There and back again: the ritual animal and social anthropology

In just over two hundred pages, Harvey Whitehouse’s The Ritual Animal manages to accomplish several ambitious tasks, including proposing three ground-breaking claims on the nature of ritual. First, there is the claim that a particular psychology of imitation and affiliation underlies much of ritual acquisition and participation. Second, there is the claim that distinct psychological forms on group identity are key to understanding ritual’s effects on group bonding and self-sacrifice. And third, there is the claim that two evolved forms or “modes” of ritual practice have been crucial in the historical development of social complexity. Moreover, The Ritual Animal uses the example set by the research behind these claims to make important normative arguments about how to conduct a more productive, cooperative science of humanity and how to best leverage the results of this science into real world impact on many of the most pressing issues of our time, including intergroup violence and climate change.