Cognition, material culture and religious ritual

Abstract

In this paper I argue that material artifacts and other environmental structures that are present during religious rituals both enable and restrict forms of action as well as our capabilities to perform these actions. Moreover, these external prompts have far-reaching consequences on the way the ritual action is established and reproduced within cultures. My main focus is on the cognitive dimension of the problem, however I understand this to be in concert with visible and tangible practice. I argue that religious ritual material artifacts enable a whole range of higher cognitive abilities such as memory, decision-making or computing, and I support this claim by the theory of extended and situated cognition as well as by various specific examples from religious worlds and evidence from experimental research. This paper also contains a brief case study that discusses two religious artifacts (prayer beads and mechanical clicker). I argue that each of them supports a different mix of cognitive abilities and as such they are key elements in religious practice and vital elements constituting the practitioner's competence.

This article is a part of the project Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion (LEVYNA, CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.048) co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic