Re/thinking Religion (Ep. 8: The Art and Science of Ritual Design)

In Re/thinking Religion, a new Integral Stage series, John Vervaeke joins Bruce Alderman and Layman Pascal to explore possible points of contact and confluence between their respective approaches to religion and spirituality. For the eighth episode, after discussing the translative (horizontal) and transformative (vertical) functions of religion, and the importance of (re-)rooting religious imagination and practice in a robust ecological sensibility going forward, they turn to an extended exploration of the likely most salient principles in the design of effective religious ritual. Is the purpose of ritual more to open us to discovery and the enactment of new insight, or to allow us to "conform to a masterpiece," to let ourselves be made in the image of something higher?

John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist, a professor of psychology at Toronto University, and the creator of the popular YouTube series, "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis."

Consciousness & Conscience Conference in Thunder Bay

Layman's "Nonduality in the Network Age" course:

"Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" Playlist:

Voices with Vervaeke: Metamodern Wisdom about Religion with Layman Pascal:

Vervaeke and Hall Begin to Design the Religion That is Not a Religion:

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[CHGLongStone]

Appropriation/owning makes me think of the relationship with tools (physical/design patterns/psychotechnologies)
There's a difference between physical possession and having a relationship of to it ranging from reasonable competence to mastery.

[willgiorno]

thankyou all, very stimulating.
Some thoughts: JV outlines some of the necessary components of a worthy ritual. Perhaps Love Wonder and possibly Awe could be added to the list, it seems to me they might be guides, motivators and key to birthing worthy rituals. I was thinking this after listening to you this morning and then my elderly mother asked me to assemble the nativity scene for Advent/Christmas. I found myself filling with love as i picked up the small child in the manger, similarly I have felt this love for the baby Krishna some years ago Anyway this love feeling seemed to guide the placement of the items in the nativity scene. This interested me. Perhaps love and wonder are keys to resources, creative, unconscious and divine which might be key n fashioning deep ritual.
Also, iwhen Chaitanya (India 16thC) set about to reform religious practice he charged a group of scholars to go to Vrindabana and devise or dream guiding texts adn practices for his renewal. Rupa Goswami, one of the scholars was a theatre man nd Indian Traditional theater excells in representation of the finest gradatins of human feeling andd emotion, a very wide and subtle vocabulary of gestures and attitudes...apparently Rupa was guided by his theatre background in devising the new religious texts and practices. Perhaps there are keys here. Temple worship in this tradition is designed so that each of the senses is engaged andbeautifully satisfied, and that is part of the seduction and effectiveness it seems to me... I was reminded of this when Bruce mentinoed the golden bees....immediately that sense of sensory satisfaction...
sOnce you began talking about those Tibetan practices, the depth and grandeur shone out and I can't help but wonder if it might be more efficient to work at renewal, and reframing, or deframing, de-institutionmalising, , of legacy traditions because they are so rich, deep, complex and interwoven with history, the ancestors, space and time, such that optimal cherry picking from them, no matter how well intentioned, willlikely be leaving utterly fundamental components (perhaps ones hard to see and define) behind.
When I was deeply in the Krishna temple world I would have spontaneous profound insights out of nowhere whilst in the temple, consistent with that tradition, when I was immersed in Buddhism I had the same experience in relation to that tradition...is it possble that the tradition comes with a field of consciousness which is psychically accessable to practitioners, and vital ....how do we re-create that phenomenon if we step away from the homegrround?But then grace knows no boundaries and good intention might be the perfect seed to birth all the necessary newness and oldness. summons the needed consciousness, even out side legacy traditions.
im thinking outloud but thanks again for exciting me.

[ejenkins]

Why don't you talk about the darc vien of knowledge that surrounds alchemy.