Quotes About Ritual

I don't think we should give up on ritual. I don't think we should give up on any possible means of experiencing God.

Fasting is] a way of making sure we haven't let the rhythms of the everyday put us to sleep, a way to make sure that our habits have not become addictions...

There's only one thing that's strong enough to defeat the tyranny of the moment. Habit.

There's only one thing that's strong enough to defeat the tyranny of the moment. Habit.

She kisses the children goodnight, leaving lipstick on their foreheads and a trail of Chanel No.5.

The altar, as in pre-history, is anywhere you kneel.

The cat's sophisticated personae are masks of an advanced theatricality. Priests and god its own cult, the cat follows a code of ritual purity, cleaning itself religiously. Priest and god of its own cult, the car sacrifices to itself and may share its ceremonies with the elect. [...] The cat is the least Christian inhabitant of the entire home.

From the bow of the canoe she asked, Do you know a rain dance? First I need a virgin.

Come on, Al, this wasn't a knife in the ribs. It was the ritual murder of a prominent citizen. How did Harper get into those silly clothes? Who smeared suntan oil all over him? Who stuffed a goddamn toy alligator down his throat? Who sawed his legs off? Are you telling me that some two-bit auto burglar concocted this whole thing?

If it takes a little myth and ritual to get us through a night that seems endless, who among us cannot sympathize and understand?

The Yale anthropologist Weston La Barre goes far as to argue that `a surprisingly good case could be made that much of culture is hallucination` and that `the whole intent and function of ritual appears to be... a group wish to hallucinate reality`.

MacLean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior.

Dicho de otro modo, cualquier predisposición a la creencia religiosa puede verse poderosamente influida por la cultura indígena, viva uno donde viva. Especialmente si los niños están expuestos desde muy pequeños a una serie concreta de doctrinas, música, arte y ritual, es algo tan natural para ellos como respirar, motivo por el cual las religiones hacen tantos esfuerzos para atraer a los más jóvenes.

It is of the first order of importance to remember this, that the shaman is more than merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself, who is cured, and who must shamanize in order to remain cured.

It's very rare that you meet someone who would prefer to shamanize, rather than to talk about it, you know. And it's the shamanizing that is important, not the talking about it.

tricornered headdress.

Why people wanted to dance whenever it got dark was beyond him. Somehow, the two seemed to go together, like bees and flowers, or flies and dung. Darkness and dancing.

The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).

A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it.

Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit.

We got the spell exactly right. Except for the ingredients. And most of the poetry. And it probably wasn't the right time. And Gytha took most of it home for the cat, which couldn't of been proper.

The year is round! The wheel of the world must spin! That is why up here they dance the Dark Morris, to balance it. They welcome the winter because of the new summer deep inside it!

We spray our fantasies on the landscape like a dog sprays urine. It turns it into ours. Once we've invented our gods and demons, we can propitiate or exorcize them. Once we've put fairies in the sinister solitary thorn tree, we can decide where we stand in relation to it; we can hang ribbons on it, see visions under it—or bulldoze it up and call ourselves free of superstition.

The Igor position on prayer is that it is nothing more than hope with a beat to it.