Rethinking ritual: how rituals made our world and how they could save it★

Abstract

In this Henry Myers Lecture, I summarize several decades of collaborative research on the role of ritual in group bonding and co-operation, ranging from psychology experiments in university laboratories to field research among indigenous groups, and from surveys with armed revolutionaries to extended interviews with religious adherents. This body of work is helping to clarify the mechanisms by which social cohesion and prosocial behaviour are generated in a variety of groups, such as mothers experiencing traumatic births, football fans suffering defeat at crucial matches in Brazil and Australia, and Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia contemplating insults to Islam in faraway conflicts. These findings also shed light on changes in ritual life from the palaeolithic to the first farmers and from archaic states to the first moralizing religions. In keeping with the forward-looking theme of the 2022 RAI conference, I consider the implications of these findings for various practical problems facing humanity today, such as how to reduce crime and to prevent violent extremism and how to foster more inclusive forms of leadership and motivate action on environmental issues.