(The Conversation) — In Tana Toraja, a mountainous region of Sulawesi, Indonesia, villagers pour massive resources into funeral rituals: lavish feasts, ornate effigies and prized water buffaloes for ...

According to an entry in the Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine, a religious ritual is any repetitive and patterned behavior that is prescribed by or tied to a religious institution, belief or custom ...

Our lives are redolent with rituals, from personal to promulgated, from silly to serious, from religious to civic and secular. In The Politics of Ritual, Molly Farneth casts a determined eye on the ...

Before every show, Beyoncé listens to the same playlist, performs stretches, and meditates for precisely one hour. This is part of her pre-performance ritual. Rituals help to structure our lives.