List of Figures

Preface

Chapter One:
Cognitive Constraints on Religious Ritual Form:
A Theory of Participants’ Competence with Religious Ritual Systems

1. Paradoxes, Puzzles, and Explanatory Problems
2. A Theory of Religious Ritual Competence
3. A Cognitive Account of Various Properties of Religious Rituals
4. Conclusion

Chapter Two:
Ritual and Memory: Frequency and Flashbulbs

1. The Cognitive Foundations of Cultural Transmission
2. Frequency Effects and Memory for Cultural Materials: Psychological Findings
3. Flashbulb Memory and Enhanced Recall for Actions
4. Social Constraints on the Generation of Cultural Representations
5. Memory for Ritual among the Baktaman

Chapter Three:
Two Hypotheses Concerning Religious Ritual and Emotional Stimulation

1. Whitehouse’s Ethnography
2. Sensory Pageantry, Codification, and The Ritual Frequency Hypothesis
3. Connecting Sensory Pageantry and Emotional Arousal with Religious Ritual Form

Chapter Four:
Assessing the Two Hypotheses

1. Chapter Overview
2. Performance Frequencies, Performance Rates, and Theoretical Depth
3. Empirical Evidence: Problems of Stability and Uniformity in the Modes of Religiosity
4. Empirical Evidence: Infrequently Performed, Even-Numbered, Special Patient Rituals
5. On the Possibility of Frequently Performed, Odd-Numbered, Special Agent Rituals
6. Empirical Evidence: Frequently Performed, Odd-Numbered, Special Agent Rituals

Chapter Five:
General Profiles of Religious Ritual Systems: The Emerging
Cognitive Science of Religion

1. Chapter Overview
2. Trends in Ritual Innovation
3. One Sort of Unbalanced Religious Ritual System
4. Balanced Religious Ritual Systems

References