religion, magic, & witchcraft - midterm

weeks 1-6

global religious demographics (2010-2050)

christians → 31.4% - 31.4%

muslim → 23.2% - 29.7%

unaffiliated → 16.4% - 13.2%

• numbers for christianity and muslim get closer, and # of unaffiliated decrease

more people are labelling themselves as ____

spiritual, rather than religious

religious composition in USA (2010-2050)

christians → 78.3% - 66.4% (decreases)

unaffiliated → 16.4% - 25.6% (increases)

• opposite pattern compared to the global study

how would anthropologists study death a long time ago?

looking at human burials and graves

• we started finding ‘goods’ in graves; tell us something meaningful is happening around death

• seems religious because there is ritual, symbolism, and a transition from life → death

anthropologists studying art from long ago

very sophisticated, ritualistic, shows an imaginative quality

• even if we don’t know what the art means, we still know it means something

studying art and burial sites shows:

abstract thinking about meaningful realms (beyond us) have existed for a LONG time

issue with trying to define religion

• many anthropological texts define it differently

  • some say belief in supernatural or spiritual, others say between the universe, etc.

quote: all religions seek to answer questions that cannot be explained in terms of

objective knowledge, the many forms of adversity facing individuals and groups require explanation and action

what 2 things does anthropology’s study of religion borrow from?

1. psychological

2. sociological

1. psychological

emphasizes what religion does psychologically

Melford Spiro → religious behaviour reduces unconscious fears, and functions to reduce anxiety

Malinowski → religious rites reduce the anxieties brought on by crisis

2. sociological

emphasizes the social origins of religion

Durkheim → religion as a manifestation of social solidarity; religious objects, rituals, beliefs, symbols integrate into one single moral community

Radcliffe-Brown → participation in religious rites increases social solidarity

3 sections of defining religion anthropologically

early theories

mid 20th century

later theories

early theories

structuralism/evolutionism

E.B. Tylor → idea if animism (everything in the world has a spiritual essence), that core of all religions is belief in supernatural beings

James Frazer → suggested human belief goes through developmental stages from magic to religion to science

• classifying from most - least primitive, used to justify colonialism

• thought that the most developed way of thinking was science

mid 20th century

emphasis on relations between religious phenomena and other aspects of society (like politics), still very evolutionist beliefs (magic is unevolved, etc.)

Anthony Wallace → a typology of religious behaviour based on the ‘cult institution’:

• individualistic (societies are)

• shamanic (one religious specialist)

• communal (multiple religious specialists)

• ecclesiastical (complicated hierarchies, like a church)

later theories

attempting to incorporate religious phenomena into wider spheres of symbolic meaning

Clifford Geertz (1973):

1. a system of symbols which act to

2. establish powerful, evasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in humans by

3. formulating conceptions of a general order of existence (worldview) and

4. clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that

5. the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic belief as the only truth)

definitions are _____ products

cultural products

• they are not ‘true’, but instead good to think with

• they tell us much about the theoretical orientations of their authors

definitions: goals and drawbacks

goal is to expose and comprehend a culture’s embedded concepts, a people’s view of reality

BUT, can we use our concepts to talk about and understand others?

• Talal Asad - ‘religion’ and ‘belief’ are Western concepts in themselves!

what unifies vs distinguishes religion from other social acts

unifies → the physical/ritualistic and verbal behaviours, the concerns with good or correct actions, the desire the achieve certain goals or effects, and the establishment and perpetuation of communities

distinguishes → the object or focus of these actions

for anthropologists, it is useful to think in terms of

what religion does, functioning to:

• filling individual and society needs

• offer explanations

• provide rules, norms, and structure

• provide a means of social control

• solution to immediate problems

spirituality does these too

contemporary anthropology draws numerous sources and thinkers:

Durkheim → understanding religious phenomena as social, and the relationship between religion and social order

Marx → attention to power, fetishism (a small group exploits the bigger group)

Weber → comparative perspective, how religion relates to modernity

Others → phenomenology (perception and consciousness), literary criticism, cognitive psych, performance theory

Participants and Fieldwork → experiences and lessons learned shape the way we ask questions (the most important and very unique to anthro)

3 characteristics of an anthropological approach

holistic

relativistic

comparative

holistic

culture is an integrated whole - we can’t understand religious phenomena in society without understanding the whole (economics, kinship, politics, religion)

• religion is tied to other webs in a society

• for ex, if we take yoga out of its context, is it still yoga?

