Comparative Supernaturalism

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Comparative Supernaturalism
Origins, Functions, and Expressions of
Religion Definitions of Supernaturalism Animism
Mana and Taboo Magic and Religion Rituals Rite
s of Passage Development of Belief
Systems Cohesion and Support Revitalization and
Euphoria Ecology Explanation Social Control
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Disclaimer
Anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace has defined
religion as "belief and ritual concerned with
supernatural beings, powers, and forces" (1966,
p. 5). Like ethnicity or language, religion may
be associated with social divisions within and
between societies and nations. Religious behavior
and beliefs both unite and divide. Participation
in common rites may affirm, and thus maintain,
the social solidarity of a religion's adherents.
In studying religion cross-culturally,
anthropologists pay attention not only to the
social roles of religion but also to the content
and nature of religious acts, events, processes,
settings, practitioners, and organizations. We
also consider such verbal manifestations of
religious beliefs as prayers, chants, myths,
texts, and statements about ethics and morality.
The supernatural is the extraordinary realm
outside (but believed to impinge on) the
observable world. It is nonempirical, mysterious,
and inexplicable in ordinary terms. It must be
accepted "on faith." Supernatural beings-gods and
goddesses, ghosts, and souls-are not of the
material world. Nor are supernatural forces, some
of which are wielded by beings. Other sacred
forces are impersonal they simply exist. In many
societies, however, people believe they can
benefit from, become imbued with, or manipulate
supernatural forces. Religion, as defined here,
exists in all human societies. It is a cultural
universal. However, we'll see that it isn't
always easy to distinguish the supernatural from
the natural and that different cultures
conceptualize supernatural entities very
differently.
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Origins, Functions, and Expressions of
Religion Definitions of Supernaturalism
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Supernaturalism suggests that there are natural
things in the universe and supernatural things,
beyond or outside of the natural. A
supernatural belief is any belief that transcends
the observable, natural world.
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Origins, Functions, and Expressions of Religion
Animism
The founder of the anthropology of religion was
Sir E.B. Tylor Religion was born as people tried
to understand conditions and events they could
not explain by reference to daily experience.
Tylor believed that our ancestors and
contemporary nonindustrial peoples-were
particularly intrigued with death, dreaming, and
trance. In dreams and trances, people see images
they may remember when they wake up or come out
of the trance state. Tylor concluded that
attempts to explain dreams and trances led early
humans to believe that two entities inhabit the
body one active during the day and the other-a
double or soul- active during sleep and trance
states. Although they never meet, they are vital
to each other. When the double permanently
leaves the body, the person dies. Death is
departure of the soul. From the Latin for soul,
anima, Tylor named this belief animism. The soul
was one sort of spiritual entity people
remembered various images from their dreams and
trances-other spirits. For Tylor, animism, the
earliest form of religion, was a belief in
spiritual beings.
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Animism continued
Tylor proposed that religion evolved through
stages, beginning with animism. Polytheism (the
belief in multiple gods) and then monotheism
(the belief in a single, all-powerful deity)
developed later. Because religion originated
to explain things people didn't understand,
Tylor thought it would decline as science offered
better explanations. To an extent, he was right.
We now have scientific explanations for many
things that religion once elucidated.
Nevertheless, because religion persists, it
must do something more than explain the
mysterious. It must, and does, have
other functions and meanings.
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Mana and Taboo
Besides animism is a view of the supernatural as
a domain of raw impersonal power, or force, that
people can control under certain conditions.
Such a conception of the supernatural is
particularly prominent in Melanesia. Melanesians
believed in mana, a sacred impersonal force
existing in the universe. Mana can reside in
people, animals, plants, and objects.
Melanesian mana was similar to our notion of
efficacy or luck. Melanesians attributed success
to mana, which people could acquire or manipulate
in different ways, such as through magic. Objects
with mana could change someone's luck. For
example, a charm or amulet belonging to a
successful hunter might transmit the hunter's
mana to the next person who held or wore it. A
woman might put a rock in her garden, see her
yields improve dramatically, and attribute the
change to the force contained in the rock.
