Using a comparative analysis of Navajo healing ceremonials, acupuncture and biomedical treatment, this essay examines placebo studies and ritual theory as mutually interpenetrating disciplines. Healing rituals create a receptive person susceptible to the influences of authoritative culturally sanctioned 'powers'. The healer provides the sufferer with imaginative, emotional, sensory, moral and a...

1. Artifacts: These are visible components of culture, they are easy to formulate, have some physical shape, yet its perception varies from one individual to another. 1. Rituals and ceremonies: New hire trainings, new hire welcome lunches, annual corporate conferences, awards, offsite meetings and trainings are few examples of most common rituals and ceremonies. 2. Symbols & Slogans: These are ...

In his article, "Popular Culture and the Rituals of American Football," Mark Axelrod reflects on meanings of cultural practice in American popular culture. Before globalization -driven by economics -became a fact of life with profound implications, there were myths and rituals that provided a kind of insulation from the mysteries of life. These practices were ritualized by "primitive" men and w...

1. Artifacts: These are visible components of culture, they are easy to formulate, have some physical shape, yet its perception varies from one individual to another. 1. Rituals and ceremonies: New hire trainings, new hire welcome lunches, annual corporate conferences, awards, offsite meetings and trainings are few examples of most common rituals and ceremonies. 2. Symbols & Slogans: These are ...

Throughout most periods of ancient Near Eastem history, religious rituals frequently played an important role in the resolution of legal disputes that were brought to trial. It appears that judges would sometimes make use of them arbitrarily but often when they felt the available evidence was insufficient or at least too ambiguous to render a decisive verdict. The rituals—or cultic procedures, ...

Did Meditating make us Human? Matt J. Rossano Abstract This paper proposes that campfire rituals of focused attention created Baldwiniantype selection pressure for enhanced working memory capacity among our Homo sapiens ancestors. This model is grounded in five propositions including: that the emergence of symbolism occurred late in the archaeological record, that this emergence was caused by a...

There is constant interest in possible relations between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa (AN). The comorbidity rate for OCD and AN is reported to be between 10% and even 40%. There is also an increased incidence of prior AN in OCD patients and high number of anorectic patients with obsessional premorbid personality. Similarities between AN...