The Hindu Religions Tradition of Not Eating Beef Is an Example of Which Supernatural Function

Sashur Henninger-Rener, University of LaVerne and the Los Angeles Customs College District

Humans have e'er wondered about the meaning of the life, the nature of the universe, and the forces that shape our lives. While it is incommunicable to know for certain how the people who lived thousands of years ago answered these kinds of questions, in that location are some clues. L m years agone, man communities buried the dead with stone tools, shells, animal bones, and other objects, a practise that suggests they were preparing the deceased for an afterlife, or a world beyond this one. Thirty thousand years ago, artists entered the Chauvet cave in France and painted dramatic scenes of animals on the cave walls along with abstract symbols that propose the images were part of a supernatural belief organization, mayhap one focused on ensuring safety or success in hunting (Figure one).^[i]A few thousand years later on, collections of small clay sculptures, known as Venus figurines, began appearing across Eurasia. They seem to express ideas about fertility or motherhood and may take been viewed as magical (Figure 2).^[ii]

Figure i: An epitome from Chauvet cave painted about 32,000 years ago. The paintings may have been part of religious ceremonies intended to ensure success in hunting.

Considering ideas about the supernatural are part of every human culture, understanding these beliefs is important to anthropologists. Nevertheless, studying supernatural beliefs is challenging for several reasons. The showtime difficulty arises from the claiming of defining the topic itself. The discussion "religion," which is commonly used in the United States to refer to participation in a distinct form of faith such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, is non a universally recognized idea. Many cultures have no word for "organized religion" at all and many societies do not make a articulate distinction between beliefs or practices that are "religious," or "spiritual" and other habits that are an ordinary function of daily life. For instance, leaving an incense offer in a household shrine dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors may be viewed as a simple part of the daily routine rather than a "religious" practice. At that place are societies that believe in supernatural beings, simply practice non call them "gods." Some societies exercise not run across a distinction betwixt the natural and the supernatural observing, instead, that the spirits share the aforementioned physical world every bit humans. Concepts like "heaven," "hell," or fifty-fifty "prayer" do not exist in many societies. The divide between "religion" and related ideas like "spirituality" or even "magic" is also murky in some cultural contexts.

Figure 2:< The Venus of Willendorf figurine was made between 28,000 and 25,000 BC and may have been associated with spiritual beliefs about motherhood or fertility.

To written report supernatural beliefs, anthropologists must cultivate a perspective of cultural relativism and strive to understand behavior from an emic or insider's perspective. Imposing the definitions or assumptions from one civilization on another is likely to pb to misunderstandings. One example of this problem tin can be institute in the early on anthropological research of Sir James Frazer who attempted to compose the first comprehensive study of the globe's major magical and religious belief systems. Frazer was part of the early generation of anthropologists whose work was based on reading and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and colonial officials rather than travel and participant-observation. As a result, he had just minimal data about the behavior he wrote about and he was quick to apply his own opinions.

In The Gilded Bough (1890) Frazer dismissed many of the spiritual beliefs he documented: "I look upon [them] not simply every bit false but as preposterous and absurd."^[3] His contemporary, Sir East.B. Tylor, was less dismissive of unfamiliar conventionalities systems, but he defined religion minimally and, for some, in overly narrow terms as "the belief in supernatural beings." This definition excludes much of what people effectually the world actually believe.^[4]Equally researchers gained more information about other cultures, their ideas nigh religion became more complex. The sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that organized religion was not simply a conventionalities in "supernatural beings," but a set of practices and social institutions that brought members of a community together. Faith, he said, was "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set aside and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into i single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."^[5]

Durkheim'due south assay of religion emphasized the significance of spiritual behavior for relationships between people. Subsequent anthropological inquiry in communities around the world has confirmed that rituals associated with beliefs in the supernatural play a significant role in structuring community life, providing rules or guidelines for behavior, and bonding members of a community to one some other. Interestingly, religious "beings," such as gods or spirits, also demonstrate social qualities. Near of the fourth dimension, these beings are imagined in familiar terms equally entities with personalities, desires, and "agency," an ability to make decisions and take activity. Supernatural beings, in other words, are non so dissimilar from people.^{[half dozen]} In keeping with this idea, religion can exist defined as "the ways by which human society and culture is extended to include the nonhuman."^[7] This definition is deliberately broad and can be used to encompass many different kinds of belief systems.

Many religions involve ideas or rituals that could be described as "magical" and the relationship betwixt religion and magic is circuitous. In his volume A General Theory of Magic (1902), Marcel Mauss suggested that religion and magic were two opposite poles on a spectrum of spiritual behavior. Magic was at i cease of the spectrum; it was individual, secret, and individual. Religion was at the opposite end of the spectrum; information technology was public and oriented toward bringing the community together.^[viii] Although Mauss' formulation presented religion and magic every bit part of the same general way of thinking, many contemporary anthropologists are convinced that making a distinction between faith and magic is artificial and ordinarily not particularly useful. With this caution in mind, magic can be defined as practices intended to bring supernatural forces under ane's personal control. Sorcerers are individuals who seek to utilize magic for their ain purposes. It is important to remember that both magic and sorcery are labels that take historically been used by outsiders, including anthropologists, to describe spiritual beliefs with which they are unfamiliar. Words from the local language are almost ever preferable for representing how people call up about themselves.