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One role of religion is to explain. A belief in
souls explains what happens in sleep, trance, and
death. Melanesian mana explains differential
success that people can't understand in ordinary,
natural terms. People fail at hunting, war, or
gardening not because they are lazy, stupid, or
inept but because success comes-or doesn't
come-from the super- natural world.
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Magic and Religion
Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended
to accomplish specific aims. These techniques
include spells, formulas, and incantations
used with deities or with impersonal forces.
Magicians use imitative magic to produce a
desired effect by imitating it. If magicians wish
to injure or kill someone, they may imitate that
effect on an image of the victim. Sticking pins
in "voodoo dolls" is an example. With
contagious magic, whatever is done to an object
is believed to affect a person who once had
contact with it. Sometimes practitioners of
contagious magic use body products from
prospective victims-their nails or hair, for
example. The spell performed on the body product
is believed to reach the person eventually and
work the desired result. We find magic in
cultures with diverse religious beliefs. It can
be associated with animism, mana, polytheism, or
monotheism. Magic is neither simpler nor more
primitive than animism or the belief in mana.
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Rituals
Rituals are stylized, repetitive, and
stereotyped. People perform them in special
(sacred) places and at set times. These
features link rituals to plays, but there are
important differences. Plays have audiences
rather than participants. Actors merely portray
something, but ritual performers-who make up
congregations-are in earnest. Rituals convey
information about the participants and their
traditions. Repeated year after year, generation
after generation, rituals translate enduring
messages, values, and sentiments into action.
Rituals are social acts. Inevitably, some
participants are more committed than others are
to the beliefs that lie behind the rites.
However, just by taking part in a joint public
act, the performers signal that they accept a
common social and moral order, one that
transcends their status as individuals.
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Rites of Passage
Malinowski noted, That magic and religion can
reduce anxiety and allay fears. Ironically,
beliefs and rituals also can create anxiety and a
sense of insecurity and danger. Anxiety may arise
because a rite exists. Indeed, participation in
a collective ritual may build up stress, whose
common reduction, through the completion of the
ritual, enhances the solidarity of the
participants. Rites of passage, for example,
the collective circumcision of teenagers, can be
very stressful. The traditional vision quests of
Native Americans, particularly the Plains
Indians, illustrate rites of passage (customs
associated with the transition from one place or
stage of life to another), which are found
throughout the world. Among the Plains Indians,
to move from boy-hood to manhood, a youth
temporarily separated from his community. After
a period of isolation in the wilderness, often
featuring fasting and drug consumption, the
young man would see a vision, which would become
his guardian spirit. He would then return to his
community as an adult. The rites of passage of
contemporary cultures include confirmations,
baptisms, bar and bat mitzvah, and fraternity
hazing. Passage rites involve changes in social
status, such as from boyhood to manhood and from
nonmember to sorority sister. There are also
rites and rituals in our business and corporate
lives. Examples include promotion and retirement
parties. More generally, a rite of passage may
mark any change in place, condition, social
position, or age.
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Development of Belief Systems
Belief systems and practices explain the
unexplainable. This is their over- arching
function-they give us explanations of what
happens, why things happen, why we are on the
earth, where we came from, and what happens after
we die. Although they provide answers to these
questions for individuals, supernatural practices
and beliefs also serve the social group as a
whole, and these functions have been labeled the
social and psychological functions of
supernaturalism. These are useful broad
categories for the analysis of the functions of
beliefs. The social functions take an etic view
of how a society interacts as a whole and with
its external social environment.
