In my experiences there has always been (at minimum) a surface layer of magical nonsense, but it has always seemed that the real point was just bonding with other individuals; sharing the aggrandized experience with them for the sake of feeling like you’re part of the same thing.
That sort of thing was (I imagine) a relatively ubiquitous feature of ancestral tribes, and I suspect that that led to our neural pathways evolving in such a way that sharing in ritualized experiences is a vital part of how we come to feel like we are truly a part of the group/tribe/etc.
And magical nonsense can be made in such a way that it parallels the situation of anything from one person to the whole group in order to… gently trick a person into thinking about something you think they really ought to think about without overtly putting them on the spot. Also, if you’re the one making up the magical nonsense, and you’re completely misguided about what another person’s situation is, more abstract ways of communicating essentially leave infinite degrees of freedom in terms of reasonable-seeming-interpretations. This way, you could think you’re giving one specific message to the whole group, when really everyone walks away with a completely different significant-feeling message in their head, and yours was actually far less relevant than you thought it was.
And then everyone feels refreshed and closer to the others involved after sharing in the experience.
Of course, people really, really, REALLY, should be intelligent rationalists on their own if they’re going to get into that sort of behavior, since it is arguably a recipe for a cult.
I understand the point, but I’m not sure what you’re saying it should be about?
Mailing list will probably start early next week.
Sorry about the very lengthy delay in response.
In my experiences there has always been (at minimum) a surface layer of magical nonsense, but it has always seemed that the real point was just bonding with other individuals; sharing the aggrandized experience with them for the sake of feeling like you’re part of the same thing.
That sort of thing was (I imagine) a relatively ubiquitous feature of ancestral tribes, and I suspect that that led to our neural pathways evolving in such a way that sharing in ritualized experiences is a vital part of how we come to feel like we are truly a part of the group/tribe/etc.
And magical nonsense can be made in such a way that it parallels the situation of anything from one person to the whole group in order to… gently trick a person into thinking about something you think they really ought to think about without overtly putting them on the spot. Also, if you’re the one making up the magical nonsense, and you’re completely misguided about what another person’s situation is, more abstract ways of communicating essentially leave infinite degrees of freedom in terms of reasonable-seeming-interpretations. This way, you could think you’re giving one specific message to the whole group, when really everyone walks away with a completely different significant-feeling message in their head, and yours was actually far less relevant than you thought it was.
And then everyone feels refreshed and closer to the others involved after sharing in the experience.
Of course, people really, really, REALLY, should be intelligent rationalists on their own if they’re going to get into that sort of behavior, since it is arguably a recipe for a cult.