Discontinuity in Rituals

Stephen HEADLEY*

Rector: Parish of St. Stephen the Protomartyr & St. Herman of Auxerre, Vézelay, France

Abstract:

In addressing the issue of discontinuity in ritual and its subsequent innovations, we must address the question of the role of memory. It is memory that allows rituals to be repetitive? If culture filters what is remembered, is memory always social, approving, accommodating, and reconstructing? A partial distributive memory found in members of the same society can be reassembled on ritual occasions, just as a structural amnesia can lead to discarding those rituals which a society no longer deems pertinent. Semantic or individually de-contextualised memory is different from an individual’s episodic recollections that concern his or her own biography. This last distinction is mobilised in healing rituals that concern one’s somatic well-being and psychological biography.

Keywords:

Memory, repetition, re-contextualization, prayer, invocations, intentionality

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