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Emerging Ritual in Secular Societies: A Transdisciplinary Conversation
The growing absence of meaningful ritual in contemporary Western societies has led to cohesive research on the history of ritualizing behaviour in different cultures. The relatively new field of ritology, which includes neuroscience, anthropology, cultural psychology, psychotherapy and even art and performance, raises questions about the significance and practice of ritual today. This book is the first of its kind to discuss the importance of secular rituals for cultural and personal growth. Using a transdisciplinary approach, a range of contributors provide an authoritative account of the science and history of rituals and their role in creating healthy societies in the modern age.
264 pages, Paperback
Published February 21, 2017
About the author
Jeltje Gordon-Lennox
7 books2 followersJeltje Gordon-Lennox is an author of books in English and French about ritual studies theory and the role of the senses in the contemporary practice of secular ritual. She is also a psychotherapist with expertise in the field of world religions. In 2002, she founded the Ashoka(.ch) Association, where she trains secular celebrants in the craft of secular ritualization.
Jeltje lives in Switzerland with her jazz musician husband and their two children. She enjoys music, theatre, modern art, reading fiction, hiking and k-dramas.
Français
Psychothérapeute, célébrante séculière et écrivaine, Jeltje Gordon-Lennox a travaillé au Comité international de la Croix-Rouge et comme pasteure à l’Eglise protestante de Genève. Elle a fondé à Genève Ashoka (www.ashoka.ch), association vouée à l’organisation de cérémonies à la carte (naissances, mariages, funérailles). Elle a déjà publié deux en français avant de publier en anglais sur les ritualization contemporaine dans les sociétés séculières.
Jeltje vit en Suisse avec son mari, un musicien professionnel de jazz, et leurs deux enfants. Elle apprécie la musique, le théâtre, de l’art moderne, la lecture, la marche et les k-dramas.
- Mariages: Cérémonies sur mesure (Labor et Fides, 2008).
- Funérailles: Cérémonies sur mesure
Préface de Christophe Fauré (Labor et Fides, 2011).
Jeltje lives in Switzerland with her jazz musician husband and their two children. She enjoys music, theatre, modern art, reading fiction, hiking and k-dramas.
Français
Psychothérapeute, célébrante séculière et écrivaine, Jeltje Gordon-Lennox a travaillé au Comité international de la Croix-Rouge et comme pasteure à l’Eglise protestante de Genève. Elle a fondé à Genève Ashoka (www.ashoka.ch), association vouée à l’organisation de cérémonies à la carte (naissances, mariages, funérailles). Elle a déjà publié deux en français avant de publier en anglais sur les ritualization contemporaine dans les sociétés séculières.
Jeltje vit en Suisse avec son mari, un musicien professionnel de jazz, et leurs deux enfants. Elle apprécie la musique, le théâtre, de l’art moderne, la lecture, la marche et les k-dramas.
- Mariages: Cérémonies sur mesure (Labor et Fides, 2008).
- Funérailles: Cérémonies sur mesure
Préface de Christophe Fauré (Labor et Fides, 2011).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 1, 2017
This is an interesting and well researched book. But there are some issues. Ritual is primarily associated with religion. It is based on solemn principles and it differs a lot from every other type of ritual.
As such, the religious rituals should be mentioned in a different way, should be in a different part of the book or better, a separate book on its own.
Until reaching about the middle of the book, there was that awkward sense, that the term 'ritual’ was used inappropriately. After reaching the middle of the book and reading about different kinds of rituals, the 'religious tag’ gradually detached, giving room to a broader understanding of the term.
Ritual in the social context
It’s interesting to learn (or perhaps re-member) how rituals are well woven into humans’ customs, predefining most of their behavioral and psychological patterns. From my understanding, rituals became important to humans, enabling them to create that necessary psychospiritual space which will make room for what is related to that specific ritual in order to manifest. There's an issue though, many people are absorbed so much by the ritual processes to the point that they almost neglect the essence, which is what is actually important.
Ritual in the religious/spiritual context
The ritual in the religious/spiritual context, is the more commonly associated with the term ritual. To me, ritual is the garment of religion and religion is the systematized/categorized spirituality. Thus, the ritual is far away from our true (spiritual) connection. True man cannot exist without spirituality, and religion is distracting people from having a pure contact with the Cosmos, when Cosmos is viewed as a spiritual entity. That is a two-way connection from heart to heart (the only true one), from someone’s (pure) heart to the heart of the Cosmos. Having to create and keep specific rituals – especially secular rituals, which leaves a… compartmentalized notion – in order to… “remember” and practice our most sacred connection, it means we have already forgot our inherent spiritual connection to our Father (the Universe)...
