Reference no: EM133528517
We must be careful not to bandy about the term rite of passage in such a way that it loses its important meaning. Not every celebration of a transition is technically a rite of passage. Hopefully, a person's life is filled with numerous accomplishments, and it would be nice if each of them were worthy of a little celebration or reward. Still, even if one lived in such a happy and supportive society (which would most likely become utterly unproductive), not every forward step in life necessarily qualifies as a rite of passage. In a stricter sense, in which the term has solid meaning, the transitions must mark major shifts in persons' lives that affect the core of their identity. Let's say that someone-Fred-finished his second year of college. It may be worthy of recognition that he moved from being a sophomore to being a junior, and Fred might be happy if we undertook a little celebration to commemorate the change, but he would still be a college student, and even though he made some progress, presumably not much else in his status would have changed.
Let's contrast this minor accomplishment with a genuine rite of passage, say, among traditional Native American societies. A member of one of the Native American tribes of the plains (e.g., the Cheyenne or the Sioux), probably younger than Fred would be, might undertake a vision quest in which he would leave his tribe for several days or even weeks and after lengthy isolation and deprivation in the wilderness the spirits would reveal to him an entity that would be his personal "medicine" (such as a particular animal or physical object) for the rest of his life, and he would receive a new name to go with the object. For example, he might have had a vision of an elk's antlers, and on his return he might be known as Red Elk. He would have left as a child but returned as an adult warrior. Or even in the America of more recent European-originated cultures, it was not that long ago that, for all practical purposes, high-school graduation would have turned me from child to adult. Thus, to qualify as a genuine rite of passage, it would need to make an actual difference to a person's identity in society.
Furthermore, the ritual itself must bring about the passage. Let's assume that Fred has turned sixty years old. This was a fact, and-whether anyone held a celebration or not-he would still have had that birthday and have turned that age. So, even though there was a change in his life, and even though his relatives may have held a celebration in honor of that change, this was no genuine rite of passage. Much closer to a rite of passage would be someone's official retirement from, say, a university teaching position. Without any kind of acknowledgement the person would just become a former academician without permanent employment. However, if there was a dinner with speakers and he received a plaque naming him "professor emeritus," he would have actually passed into retirement. This example does not completely catch the full-blown version of what a rite of passage means in a traditional culture, but it comes much closer because the case can be made that the celebration was instrumental in officially instantiating his change in status.
Still, many scholars today insist that in order to qualify as an authentic rite of passage, one other element is necessary. To stick with the previous example, let's say that there was a time between Fred's ceasing to teach at his school and the official acknowledgement of his retirement. At that point he was neither a genuine faculty member, nor was he officially listed on the books as having retired. So what was Fred? For purposes of this illustration, he had no identity, or-to really overdramatize the matter-he was nothing. He was in what anthropologists call the state of "liminality," neither in the earlier stage nor having arrived at the new stage.[27] To describe what liminality means we need to recognize that in order to be a member of a traditional society one has to fit one of the roles established in that society. Anthropologically speaking, in order to be a member of the traditional society that I'm calling "the university," Fred had to be either a professor or a retired professor. But let's say that for a time he was officially neither. So, speaking from this technical vantage point, during the interim he was not a member of the society; he was, so to speak, non-existent. Of course, in our life world, no doubt Fred would have continued to be treated as an honorable member of society. However, in a genuine traditional society, during the liminality phase of the rite of passage, the person is not a member of the society, and since the only way one can exist is as a member of the society, he simply does not exist.
For example, the puberty rite of the Maasai is circumcision, which occurs sometime during the boy's teenage years. Once the operation has been performed, until he has fully healed he is in the liminal state. Being neither boy nor man, he dresses in girl's clothes and is shunned by the male members of his village.
Let's make some quick observations concerning the four nearly universal rites of passage and postpone further discussion to a later chapter that addresses more specifically the patterns of traditional religion.
Birth. The beginning of life is usually marked by a celebration. Often the ceremony includes a recognition of the earth as mother-diverse cultures place the baby on the ground for a moment. The infant receives a name (at least a childhood name) at the ceremony. Birth rites have continued into contemporary society. Modern religious people observe birth with circumcision, christening or dedication. Secular patterns of celebrations include baby showers and quite possibly the distribution of cigars. Of course, modern societies recognize a child as being born even without any ceremony, but as odd as it may sound to us, this is not necessarily the case in all cultures.
Puberty. Almost all traditional cultures mark the transition from childhood to young adulthood with a ceremony.[28] For girls the need for the ceremony is usually signaled by the onset of menstruation; for boys, age is the more dominant criterion, although in some cultures, it can also be linked to a boy's first nocturnal emission. In the case of boys, many cultures schedule a period of time, most likely lasting several months, when all of the boys of similar age go through the ceremony. For girls, where it is almost always tied to their physical changes, the rites are most likely timed on an individual basis.
Typical aspects of puberty rites include a physical ordeal that proves manhood or womanhood, circumcision for boys or clitoridectomy for girls, reception of secret lore or a new name (which signals the beginning of a new life). In Judaism bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah are religious rites of passage into adulthood, and in traditional European Christianity confirmation would have served as such. Secular American society marks the passage into adulthood also with, for example, obtaining one's driver's license or with coming-out parties for debutantes in the South. As mentioned earlier, in small-town America to this day, each person's high-school graduation class becomes a permanently fixed part of his or her identity.
Marriage. There is no such thing as a private marriage.[29] A marriage is only initiated with some publicly recognized ceremony. The nature of a wedding ceremony may vary from the most minimal to the highly elaborate. It may or may not be religious in nature. In certain Eskimo cultures all it takes is a public declaration by a man that he takes a certain woman to be his wife. On the other hand, in one of the several cultures among the people of Kashmir, the marriage is completely arranged by the two families, and the ceremony may last for several days. Only at the end of that time may the bride and bridegroom see each other in person-for the first time ever.
Marriage ceremonies provide us with an interesting glimpse into the fundamental need of human persons to secure their lives in a transcendent context. In some European countries a civil ceremony before a public official is legally both necessary and sufficient, but frequently couples who are not religious and may not attend another church service until it is time to christen their first child may insist on adding a church ceremony to their wedding, sometimes days after the civil ceremony. In the United States a civil ceremony is sufficient for a marriage to be legal, but so is a religious ceremony, in which a minister may function as a representative of the state. Ministers are a routine choice to tie the knot-even when a civil ceremony might be more convenient and the couple has no further religious interest.
Death. The last of the four nearly universal rites of passage marks the end of life. Obviously, this rite of passage continues into our secularized society. I asserted earlier that ritual has its roots in anxiety, and nothing elicits more anxiety than death and the fate of departed people. This anxiety is clearly demonstrated in the conventions and superstitions that surround death. For instance, why should the minister always walk at the head of the casket? Why should one never speak ill of the dead? The answer seems to lie in a deeply rooted anxieties that the rite of passage is meant to assuage. Many religions teach that a departed person who has not been given the proper burial ritual will have a very unhappy afterlife and may return to earth as a ghost. In all societies funeral rituals are important ways of closing out the life of the deceased.
What makes something "religious" or "not-religious"?How does the author differentiate between religion and spirituality? How would you distinguish them? Can someone be "spiritual but not religious"?