ANTB66H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Participant Observation, Feudalism, Mount Kailash
ANTB66H3 - Spiritual Paths: A
Comparative Anthropology of
Pilgrimage III: Ritual at Sacred
Centers
15 MAY 2018 / 12:00 PM / ROOM MW170
Dr. Dean Young
Office hours: 2:00-3:00, MW282
LECTURE 3 - Ritual at Sacred Centers
Overview: Assignment 1 due next class
Review of Last week:
Last week you were introduced to important ideas from four key theorists:
1. Mircea Eliade
●Introduced key terms that are important for understanding the beginnings
of sacred centers
●Chaos - importance of myths (New beginnings / order)
- Creation of worlds
- Gods fighting gods
- Natural forces (volcanoes, floods destroying the world)
- Uncontrollable space
- Velcrow Ripper took chaos in a different direction: World events that
create chaos for people who live in crisis - order breaks down
- Reassociate it with the creation of new forms (cosmos) and the creation
of social order
●Cosmogony (Beginning of cosmos)
- Religious beginning of cosmos
- Understanding the world
●Sacred Centers
- They require a lot of protection
- Chaos is pretty close to the surface (mountain tops)
●Hierophant: Those who interprets theory / philosophy
- Describes the beginning (Floods, pre-beginning of the world)
- Difference between Hierophants / Priests
➔Hierophants are original prophets, those who point the way to the sacred
in the very beginning.
➔Not all priests are hierophants
●Your homework task is to describe one sacred center associated with a
particular religious tradition
2. Emile Durkeheim
●Difference between sacred and profane
- Sacred is set apart: Guarded by rights and rituals and held up in
distinction to the profane (the everyday life)
- Since sacred is set apart, it must be protected by the rites and rituals
3. Arnold van Gennep
●Rituals refer to his article
●Discusses the rites of passage
- Crosses the limen
●Limen (Ritual Thresholds)
●Three phases of ritual action (saw a tri-partade section)
- Separation (pre-liminal)
- Transition (Liminal)
- Incorporation (Post-liminal)
●Rite of Passage: Leave as a young and go into the liminal phase before
an adult and go through hardship (seek visions
- At the second threshold you are incorporated again into society
4. Victor Turner
●Is important because he builds on the information built by the
previously mentioned theorists
●Elaborates upon the idea of liminality and introduces the following
ideas:
- Communitas: Everybody who goes through rite of passage that comes out of
the liminal stage assumes their new role as a new person
➔What work is communitas doing? It removes power
➔What’s the point of power if everyone has it?
➔Lesson in moral instruction, instruction in ethics
- Anti-structure: Creates a world without structure
●Turns attention away from the role of the rite of passage and focuses on
what happens during liminality (leveling, hardship)
Today, Victor & Edith Turner
●In the 1960s Turner begins to look for signs of anti-structure in
complex societies (Feudal & Modern societies with the division of
labour)
●He is the first anthropologist to take pilgrimage seriously
●While most religious traditions serve to uphold local social structures,
pilgrimage was unique in several ways
●He’s trying to separate old rite of passage from ideas of communitas
- Separates liminal (natural passage) → Liminoid (Has similar notions to
communitas but with huge distinctions)
➔Know why he’s using this theory, what they have in common, and what’s
distinct
●In traditional societies, rites of passage is designed to uphold the
social structure
- They are not interested in upholding social structure
Distinction 1:
- Pilgrimages and protests wants to overthrow / modify social structure
and wants change. They attempt to challenge the social order
●1960s is the time of incredible political appeal
- People partake massive civil action & protests
- Birth of Utopian Movements: People seeking to live opposite to their
social structure
- World is in the time of tradition
Document Summary
Centers (cid:464)5 may (cid:465)(cid:463)(cid:464)(cid:471) / (cid:464)(cid:465):(cid:463)(cid:463) pm / room mw(cid:464)(cid:470)(cid:463) Last week you were introduced to important ideas from four key theorists: (cid:464). Introduced key terms that are important for understanding the beginnings of sacred centers. Chaos - importance of myths (cid:513)new beginnings / order(cid:514) Velcrow ripper took chaos in a different direction: world events that create chaos for people who live in crisis - order breaks down. Reassociate it with the creation of new forms (cid:513)cosmos(cid:514) and the creation of social order. Chaos is pretty close to the surface (cid:513)mountain tops(cid:514) Hierophant: those who interprets theory / philosophy. Hierophants are original prophets, those who point the way to the sacred. Describes the beginning (cid:513)floods, pre-beginning of the world(cid:514) Difference between hierophants / priests in the very beginning. Your homework task is to describe one sacred center associated with a particular religious tradition (cid:465).