4 domains of culture

economics, kinship, politics, and religion

relativistic

each culture must be understood in terms of the values and ideas of that culture and not judged by the standard of another

• explores the ways religious practices are embedded in specific forms of sociality, regimes of power, historical struggles, and modes of production

• when studying other cultures, we need to understand them in their terms (hard to do)

  • we get this from cross-cultural and holistic study

being cultural relativistic reinforces two things:

1. our notion of what anthropology is/does

2. our use of concepts from one culture to describe and understand the concepts of another

comparative

particular ethnographic accounts must speak to each others, anthropology considers a full range of diversity and attempts to embrace it, Aims to explore and describe each single culture in detail

Stanley Tambiah → use the particular to say something about the general

• for example, an author used the fact that highly educated people are being draw to witchcraft (reasonable to unreasonable beliefs) to make specific broader claims about social shifts

what does good anthropology understand about religion?

religious worlds are real, vivid, and significant to those who are construct and inhabit them and it tries to render those realities for others, in their sensory richness, philosophic depth, emotional range, and moral complexity

• religion is important to people, so that’s why we try to understand it

methods in practice

• ethnography → descriptive and explanative work, built through participation and fieldwork

• not linear

• variety of information-gathering techniques involve various forms of observation

• can be either unobtrusive of full-scale participation

• can record small bits of informal daily convo

• lengthy open ended or semi-structured interviews

what do the methods in practice do well?

ring us closer to reality as it is perceived by participants in all its nuances

• actors and interlocutors can voice their own opinions of the meanings, values, problems, and suggestions for change

anthropological ethics that direct fieldwork (american anthropological association)

1. do no harm

2. be open and honest regarding your work

3. obtain informed consent and necessary permission

4. weigh competing ethical obligations and affected parties

5. make your results accessible

6. protect and preserve records

7. maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships

• all about building trust

challenges with anthropological study

how can we empathically write/discuss ethnography if you disagree with your interlocutors?

is cultural relativism moral relativism?

how much to be involved? can you be a leader?

do you need to convert to do a good ethnography?

anthropology

science of the diversity of humans, in their bodies and behaviour

• So, the anthropological study of religion is the scientific study of the diversity of human religions

culture

learned and shared ideas, feelings, behaviours, and products of those behaviours characteristic to any particular society (central to anthropology)

• So, to study anything anthropologically, we need to look at its learned and shared human behaviour

• set of practices in which humans engage

Religious beings and/or forces are almost universally _____

social

• they have some qualities of a person or at least some agents or some sort

• so, they are like us in some ways

final goal of scientific explanation

a theory → organizing data in a particular way, gives us a model with specific mechanisms or processes that give rise to inquiry, allows us to make predictions that are testable, offering the possibility of using it to acquire further knowledge or understanding

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - stats about religiosity in america

90% believe in God or a higher power

60% pray everyday (50% who have no religion still pray)

14% don’t believe in anything

87% say religion is important

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - single biggest change in the way people think about religion

believing that other religions also have truth!

• people are becoming more tolerant of other religions

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality -after 9/11 and growing visibility of immigrants

testing people’s tolerances, they are complaining about a cemetery for Muslim people, using random excuses but is really just racism

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - Christians and converting

25% say they have a duty to convert, others say no

• need to understand that their religion is true for them, not for everyone

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - what is spirituality

how we probe and respond to the deepest journey within us, infinite

• the most important part of religion (most say they’ve had an individual spiritual experience)

• some seek our spiritual traditions of other religions if they feel something is missing in Church

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - decline in trust

Started as a decline in trust with politics

• Many see organized religion as close-mindedness

• Many instead are searching for open-mindedness

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - therapeutic culture

people believe spirituality is the next step here

• we want to enhance ourselves and our relationships

• we are responsible for ourselves and should use that to help others

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - critical of the search of spirituality

some believe it is ‘me me me’ and that we need to suffer and not avoid it

Exploring Religious America: Spirituality - connection to god/spirituality

in finding a closer attention to God, we are then finding closer connection to others

• his first law is to love others

myths commonly tell us about

creations/creation stories

which characteristics of myth distinguish them from other folk narrative forms?

1. set outside of ‘normal’ time (‘before __’, ‘at the beginning’, etc.)

2. often accounts for the creation of a/the world

3. characters are divine, semi-divine, not human (but with human attributes)

• we can relate to them somehow

4. language may be specific (formal, elevated, etc.)

5. performance of the myth is often key

Geertz suggestions of religions are systems of meaning that provide:

model OF life - how to understand the world (ex, hierarchies)

model FOR life - how to behave in the world

what also work as symbolic stories to understand the world and how to behave in it?

myths

• they can provide what is facilitated by religion

what is a myth

a narrative involving supernatural forces or beings, held to be sacred and true, and part of a larger ideological system

sociology POV of myths

they can be examined in relation to the social process and organization of society, or finding symbols and themes that are universal

• though, few showed up universally: tree of life, the number 4 (not protestant Christianity tho, they like 3)

anthropology POV of myths

an anthropological approach looks at how myth functions and its culture-specific meanings

• why do they exist?

