RItual: Disenchantment 2.28.17
O Brother Where Ar’t Thou Functions of Ritual Orients participants to space and time Connects participants to the divine Connects participants to a larger community Includes the body as an instrument for religion O Brother Where Ar’t Thou Delmar’s Baptism
Liminality & Communitas group of people who are in the same liminal state “common generic bond” (Majority) Anti-structure Social distinctions fall away Liminality Betwixt and Between No clear social status unclear status makes liminality dangerous to community and social system Why?
significance of rites of passage “Social life is a dialectical process that involved successive experience of high and low” All cultures have successive moments of highs/lows marked by ritual Rituals help in process that humans go through anyway
hopi Kachina cult Hopi — Native American Pueblo Tribe Kachina Supernatural Beings - represent aspects of natural world, not gods Kachina Dancers Kachina Dolls given to children Kiva - subterranean ritual / ceremony space Central theme of Kachina cult: “The presence of life in all objects that fill the universe. Everything has an essence or a life force, and humans must interact with these or fail to survive”
hopi initiation ritual What: Initiation into Kachina cult Purpose: Reveal to children nature of the kachinas Who: 8-10 year olds What happens: Children are removed from community Whipped by Kachinas - “payment” to receive special knowledge; device to ensure secrecy Kachinas unmasked - members community, possibly relatives Profound disappointment, disenchantment, discord
Disenchantment Dual traumatic effects: disenchantment altered concepts of Kachinas profound disappointment and resentment towards elders modified behavior excessive indulgence by their elders end irreversible loss of naive realism
What’s next? Active members of the Kachina cult attentive to Kachina stories participating in religious preparation and activities Birth of religious perspective Religious life begins as serious and reflective (adult qualities) Motivation for seeking religious awareness
characteristics of disenchantment Encouraging identification of the spiritual with some physical / sensual aspect of the world Initiatory process reinforces sense that the fullness of religious reality is invested in these figures and objects Concluding moments / / Threshold Illusion dissolved “Rites demonstrate irreversibly that things are not simply what they appear to be, that one-dimensional literalism is a childish faith that one has to grow beyond” Choice: See the world as meaningless Quest for fuller understanding of the world
Other ExaMPLES OF DISENCHANTMENT Similarities to first members of Christian community? Disenchantment in secular modernity?