The Problem of Ritual Efficacy (review)

This brief but rich collection of nine essays derives from a 2007 conference at the University of Heidelberg. It includes work from the disciplines and areas of anthropology, psychology, medicine and biotechnology, assyriology, early Christianity, and medieval studies. The contributions are diverse, but slightly over half cite Bourdieu at some point, and two engage strongly with Catherine Bell’s work. The book’s primary audience is thus likely to be found in the loose collective of domains comprising the area of ritual studies, though many of the pieces will also be valuable individually to readers in more specialized areas of history, psychology and anthropology.

Overall, the book seems unusually cogent for a conference volume. It is true that some essays have more theoretical reach than others; contributors define ritual very differently and address the topic of ritual effectiveness with different degrees of interest and engagement. And yet the collection as a whole feels revealing in a way that is more than the sum of its parts. Strong introductory and concluding essays help pull together the diverse work of the contributors, and cross-referencing between essays adds further connective tissue. Curiously, but perhaps predictably (given that the aim of the volume was to reveal and deconstruct problems undergirding the idea of “ritual efficacy”), often the essays that seemed most problematic on a first reading also felt in some ways the most illuminating as I reconsidered them for this review.

But what exactly is the problem of ritual efficacy? From the vantage of usage, it hinges on the fact that the term “ritual” tends to be applied to actions that appear not to be directly or pragmatically related to the effects they aim to produce. The actions easiest to identify as “rituals” may be directed toward an effect that they seem to have no hope of achieving (for example, invisibility); or that is beyond demonstration (for example, salvation); or they may be pointed at effects that could also occur without their help (rain, love, healing, etc.). Distinctions between “ritual actions” and other kinds of actions become uneasy as we attempt to construe what constitutes a “ritual” close to home. For example, swallowing an aspirin to ease a headache is normally unlikely to be construed as a ritual act, whereas putting a bible under the pillow or a homeopathic dose under the tongue with the same intent could (depending on the views and proclivities of agent and observer) be construed as ritual acts. The perspective dependency of the term “ritual” gives it a social complexity that this book seeks to examine and deconstruct.

According to William Sax, whose introductory essay usefully lays out the scope of the problem, “ ‘ritual’ is our (post enlightenment) term, and it reflects our problem—how to classify a certain set of apparently nonrational acts. Or perhaps I should say ‘apparently ineffective acts,’ for . . . the popular understanding of ritual is not so much that it is nonrational but rather that it is ineffective” (p. 4). But the popular view, Sax goes on to assert, is clearly wrong, for “we know that shamanic rituals heal, legal rituals ratify, political rituals unify, and religious rituals sanctify” (p. 7). Sax’s overview of recent theoretical writings important to the formation of ritual theory (including approaches of Lukes, Goody, Tambiah, Bourdieu, Bell, and Asad) provides a solid sense of what is at stake in the question. Indeed, this introductory essay is worth the price of the volume, both because of its compact coverage of the literature relevant to the area and its sensitive treatment of the problems engaged by the other essays.

The second contribution, by Claus Ambos, “Ritual Healing and the Investiture of the Babylonian King,” draws on rituals recorded on cuneiform tablets in ancient Mesopotamia to show how intimately rituals for healing the king’s body connected to the body politic, to the legality and efficacy of his...