The rhetoric of ritual

Abstract

Ritual is an activity formally situated at that point zero where every move and every word become efficacious because they deal with things in their "state of not yet being". The role of religious representations in ritual is to dramatize the countdown to that turning point and sometimes also to express and secure the order of things the priest wishes to see when he re-emerges from the primeval darkness of the sanctuary. There are multiple ways in which rites thus rhetorically situate themselves at the turning point, from which things may be produced, renewed, or controlled.

Keywords

• Ritual -- Comparative studies
• Ritual -- Efficacy
• Ritualization (Psychology)
• Rhetoric -- Study
• Sacrifice
• Myth