THEORIES OF Religion

Sir James Frazer's endeavour to interpret religious mythology was the starting time of many attempts to understand the reasons why cultures develop various kinds of spiritual behavior. In the early twentieth century, many anthropologists applied a functional arroyo to this problem by focusing on the ways religion addressed human needs. Bronislaw Malinowski (1931), who conducted research in the Trobriand Islands located nigh Papua New Republic of guinea, believed that religious behavior met psychological needs. He observed that organized religion "is not born out of speculation or reflection, still less out of illusion or anticipation, but rather, out of the real tragedies of human life, out of the conflict between homo plans and realities."^[ix]

At the time of Malinowski's inquiry, the Trobriand Islanders participated in an event chosen the kula ring, a tradition that required men to build canoes and canvass on long and unsafe journeys between neighboring islands to commutation ritual items. Malinowski noticed that before these dangerous trips several complex rituals had to be performed, but ordinary sailing for fishing trips required no special preparations. What was the departure? Malinowski concluded that the longer trips were not simply more unsafe, but besides provoked more than anxiety because the men felt they had less command over what might happen. On long voyages, there were many things that could get wrong, few of which could be planned for or avoided. He argued that religious rituals provided a way to reduce or control anxiety when anticipating these weather condition.^[10] The use of rituals to reduce feet has been documented in many other settings. George Gmelch (1971) documented forms of "baseball game magic" amidst professional athletes. Baseball players, for instance, take rituals related to how they consume, dress, and even drive to the ballpark, rituals they believe contribute to practiced luck.^[xi]

As a functionalist, Malinowski believed that religion provided shared values and behavioral norms that created solidarity betwixt people. The sociologist Emile Durkheim also believed that religion played an of import office in building connections between people by creating shared definitions of the sacred and profane. Sacred objects or ideas are set autonomously from the ordinary and treated with dandy respect or care while profane objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or antipathy. Sacred things could include a God or gods, a natural phenomenon, an animal or many other things. Religion, Durkheim concluded, was "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices that unite, into one unmarried moral community called a Church, all those who attach to them."^[12] Once a person or a thing was designated as sacred, Durkheim believed that jubilant it through ritual was a powerful fashion to unite communities around shared values.^[13] In addition, celebrating the sacred tin create an intense emotional experience Durkheim referred to as collective effervescence , a passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the aforementioned thoughts and emotions. The feel of collective effervescence magnifies the emotional touch on of an event and can create a sense of awe or wonder.^[14]

Following Durkheim, many anthropologists, including Dame Mary Douglas, have found it useful to explore the ways in which definitions of sacred and profane structure religious beliefs. In her book Purity and Danger (1966), Douglas analyzed the way in which cultural ideas about things that were "dirty" or "impure" influenced religious behavior. The kosher dietary rules observed by Jews were one prominent example of the application of this kind of thinking.^[xv]

The philosopher and historian Karl Marx famously chosen organized religion "the opium of the people."^[16] He viewed religion equally an ideology, a way of thinking that attempts to justify inequalities in power and condition. In his view, religion created an illusion of happiness that helped people cope with the economic difficulties of life nether commercialism. As an institution, Marx believed that the Christian church building helped to legitimize and support the political and economical inequality of the working class by encouraging ordinary people to orient themselves toward the afterlife, where they could expect to receive comfort and happiness. He argued that the obedience and conformity advocated past religious leaders as a means of reaching heaven likewise persuaded people non to fight for better economical or social atmospheric condition in their electric current lives. Numerous examples of the use of religion to legitimize or justify ability differences have been documented cross-culturally including the beingness of divine rulers, who were believed to exist empowered by the Gods themselves, in ancient Egyptian and Incan societies. A glimpse of the legitimizing role of religion is also seen in the U.S. practise of having elected officials accept an oath of office using the Bible or another holy book.

The psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that religion is the institution that prevents usa from acting upon our deepest and most atrocious desires. One of his most famous examples is the Oedipal complex, the story of Oedipus who (unknowingly) had a sexual relationship with his mother and, once he discovered this, ripped out his own eyes in a violent and gory death. 1 possible interpretation of this story is that at that place is an unconscious sexual desire among males for their mothers and among females their fathers. These desires tin can never be acknowledged, permit lonely acted on, considering of the damage they would crusade to society.^[17] In one of his nearly well-known works, Totem and Taboo, Freud proposes that religious behavior provide rules or restrictions that keep the worst anti-social instincts, similar the Oedipal complex, suppressed. He developed the thought of "totemic religions," belief systems based on the worship of a particular beast or object, and suggested that the purpose of these religions was to regulate interactions with socially significant and potentially disruptive objects and relationships.^[eighteen]

One interesting interpretation of religious beliefs that builds on the work of Durkheim, Marx, and Freud is Marvin Harris' analysis of the Hindu prohibition confronting killing cows. In Hinduism, the cow is honored and treated with respect because of its fertility, gentle nature, and association with some Hindu deities. In his volume Cow, Pigs, Wars, and Witches (1974), Harris suggested that these religious ideas most the moo-cow were actually based in an economic reality. In India, cows are more valuable alive every bit a source of milk or for doing work in the fields than they are dead as meat. For this reason, he argued, cows were defined as sacred and set autonomously from other kinds of animals that could be killed and eaten. The subsequent development of religious explanations for cows' specialness reinforced and legitimated the special treatment.^[19]

A symbolic arroyo to the study of organized religion developed in the mid-twentieth century and presented new ways of analyzing supernatural beliefs. Clifford Geertz, one of the anthropologists responsible for creating the symbolic approach, defined organized religion equally "a organization of symbols which acts to institute powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations…. past formulating conceptions of a full general order of being and wear these conceptions with such an aureola of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."^[xx] Geertz suggested that religious practices were a manner to enact or make visible important cultural ideas. The symbols used in any religion, such as a cross or even a cow, can be interpreted or "read" past anthropologists to discern important cultural values. At the same time, religious symbols reinforce values or aspirations in members of the religious customs. The Christian cross, which is associated with both death and resurrection, demonstrates ideas well-nigh sacrifice and putting the needs of others in the community first. The cross too symbolizes deeper ideas well-nigh the nature of life itself: that suffering can have positive outcomes and that at that place is something beyond the electric current reality.

A symbolic approach to faith treats religious beliefs as a kind of "text" or "operation" that can be interpreted past outsiders. Like the other theories described in this section, symbolic approaches present some take a chance of misinterpretation. Religious beliefs involve complex combinations of personal and social values likewise as embodied or visceral feelings that cannot always exist appreciated or even recognized past outsiders. The persistently large gap between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) explanations for religious beliefs and practices makes the study of religion one of the about challenging topics in cultural anthropology.

ELEMENTS OF RELIGION

Despite the wide diverseness of supernatural behavior found in cultures around the world, most belief systems exercise share some common elements. The first of these feature is cosmology , an explanation for the origin or history of the world. Religious cosmologies provide "big picture" explanations for how man life was created and provide a perspective on the forces or powers at work in the world. A second feature of faith is a belief in the supernatural , a realm beyond direct human being experience. This belief could include a God or gods, simply this is not a requirement. Quite a few religious beliefs, as discussed below, involve more abstract ideas about supernatural forces. Well-nigh religions also share a third feature: rules governing behavior . These rules ascertain proper conduct for individuals and for guild as a whole and are oriented toward bringing private actions into harmony with spiritual beliefs. A fourth element is ritual , practices or ceremonies that serve a religious purpose and are usually supervised by religious specialists. Rituals may be oriented toward the supernatural, such equally rituals designed to please the gods, but at the aforementioned time they accost the needs of individuals or the community as a whole. Funeral rituals, for instance, may be designed to ensure the passage of a deceased person to the afterlife, but also simultaneously provide emotional comfort to those who are grieving and provide an outlet for the community to express intendance and support.

Religious Cosmologies

Religious cosmologies are ways of explaining the origin of the universe and the principles or "social club" that governs reality. In its simplest course, a cosmology tin be an origin story, an caption for the history, present state, and possible futures of the world and the origins of the people, spirits, divinities, and forces that populate it. The ancient Greeks had an origin story that began with an act of cosmos from Chaos, the first affair to exist. The deities Erebus, representing darkness, and Nyx, representing night, were born from Chaos. Nyx gave birth to Aether (light) and Hemera (day). Hemera and Nyx took turns exiting the underworld, creating the phenomenon of day and dark. Aether and Hemera next created Gaia (Globe), the mother of all life, who gave nascence to the heaven, the mountains, the ocean, and eventually to a pantheon of gods. One of these gods, Prometheus, shaped humans out of mud and gave them the gift of fire. This origin story reflects many significant cultural ideas. One of these is the depiction of a world organized into a hierarchy with gods at the top and humans obligated to honor them.

Traditional Navajo origin stories provide a different view of the organization of the universe. These stories suggested that the world is a prepare of fourteen stacked "plates" or "platters." Creation began at the lowest levels and gradually spread to the tiptop. The lower levels contained animals like insects also as beast-people and bird-people who lived in their own fully-formed worlds with distinct cultures and societies. At the top level, Kickoff Man and Beginning Adult female eventually emerged and began making preparations for other humans, creating a sweat lodge, hoghan (traditional house), and preparing sacred medicine bundles. During a special ceremony, the offset human men and women were formed and they created those who followed.^[21] Like the Greek origin story, the Navajo cosmology explains homo identity and emphasizes the debt humans owe to their supernatural ancestors.

