ROBBIE DAVIS-FLOYD AND CHARLES D. LAUGHLIN, 2022, Ritual: What It Is, How It Works, and Why, New York: Berghahn Books, 322 pp., ISBN 978-1-80073-528-6

Keywords: Ritual; Ethnography; Cognitive Anthropology; Anthropology of Emotion; Symbolism

Ritual: What It Is, How It Works, and Why offers valuable insights for both professionals in the field of religion and newcomers to the topic. The authors’ clear writing style makes complex ideas accessible, making this book a useful resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of rituals. It effectively addresses both the basic and the more nuanced questions, presenting deep reflections in an understandable and even relatable manner.

Davis-Floyd illustrates many of the chapters from the deep honesty and vulnerability of having lost her daughter in a tragic accident, which far from being unnecessary self-references, they are genuine illustrations of the power of ritual to go through grief. This emotional depth may surprise readers who think it impossible to feel moved while reading an anthropological manual.

Another noteworthy aspect is the consistent interplay between the diverse examples that illustrate each chapter, which enhances both the didactic and the engaging quality of the text. These examples range from various ethnographic studies, including those drawn from the authors’ own fieldwork, to more familiar scenarios and personal anecdotes. This dynamic movement between the unfamiliar and the everyday feels reminiscent of an already classic book such as Paul Bohannan’s “We, the Alien” (1991).

The book is divided into ten chapters and two appendices. The first chapter introduces how ritual symbols enter and interact with different areas of the brain, synchronizing physical sensations, emotion, meaning, and intellect. Authors’ definition of ritual is “a patterned, repetitive, and symbolic enactment of cultural (or individual) beliefs and values.” (p. 256) Far from being reductionist or mechanistic, this definition sets the stage throughout the whole book to think about ritual not only from a religious framework -as it may happen due to the popular use of the term-, but from a more secular perspective. The second chapter explores the relationship between values, rituals, and symbols, and their insertion in the cognitive matrix of those who perform them. It also incorporates elements of neuroscience, useful for those interested in questions related to cognition, perception. Additionally, this chapter discusses how rituals function as an ‘enactment’ of worldviews, myths, but also of paradigms (for example, rituals in the field of biomedicine), ideas that are explored in depth in the third chapter.

In Chapter Three, the authors discuss the process of “truing”, which refers to the cognitive mechanism through which we take certain assumptions for granted, and how the nature of these explanations varies across different cultures. Chapter four presents a.particularly intriguing topic—states of consciousness. I personally would have appreciated a more extensive exploration of this subject, specially regarding the concept of “warp of consciousness,” defined as “points of experiential and neurophysiological transition