• what do they do?

Malinowski on myth

myth is a charter for a society that expresses core beliefs and teaches morality and social norms

• they can set precedent of existing order and legitimate social norms by tracing them back to sacred beginnings

• can justify privileges of certain individuals or social classes, obligations that other people have to them

• especially in situations of sociological strain, myths can over historical inconsistencies

all 3 seen especially in creation stories

charter

agreement of people within a society

Levi-Strauss on myths

myths help deal with conceptual dualities - life and death, good and evil - by showing, through story, that dualities are ‘solved’ by a mediating third factor

• more of a psychological function

• seen as transitory

• 20th century now

cultural materialist/functionalist perspective

myths keep and transit information related to economic survival and crisis management

• still 20th century

current views on myth

it doesn’t matter whether the myth is objectively ‘true’, but whether its valid (and seen as true) in its own cultural context

• myths and folklore serve not as texts to be analyzed but as part of the fabric of daily life, reflecting the understandings of particular individuals and their communities

• we analyze what myths do for and to people rather than solely a text

symbols

minimally, symbols can be thought of as something that represents something else, from language to complex religious rituals

• religious objects and ceremonies are rich with symbols and symbolic meaning

Geertz on symbols

when something has symbolism, it gets us to feel and act in different ways

• ‘that which is set apart as more than mundane is inevitably considered to have far-reaching implications for the direction of human conduct’

canadian flag

example of a symbol, makes people feel lots and lots of different things

• compels us to do specific things (like stand up)

symbols represent our

beliefs

• symbols can have many forms and meaning, often considered to possess a power or force coming from a spiritual world

• they stand for the revered values of a culture/society, providing people with a commitment to a particular belief system

Geertz on religion and symbols

religion itself is best understood as a system of meaning-packed symbols

symbols across time, place, and religion

• different religious spaces can look entirely different, but be praying to the same person

central features of all religions

meaningful relationships between moral and ethical values that a group holds and their understanding of the ‘general order of existence’

• what is right vs wrong?

people interpret their experience and decide how to conduct themselves in terms of their worldview

• life has meaning, because of the above!

____ stems from _____

ought stems from is

• religion’s moral imperatives arise from the way that it depicts fundamental nature of reality

worldview

is, our reality

• the way things in sheer actuality are, the concept of nature, self, and society

ethos

ought/values

• moral and aesthetic style, tone, character, and quality of a group’s life

• ought stems from is

how symbols relate to worldview and ethos

symbols sum up what is known about the ultimate nature of reality (worldview) and how to live in it (ethos)

• symbols have the effect of making values and reality powerfully fundamental, real, and necessary

  • we often don’t consciously think about this

example of Christian creation story and how it relates to worldview and ethos

Canada founded on these views, humans thought to be created last

• worldview: humans in dominant position

• ethos: stems from above, drives what we ought to do (colonialism, natural deconstruction, resource extraction, etc.)

creation story of the Virgin of Guadalupe

• shrine in Tepeyac, said to be where Virgin Mary appeared to Christianized Indigenous man (Juan Diego) and spoke to him in native language in 1531

  • right after the Spanish Conquest (rebelling of indigenous people)

• her shrine was built on the site of another goddess, this one for earth and fertility

  • both considered Mothers

• increased popularity throughout the 16-17th century, now a major pilgrimage center

Christians views of the Virgin of Guadalupe

corresponds to both image of loving mother who provides for all needs of infants, and to image of ideal woman as both Virgin and Mother

• for men, marriage with this type of ideal woman represents success. adds a context of male dominance and sexual assertion, discharged against sub women and children

• for women, she is a symbol of perfection in female role

  • her image can be charged with the energy of rebellion against the father

Indigenous views of the Virgin of Guadalupe

• she symbolizes their humanity (since she appeared to an Indigenous man), proving they are capable of salvation and therefore their human rights must also be respected by colonizers

  • a political symbol

• she is addressed in passionate terms, as a source of warmth and love

Spanish Christians mixed with Indigenous background - views of the Virgin of Guadalupe

• she is important because she, like them, is both Indigenous and Spanish

  • representation!

• she became a symbol of legitimating Mexican movement for independence

  • desire to create a new kind of nation where they would have legitimate political power

  • this allowed the Republic of Mexico to develop

syncretism in the Virgin of Guadalupe

synthesis of two religious symbols and traditions

• political figure and mother figure

• links concepts of gender, politics, religion, etc,

• example of a master symbol; a symbol of Mexican society itself

examples of non-religious rituals

pre-hockey game rituals!