Thus, in fact I see religious ritual as a burden that holds back the true evolution of humanity. The true evolution can only begin from spirituality. When men will liberate themselves from the need to ritualize their connection to the Divine, that connection will become more instant and non-interruptive. What we need is to liberate ourselves from any need of repeating rituals, repeating habits that perpetuate the servant obedient mediocre man that creates rituals in the same way as he puts live plants in a dead-dark living room in order to make the space more beautiful, not caring at all about the life of the plant. People need to return to the core values of the spiritual life, of how it is to observe your constructive silence, instead of dwelling in the noise of a ritualized ceremony with many others repeating what they have learned to repeat (with no actual meaning).
A flowery vocabulary is often used in the book, in order to support the need for ritualization in the secular societies. Yet, the ritual itself in its core, remains a needless relic which was inherited from a heavy and sinful past disguised under the name of... religion. I would appreciate arguments that speak to the core of the subject, and not presenting numbers of celebrants who have attended ritualistic ceremonies...! Most people will copy-paste rituals, as they would copy-paste anything else, just because most of the people lead habitual lives under norms, following laws. I am not saying to not following laws. But when one sees that these laws are corrupt to the bone, serving only the elite, then one is clever enough to disobey these unjust laws from the next day.
Only a few ones are the mystics and the sages and the urban monks that have the necessary energy and the courage to delve deep into the spirituality and the essence of the mysteries of the unseen world.
Outside of the context of religion/spirituality
There’s a chapter in the book where the author talks about the mother-infant ritual. Well, I don’t know but… I wouldn’t name that behavioural exchange between mother-infant, a ritual. To me, a ritual is something of a great value and of importance, like a special event, a ceremony, a solemn rite, something that leaves feelings of great importance.
Conclusion
Concluding, I have to say, it is difficult to rate this book. From the beginning to the middle of the book I was between rating two or three stars. At the middle of the book, it started becoming interesting and I thought I could perhaps go for four stars. Then, the chapter about the food ritual appeared and my interest dropped again; making me want to add again, that rituals are not necessarily helpful. If the experience of what we call 'life’ in this existence is an illusionary lesson that our soul has to go through, then, I sense that social 'rituals’ only aim to further sustain our habitual life; used as tools to keep our consciousness in a mass-hypnotic, collective continuation, such as the 'food ritual’. Why on earth the raw-alive food that our alive bodies need in order to thrive, have to become… a ‘ritual’?. If people need to spend time and gray substance in order to ritualize our raw natural food, which we need in order to sustain our equally energy body of ours alive (which in fact is its main and sole purpose), then I believe, we have lost our main target… Ritualized food is a diversion from our natural state.
What I am trying to say is, if we feel the need to ritualize something, anything, then it's just admitting our invisible mental chains… Many things are important, and many things are done collectively by groups that one might call ‘a ritual’. But that doesn’t have to become a norm. My question is, why do we have to ritualize that. I would prefer to keep it - ♫ raw, in the flow, to allow, it ♫ - to unlock our subconscious gates and thus to engage a more spontaneous relationship with our own self and with the world; which is… the self reflected in the world. The self, from whom everything starts ~
As such, the religious rituals should be mentioned in a different way, should be in a different part of the book or better, a separate book on its own.
Until reaching about the middle of the book, there was that awkward sense, that the term 'ritual’ was used inappropriately. After reaching the middle of the book and reading about different kinds of rituals, the 'religious tag’ gradually detached, giving room to a broader understanding of the term.
Ritual in the social context
It’s interesting to learn (or perhaps re-member) how rituals are well woven into humans’ customs, predefining most of their behavioral and psychological patterns. From my understanding, rituals became important to humans, enabling them to create that necessary psychospiritual space which will make room for what is related to that specific ritual in order to manifest. There's an issue though, many people are absorbed so much by the ritual processes to the point that they almost neglect the essence, which is what is actually important.
Ritual in the religious/spiritual context
The ritual in the religious/spiritual context, is the more commonly associated with the term ritual. To me, ritual is the garment of religion and religion is the systematized/categorized spirituality. Thus, the ritual is far away from our true (spiritual) connection. True man cannot exist without spirituality, and religion is distracting people from having a pure contact with the Cosmos, when Cosmos is viewed as a spiritual entity. That is a two-way connection from heart to heart (the only true one), from someone’s (pure) heart to the heart of the Cosmos. Having to create and keep specific rituals – especially secular rituals, which leaves a… compartmentalized notion – in order to… “remember” and practice our most sacred connection, it means we have already forgot our inherent spiritual connection to our Father (the Universe)...
