Talk:Myth and ritual

Original research?
Phatius McBluff, Much of this article appears to be original research, I see you are new and have had similar issues with Eternal return (Eliade), and are currently working on that. Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can assist in any way. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm ... I realize that much of the material I initially put in Eternal return (Eliade) was original research under the Wikipedia definition (I got that cleared up), but I was careful not to do the same thing here. If you could pinpoint exactly where I'm going wrong, I would appreciate it. My interest in making both articles was simply to fill in a couple of glaring gaps in the Wikipedia literature. If other people want to take over from here and radically improve these two articles, I'm OK with that. --Phatius McBluff 11:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * On second examination, it looks like its mostly your formatting, which makes the article look less well referenced, and some phrasing in the intro. I have converted some of the refs, perhaps you can do the two remaining? KillerChihuahua?!? 11:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This article is going nowhere. I'm realizing that it should have been written by someone far more knowledgeable than me, or not written at all. Although I still think there should be a discussion of this topic somewhere on Wikipedia, and although what I put down is true as far as it goes, the addition of the "might contain independent research" notice means that many intelligent readers probably won't take the article seriously anyway (especially since it's so short). I think we should just remove it.--Phatius McBluff 10:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * it has potential. First of all, it should be made a main article of a section at ritual and mythology each. And then we need some basic wisdom from C. G. Jung, Walter Burkert and similar coryphæi. Religion and mythology is largely overlapping with this one I suppose, since religion is really about equal to myth+ritual, maybe we can merge it there. dab (𒁳) 18:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Transfer material from this article to Ritual?
In response to dab's comment, I'm thinking it might be better to just transfer material from this article to Ritual. I looked at Religion and mythology; but, strangely enough, it didn't look like material from this article would fit into Religion and mythology as well as it would fit into Ritual.--Phatius McBluff 20:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I fixed things
To those who saw this article as "original research": As far as I can tell, the problem wasn't that I went too far in this article; it was that I didn't go far enough. I only mentioned a few scholars, and then compared/contrasted them with some rather artificial-sounding commentary, thus making the article read more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. To address this problem, I recently added information on more scholars, along with more citations. I think I've fixed things to everyone's satisfaction, so I removed the "original research" notice. --Phatius McBluff 23:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * congratulations for the progress made. You have certainly established the article's topic as valid. I'd agree you resolved the "OR" accusation satisfactorily, although we may now be relying rather slavishly on a single summary (Segal). Also, I am still unsure how to accommodate this article with the material of religion and mythology. A "religion" is basically a conglomerate of myth, ritual and faith. Of these, myth and ritual are much more closely connected, and their interdependence should be treated here, while the religion and myth article should focus on how (myth+ritual) relates to (faith+spirituality). Anyway, thanks for your efforts on this! dab (𒁳) 07:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Myth and Ritual School
In light of what I've read recently, and put on the "overview" section, I think that maybe this article should be renamed the "Myth and Ritual School". This is the name most commonly used to aggregate the positions of scholars discussed in the article. This topic is especially a part of the broader subject of mythology; the mythology article should include a summary of it, and be more "scholar-oriented" than the current form.--BMF81 09:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be totally opposed to such a name change ... However, please note that not all the scholars mentioned in this article (particularly those mentioned in the "Myth and ritual as non-coextensive" section) would call themselves members of the myth and ritual school. Perhaps we could just have "myth and ritual school" (as well as "myth-ritual school" and "myth-ritualist school") redirect to this article, while leaving its name as "myth and ritual". I agree with you about the current mythology article, and I've been thinking about adding more info on scholars sometime. --Phatius McBluff 19:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I would think that articles on special numbers belong with mythology and ritual, for example all stories about doing things 3 times, 7 times, 100 years, etc. are ritual within mythologies. Just wondering because was working on "triple deities". Goldenrowley 05:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Goldenrowley, I have to disagree. Just because an element occurs a number of times in a myth, that doesn't make the element a "ritual". For instance, the Russian fairy-tale Marya Morevna contains lots of sets of 3. It's hardly useful to call this story "ritual" because it contains sets of 3 in its plot.


 * Please note that my objection is about usefulness, not legitimacy. I certainly see the sense in which doing something 3 times in the same myth is a "ritual within a myth"; however, I don't see how that use of the word "ritual" can be usefully incorporated into articles about ritual. For instance, this article discusses the link between ritual (here implicitly defined as ceremony) and myth. How do mythical sets of 3 or 7 relate to this link? I can't see how — unless some particular mythical triplet reflects an ancient three-part ceremony that gave rise to the myth, or something like that.


 * Maybe I'm just missing something. If I haven't understood your proposal, please let me know. --Phatius McBluff 06:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * However, if a myth contains an account of an action that's known to be a real-life ceremony outside of that myth, then that myth certainly belongs in a discussion of ritual. For instance, a Greek myth describing a sacrifice to the gods certainly belongs in an article about ritual. --Phatius McBluff 06:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That's fine ... this page is about what the theory was about. I can see I'd be getting into "original research" unless I can locate sources that discuss this. Goldenrowley 15:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

"Myth and ritual school" is currently a redirect to Cambridge Ritualists. Is that correct? Should that article be merged with this one? -- Beland (talk) 01:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Assuming that "myth and ritual school" is an "official" name of for that group (the "Cambridge Ritualists"), then I suppose that the articles should not be merged. I'm certainly aware that some scholars mentioned in this article would not consider themselves members of a "myth and ritual school", regardless of how that expression is defined. However, we might need to add some info to this article in light of the Cambridge Ritualists article. Does that make sense? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 23:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Wait, wait. There's a problem. According to the myth and ritual article as it currently stands, the expression "myth and ritual school" applies to a rather broad range of like-minded scholars including James Frazer and the like. However, according to the article on the Cambridge Ritualists, Frazer and some of the other scholars mentioned here was an influence, not necessarily a member, of the Cambridge Ritualists. So either one article is wrong or "myth and ritual school" should not redirect to Cambridge Ritualists. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 23:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The Cambridge ritualists were early humanists that shared this idea before it was latter adapted by many many many scholars. I don't know how informative it is to call this group of people a "school" though as many of the never knew of each other and lived in eras etc. However, what is probably uncontestable is the idea that many theories hold myth and ritual as sort of central parts of traditional and religious societies. I have no sources for this but I am willing to believe that there are textbooks out there that discuss this Tpylkkö (talk) 10:59, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Lex orandi, lex credendi
The article should consider mentioning the liturgical and doctrinal concept of lex orandi, lex credendi. It refers to the relationship between worship and belief, and is an ancient Christian principle which provided a measure for developing the ancient Christian creeds. ADM (talk) 00:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Some claims a bit too "heavy"?
This article begins by proclaiming that myth and ritual are central parts of traditional societies. However, I believe that even though this idea is common in social sciences, there are many publications in which the idea has not been accepted (e.g Rappaport 1999, but there are others as well). So, would it be more correct to start of by saying this? Tpylkkö (talk) 11:02, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Stanley Edgar Hyman - which was the ritual?
which was the ritual in the fiji-example quoted Stanley Edgar Hyman writes about?? the reader just has the fact that there is only a small area of fertile land which indeed begs for an explanation in the mind of 'early' (if the term is allowed...) people... HilmarHansWerner (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)