Ritual Artifacts as Symbolic Habits

Abstract

The concepts of manipulative abduction and of extending, disembodying, and distributing the mind can help delineate important aspects of the role of habits, rituals, and symbols in human cognition, including when new concepts are created. Taking advantage of some psychoanalytical and anthropological issues, I will show how symbolic habits in rituals can function as memory mediators which are able to play significant roles in human cognition and action. They can maximize abducibility and so recoverability of knowledge contents, including at the unconscious level.

Keywords

• habits
• rituals
• symbols
• jung
• abduction
• memory mediators