The big idea is that ritual is a construct rather than an intrinsic, universal category or feature of human behavior. That’s why there is fluidity in the way ritual is defined. However, there is also enough consensus among students of ritual that it’s possible to fruitfully discuss it.
Bell divides her study into three parts, which she characterizes as theories, rites, and contexts. To discuss “theory” before “practice” might strike some as counterintuitive. Still, I found it helpful, for this part offers “a roughly chronological overview of the most influential approaches to defining and explaining ritual behavior” (page x). Bell is careful to point out that her apportionment of scholars to various “schools” is meant generally. Some scholars embraced two or more approaches. Nevertheless, this was a handy way to organize and supplement what I already knew about the history of scholarship.
This part is subdivided into three chapters. The first covers the history-of-religions school, phenomenology, and psychoanalytic approaches. The second examines social function and structure, while the third discusses approaches that employ insights from linguistic theory, the study of symbols, and performance.
At the end of each chapter, Bell describes rituals that have been variously interpreted by proponents of diverse schools. These helped me to see how theory yields insight into what a rite “means,” yet can also overlook aspects that a different theoretical approach might help uncover,
In the second part, Bell organizes what she calls “the spectrum of ritual activities” into genres and defines characteristics. No one characteristic is invariably present in every activity that might be considered a ritual.
Part three seeks to contextualize ritual. Bell asks, for example, whether societies can be analyzed by how densely ritualized they are. She also asks about the ability of a ritual in a non-literate society to adapt to changing conditions without drawing attention to the change. In literate societies with fixed agendas, change “is much more apt to be deliberate, debated, ridden with factions, explosive, and concerned with fundamentals” (page 204). This seems plausible to me yet shouldn’t be overemphasized. Bell also notes that many traditional features of the ceremonies of the British royal house were invented for the funeral of Queen Victoria and the coronation of her son as Edward VII. Two factors contributed: although Britain was a literate society, no book prescribed how they were to be done, and Victoria had been on the throne so long, no one planning her funeral had been involved in her coronation. As throughout the book, Bell resists understanding this according to a schema of “primitive” or “advanced” societies. She also deals with the transformation of ritual over time.
Bell offers a fascinating rumination on the effect of media on rituals such as coronations and state funerals. The number of those who “attend” is significantly increased. People lining the route get a punctual glimpse, while those watching television can follow from beginning to end and get a better view. How does this change the nature of the event?
I found this book a useful introductory overview of the study of ritual. The amount of literature Bell incorporates is impressive. To do this, of course, means relying on the studies of others who are specialists in their field. In her discussion of Christian baptism, for instance, she depends on overviews of others and takes over from them the fallacy that infant baptism became widespread because of Augustine’s dogma of original sin. On my understanding, this gets it backward. Augustine was able to point to the general practice to promulgate and justify his innovation.
This error of detail from an area that is a particular interest of mine is a helpful caution not to take over the details of any other topic she discusses without checking what specialists in that area might say. But that’s a minor cavil for such a comprehensive overview. And forty-three pages of notes and a twenty-eight-page bibliography give the enterprising student a head start in that. ( )

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium.

ALL HUMAN INTERACTION AND UNDERSTANDING IS BASED ON A LOGICAL FALLACY!

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