A ritual is composed of a series of actions, attitudes, related, marked or marked by some symbolic value and that generally find a meaning or reason for being in the context of a religion or the tradition of a community..
Although the latter is not always the case, that is, for example, veneration and prayer through the use of candles or, failing that, pictures of the god of some religion, is understood as ritual, but ritual can also be a daily activity or action that, due to its repetition over time, becomes a kind of irreducible habit for a person. For example, if I get up every day at 7:30 in the morning and have a cup of coffee with milk, always accompanied by three toasts with sweet, that is also understood as a ritual: the repetition of the same action and low the same circumstances in time. It is worth noting that some rituals can become true pathological habits when their systematic repetition cannot be abandoned by a person without causing damage to their way of life or quality of life. In children with autism, for example, the need for an absolute system in their organization makes violations of this scheme trigger real crises.
Then, from this it follows that rituals have two reasons for being, on the one hand, the strictly religious one that is generated by some need, such as fertility or the growth of crops, in the case of animist cultures. .. and, on the other hand, the custom that corresponds to the last case mentioned in the previous paragraph.
In primitive societies, rituals had a special reason for being, such as, for example, validating a person's entry into adult life. In some African cultures, it was very common to perform the so-called "initiation rite of the snake", in which of course there was one of these reptiles on the scene, in addition to the people who summoned him and the child (who was about to stop be). In this particular case, a being like the snake was used as an allegory due to the change of skin that occurs in it as a symbol of mutation to want to mean almost the same thing: growth, in the case of this African child who stopped growing. be to become an adult. The same concept holds for other major life changes, such as weddings, motherhood, and even the burial of the dead. To varying degrees, the great religions maintain their rituals, in order to facilitate their performance by the faithful who speak different languages throughout the world.
Strictly speaking, the loss of religious values in many societies has led to the emergence of behaviors that, from a scientific point of view, continue to be ritual, adapted and modified for better "acceptance" in a worldly society. A classic example is the celebrations to celebrate the fifteen years of adolescents, on the occasion of which large parties are held with certain modalities and habits. Likewise, some scholars of human behavior believe that the birth of sports has been an adaptation of the ancient hunting habits of primitive man, surrounded by unbreakable rituals, which have been modified to give rise to the rules of each of the sports collectives that we know today.
Therefore, rituals are part of everyday life, in versions adapted to modern times in large cities, in each of our individual and collective actions.