The first two chapters of the Biblical Volume of Genesis, which is the foundation for both Judaism and Christianity, describe the creation of the world and all living creatures. The exact words vary in different translations, but depict a God responsible for creating the earth and everything in it: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the globe." The six-mean solar day process began with the sectionalization of light from darkness, country from water, and heaven from earth. On the fifth day, "God created the great bounding main monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird afterwards its kind; and God saw that it was good."^[22] On the 6th mean solar day, "God created man in His ain image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."^[23] This cosmology differs from the others in describing an human activity of cosmos by a single deity, God, but shares with the Greek and Navajo versions a description of creation that emphasizes the relationship betwixt people and their creator.

Reading these cosmologies also raises the question of how they should be interpreted. Are these origin stories regarded as literal truth in the cultures in which they originated? Or, are the stories metaphorical and symbolic? In that location is no simple answer to this question. Within any civilization, individuals may disagree about the nature of their own religious traditions. Christians, for instance, differ in the extent to which they view the contents of the Bible every bit fact. Cultural relativism requires that anthropologists avert making judgments about whether whatever cultural idea, including religious behavior, is "correct" or "truthful." Instead, a more than useful arroyo is to endeavor to empathise the multiple ways people interpret or make sense of their religious behavior. In addition information technology is of import to consider the function a religious cosmology has in the wider society. As Bronislaw Malinowski observed, a myth or origin story is not an "idle tale, but a hard-worked active force."^[24]

Conventionalities in the Supernatural

Some other feature shared by almost religions is a concept of the supernatural, spirits, divinities, or forces not governed by natural laws. The supernatural can take many forms. Some supernatural entities are anthropomorphic , having human characteristics. Other supernatural forces are more than generalized, seen in phenomena like the power of the wind. The corporeality of involvement that supernatural forces or entities have in the lives of humans varies cantankerous-culturally.

Abstract Forces

Many cultures are organized around belief in an impersonal supernatural force, a type of religion known as animatism . The idea of mana is 1 case. The word itself comes from Oceania and may originally have meant "powerful wind," "lightning" or "storm." Today, it withal refers to power, only in a more general sense. Aram Oroi, a pastor from the Solomon Islands, has compared mana to turning on a flashlight: "You sense something powerful but unseen, and then— click —its power is made manifest in the globe."^[25] Traditionally, the ability to accumulate mana in sure locations, or in ane's own body, was to become potent or successful.^[26] Certain locations such as mountains or ancient sites ( marae ) have particularly strong mana. Likewise, individual behaviors, including sexual or violent acts, were traditionally viewed as ways to accumulate mana for oneself.

Interestingly, the idea of mana has spread far beyond its original cultural context. In 1993, Richard Garfield incorporated the idea in the card game Magic: The Gathering. Players of the game, which has sold millions of copies since its introduction, use mana every bit a source of power to battle wizards and magical creatures. Mana is too a source of power in the immensely popular reckoner game World of Warcraft. ^[27] These examples do show cultural appropriation, the act of copying an idea from some other culture and in the procedure distorting its meaning. All the same, they also demonstrate how compelling animist ideas about abstruse supernatural power are beyond cultures. Some other well-known example of animism in pop culture is "the Force" depicted in the George Lucas Star Wars films. The Force is depicted as flowing through everything and is used past Luke Skywalker as a source of say-so and insight when he destroys the Death Star.

Spirits

The line between the natural and the supernatural can exist blurry. Many people believe that humans have a supernatural or spiritual element that coexists within their natural bodies. In Christianity, this element is called the soul. In Hinduism, it is the atman.^[28] The Tausūg, a grouping who live in the Philippines, believe that the soul has four parts: a transcendent soul that stays in the spiritual realm even when a person is alive; a life-soul that is attached to the trunk, but can movement through dreams; the breath, which is e'er attached to the torso, and the spirit-soul, which is like a person's shadow.^[29]

Many people believe that the spirit survives after an individual dies, sometimes remaining on Earth and sometimes parting for a supernatural realm. Spirits, or "ghosts," who remain on Earth may continue to play an agile role in the lives of their families and communities. Some will be well-intentioned and others will be malevolent. Almost universally, spirits of the deceased are assumed to exist needy and to brand demands on the living. For this reason, many cultures take traditions for the veneration of the dead, rituals intended to award the deceased, or to win their favor or cooperation. When treated properly, antecedent spirits can be messengers to gods, and can act on behalf of the living after receiving prayers or requests. If they are displeased, ancestor spirits can become aggravated and wreak havoc on the living through affliction and suffering. To avoid these problems, offerings in the form of favorite foods, drinks, and gifts are made to appease the spirits. In Red china, also as in many other countries, filial piety requires that the living continue to care for the ancestors.^[30] In Madagascar, where bad luck and misfortune can be attributed to spirits of the dead who believe they have been neglected, a body may be repeatedly exhumed and shown respect past cleaning the bones.^[31]

Figure iii: A spirit house in Thailand. The houses provide shelter for local spirits that could trouble humans if they get displeased.

If humans contain a supernatural spirit, essence, or soul, it is logical to think that non-human entities may have their own sparks of the divine. Religions based on the idea that plants, animals, inanimate objects, and even natural phenomena like atmospheric condition have a spiritual or supernatural element are chosen animism . The showtime anthropological description of animism came from Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who believed it was the earliest type of religious exercise to develop in man societies.^[32]Tylor suggested that ordinary parts of the human experience, such equally dreaming, formed the basis for spiritual beliefs. When people dream, they may perceive that they have traveled to some other identify, or may be able to communicate with deceased members of their families. This sense of contradistinct consciousness gives ascent to ideas that the earth is more than it seems. Tylor suggested that these experiences, combined with a pressing demand to respond questions virtually the meaning of life, were the footing for all religious systems.^[33] He also assumed that animist religions evolved into what he viewed as more than sophisticated religious systems involving a God or gods.

Figure 4: The first Torii at the entrances to njikko Tosho-gu, Tochigi Prefecture, Nihon.

Today, Tylor's views most the evolution of faith are considered misguided, every bit no belief system is inherently more sophisticated than another. Several animist religions exist today and take millions of adherents. Ane of the about well-known is Shintoism, the traditional organized religion of Japan. Shintoism recognizes spirits known as kami that be in plants, animals, rocks, places and sometimes people. Certain locations accept peculiarly strong connections to the kami, including mountains, forests, waterfalls, and shrines. Shinto shrines in Nippon are marked by torii gates that mark the separation betwixt ordinary reality and sacred space (Effigy 4).

Gods

The most powerful non-man spirits are gods, though in practise there is no universal definition of a "god" that would be recognized by all people. In general, gods are extremely powerful and not office of nature—not human, or animal. Despite their unnaturalness, many gods have personalities or qualities that are recognizable and relatable to humans. They are often anthropomorphic, imagined in human course, or zoomorphic , imagined in beast grade. In some religions, gods collaborate direct with humans while in others they are more remote.

Anthropologists categorize conventionalities systems organized around a God or gods using the terms monotheism and polytheism. Monotheistic religions recognize a single supreme God. The largest monotheistic religions in the world today are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Together these religions take more than three.8 billion adherents worldwide.^[34] Polytheistic religions include several gods. Hinduism, 1 of the world's largest polytheistic religions with more than than 1 billion practitioners, has a pantheon of deities each with different capabilities and concerns.^[35]

Rules of Behavior

Religious beliefs are an important element of social control because these beliefs help to define acceptable behaviors also every bit punishments, including supernatural consequences, for misbehavior. Ane well-known instance are the ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments, which are incorporated in the teachings of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and prohibit behaviors such as theft, murder, adultery, dishonesty, and jealousy while also emphasizing the need for honor and respect betwixt people. Behavior that violates the commandments brings both social disapproval from other members of the religious community and potential punishment from God.

Buddhism, the world's fourth largest religion, demonstrates the strong connection between spiritual beliefs and rules for everyday behavior. Buddhists follow the teachings of Buddha, who was an ordinary human who achieved wisdom through study and discipline. In that location is no God or gods in Buddhism. Instead, individuals who practice Buddhism use techniques like meditation to achieve the insight necessary to lead a meaningful life and ultimately, later many lifetimes, to achieve the goal of nirvana , release from suffering.

Although Buddhism defies piece of cake categorization into any anthropological category, in that location is an element of animatism represented past karma , a moral force in the universe. Individual actions have furnishings on one's karma. Kindness toward others, for instance, yields positive karma while acts that are disapproved in Buddhist teachings, such as killing an animal, create negative karma. The amount of positive karma a person builds-upward in a lifetime is important considering information technology will determine how the individual will be reborn. Reincarnation , the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death, is a feature of several religions. In Buddhism, the form of a man'due south reincarnation depends on the quality of the karma developed during life. Rebirth in a human being grade is considered good fortune because humans have the ability to control their own thoughts and behaviors. They tin can follow the Noble Eightfold Path, rules based on the teachings of Buddha that emphasize the need for subject, restraint, humility, and kindness in every aspect of life.^[36]

Rituals and Religious Practitioners

The most easily observed elements of any religious belief arrangement are rituals. Victor Turner (1972) defined ritual as "a stereotyped sequence of activities … performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests."^[37] Rituals have a concrete purpose or goal, such as a hymeneals ritual that results in a religiously sanctioned spousal relationship betwixt people, just rituals are also symbolic. The objects and activities involved in rituals "stand in for" or hateful more what they really are. In a wedding anniversary in the United States, the white color of the hymeneals dress is a traditional symbol of purity.

