Extreme Rituals as Social Technologies

Abstract

We often think of pain as intrinsically bad, and the avoidance of pain is a fundamental evolutionary drive of all species. How can we then explain widespread cultural practices like certain rituals that involve the voluntary infliction of physical pain? In this paper, we argue that inflicting and experiencing pain in a ritual setting may serve important psychological and social functions. By providing psychological relief and leading to stronger identification with the group, such practices may result in a positive feedback loop, which serves both to increase the social cohesion of the community and the continuation of the ritual practices themselves. We argue that although the selective advantage of participation lies at the individual level, the benefits of those practices de facto extend to the group level, thereby allowing extreme rituals to function as effective social technologies.

Blocking mu-opioid receptors inhibits social bonding in rituals

“…Rituals often contain many components that are known to release muopioids, such as synchronized movement [9], music making [10,11] and/or pain [8,12,13]. These components are also known to foster social bonding [14][15][16][17].…”

Altered States of Consciousness during an Extreme Ritual

“…Specifically, based on Fischer et al’s [ 2 ] finding that fire-walkers’ happiness increased from before to after the fire-walking, we expected an increase in positive affect, a decrease in negative affect, and a decrease in self-reported stress from before to after the event. Indeed, theorists propose that pain-related rituals can paradoxically help individuals cope with life stressors or to achieve some personal goal like cleansing [ 10 , 31 ]. However, the way an individual emotionally responds to a ritual has been shown to be different depending on the role they assume [ 2 , 32 ].…”

“…We additionally predicted that feelings of intimacy would increase for all Dance participants for two reasons: a) in his explication of transient hypofrontality, Dietrich discusses how individuals experiencing an altered state (like meditation or hypnosis) may report changes in their sense of self [ 16 ] and thus it seemed plausible that people would report a greater connection with others, and b) rituals have been theorized to promote social bonds [ 8 , 31 ]. Furthermore, others have posited that collective rituals increase social cohesion through group identification and a blurring of the boundary between self and other [ 33 ].…”

Financial alchemists and financial shamans

“…In addition to "curing" individuals who believe in shamans, the ritualistic mutilations performed by tâng-ki (Chan 2009) activate empathy reactions and function as social signals of group commitment, which increase social bonding of individuals attending the ritual (cf. Fischer & Xygalatas 2014;Xygalatas et al 2013). At the very least, those suffering from mental illnesses, along with the communities surrounding them, appear to perceive benefits of shamanistic practices as Singh noted (sect.…”