The Problem of Ritual Efficacy

Oxford Ritual Studies Series

by William S. Sax (Editor), Johannes Quack (Editor), Jan Weinhold (Editor)

How do rituals work? Although this is one of the first questions that people everywhere ask about rituals, little has been written explicitly on the topic. In The Problem of Ritual Efficacy, nine scholars address this issue, ranging across the fields of history, anthropology, medicine, and biblical studies.

For "modern" people, the very notion of ritual efficacy is suspicious because rituals are widely thought of as merely symbolic or expressive, so that - by definition - they cannot be efficacious. Nevertheless people in many cultures assume that rituals do indeed "work," and when we take a closer look at who makes claims for ritual efficacy (and who disputes such claims), we learn a great deal about the social and historical contexts of such debates. Moving from the pre-modern era-in which the notion of ritual efficacy was not particularly controversial-into the skeptical present, the authors address a set of debates between positivists, natural scientists, and religious skeptics on the one side, and interpretive social scientists, phenomenologists, and religious believers on the other. Some contributors advance a particular theory of ritual efficacy while others ask whether the question makes any sense at all.

This path-breaking interdisciplinary collection will be of interest to readers in anthropology, history, religious studies, humanities and the social sciences broadly defined, and makes an important contribution to the larger conversation about what ritual does and why it matters to think about such things.

Genres: Religion

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Jerrod · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was okay. The authors of this collection would disagree with the following synopsis: ritual is effective through either the placebo effect or through the revelation of common knowledge. The authors build up a scaffolding of conceptual analysis around what ritual efficacy is, but I don't think the book goes much deeper than my synopsis. The author of the chapter about the Persian ritual with the king going into a metaphorical prison once a year (though it actually occurred less frequently) didn't consider that this was a way for Babylonian elites to more effectively monitor the king (as it required the king's presence). The chapter on the placebo effect was the most interesting, and I'll probably try at some point to find a literature review or book on that topic (along with its "nocebo" cousin, which is not discussed in the book). The last chapter posits (essentially) Wittgenstein's conclusion that basically there is no explanation for some things; they just are. Needless to say, that doesn't really satisfy my curiosity.