A large amount of anthropological inquiry has focused on identifying and interpreting religious rituals in a wide variety of communities. Although the details of these practices differ in various cultural settings, it is possible to categorize them into types based on their goals. One blazon of ritual is a rite of passage , a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.^[38] A 2nd blazon of ritual is a rite of intensification , actions designed to bring a community together, often following a flow of crisis.^[39] Revitalization rituals , which also ofttimes follow periods of crunch in a community, are ambitious attempts to resolve serious issues, such every bit war, dearth, or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention. ^[forty]

Rites of Passage

In his original description of rites of passage, Arnold Van Gennep (1909) noted that these rituals were carried out in three distinct stages: separation, liminality, and incorporation. During the outset phase, individuals are removed from their current social identity and begin preparations to enter the next phase of life. The liminal flow that follows is a fourth dimension in which individuals often undergo tests, trials, or activities designed to fix them for their new social roles. In the final phase of incorporation, individuals return to the community with a new socially recognized status. ^[41]

Rites of passage that transition children into a new status equally adults are common around the world. In Xhosa communities in Southward Africa, teenage boys were traditionally transitioned to manhood using a series of acts that moved them through each of the three ritual stages. In the separation phase, the boys leave their homes and are circumcised; they cannot express distress or signs of pain during the procedure. Following the circumcision, they live in isolation while their wounds heal, a liminal phase during which they practise non talk to anyone other than boys who are also undergoing the rite of passage. This stressful fourth dimension helps to build bonds between the boys that volition follow them through their lives as adult men. Before their journey dwelling, the isolated living quarters are burned to the ground, symbolizing the loss of childhood. When the participants return to their community, the incorporation stage, they are recognized every bit men and allowed to learn the secret stories of the community. ^[42]

Rites of Intensification

Rites of intensification are also extremely common in communities worldwide. These rituals are used to bind members of the customs together, to create a sense of communitas or unity that encourages people to see themselves every bit members of community. Ane particularly dramatic example of this ritual is the Nagol land diving anniversary held each jump on the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu in the Due south Pacific. Similar many rituals, country diving has several goals. Ane of these is to assistance ensure a practiced harvest past impressing the spirits with a dramatic display of bravery. To accomplish this, men from the community construct wooden towers sixty to eighty anxiety high, tie ropes made from tree vines effectually their ankles, and jump head-first toward the ground (Figure 5). Preparations for the land diving involve almost every member of the community. Men spend a month or more working together to build the belfry and collect the vines. The women of the community ready special costumes and dances for the occasion and everyone takes care of state divers who may exist injured during the swoop. Both the preparations for the land diving and the festivities that follow are a powerful rite of intensification. Interestingly, the ritual is simultaneously a rite of passage; boys can be recognized every bit men by jumping from high portions of the belfry witnessed by elders of the community. ^[43]

Figure 5: Land diving on Pentecost Isle, Vanatu.

Rites of Revitalization

All rites of revitalization originate in difficult or fifty-fifty catastrophic circumstances. One notable case is a ritual that developed on the isle of Tanna in the South Pacific. During World War 2, many islands in the South Pacific were used by the U.Southward. military every bit temporary bases. Tanna was ane of these locations and this formerly isolated community experienced an extremely rapid transformation equally the U.S. armed forces introduced mod conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. In an attempt to make sense of these developments, the isle'south residents adult a diversity of theories about the reason for these changes. One possible explanation was that the foreign materials had been given to the islanders by a powerful deity or ancestral spirit, an entity who eventually caused the name John Frum. The proper noun may be based on a mutual proper name the islanders would accept encountered while the war machine base was in performance: "John from America."

When the war ended and the U.S. military departed, the residents of Tanna experienced a kind of trauma equally the cloth goods they had enjoyed disappeared and the John Frum ritual began. Each year on February fifteenth, many of the island's residents construct copies of U.South. airplanes, runways, or towers and march in armed services formation with replicas of military rifles and American blue jeans. The ritual is intended to concenter John Frum, and the fabric wealth he controls, back to the island. Although the ritual has not yet had its intended transformative event, the participants go along the ritual. When asked to explicate his continued faith, ane village elder explained: "You lot Christians have been waiting ii,000 years for Jesus to return to Earth, and you lot haven't given up hope." ^[44] This John Frum custom is sometimes called a cargo cult , a term used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. Although the John Frum ritual is focused on bolt, or "cargo," the term cargo cult is generally not preferred by anthropologists because information technology oversimplifies the complex motivations involved in the ritual. The word "cult" likewise has connotations with fringe or dangerous behavior and this association also distorts agreement of the practice.

Religious Practitioners

Since rituals can be extremely complicated and the outcome is of vital importance to the community, specialist practitioners are ofttimes charged with responsibility for supervising the details. In many settings, religious specialists have a loftier social status and are treated with swell respect. Some may get relatively wealthy past charging for their services while others may be impoverished, sometimes deliberately every bit a rejection of the cloth earth. In that location is no universal terminology for religious practitioners, but at that place are 3 of import categories: priests, prophets, and shamans.

