Once in a while, in classes, workshops or in private discussions, the topic of the purpose of ritual comes up. This is strictly a contemporary concern, and a symptom of the spiritual vacuum that exists in this country.
Before the twentieth century ritual was not questioned in the religious/spiritual community and did not have to be justified. But today, a growing segment of the pagan population feels a need to justify ritual, or to dismiss it altogether. The main reason cited for this is that in today’s busy world people do not have time for activities outside of work or family functions. Another common rationale is that ritual is not necessary, at least not often, in one’s spiritual practice.
The latter point raises a hornet’s nest of issues concerning what a spiritual path is and what constitutes spiritual practice. We will defer sticking our hands into that nest until later.
There is no doubt that people are busy. For most people life consists mostly of getting up early five or six days a week, going to work, working long hours--often in two or three jobs–more often than not doing work or working in an environment that one detests--coming home and having dinner and maybe having an hour or so of down time before going to bed. Weekends and off hours are taken up with “running errands,” which means taking care of the necessities of life that are unrelated to work: grocery shopping, banking, dealing with mail and creditors, making appointments or arrangements for everything from birthday and anniversary celebrations to pet grooming and so on. All of this activity leaves very little time, and almost no quality time, for personal relationships, handling family issues and maintaining one’s personal mental and physical health. In common parlance, this is what is called “real life.”
This is life?
It is certainly how a great many people expend their life-force. But it is not much of a life. What these people have done, what we have all done collectively, is that they have drawn purgatory down into the physical realm and made it their primary mode of functioning. All for the sake of supporting and maintaining a “lifestyle” and a culture that is geared to promote monumental greed and mindless consumerism.
Obviously this is a grossly simplified view of our culture, but we don’t have time or space to write a twenty-volume encyclopedia.
The point is that our culture is our problem. In the immortal words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and they is us.” We, and our forebears, did not set out to create a culture that eats souls and reduces the majority of its people to harried serfs and slaves who work and die to support over-privileged elitist masters. No, this culture was created by people who sincerely sought to improve living conditions for as many people as possible.
The seductive thing about evil is that it justifies itself with the best intentions. More often than not, evil is perpetrated unknowingly. For the Greater Good. It often appears to be such a good idea that it is not questioned. Who would stand against more leisure time, more convenience, easier and faster transportation and communications and all of the advantages of modern life?
Insofar as our purposes go here, it all began with the birth of science and the advent of the industrial age. Before we proceed we must point out that science and technology are wonderful and powerful tools that have created many beautiful and helpful things alongside the horrors and conundrums that plague us. Science and technology are not bad per se. This is not a Luddite tract. The problem is the attitude and the psychological orientation that science and technology created and which symbiotically shaped their development. The underlying philosophy that drove science and technology is the problem.
It is called materialism. By exposing many mistaken and often harmful beliefs that were part and parcel to the religious world-view and demonstrating the physical laws that govern things like the movements of the planets, genetic inheritance and the principles of evolution, science gave us a deeper understanding of the physical world and how it works. Naturally, more accurate models of the physical world gave us the ability to create technologies based on those models, which extended our capabilities and sometimes created altogether new human capabilities, like powered flight and the ability to send probes to the planets to study them close-up.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of this. Although some technologies have created problems like massive pollution, a better understanding of the underlying laws of the physical universe can, and if we manage to survive long enough, will enable us to develop new strategies and technologies for non-polluting energy production on large and small scales. Pollution was not created by “technology,” it was created by an incomplete understanding of how the world works.
Materialism has its advantages. That should not be dismissed or discarded. But it also has limitations. Physics and biology are now running smack into some of those limits in the form of epi-phenomenon that ultimately can only be understood rationally as emergent phenomenon. Consciousness, phase transitions and superconductivity stand as examples of this.
While scientists attempt to build ever more complex mathematical models to “explain” these phenomenon, they admit that not only are some of these models currently untestable, they may prove to be untestable in principle. If that is true, then what these scientists are engaged in is no longer science. It is tautology. In their pursuit of a mythological “Theory of Everything,” scientists are running into the limitations imposed by Godel and Cantor.
Is this then the end of science? No. But it does signal the end of a strictly materialistic and reductionist paradigm. It signals the need for a new direction in science. One that perhaps must finally admit that some aspects of the universe are beyond the reach of science as we know it, and that materialism is insufficient to understanding it.
In exploding religious superstition and dogma, as science began to explain more and more of the natural world, it fostered a flawed belief that everything could be explained and controlled. Francis Bacon and others expressed this attitude in the language of the Inquisitions that were underway at the time when they said that they would put Nature on the rack of science and torture her secrets from her.
Science rightfully deposed Church dogma as a proper foundation for ruling society. As science gradually stripped away the political power of the Church it also began to threaten its credibility and its relevance to people’s lives. As the Church lost political power and the ability to regulate people’s lives, more people left the Church and allied themselves with the emerging age of Enlightenment.
This was the first split in the collective consciousness of the people. It would not be the last.
