Whitney Swaim - Turner (Class Reading 3)

Early in The Ritual Process, Turner discusses how most scholars take a theological approach to explaining and understanding religion. He seeks to move from this and study what he believes to be just as important: the "maintenance and radical transformation of human social and physical structures" (p. 4). Human social and physical structures are revealed through rituals of preliterate societies, and the rest of the book explores this topic. Although rituals may be commonly seen as extremely vital to religion, it is important to note that rituals step outside of scripture in a personal, emotional way. For oral societies, there is not even a scripture to work from, but instead the traditions that have been carried down through generations. Non-literate social structures are intertwined with ritual and religion in a much different way than scripture-oriented ones. Oral peoples are forced to consistently share rituals and religious experiences with one another so that they do not disappear. In contrast, literate societies form their social structures in a much more distant way. Their religion is able to stay "alive" even when they neglect to practice it with one another.