Where did ceremonies come from?

 Yesterday’s note was on Edward B. Tylor’s suggestion about the origins of religion.

Having just read Paul Woodruff’s Reverence, I think this might be a helpful way to look at the topic.

1. Ceremonies or practices are older than the religions we have today.

2. Some ceremonies or practices are attempts to train the emotions, to help a person feel the feelings he or she ought to feel, as Woodruff would say. Another way to put it is that ceremonies are designed to make us more virtuous. It’s possible, for example, to imagine ceremonies to make us feel more courageous, more compassionate, more just.

3. Ceremonies are performed. Performances can be perfunctory — just going through the motions. But they also can involve real feelings, real emotion. Like any other capacity — the capacity to lift weights in a gym or the capacity to run long distances — we can train ourselves to feel the right feelings in the right situations. We can improve a natural capacity.

4. It’s possible, in other words, to imagine a better person, a human being living a better life.