Rituals and Ceremonies
While both rituals and ceremonies involve a set of actions without any immediately apparent functional purpose, rituals are private whereas ceremonies have an audience or are otherwise communal activities. (We say “immediately apparent” as it sometimes turns out that a ritual—like Islamic / Jewish hand washing—had a very important purpose that was not fully understood at the time.)
Why do so many cultures lean into long, expensive, time-consuming practices that provide no obvious benefit? Behind all the pomp, rituals do provide a benefit—and a big one. Research has shown that rituals can alleviate grief and improve overall mental health.[[74]](#_ftn74) In addition, rituals performed before a high-pressure task (like singing in public) reduce anxiety and increase confidence. This may help to explain why almost every “old” culture in the world has evolved heavy use of rituals.
As one test reader put it: “Rituals are one example of organically evolved spontaneous order that provides security through constraints on human behavior (things at the right place, at the right time). Rituals probably outsource a lot of anxiety by giving you something certain to do/trust.”
Ceremonies—public rituals—help to transform a culture from a series of beliefs and practices into something that feels like “a thing.” The social proof generated by seeing a bunch of people drop what they’re doing, gather together, and do something that is typically nonproductive (and often not even that fun) is incredibly strong—plus gathering people together to perform something culturally or religiously significant helps to establish shared knowledge and disseminate important social norms.[[75]](#_ftn75)
Ceremonies furthermore play an important role in self-narrative building. They remind individuals of their place within the world and their religious culture, often focusing both on submission to said culture, belonging, and a sense of grandeur.
As we mention in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality, it shocks us how frequently religious ceremonies are reminiscent of BDSM submission displays. Examples range from tefillin (black leather straps some Jewish branches tightly wrap around themselves) to self-flagellation, the use of cilices (aka hair shirts—garments, sometimes belts, made of coarse cloth, animal hair, or metal spikes worn close to the skin for the purpose of being uncomfortable), and the kneeling, hand-clasp-style of prayer some Christian groups use.
While some readers may bristle at our drawing connections between religious rituals and sexual acts, conceptually it makes a lot of sense that religious adherents trying to signal submission to a God and people turned on by the act of submission might co-evolve similar practices. We are also not arguing that there is a sexual nature to religious submission rituals. It’s not religious groups’ fault that our society has strayed so far from hard culture that the primary context many have for submission displays is for sexual gratification. That said, if you are trying to come up with a new unique submission ritual for your culture, BDSM will offer fertile grounds for inspiration.
History time! Why do some people assume a kneeled-with-hands-clasped-above-head position when praying? It turns out that this ritual is derivative of a medieval ceremony in which a feudal supplicant would approach the lord to whom they pledged themself, kneel before him, and clasp their fingers in an interlocking fashion. Thusly approached, the lord would place his hands around the supplicant’s clasped hands to accept their gesture.
This gesture signals submission through vulnerability. By kneeling with their head down, the supplicant exposes their neck, showing the lord he could cut their heads off should he so desire. By allowing their clasped hands and interlocked fingers to be grasped, the supplicant renders themselves helpless (try unclasping your hands with a friend’s hands around them—you can’t).
Over time, the position became more symbolic than functional. Finger interlocking was mostly dropped and many came to assume the position with slightly lower hands. This gesture’s feudal roots, however, remain as an interesting origin story for a common gesture.
As you consider which rituals and ceremonies you might incorporate into the cultivar you intentionally design or reinforce, don’t be afraid to consider your cultural and religious roots. As an example, a friend of ours who hails from an Afro-Latin background of Puerto Rican Spiritualism practices a secular form of divination (if you are not familiar with the practice, Voodoo is the archetypal practice hailing from this kind of cultivar). Specifically, he uses a pair of dice to assist him in daily decision making. When choosing among several options that seem equally optimal, he rolls the dice to gain different meanings. Numbers resulting from the dice throw don’t just reply in the binary but signal gradations of urgency to their suggestion.
This is brilliant for two reasons: First, it cuts down on the mental load imposed by the various decisions a person faces every day for which there is no clear answer by reducing decision fatigue, the phenomenon in which a person gets worse at making decisions through the course of a day depending on how many decisions they have already made (if you want to learn more about this topic, its Wikipedia page is a good jumping off point).[[76]](#_ftn76) Second, it has a 50% chance of giving you the motivation to do something you know you probably should do but really can’t be asked to do. For example, one night we were hosting a party and, being a nerdy introvert like us, this friend was looking for any excuse to not go, so he rolled the dice to try to get out of it. They came up in a way which forced him to and he ended up making a useful business connection that night.
What about the culture we are building? This is an area in which our birth cultures (which despise ritual, seeing it as self-indulgent and inefficacious) are in heavy conflict with logic and the data. We are the types of people who couldn’t even stomach sitting through our own graduation ceremonies. We were even the first people to leave our own wedding (and it was a great wedding!). To attempt to reconcile this deeply-set hatred of ceremony with the data, we strive to construct cultural holidays and practices that serve a specific and high utility purpose while still involving ritual. We will also build in a cultural “review” process into our House’s governance system that allows rituals and ceremonies to be modified or removed when they no longer provide value.