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A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may stand for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield...

ic value, which is prescribed by a religion

Religion

A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...

or by the tradition

Tradition

The word tradition comes from the Latin traditionem, acc. of traditio which means "handing over, passing on", and is used in a number of ways in the English language:...

s of a community

Community

In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment.In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of...

. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers, or dictated purely by logic, chance, necessity, etc..

A ritual may be performed on specific occasions, or at the discretion of individuals or communities. It may be performed by a single individual, by a group, or by the entire community; in arbitrary places, or in places especially reserved for it; either in public, in private, or before specific people. A ritual may be restricted to a certain subset of the community, and may enable or underscore the passage between religious or social states.

The purposes of rituals are varied; they include compliance with religious obligations or ideals, satisfaction of spiritual or emotional needs of the practitioners, strengthening of social bonds, social and moral education, demonstration of respect or submission, stating one's affiliation, obtaining social acceptance or approval for some event — or, sometimes, just for the pleasure of the ritual itself.

Rituals of various kinds are a feature of almost all known human societies, past or present. They include not only the various worship

Worship

'Worship' is acts, expressions or a state of religious devotion typically directed to one or more deities.Worship is etymologically derived from Old English words meaning "worth-ship". Giving worth to something...

rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also the rites of passage

Rite of passage

A rite of passage is a ritual that marks a change in a person's social status. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures. Rites of passage are often ceremonies surrounding events such as childbirth,...

of certain societies, atonement and purification rites

Ritual purification

Ritual purification is a feature of many religions. The aim of these rituals is to remove specifically defined uncleanliness prior to a particular type of activity, and especially prior to the worship of a deity...

, oaths of allegiance

Oath of allegiance

An oath of allegiance is an oath whereby a subject or citizen acknowledges his/her duty of allegiance and swears loyalty to his/her monarch or country. In many modern oaths of allegiance, allegiance is sworn to the Constitution. In particular, in the United States presidents, judges, and military...

, dedication ceremonies, coronation

Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the investiture of a monarch or their consort with regal power, specifically involving the placement of a crown upon his or her head, and the presentation of other items of regalia...

s and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sports events, Halloween parties, veteran parades, Christmas

Christmas

Christmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days. The nativity of Jesus, which is the basis for the anno Domini...

shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trial

Jury trial

A jury trial is a legal proceeding in which a jury either makes a decision or makes findings of fact which are then applied by a judge...

s, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia

Symposium

Symposium originally referred to a drinking party but has since come to refer to any academic conference, or a style of university class characterized by an openly discursive format, rather than a lecture and question–answer format...

, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking

Handshake

A handshake is a short ritual in which two people grasp each other's right hand, often accompanied by a brief up and down movement of the grasped hands. While its origins remain obscure, archaeological ruins and ancient texts show that handshaking was practiced as far back as the 2nd century BC...

and saying hello

Hello

Hello is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is attested in writing as early as the 1830s.-First use:Hello, with that spelling, was used in publications as early as 1833. These include an 1833 American book called The Sketches and Eccentricities of Col...

are rituals.

In psychology

Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...

, the term ritual is used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a person to neutralize or prevent anxiety; it is a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive–compulsive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce anxiety, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing anxiety, or by combinations of such thoughts and behaviors...

Ritual actions

Due to their symbolic nature, there are hardly any limits to the kind of actions that may be incorporated into a ritual. The rites of past and present societies have typically involved special gestures and words, recitation of fixed texts, performance of special music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, songs

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist...

or dance

Dance

Dance is a sport and art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

s, processions, manipulation of certain objects, use of special dresses, consumption of special food

Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure. Items considered food may be sourced from plants, animals or other categories such as fungus or fermented products like alcohol...

, drink

Drink

A drink, or beverage, is a liquid which is specifically prepared for human consumption. In addition to filling a basic human need, beverages form part of the culture of human society.-Water:...

