Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms

by Robert N. McCauley, E. Thomas Lawson

Overview

This study explores the psychological foundations of religious ritual systems. In practice, participants recall rituals to ensure a sense of continuity across performances, and those rituals motivate them to transmit and re-perform them. Most religious rituals exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation to enhance their recollection. Robert N. McCauley and E. Thomas Lawson assert that participants' cognitive representations of ritual form explain much about the systems. Reviewing a wide range of evidence, they explain religions' evolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521016292
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.75(d)
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)

About the Author

ROBERT N. MCCAULEY is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Emory College Center for Teaching and Curriculum, Emory University.

E. THOMAS LAWSON is Professor of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University and executive editor of the Journal of Cognition and Culture.

Table of Contents

1. Cognitive constraints on religious ritual form: a theory of participants' competence with religious ritual systems; 2. Ritual and memory: frequency and flashbulbs; 3. Two hypotheses concerning religious ritual and emotional stimulation; 4. Assessing the two hypotheses; 5. General profiles of religious ritual systems: the emerging cognitive science of religion.

Editorial Reviews

'Bringing Ritual to Mind makes a substantial contribution to one corner of the cognitive field, the cognitive basis of ritual forms. The book extends and clarifies aspects of the theory of ritual competence presented in the authors' Rethinking Religion (1990).' Numen

'… a provocative and very stimulating set of ideas …'. Anthropos

From the Publisher