The Huang family was engaged in ritual in the classic sense, mixing belief with tactile, physical action. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili, two researchers of the human brain from the University of Pennsylvania, explained that for a ritual to work, the participants must engage “all parts of the brain and body, it must merge behaviour with ideas.” Through their wailing, their kneeling, their grief, Mr. Huang’s family were connecting to something greater than themselves.