• we are specific about ho we do it, why we do it, and have beliefs about what would happen if we didn’t do it

early anthropological thought about ritual

influenced by Durkheim and Tylor

• asked whether ritual was expressive (symbolic) or explanatory of religion

contemporary views on ritual

it is both: ritual instructs participants about social structures and the values of the community, and ALSO constructs and creates those structures and values

• both productive and reproductive

ritual as action

a ‘doing’

• mutable and changeable over time

• either diff people do it, or same person doing it at different points of time

Anthony Wallace and ritual

argues for the importance of ritual as the primary phenomenon of religion

• rituals encapsulate ideas central to a culture and are often closely tied with myths, and are also intended to bring about specific ends

ritual as transformative

rituals are unique forms of symbolic action that creates a state of ‘emergence’ and transformation

• even non-religious rituals express the beliefs, values, and social foundations of a group

ritual in a religious context

a religiously direction action that has certain characteristics:

• involves action more than belief

• uses symbols and formal, extraordinary language and behaviour

• repetition, aesthetic elaboration

• can intensity social bonds in a group

major categories of ritual

• many about mediating anxieties and human experience

technological rituals

therapy and antitherapy rituals

ideological rituals

salvation rituals

revitalization ritual

technological rituals

control nature for human exploitation

• divination rites: try to see into the future

• protective rites: often about protecting humans

  • rain dancers

therapy and antitherapy rituals

controlling human heath

• witchcraft, crystals, supplements, yoga, etc.

ideological rituals

control the behaviour, mood, sentiments, and values for the sake of the community

• rites of passage → role changes (bat mitzfah)

• rites of intensification → ensuring people adhere to values (pilgrammage)

• taboos → ritual avoidances

• rites of rebellion → ritualized catharsis that contributes to order and stability

halloween as a ritual

a rite of rebellion

• idea that children are cute and nice and eat healthy, so if we let them break that for one day they’ll feel catharsis and get it out of their system

• hopes that the one day break will deter them from acting like that throughout the rest of the year

salvation rituals

aim to repair impaired identity (soul, for ex)

• possession → an altered identity by the presence of another

• ritual encouragement of an individual to accept an alternate identity → assuming a specialized role

• the mystic experience → loss of personal identity through identification with a sacred being

revitalization ritual

a religious movement that strives to create a better culture through the help of a prophet

• very rare

• about social change

• really significant! how Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and more were created

Arnold Van Gennep and rites of passage

first anthropologist to study transitional stages of life and the rituals that go along with them

• rites that accompany change of place, state, social position, and/or age

4 major transitional stages are their 3 successive phases

birth, puberty, marriage, and death

• separation

• margin

• aggregation

separation

symbolic behaviour that ‘detaches’ an individual or group from an earlier place or social structure/set of cultural conditions

• for ex, boy separates from ‘child’ label

margin

the passage of the individual/group into an ambiguous state

• for ex, the boy is neither a child or an adult

aggregation

individual/group once again enters into a stable, but new state, AKA reincorporation

• for ex, boy is now an adult

victory turner and rites of passage

focuses on the marginal/limina stage and state

• limin = door, right on the threshold

suggests that here is where we can see the basic building blocks of a culture, in the process of becoming

• no longer classified and not yet classified

turner - rites of passage and symbols

characteristics of the liminal stage are shown symbolically:

• no longer classified → frequently symbols representing this are ones of death, decomposition, catabolism

• yet to be classified → symbols that represent them are ones of processes like gestation, embryos, newborns, infants

liminal stage is a realm of

possibility!

• novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise

turner - why are initiates in the liminal stage hidden, removed, etc,

they are a matter out of place (unclear and contradictory) and the initiates are structurally invisible and ritually polluting

turner - nothingness of initiates in the liminal stage

they have nothing in this stage (no status, property, kinship, etc.) and inhabit a specific social structure, yielding to elders or specialists

• when you are/have nothing, you can grow into the new role/state

• in this space of ambiguity, you can imbue this empty vessel with culture (reproducing values and roles within a person)

characteristics of the liminal stage

• equality among participants

• marginality (they become outsiders)

• possibility for creativity and transformation

• anti-structure (compared to social norms of society)

• intense sense of community and shared humanity

Hawaii Rain Dancers

technological ritual

• call powerful elements through dance and belief

• a physical manifestation of the world they inhabit

• wear specific outfits

• pinnacle of their career is to dance in the forest with supreme beings, as they are dancing for their ancestors

Children’s Hajj

ideological ritual

• children doing a mock hajj, a replica

• journey/pilgrimage to the real house is a requirement

• goal of having their sins forgiven