Ritual

Rituals may be distinguished from rites as having come to encompass the secular forms of symbolic behaviour. Also where the religious rite mainly is an enactment or statement of a relationship between its performer(s) and a putative higher power, secular rituals mainly express aspects of human relationships. Thus social and organizational (specifically, political, bureaucratic and corporate) rituals have been made objects of scientific investigation as well as subjects of art, with treatment ranging from comedic to tragic. In addition, other ritual relationships have been noted, for example in the professional area, as between doctor and patient, and in family life, between parent and child, husband and wife, etc. To the extent that daily life becomes ritualized, conscious human decisions, the very essence of the state of being free, cannot be made and ritual becomes a cage. The tension between ritual and freedom is intrinsic to the history of religions and affects everything from the prerogatives of priesthoods to the patterns of prayer.