If a ritual helps to solve a problem — if it is good — it gets repeated and another seemingly irrational tradition is born. But is a ritual merely an attempt to control some crisis? Or, rather, is it an expression of something much more meaningful?
When asked by the anthropologist Victor Turner to reveal the meanings of their symbols and rituals, different members of the Ndembu tribe gave different answers. None of them knew the “right” answer because there was no right answer, just as there is no right answer to “the meaning of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”
“Ritual,” wrote Susanne K. Langer, “is a symbolic transformation of experiences that no other medium can adequately express.”