Priests , who may exist of any gender, are full-time religious practitioners. The position of priest emerges merely in societies with substantial occupational specialization. Priests are the intermediaries between God (or the gods) and humans. Religious traditions vary in terms of the qualifications required for individuals entering the priesthood. In Christian traditions, it is mutual for priests to complete a program of formal higher education. Hindu priests, known every bit pujari , must learn the sacred language Sanskrit and spend many years becoming proficient in Hindu ceremonies. They must also follow strict lifestyle restrictions such as a vegetarian diet. Traditionally, only men from the Brahmin caste were eligible to become pujari, but this is irresolute. Today, people from other castes, also every bit women, are joining the priesthood. One notable feature of societies that utilize full-time spiritual practitioners is a separation between ordinary believers and the God or gods. Every bit intermediaries, priests have substantial authority to set the rules associated with worship practise and to command admission to religious rites. ^[45]

The term shaman has been used for hundreds of years to refer to a special kind of priest. Shamans conduct out religious rituals when needed, just likewise participate in the normal piece of work of the community. A shaman'southward religious practice depends on an ability to engage in straight advice with the spirits, gods, or supernatural realm. An important quality of a shaman is the ability to transcend normal reality in order to communicate with and perhaps even dispense supernatural forces in an alternate globe. This ability can be inherited or learned. ^[46] Transcending from the ordinary to the spiritual realm gives shamans the ability to do many things such as locate lost people or animals or heal the sick past identifying the spiritual cause of illness.

Among the Chukchi, who alive in northern Russian federation, the role of the shaman is thought to be a special calling, one that may exist specially appropriate for people whose personality traits seem abnormal in the context of the community. Immature people who suffer from nervousness, anxiety, or moodiness, for instance may feel a call to accept upwards shamanistic practice. ^[47] There has been some enquiry suggesting that shamanism may be a culturally accepted mode to deal with conditions like schizophrenia. ^[48] If true, this might be because achieving an contradistinct country of consciousness is essential for shamanic work. Entering an altered state, which can be achieved through dreams, hallucinogenic drugs, rhythmic music, exhaustion through dance, or other ways, makes it possible for shamans to straight engage with the supernatural realm.

Shamans of the upper Amazon in Due south America have been using ayahuasca , a potable made from plants that have hallucinogenic furnishings, for centuries. The effects of ayahuasca starting time with the nervous system:

One under the control of the narcotic sees unroll before him quite a spectacle: most lovely landscapes, monstrous animals, vipers which arroyo and wind downward his body or are entwined like rolls of thick cable, at a few centimeters distance; as well, one sees who are true friends and those who betray him or who take done him ill; he observes the cause of the illness which he sustains, at the same time beingness presented with the nearly advantageous remedy; he takes part in fantastic hunts; the things which he virtually dearly loves or abhors learn in these moments extraordinary vividness and color, and the scenes in which his life usually develop adopt the most beautiful and emotional expression. ^[49]

Among the Shipibo people of Peru, ayahuasca is thought to be the substance that allows the soul of a shaman to go out his body in social club to call up a soul that has been lost or stolen. In many cultures, soul loss is the predominant explanation for illness. The Shipibo believe that the soul is a separate entity from the body, one that is capable of leaving and returning at will. Shamans can also steal souls. The community shaman, under the influence of ayahuasca, is able to detect and recollect a soul, peradventure even killing the enemy equally revenge. ^[50]

Anthropologist Scott Hutson (2000) has described similarities between the contradistinct state of consciousness accomplished by shamans and the mental states induced during a rave, a large dance party characterized by loud music with repetitive patterns. In a rave, brilliant lights, exhausting trip the light fantastic toe, and sometimes the use of hallucinogenic drugs, induce similar psychological effects to shamanic trancing. Hutson argues that through the rave individuals are able to enter altered states of consciousness characterized past a "self-forgetfulness" and an power to transcend the ordinary cocky. The DJ at these events is oftentimes called a "techno-shaman," an interesting allusion to the guiding role traditional shamans play in their cultures. ^[51]

A prophet is a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others. Many religious communities originated with prophecies, including Islam which is based on teachings revealed to the prophet Muhammad by God. In Christianity and Judaism, Moses is an example of a prophet who received direct revelations from God. Another example of a historically pregnant prophet is Joseph Smith who founded the Church of Latter Day Saints, later on receiving a prophecy from an angel named Moroni who guided him to the location of a buried prepare of gold plates. The information from the gold plates became the basis for the Book of Mormon.

The major stardom betwixt a priest and the prophet is the source of their authority. A priest gets his or her authority from the scripture and occupational position in a formally organized religious institution. A prophet derives authorisation from his or her straight connection to the divine and ability to convince others of his or her legitimacy through charisma. The kind of insight and guidance prophets offer can be extremely compelling, peculiarly in times of social upheaval or suffering.

One prophet who had enormous influence was David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, a schism of the 7th Day Adventist Church. The Co-operative Davidians were millenarians, people who believe that major transformations of the earth are imminent. David Koresh was extremely charismatic; he was handsome and an eloquent speaker. He offered refuge and solace to people in need and in the procedure he preached near the coming of an apocalypse, which he believed would be caused by the intrusion of the United States authorities on the Co-operative Davidian'southward lifestyle. Koresh was and so influential that when the United States government did eventually try to enter the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993 to search for illegal weapons, members of the group resisted and exchanged gunfire with federal agents. Somewhen, nether circumstances that are still disputed, a fire erupted in the compound and eighty-vi people, including Koresh, were killed. ^[52] Ultimately, the U.S. government helped to fulfill the apocalyptic vision of the group and David Koresh became a martyr. The Branch Davidians evolved into a new grouping, "Branch, Lord our Righteousness," and today many await Koresh'south return. ^[53]

Conclusion

Faith is of central importance to the lives of people in the majority of the earth's cultures; more than eight-in-10 people worldwide place with a religious group. ^[54] However, it is also true that the number of people who say that they take no religious affiliation is growing. There are now about every bit many people in the world who consider themselves religiously "unaffiliated" as there are Roman Catholics. ^[55] This is an important reminder that religions, like civilization itself, are highly dynamic and bailiwick to constant changes in interpretation and fidelity. Anthropology offers a unique perspective for the written report of religious beliefs, the way people retrieve about the supernatural, and how the values and behaviors these behavior inspire contribute to the lives of individuals and communities. No unmarried fix of theories or vocabulary tin can completely capture the richness of the religious diversity that exists in the earth today, merely cultural anthropology provides a toolkit for understanding the emotional, social, and spiritual contributions that religion makes to the human experience.

Word QUESTIONS

This chapter describes theories about organized religion developed by Durkheim, Marx, and Freud. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory? Which theory would be the most useful if you were attempting to learn most the religious behavior of another culture?
Rites of passage and rites of intensification are an important function of many religious traditions, only these aforementioned rituals also exist in secular (non-religious) contexts. What are some examples of these rituals in your ain customs? What function exercise these rituals play in bringing people together?
Durkheim argued that a distinction between the sacred and the profane was a key characteristic of religion. Thinking about your own civilization, what are some examples of ideas or objects that are considered "sacred"? What are the rules concerning how these objects or ideas should be treated? What are the penalties for people who do non follow these rules?

GLossary

Animatism : a religious system organized effectually a belief in an impersonal supernatural force.

Animism: a religious system organized around a belief that plants, animals, inanimate objects, or natural phenomena have a spiritual or supernatural chemical element.

Anthropomorphic: an object or beingness that has human characteristics.

Cargo cult : a term sometimes used to draw rituals that seek to attract fabric prosperity. The term is generally not preferred by anthropologists.

Collective effervescence: the passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions.

Cosmology : an explanation for the origin or history of the world.

Cultural appropriation : the human activity of copying an idea from another civilization and in the procedure distorting its meaning.

Filial piety : a tradition requiring that the young provide care for the elderly and in some cases ancestral spirits.

Magic : practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one's personal control.

Millenarians: people who believe that major transformations of the earth are imminent.

Monotheistic : religious systems that recognize a single supreme God.

Polytheistic : religious systems that recognize several gods.

Priests : full-time religious practitioners.

Profane : objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or antipathy.

Prophet: a person who claims to have straight communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others.

Reincarnation: the thought that a living existence can begin another life in a new body after death.

Organized religion : the extension of human society and culture to include the supernatural.

Revitalization rituals : attempts to resolve serious issues, such as war, dearth or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention.

Rite of intensification : deportment designed to bring a community together, often following a flow of crisis.

Rite of passage : a anniversary designed to transition individuals betwixt life stages.

Sacred : objects or ideas are set up apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or intendance.

Shaman : a part time religious practitioner who carries out religious rituals when needed, but as well participates in the normal piece of work of the community.

Magician : an individual who seeks to use magic for his or her own purposes.

Supernatural: describes entities or forces not governed past natural laws.

Zoomorphic : an object or beingness that has creature characteristics.

ABOUT THE Writer

Sashur Henninger-Rener is an anthropologist with research in the fields of comparative religion and psychological anthropology. She received a Master of Arts from Columbia Academy in the Metropolis of New York in Anthropology and has since been researching and teaching. Currently, Sashur is educational activity with The Academy of LaVerne and the Los Angeles Community College District in the fields of Cultural and Biological Anthropology. In her free time, Sashur enjoys traveling the world, visiting archaeological and cultural sites forth the way. She and her husband are actively involved in animal rescuing, hoping to somewhen institute their ain brute rescue for animals that are waiting to find homes.

benitezwhated.blogspot.com

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-esc-culturalanthropology/chapter/religion/