The separation of Church and State began a process of fragmentation of life and consciousness in Western people. Before, even though plagued with misconceptions, spirituality was an integral part of life. The nature of spirit and the nature of “reality” were debated, but almost no one questioned the existence of some kind of spiritual nature that determined the behavior of the non-tangible aspects of existence. In the collective consciousness, the physical world was a manifestation or emanation or reflection of the greater spiritual world. The spiritual world was the realm of creation and ultimate destruction and/or rebirth. It was the realm of mystery and the abode of the ancestors.
Now, in mainstream society, if this realm and home of our ancestors is not denied existence out of hand, it is relegated to the status of a curiosity, something to be dabbled in in one's spare time while risking being seen as eccentric or foolish. Our ancestors are largely reduced to artifacts of memory or family history. Sometimes they may shed light on the history of their times. But in this age of historical revisionism and relativism, the lives and times of our ancestors is mostly relevant only to families. Outside of the genealogical context, the relevance of history has been decoupled from our current social environment and turned into a commodity.
This is another level of fragmentation of consciousness. Continuity of culture has become a piece-meal pursuit that is divvied up between separate factions, or “segments” of the population. So we have black history, chicano history, women's history, etc. All of these are fine areas of study, but more often than not they are wielded as partisan weapons in the political arena rather than as enhancements of our understanding of the diversity and complexity of our national heritage.
In the meantime, our national history is manipulated and sanitized, grossly oversimplified and misrepresented. American history is more a venue for political propaganda than a genuine platform for real education. Unpopular or inconvenient facts are ignored so as not to disturb the myth of Western, and especially American superiority and destiny.
The pieces on the board of the world stage have been re-shuffled. Power blocks and alliances have changed. But our collective ignorance, abuse and dismissal of history is dooming us to repeat the past. Only with far more destructive weapons.
The fragmentation of consciousness has led us to create a society that fragments itself into “special interest groups” that vie for power, or at least a voice, in the social and political landscape. While we give lip-service to “freedom and justice for all” what we have in truth is power-brokers inventing labels and setting imaginary (in a legal sense) groups of people against each other. Black people, hispanics, women and gays compete for representation in the halls of power and recognition in the laws of the land. Debate about domestic policy frequently devolves into discussion about how (or if) to accommodate these various groups. Never does anyone point out that the constitution does not divide “We, the People” into special interest groups. Never does anyone suggest that perhaps what is truly good for the country as a whole will be good for all of these “special interests” so long as no one is excluded from the responsibilities and benefits of citizenship.
So our consciousness is fragmented on every level, from global awareness to national identity to national and familial heritage, and even to personal identity. By taking on the various labels (African-American, Women, GLBT, etc.) as valid separators of our status as citizens who are constitutionally equal under the law, we allow the power-brokers to keep their positions and continue to divide us and pit us against each other to suit their agendas.
In the spiritual arena a multitude of issues are affected by the fragmentation of consciousness. Everything is divided, defined, cataloged, debated and re-categorized; from the separation of the concepts of religion and spirituality to the definition of spiritual tradition; from organized (hierarchy-centered) religion vs. person-centered religion; from structured to unstructured practice; from the nature to the source of spiritual authority (lineage, succession or initiation?) and standing within a spiritual community.
One of the purposes of ritual, whether secular or religious/spiritual, is to create and cement the bonds between people that provide a sense of collective identity and shared values. Community-building. Within that context, ritual provides people with an individual sense of identity as part of something larger than themselves. They are not only part of something, but they have a role, a purpose, within it. The community-building aspects of ritual create purpose and meaning for a community as a whole, as well as for each of its members.
In the context of a spiritual path, ritual provides a major conduit for contacting divinity, helping spirits, one's “higher self” and one's ancestors. Ritual is the bridge between worlds. Or it helps people become bridges between worlds. It is the point of connection to a person's or a group's lineage, tradition, sub-culture, heritage and spiritual powers.
Ritual marks the important stages of life; from birth to naming; passage from one stage of life to another; marriage; graduation; recognition or bestowal of status or accomplishments; passage through sickness, decline and death. Ritual provides support and comfort, companionship and connection in good times and bad.
On a community-wide level, ritual preserves continuity with the history and traditions that are the foundations of community identity. It serves as a reminder and an affirmation of the collective values of the community. It defines the community and holds it together.
Again, in a spiritual/religious context, ritual creates the physical, mental and psychological space for prayer, meditation, contemplation and magic. All of these reinforce one's inner connections to one's self, as well as to deity, ancestors, etc.
Perhaps the most important and overlooked thing about ritual is that it integrates consciousness. It takes all of the fragmented shards, the artificial divisions and labels of convenience and dissolves them. Eventually, if ritual is pursued diligently and consistently with a sincere heart, it integrates the whole person. And the whole community. It brings consciousness to its original state, where divisions do not exist, where labels are unnecessary. And it opens the door to manifesting in the “real world” creative and inclusive solutions to every challenge.
So rather than being a part-time hobby or avocation, rather than being (mostly) unnecessary, regular and consistent ritual practice may be the most important thing we can do. To integrate and heal ourselves and our consciousness, to draw-down our better selves and manifest creativity in the world that surrounds us in ways that support and enhance life. If enough people do this we can transform the world.