Quotes About Rituals

Mankind's chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever divinities were then abroad lay in some magical rite, senseless but powerful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain and grief.

Superstitions and eccentric habits are a Western substitute for actual idols.

The important thing was the shedding of blood. Sounds barbaric, but the Old Testament was reminding us that there was a significant cost involved in moving from unclean to clean. You didn't have to pay it, but it still had to be paid.

There is a need for individuals to find ways of transcending their limiting identities, of periodically committing egocide. The submission to God by following transformative spiritual practices can more safely engage the death-rebirth transcendence axis. Some cultures have elaborate and cathartic rites of passage for every stage of life. Our culture has not fostered safe death and rebirth rituals. So people create their own, consciously or unconsciously.

In the occult, good manners matter, as they do in life, and perhaps even more so.

But can any man of the least Christian enlightenment believe that the exalted Saviour can look on such rites as doing honour to Him, which pour contempt on His all-perfect atonement, and represent His most "precious blood" as needing to have its virtue supplemented by that of blood drawn from the backs of wretched and misguided sinners? Such offerings were altogether fit for the worship of Moloch; but they are the very opposite of being fit for the service of Christ.

Among the Red Indians of America there had evidently been something entirely analogous to the Babylonian custom of wearing the horns; for, in the "buffalo dance" there, each of the dancers had his head arrayed with buffalo's horns; and it is worthy especial remark, that the "Satyric dance," or dance of the Satyrs in Greece, seems to have been the counterpart of this Red Indian solemnity;

At the start of my career, when I used to toss and turn at night, I was fighting that feeling and wanting to go to sleep. Now I know that's normal, so I'll just get up and watch TV or something. I know it's just my subconscious mind getting ready for a game.

Ingenious prisoners have successfully claimed a range of novel entitlements, from fertility treatment to a right to keep twigs in their cells to wave as wands in pagan rituals.

Even now, I'm very superstitious, in silly ways. I always put my left boot on first. Or on set, I always tie my bow tie from right to left.

I have a funny relationship with religion. I'm a big believer in ritualistic behavior as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. But I'm not a big fan of rules. And yet, we cannot live in a world without order.

Plants are so important to the ancients for medicine and in a religious aspect - and in hemlock!

In Arab culture, music is for celebration. You don't play music at funerals.

Before I step on a starting block, I will clap three times and shake out my arms twice. I don't feel ready to race unless I do that.

Greenies have been part of the clubhouse culture longer than card games.

I don't even drink coffee.

I am tolerably ignorant about Judaism, and much of what I do know about it seems hard to swallow, because it is so grounded in legalism, and adherence to rituals.

A full day fast without water is observed on the third main day of Chhath Puja. The main ritual of the day is to offer arghya to the setting Sun. On this day we prepare a prasad of sweets, among which Thekua is pretty popular.

To be born in India is to arrive into the world swimming in religion.

Mysteries, like the Masonic rites, are ones parents and elders are sworn not to reveal to the uninitiated, which include all children. And so we sought for signs.

People crown kings and queens at homecoming parades all the time. We do a lot of things in our society that are simply symbolic.

Every holiday has unique fare and symbolic foods, but none as much as Rosh Hashana.

Religions have always adopted rich symbolic languages to signify the different aspects of their respective forms of faith and mythology.

The Catholic religion doesn't have conspicuous symbols.