To quote Lewis Henry Morgan, who wrote the classic Ancient Society in 1877, "All primitive religions are grotesque and to some extent unintelligible." Those studying various peoples did a meticulous job of recording in exacting detail the kinship, social interactions and religious rituals of the societies they studied. But when they attempted to explain what the rituals meant, or did, they usually tried to explain them from the perspective of their own culture, in which they made no sense.
We owe the origins of our own confusing postmodern culture to the work of those sociologists and anthropologists who, by describing and displaying other cultures so completely, taught us to see culture as a filter through which people see "reality." Through their works, we came to see that every culture completely explains the world to the people living within it.
Beginning in the 1960s, more and more people living in Western cultures have begun to understand that the ideas of sociology and anthropology also applied to their own cultures, not just to the cultures of tribal people over there somewhere. This understanding has created what is referred to as the "vertigo of relativity" (a term coined in The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, by Berger and Luckmann, 1966) as people everywhere strive to find a solid place to stand. People are coming to understand that all people everywhere see the world through their own belief systems and in fact "create" the world through those beliefs. We are living in a time when more and more people are experimenting with "creating" reality, both to discover what is possible, and also, hopefully, what is "real."
The following books I've reviewed are just a few of the many that examine the rituals and religions of non-Western people, particularly African and those who have a blend of African, Christian and indigenous beliefs in the areas where African slaves and European missionaries settled.
The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, by Victor Turner, 1969
This book, written by the foremost symbolic anthropologist of the times, is currently in print and available at Edge of the Circle Books.
Turner was the first person to seriously attempt to understand the religious rituals of a Central African people from their own point of view and explain them to Westerners. In this book, religious rituals are deconstructed into the activities and behaviors of each ritual and its meaning to the people taking part in it. While it is written for anthropology students and might therefore be somewhat difficult reading for a popular audience, anyone willing to read it with a dictionary at hand to assist with some of the scientific vocabulary will be richly rewarded for his or her efforts.
Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism, by I.M. Lewis, 1971.
Ian Lewis did his student fieldwork in anthropology among the pastoral nomads of northeast Africa, in what is now Somalia. Previous to his work, other anthropologists had exhaustively catalogued the details of many primitive religions while studiously avoiding examining the nature of the altered states these religions created during enactment of the rituals, because these altered states were considered emotional and mere devices to sacralize their societies. Plus, earlier anthropologists were often dazzled and confused by the sheer complexity and volume of the material they and others had accumulated. This book explores both the rituals that allow a participant to be possessed by the divine in trance, and the meaning and uses of possession in various societies, including healing, attack, repelling possession from evil spirits, divination and the training of shamans, among others. This is fascinating information for those who wish to understand trance states as well as practice them.
Tell My Horse, by Zora Neale Hurston, 1938.
Born in the American South at the turn of the century, Hurston was a successful black woman writer who fell in love with anthropology already knowing that Voodoo was the power behind the Southern Black Christian Church. The book is written in three sections. The first part consists of charming and entertaining stories about her travels in Jamaica, but each story becomes more and more serious. In the second part, she examines and illuminates the history of Haiti, and the stories become darker and filled with bloodshed on nearly every page. The third section she writes directly about her experiences with Voodoo in Haiti. This is an amazing and scary book that is highly recommended to all who wish to deepen their knowledge of this powerful religion.
Dreamtime and Inner Space: The World of the Shaman, by Holger Kalweit, 1988.
Shamans are found in most indigenous religions all over the world. The process by which a person becomes a shaman, the part they play in their society, and the experiences they have that enable them to play that part are illuminated in this extraordinary book. This is a collection of first person accounts from many places.
Anyone who wishes to more deeply understand shamanic journeying, or is considering that they may be being called to travel the path of the shaman themselves, will find a great deal to guide them in this book.
Global Ritualism, Myth and Magic Around the World by Denny Sargent 1994.
Published as part of Llewellyn's world religion and magick series, this book examines rituals from many cultures and times to find and teach the common themes running through all spiritual practices and to enable each person to understand how to create effective rituals for herself or himself.
The vibrant power and meaning of a ritual can be accessed by anyone willing to diligently study and practice with love and intention. As the world spins through the "Kali Yuga," the last great age of the Hindu cycle before the next golden times, we each have the opportunity, and perhaps the responsibility, to bring our own energy into the emergence of the next great turn of the wheel of creation. If that calls to you, you will find inspiration in this book.
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