, or drug

Psychoactive drug

A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical or psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it alters brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness and behavior...

s, and much more. Religious rituals have also included animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practiced by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...

, human sacrifice

Human sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the act of killing human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practiced in various cultures throughout history...

, ritual suicide, and ritual murder. Ritual lamentation—song performed with weeping—in many societies was regarded as required to ritually carry the departed soul to a safe afterlife (Tolbert 1990a, 1990b; Wilce 2006).

Religious rituals

In religion

Religion

, a ritual can comprise the prescribed outward forms of performing the cultus, or cult, of a particular observation within a religion or religious denomination

Religious denomination

A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name, tradition, and identity.The term describes various Christian denominations...

. Although ritual is often used in context with worship performed in a church, the actual relationship between any religion's doctrine and its ritual(s) can vary considerably from organized religion to non-institutionalized spirituality, such as ayahuasca

Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs from the Psychotria genus...

shamanism

Shamanism

Shamanism comprises a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. It is a prominent term in anthropological research. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, , noun...

as practiced by the Urarina

Urarina

The Urarina are an indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon Basin who inhabit the Chambira, Urituyacu, and Corrientes Rivers. According to both archaeological and historical sources, they have resided in the Chambira Basin of contemporary northeastern Peru for centuries. The Urarina refer to...

of the upper Amazon. Rituals often have a close connection with reverence, thus a ritual in many cases expresses reverence for a deity

Deity

A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

or idealized state of humanity.

Social functions

Alongside the personal dimensions of worship and reverence, rituals can have a more basic social

Sociology

Sociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...

function in expressing, fixing and reinforcing the shared values and beliefs of a society.

Social rituals have formed a part of human culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

for tens of thousands of years. The earliest known undisputed evidence of burial

Burial

Burial, also called interment and inhumation, is the act of placing a person or object into the ground. This is accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing an object in it, and covering it over.-History:...

rituals dates from the Upper Paleolithic. (Older skeletons show no signs of deliberate 'burial', and as such lack clear evidence of having been ritually treated.) Anthropologists see social rituals as one of many cultural universals.

Rituals can aid in creating a firm sense of group identity. Humans have used rituals to create social bonds and even to nourish interpersonal relationships. For example, nearly all fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In English, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in North America, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...

have rituals incorporated into their structure, from elaborate and sometimes "secret" initiation rites, to the formalized structure of convening a meeting. Thus, numerous aspects of ritual and ritualistic proceedings are engrained into the workings of those societies.

The social function of rituals has often been exploited for political ends. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, for example, is thought to have helped unite the warring states during the American Civil War

Anthropological studies

Of particular interest to anthropologists has been the role of ritual in structuring life crises, human development, religious enactment and entertainment.

Among anthropologists, and other ethnographers, who have contributed to ritual theory are Victor Turner

Victor Turner

Victor Witter Turner was a cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as symbolic and interpretive anthropology.-Biography and research interests:Turner was born in Glasgow,...

, Ronald Grimes, Mary Douglas

Mary Douglas

Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism....

, and the biogenetic structuralists

Biogenetic structuralism

Biogenetic structuralism is a body of theory in anthropology. The perspective grounds discussions of learning, culture, personality and social action in neuroscience. The original book of that title represented an interdisciplinary merger of anthropology, psychology and the neurosciences...

. Anthropologists from Emile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist and pioneer in the development of modern sociology and anthropology. His work and editorship of the first journal of sociology, L'Année Sociologique, as well as his creation of the first European department of sociology, helped establish sociology...

through Turner and contemporary theorists like Michael Silverstein (2004) treat ritual as social action aimed at particular transformations often conceived in cosmic terms. Though the transformations can also be thought of as personal (e.g. the fertility and healing rituals Turner describes), they becomes a sort of cosmic event, one stretching into "eternity".

Ritual

Ritual actions

Religious rituals

Social functions

Anthropological studies

See also