Ritual cover art

Ritual

How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Ritual

By: Dimitris Xygalatas
Narrated by: Neil Gardner
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Ritual is perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most enigmatic, thread in human culture. Seemingly pointless ceremonies pervade every known society: from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades, birthdays to graduations. Before we ever learned to farm, we were gathering in giant stone temples. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery until now.

Today, a fearless new generation of anthropologists is venturing into this shadowy realm. Armed with cutting-edge technology and drawing on discoveries from a wide range of disciplines, they emerge with a powerful new perspective on our place in the world. Pathfinding scientist Dimitris Xygalatas reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together.

©2022 Dimitris Xygalatas (P)2022 Profile Books Ltd Anthropology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Spirituality

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Dawn of Language cover art
Magic in Merlin's Realm cover art
Mythology of the British Isles cover art
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution cover art
The Invention of Tomorrow cover art
Cultish cover art
Extreme cover art
Are You Thinking Clearly? cover art
The Social Brain cover art
How God Works cover art
Why We Believe in God(s) cover art
How to Be Human cover art
The Social Leap cover art
Friends cover art
Drunk cover art
Kindred cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
This is an important communication of the the fact that ritual is a vital aspect of humanity. It needs to be cited by archaeologists, both as a response to the excesses of some of their own who focus too much on “meaning” rather than action, and to reactionary voices that decry the “R-word”, without understanding how basic it is to humanity. The only problem here, as pointed out by others, is the hammy and unnecessary putting on of voices for quotations: badly done and distracting.

Excellent book. Accents are ridiculous

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found this particularly interesting as a lot of the other literature on ritual is purely from a ethnographic or sociological stance. The scientific research into ritual and it’s effects are described in detail and in accessible language.
The narration is generally very good although there are some questionable accents and ‘voices’ at times 🤣

A fascinating view on ritual

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Important exploration of what really matters to humans, feelings more than data send to bed the answer

Important exploration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Educational and amusing. I heard about it on radio 4… glad I followed up with a longer read

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked the experience-based approach and good and comprehensive explanations of the importance of rituals for our well bring and interconnectedness. I highly recommend this book

Excellent book on rituals

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.