In our study of the rituals are not going to focus on observable aspects of the same, ie, repetition, continuity, variety and beauty that the difference with the naked eye. You have to find their functions and meanings, both in a group level as on an individual level.
So, what do you arise rituals? What is its purpose? beyond the specific and explicit purposes Clarice, as the search for the divine protection, the desire to increase fertility, the need to hold positive developments ... can be assigned to three major functions rituals interrelated and are unevenly conscious groups and individuals players.
are, therefore, the following functions:
1. Function domain of the unstable security against anxiety (what Jean Paul Sartre considered "nausea")
ritual behaviors express and release the human concern with the body and the world, their transformation and annihilation. Allow channel powerful emotions such as fear, hatred, grief or hope, in the case of many archaic rites and propitiatory conjuratorio order. An example of this is the ritual of mourning over the loss of a loved one, manifested in the Mediterranean culture mourning, present in every known society, albeit with a huge variety of rites.
Some practices are a means of symbolically dominating the space and time with the intention of reducing their burdens or fluency. This occurs, for example, when it comes to sacred a special place (for example, when a church blessing) or when it comes to enshrining of nature periods (seasonal rites) or vital time (ceremonies) .
2. The role of mediation with the divine or with certain shapes and hidden values \u200b\u200bor ideals.
This function is closely related to the previous because tends to attract some powers that are beyond us mortals, deities, spirits, beneficent or malevolent beings who remain outside the scope of the ordinary.
As technically inaccessible or controlled by humans, how to access them is symbolic and ritual gestures, signs, figurative objects understand pa ... An example: the prayers or magic formulas.
This is seen in another way, one-dimensional "sacred" that human beings are not accessible except through ritual, through a symbolic technique that allows the profane, we come in contact with the sacred , usually through the intercession an intermediary (priest, shaman ...) and usually accompanied by the ingestion of a psychoactive product to produce altered states of consciousness, by which it is considered that this boundary that separates the mundane from the sacred becomes more tenuous.
By extension, in the secular field notes the legacy of these rituals that seek to intercede with the divine. In the field of ideology or moral values \u200b\u200bis clearly seen as sacrifices taxed or evidence of respect, for example in the celebrations in nationalist or political conventions. The protocol, for example, would a secular version of this move.
3. Communication function and regulation
This feature from my perspective, is the most important, because it is intimately connected with the welfare of social groups, reinforcing and legitimizing the link a different individuals of a society. This function is much less explicit than the others, but in fact is significant in all social rituals: every community, large or small, any group that shares a sense of collective identity (which is usually well defined by the personal pronoun "we") , feels the need to maintain and reaffirm the beliefs and feelings that underlie your unit.
That is, any group want to remain cohesive and it continually reaffirms its ideology and the reasons why they are linked.
For a group to stay together need to come together, they are different individuals who compose it, reaffirming common values \u200b\u200bthey have.
For example, this happens in the religious or secular holidays, in all the rituals of mass (demonstrations, sporting events, rallies) or even more certain daily rituals (the fashion in clothing, the use of distinctive national group or ...)
Through these three functions, rituals are at the hinge between nature and culture, between the sensible and the spiritual.
ensure not only social and moral regulation, but also the satisfaction of desire for transcendence and sacredness.
And above all, make the individual feel integrated into a group and that the group feels defended by its members.
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