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Functions of Supernaturalism Cross-Culturally
C ? cohesive R ? renew, revitalize, regular,
repetition E ? education, ecological E ?
euphoric D ? discipline S ? supportive
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Cohesion and Support
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The cohesive and supportive functions of
supernaturalism apply to both individuals and
groups. People come together for ceremonies and
rituals. Individuals are provided with social,
economic, and political support from other group
members during trying times. Each individual
feels connected to the group, bound together by
common beliefs and actions. Specific symbols
such as a cross or a specific animal form make
it possible to quickly recognize fellow members
of a belief system. Ex Among the Dani of New
Guinea, deceased members are cremated. The Dani
believe that the soul is released in the smoke of
the funeral fire. If a loved one dies, others
offer support by their actions and words
during this ceremony. Comfort is found in this
ritual, and it is supportive for the entire
group because all of the participants are in
effect saying that this is the right ritual to
send the soul to the next place. Moreover,
because it is obvious that all humans will die,
the activities you perform for others will also
be performed for you when you die. The ritual of
the funeral supports and solidifies the values
of the culture. Such rituals are the glue that
holds the system together, providing a cohesive
and mutually supportive base for individual
members of the group.
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Revitalization and Euphoria
The revitalizing function of supernaturalism
involves regular and repetitious rituals and
practices that result in a renewal and
revitalization of the belief system, which
serves to motivate and lift the mood of the
individual participants as well as the entire
group.
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The euphoric function of supernaturalism is that
believers experience a sense of well-being when
they participate in the supernatural
rituals. Individual and group anxiety is
relieved, and a profound sense of joy and
happiness occurs because the appropriate actions
have been taken. Individuals who have
experienced this euphoria describe it in terms
such as elation, ecstasy, bliss, and rapture.
Observe participants at a Christian tent revival
meeting and you will see examples of this
euphoria. You will also witness it during ritual
trance in Bali and hekura chanting among the
Yanomamö.
A Pentecostal Church Service illustrating
euphoria in religion.
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Ecology
Although this aspect is omitted by some
anthropologist, the ecological function of
supernaturalism is clearly one of the functions
of many beliefs systems. The ecological function
involves any belief or rituas that contributes to
the maintenance of the societys environment or
resource management. Ex The Hindu religious
system prohibits killing or eating cattle.
Although cattle are a good source of protein-rich
mean, they are also sources of fertilizer and
fuel, and they provide power for pulling plows.
Anthropologist Marvin Harris has argued that the
taboo against killing cattle is a result of a
long term ecological adaptation (1966).
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Explanation
The explanatory function of supernatural beliefs
serves both the individual and the group.
Encoded within the belief tem and its symbols,
in texts and stories, revealed through prayer,
trance, and divination are explanations that are
culturally sanctioned and approved. Reasons for
life. Reasons for death. Reasons for good times.
Reasons for bad times. It is comforting to have
explanations for questions, large and small.
Humans everywhere desire to understand why bad
things happen, especially when they happen to
good people-members of the culture who play by
all of the rules. Answers given to the why
questions include "It is the will of Allah," "It
is Karma," "It is God's will." These are
explanations that are acceptable to those with
faith. We may not understand the reason for a
specific unfortunate event, but we feel better
because the belief system provides an answer.
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Discipline and Social Control
Cross-cultural research has documented richly
varied images of, ideas about, and expressions
and functions of religion. Religion has meaning
to individuals. It helps them cope with adversity
and tragedy and provides hope that things will
get better. Lives can be transformed through
spiritual healing or rebirth. Sinners can repent
and be saved, or they can go on sinning and be
damned. If the faithful truly internalize a
system of religious rewards and punishments,
their religion becomes a powerful means of
controlling their beliefs, behavior, and what
they teach their children. Many people engage
in religious activity because they believe it
works. Prayers get answered. Faith healers heal.
Sometimes it doesn't take much to convince the
faithful that religious actions are efficacious.
Many American Indian people in southwestern
Oklahoma use faith healers at high monetary
costs, not just because it makes them feel better
about the uncertain, but because they are
convinced that faith healing works. Religion
works through sacred force. It also works by
getting inside people and mobilizing their
emotions their joy, their wrath, their
righteousness. Emile Durkheim (1912/1961), a
prominent French social theorist and scholar of
religion, described the collective
"effervescence" that can develop in religious
contexts. Intense emotion bubbles up. People feel
a deep sense of shared joy, meaning, experience,
communion, belonging, and commitment to their
religion.
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How is social control used in the Muslim
religion? What about historic Christianity?