Our hearts can't do without rituals.

Ritual is the externalization of our hearts. When the soul is natural and sincere, the ceremony will be pleasant and decent; when it is pretentious and extreme, the ceremony will be out of shape and disgusting, such as the speech and etiquette of leaders who dote on the desire for power. This is a small aspect.

There are also people who use rituals to confuse and deceive people, because people are willing to be manipulated by emotional and irrational factors of the ceremony, such as the music played by a guard of honor will make a very rational person have a lofty sense of crying, not to mention ordinary people who are vulgar and think less. In short, rituals, regardless of men and women, old and young, high and low, virtuous and stupid, are tools that everyone can use.

A mysterious ritual

The mysterious unknown and the loss of people

Jade articles of Liangzhu Culture

Many people understand rituals and think that in ancient times, rituals must be mysterious and superstitious. It is true that there was a period in history when the ancient Chinese would pray for heaven and earth. Only people of high status can pray on the altar with a sense of echelon. They have special body movements, as well as special clothing, ornaments and objects.

Through the ceremony, but also through those exclusive items, they fill everyone's sense of fear and loss, and also explain and solve the disaster phenomenon. Both the people who perform the ceremony and the ordinary people who participate in the ceremony, everyone firmly believes in the mysterious power of the ceremony, although this has not been proven. I have seen similar rituals in my life.

Once, my young daughter cried because she encountered hot weather, busy funerals and strange people at the same time in the countryside. According to her experience, my second aunt said that her daughter was frightened by the undead, because children's eyes could see the souls of the dead. So I was asked to hold my daughter and hold my hand against the wall, while she chanted some "spells", which meant that the undead should go and stop harassing our children. After a while, my daughter's cry died down, and I hugged her before and after to appease her.

The second aunt believes that this is the effectiveness of her method, and "Don't cry" is an effective verification of the "mantra" experience, but I think it is the result of my comfort and the later cool and quiet air-conditioning environment. None of this seems to be possible to verify. The psychology of the ancients is similar to that of the second aunt. They have encountered some sorrows and misfortunes in life, and want to quickly solve this unpleasant feeling, so they solve the heaviness of life by communicating with gods and ghosts, heaven and earth, so as to get a sense of psychological release and relief.

Strange bronze sculptures in Sanxingdui

Today, when we encounter difficulties and delay in solving them, we will also wonder if some ghosts and spirits have not taken good care of them, and then we will go to find witches who know how to do it, pay some money, and get the way to perform the ceremony from them.

Ritual is the final solution. Ceremonies can be planned and purchased, and language can be bent. In fact, this is not only the dilemma of the people, but also a meaning of the existence of rituals.

A utilitarian or rational ritual.

We have to choose.

There are many new emperors in Chinese history who became kings only after they tasted the sweetness of the ceremony for the first time.

What it's like to have sex. So many etiquette, steps, kneeling, so that usually publicity, do not know high and low people feel humble, so that arrogant scholars also have signs of submission. Liu Bang distinguished emperors from his subjects by ritual, so that his men knew the rules and respected themselves.

Rituals have always been of practical value, always maintaining, respecting, comforting and warning people. Are the flowers, convoys, military parades, cannon shots, dancing and gifts coming and going between countries just out of politeness? surely not, they reflect the closeness and calculation between each other, and the state will not increase or change the specifications of the ceremony for no reason.

In modern society, even if everyone is crowded in the cold workshop and assembly line, it seems to be a mechanized and dehumanized era, but it is still inseparable from rituals. Commendation meetings, reward meetings, entertainment parties and sports tourism are all rituals between groups. We are in order to maintain and solidify different groups, or to make them passionate and moved by a certain symbol, so as to inspire them to fight for it.

These are all means of management, testing people's skills very much. To put it bluntly, the purpose of the ceremony is to influence the hearts of the people. "left and right" is not all derogatory, but also has the meaning of pandering, contentment, deception, dream and so on. For example, in the most daily actions, we all like to leave the "seat" to the biggest leaders and give them all kinds of priorities, which is to respect the concept of hierarchy and their status. This is a ritual that we are used to but forget.

When we know that doing rituals is to take care of people's feelings and maintain their dignity, we can operate rituals skillfully. In the western election system, there is a very strict speech plan and division of labor, and it can be said to be deliberate in order to cater to, deceive and take care of the mood of the listener. When we work together with the crowd, we will find that ritual is a way we have to choose, and neither reason nor emotion can get around it.

Symbolism and our hearts

No matter what form the ceremony is, it will eventually conquer people through symbols, such as fixed flags, thoughts, music, etiquette and so on. These things can inspire people's yearning for beauty. Most of us are fighting and living for an ideal and idea, not exactly pursuing a fixed object. The ceremony fits very closely with the hearts of the people in this respect.

Therefore, the reason why rituals are important to us is that we are essentially not rational animals, but symbolic animals. Isn't it because people who worship reason are full of trust and superstition in the conceptual world of "reason"?

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Reference (interview) item:

David Kozer, ritual, Politics and Power

Brothers: at the beginning of the ceremony