Questioning Ritual Efficacy

Abstract

This paper highlights the importance of making explicit claims and statements about efficacy in the study of ritual.It argues against any general account of ritual efficacy, given that all kinds of actions can be ritualized without adding thereby a specific efficacy sui generis.To situate their position in the history of ritual theory Quack and Tbelmann first take stock of some of the most influential positions in this field (Frazer; Durkheim; Tambiah) and stress their commonalities and differences.The authors then put forward their own "interpretive grid", establishing a series of questions as a necessary precondition of any attempt to form a comprehensive statement about ritual efficacy.While the efficiens (that which brings about a change in ritual) and the efficiendum (that which is acted upon in ritual) are important parts of any such statement, other significant categories are the sphere in which a ritual is assumed to take effect, the means by which it is said to be efficacious, and the conditions which it must assertedly meet.Of further importance is the perspectivity of such a statement and the special role of the intentions of the ritual practitioners, given that rituals are understood as a species of the genus action.In a final section, Quack and Tbelmann apply their "interpretive grid" to Catherine Bell's influential monograph Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (1992).They show how Bell's ideas are built on mostly implicit notions of ritual efficacy.Explicating these notions, the authors not only find Bell's thought subtly influenced by Durkheimian ideas (notwithstanding her claims to the contrary).They also develop an understanding of two mutually dependent levels on which Bell finds ritualization to be efficacious.