Pergamene Asclepieion’, Exchanges: The Warwick Research Journal 3(2): 185–98.Google Scholar
van Mulukom, V. 2017. ‘Remembering religious rituals: autobiographical memories of high-arousal religious rituals considered from a narrative processing perspective’, Religion, Brain & Behavior 7(3): 191–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2016.1232304Google Scholar
van Opstall, E. 2018. ‘General introduction’, in van Opstall, E., ed. Sacred Thresholds: The Door to the Sanctuary in Late Antiquity, 1–30. Leiden: Boston.Google Scholar
Watson-Jones, R. E. and Legare, C. H. 2016. ‘The social functions of group rituals’, Current Directions in Psychological Science 25(1): 42–6.Google Scholar
Watson-Jones, R. E., Whitehouse, H. and Legare, C. H. 2016. ‘In-group ostracism increases high-fidelity imitation in early childhood’, Psychological Science 27(1): 34–42.Google Scholar
Wescoat, B. D. and Ousterhout, R. G. 2012. Eds. Architecture of the Sacred: Space, Ritual, and Experience From Classical Greece to Byzantium. Cambridge.Google Scholar
White, C. 2021. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion. Connecting Evolution, Brain, Cognition, and Culture. New York.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. 2000. Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. London.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. and Laidlaw, J. 2004. Eds. Ritual and Memory: Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Religion. Walnut Creek.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. and Martin, L. H. 2004. Eds. Theorizing Religions Past: Archaeology, History, and Cognition. Walnut Creek.Google Scholar
Whitson, J. A. and Galinsky, A. D. 2008. ‘Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception’, Science 322(5898): 115–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Xygalatas, D. 2022. Ritual. How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. New York.Google Scholar
Xygalatas, D., Panagiotis, M., Fischer, R., Reddish, P., Skewes, J., Geertz, A. W., Roepstorff, A. and Bulbulia, J. 2013. ‘Extreme rituals promote prosociality’, Psychological Science 24(8): 1602–5.Google Scholar
Xygalatas, D., Schjoedt, U., Bulbulia, J., Konvalinka, I., Jegindø, E.-M., Reddish, P., Geertz, A. W. and Roepstorff, A. 2013b. ‘Autobiographical memory in a fire-walking ritual’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 13: 1–16.Google Scholar
Xygalatas, D., Khan, S., Lang, M., Kundt, R., Kundtová-Klocová, E. Krátký, J. and Shaver, J. 2019. ‘Effects of extreme ritual practices on psychophysiological well-being’, Current Anthropology 60(5): 699–707.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×