The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life

by Sheldon Solomon

RITUALS ARE THE BEHAVIORAL bedrock of human culture. As wishful thinking in action, rituals empower us to sustain life, forestall death, and manage the universe. They assure our success in love and war. They determine who we are. You’re not an adult until ritually fashioned into one. Ritual determines when you’re married. You are not even considered fully dead until the official ritualizers—doctor, coroner, preacher—declare you to be. And if something goes wrong in our lives, we have an out: The problem is due to a wish or prayer somehow misdirected or gone awry. We must have performed the ritual improperly, or we need to add another step to an existing ritual, or create an entirely new one instead. Rituals, then, help manage existential terror by superseding natural processes and fostering the illusion that we control them.