BRINGING RITUAL TO MIND by Robert N. McCauley, E. Thomas Lawson ( 9780521016292 )

Item Details

Title:

BRINGING RITUAL TO MIND
PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CULTURAL FORMS

By:

Robert N. McCauley, E. Thomas Lawson

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£27.00

Our price:

£23.63

Discount:

12.5% off

You save:

£3.37

ISBN 10:

0521016290

ISBN 13:

9780521016292

Availability:

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Publisher:

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

15 August, 2002

Pages:

252

Description:

Bringing Ritual to Mind explores the psychological foundations of religious ritual systems.

Synopsis:

Bringing Ritual to Mind explores the cognitive and psychological foundations of religious ritual systems. Participants must recall their rituals well enough to ensure a sense of continuity across performances, and those rituals must motivate them to transmit and re-perform them. Most religious rituals the world over exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation (but not both) to enhance their recollection (the availability of literacy has little impact on this). But why do some rituals exploit the first of these variables while others exploit the second? McCauley and Lawson advance the ritual form hypothesis, arguing that participants' cognitive representations of ritual form explain why. Reviewing evidence from cognitive, developmental and social psychology and from cultural anthropology and the history of religions, they utilize dynamical systems tools to explain the recurrent evolutionary trajectories religions exhibit.

Illustrations:

3 b/w illus. 5 tables

Publication:

Imprint:

Cambridge University Press

Returns:

Returnable

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