Thus, in fact I see religious ritual as a burden that holds back the true evolution of humanity. The true evolution can only begin from spirituality. When men will liberate themselves from the need to ritualize their connection to the Divine, that connection will become more instant and non-interruptive. What we need is to liberate ourselves from any need of repeating rituals, repeating habits that perpetuate the servant obedient mediocre man that creates rituals in the same way as he puts live plants in a dead-dark living room in order to make the space more beautiful, not caring at all about the life of the plant. People need to return to the core values of the spiritual life, of how it is to observe your constructive silence, instead of dwelling in the noise of a ritualized ceremony with many others repeating what they have learned to repeat (with no actual meaning).
A flowery vocabulary is often used in the book, in order to support the need for ritualization in the secular societies. Yet, the ritual itself in its core, remains a needless relic which was inherited from a heavy and sinful past disguised under the name of... religion. I would appreciate arguments that speak to the core of the subject, and not presenting numbers of celebrants who have attended ritualistic ceremonies...! Most people will copy-paste rituals, as they would copy-paste anything else, just because most of the people lead habitual lives under norms, following laws. I am not saying to not following laws. But when one sees that these laws are corrupt to the bone, serving only the elite, then one is clever enough to disobey these unjust laws from the next day.
Only a few ones are the mystics and the sages and the urban monks that have the necessary energy and the courage to delve deep into the spirituality and the essence of the mysteries of the unseen world.
Outside of the context of religion/spirituality
There’s a chapter in the book where the author talks about the mother-infant ritual. Well, I don’t know but… I wouldn’t name that behavioural exchange between mother-infant, a ritual. To me, a ritual is something of a great value and of importance, like a special event, a ceremony, a solemn rite, something that leaves feelings of great importance.
Conclusion
Concluding, I have to say, it is difficult to rate this book. From the beginning to the middle of the book I was between rating two or three stars. At the middle of the book, it started becoming interesting and I thought I could perhaps go for four stars. Then, the chapter about the food ritual appeared and my interest dropped again; making me want to add again, that rituals are not necessarily helpful. If the experience of what we call 'life’ in this existence is an illusionary lesson that our soul has to go through, then, I sense that social 'rituals’ only aim to further sustain our habitual life; used as tools to keep our consciousness in a mass-hypnotic, collective continuation, such as the 'food ritual’. Why on earth the raw-alive food that our alive bodies need in order to thrive, have to become… a ‘ritual’?. If people need to spend time and gray substance in order to ritualize our raw natural food, which we need in order to sustain our equally energy body of ours alive (which in fact is its main and sole purpose), then I believe, we have lost our main target… Ritualized food is a diversion from our natural state.
What I am trying to say is, if we feel the need to ritualize something, anything, then it's just admitting our invisible mental chains… Many things are important, and many things are done collectively by groups that one might call ‘a ritual’. But that doesn’t have to become a norm. My question is, why do we have to ritualize that. I would prefer to keep it - ♫ raw, in the flow, to allow, it ♫ - to unlock our subconscious gates and thus to engage a more spontaneous relationship with our own self and with the world; which is… the self reflected in the world. The self, from whom everything starts ~
May 13, 2018
This is a book about "emerging secular ritual" (as the title clearly implies). The book covers a wide range of topics by different authors including weddings, birth, art, mourning, and food.
I would have to disagree with Sky Feather's lengthy and rather verbose review based on a very narrow definition of ritual. Merriam Webster defines ritual as, "a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence." A sequestered place can be anything we want it to be - our bedroom, our kitchen, the forest at the end of a long road, a coffee shop, or an old barn. And we can create rituals to give our life meaning and structure - anywhere we choose to do that. These are "emerging secular rituals," every bit as important as traditional religious rituals.
Of course we ritualize such events as childbirth. And as for food and ritual - there are entire books on this topic alone. Take a look at Margaret Visser's wonderful, landmark book, The Rituals of Dinner." Eating has to be one of the most highly ritualized of all human activities. Even the order of our meals is ritualized.
This book is a conversation about the evolving nature of emerging, secular ritual. A conversation well worth having.
I would have to disagree with Sky Feather's lengthy and rather verbose review based on a very narrow definition of ritual. Merriam Webster defines ritual as, "a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence." A sequestered place can be anything we want it to be - our bedroom, our kitchen, the forest at the end of a long road, a coffee shop, or an old barn. And we can create rituals to give our life meaning and structure - anywhere we choose to do that. These are "emerging secular rituals," every bit as important as traditional religious rituals.
Of course we ritualize such events as childbirth. And as for food and ritual - there are entire books on this topic alone. Take a look at Margaret Visser's wonderful, landmark book, The Rituals of Dinner." Eating has to be one of the most highly ritualized of all human activities. Even the order of our meals is ritualized.
This book is a conversation about the evolving nature of emerging, secular ritual. A conversation well worth having.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews