I’ve been thinking about this problem from the other direction lately, particularly regarding divination practices; namely, now that we are habituated to the idea that there is a rational explanation for everything, how can we expect rituals—even useful ones—to survive over time?
My naive answer is that we cannot, and everything will slowly fall away as it comes into focus and the lack of causal mechanism is revealed.
On the other hand, people love stage magic. Almost everyone knows it is a trick beforehand, yet we are entertained. Mostly the surprisal and the possibility of belief is sufficient, but it seems to me that people are often more entertained when they spot the trick for themselves. The only real letdown is when a trick is immediately explained and proves deceptively simple, in my view.
This makes me suspect it might be possible to either reclaim or design new rituals, which would require a balancing act between having the utility explanation available and keeping the explanation separate from the experience of the ritual.
I’ve been thinking about this problem from the other direction lately, particularly regarding divination practices; namely, now that we are habituated to the idea that there is a rational explanation for everything, how can we expect rituals—even useful ones—to survive over time?
My naive answer is that we cannot, and everything will slowly fall away as it comes into focus and the lack of causal mechanism is revealed.
On the other hand, people love stage magic. Almost everyone knows it is a trick beforehand, yet we are entertained. Mostly the surprisal and the possibility of belief is sufficient, but it seems to me that people are often more entertained when they spot the trick for themselves. The only real letdown is when a trick is immediately explained and proves deceptively simple, in my view.
This makes me suspect it might be possible to either reclaim or design new rituals, which would require a balancing act between having the utility explanation available and keeping the explanation separate from the experience of the ritual.
Also, the image for the bottom link is busted.