Ritual, Symbol and Religious Experience
Ritual
Rituals are patterned, repeated actions with symbolic meaning. Know the categories: rites of passage (separation, liminality, incorporation, following van Gennep and Turner), calendrical or seasonal rites, rites of devotion, rites of affliction or healing, and memorial or commemorative rites. Understand the functions: marking transition, transmitting tradition, building solidarity, expressing belief, and creating sacred time and space.
Symbol
Symbols are multivalent: they point beyond themselves and carry layers of meaning (water, light, fire, bread, the cross, the crescent and star, the lotus, the mandala). Distinguish a sign (conventional pointer) from a symbol (participatory meaning). Know that symbols can be interpreted differently within and across traditions.
Religious experience
Know the classic typology: numinous (awe and mystery, Otto), mystical (union or absorption), conversion and prophetic experience. Be able to evaluate the reliability of experiential claims and to distinguish experience from interpretation of experience.
Common traps
Do not describe a ritual without its meaning, or a symbol without its context. Avoid treating religious experience as either self-authenticating or automatically illusory: weigh the evidence.
Rule of thumb
For any ritual or symbol, answer: what is done, by whom, when, with what meaning, and with what effect on the community?