1st Edition

Liberating Rites Understanding The Transformative Power Of Ritual

By Tom F. Driver Copyright 1998
    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book shows how necessary ritual is to human freedom and to social processes of liberation. It aims to reflect upon the deep human longing for ritual and to interpret it in the light of our physical, social, political, sexual, moral, aesthetic, and religious existence. .

    Part I: Ritual Pathways 1. Introduction 2. Ritualizing: The Animals Do It and So Do We 3. Modern Warfare: The Loss of Ritual Pathways 4. Priest and Shaman: Two Pathways of Religious Ritual Part II: Modalities of Performance 5. Ritual, Theater, and Sacrifice 6. Ritual's Two Siblings: Performance in the Confessional and the Ethical Modes Part III: Ritual's Social Gifts 7. Order 8. Community 9. Transformation Conclusion 10. Christian Sacraments as the Performance of Freedom