The Problem of Ritual Efficacy

by William Sax, Johannes Quack, Jan Weinhold

Overview

How do rituals work? Although this is one of the first questions that people everywhere ask about rituals, little has been written explicitly on the topic. In The Problem of Ritual Efficacy, nine scholars address this issue, ranging across the fields of history, anthropology, medicine, and biblical studies.

For "modern" people, the very notion of ritual efficacy is suspicious because rituals are widely thought of as merely symbolic or expressive, so that - by definition - they cannot be efficacious. Nevertheless people in many cultures assume that rituals do indeed "work," and when we take a closer look at who makes claims for ritual efficacy (and who disputes such claims), we learn a great deal about the social and historical contexts of such debates. Moving from the pre-modern era-in which the notion of ritual efficacy was not particularly controversial-into the skeptical present, the authors address a set of debates between positivists, natural scientists, and religious skeptics on the one side, and interpretive social scientists, phenomenologists, and religious believers on the other. Some contributors advance a particular theory of ritual efficacy while others ask whether the question makes any sense at all.

This path-breaking interdisciplinary collection will be of interest to readers in anthropology, history, religious studies, humanities and the social sciences broadly defined, and makes an important contribution to the larger conversation about what ritual does and why it matters to think about such things.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195394405
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2010
Series:	Oxford Ritual Studies
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

For more information on the Oxford Ritual Studies Series, visit http://ritualstudies.com

Table of Contents

1. Ritual and the Problem of Efficacy, William S. Sax2. Ritual Healing and the Investiture of the Babylonian King, Claus Ambos3. Jesus and his Followers as Healers: Symbolic Healing in Early Christianity, Gerd Theiseen4. Healing Rituals in the Mediaeval West, Peter Dinzelbacher5. Excommunication in the Middle Ages: A meta-ritual and the many faces of its efficacy, Paul Toebelmann6. The Work of Zâr: Women and Spirit Possession in Northern Sudan, Janice Boddy7. Ritual Humility in Modern Laboratories: Or, Why Ecuadorian IVF Practitioners Pray, Elizabeth Roberts8. Ritual, Medicine, and the Placebo Response, Howard Brody9. Bell, Bourdieu and Wittgenstein on Ritual Sense, Johannes Quack

Editorial Reviews

"This collection of essays addresses the knotty and important problem of the efficacy of ritual from a variety of perspectives spanning the disciplines of anthropology and theology. Thematically focused and substantively rich, the volume will have considerable appeal to scholars and students in the fields of anthropology of religion, history of religions, ritual studies, and theology."

— Thomas J. Csordas, author of Body/Meaning/Healing and The Sacred Self: A Cultural Phenomenology of Charismatic Healing

From the Publisher