Ritual

A ritual "is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence." Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.

Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sporting events, Halloween parties, veterans parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.

Rituals (album)

Rituals is an album of contemporary classical music by American avant-garde composer John Zorn. The piece takes the form of an opera in five parts and was premiered at the Bayreuth Opera Festival in 1988.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Dan Warburton awarded the album 3½ stars stating "It's a well-crafted work, superbly performed".

Writing for Pitchfork Media, Matthew Murphy stated "for established Zorn enthusiasts, Rituals is replete with moments to confound, enrich and delight, and will surely lure you to its darkened altar for frequent repeat ceremonies".

Track listing

All compositions by John Zorn.

Personnel

Rituals (Fenech-Soler album)

Rituals is the second studio album by British electronic rock band Fenech-Soler. Released on September 25, 2013 by Warner Bros. Records, it is the major label debut of Fenech-Soler, whose previous record was released under the London-based B-Unique Records. The album is a follow-up to the band's 2012/2013 singles "All I Know", "Magnetic" and "Last Forever", all of which feature on the album.

A special edition of the album with a new tracklisting was released a year later on August 25, 2014 as the band's first full-length US release. It features four tracks from their previous self-titled album.

Packaging

The artwork for Rituals features a photograph taken by South African professional photographer Andrew McGibbon. The photograph, entitled Stars Bow, features a horse named Star, lit in Strobe lighting, taking a "bow" in front of the camera. The photograph is part of a series of photographs taken by McGibbon as a collection entitled All the Wild Horses, which was originally released online in April 2012. The artist statement for the work states:

Religion

Religion is a cultural system of behaviors and practices, world views, ethics, and social organisation that relate humanity to an order of existence. About 84% of the world's population is affiliated with one of the five largest religions, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or forms of folk religion.

With the onset of the modernisation of and the scientific revolution in the western world, some aspects of religion have cumulatively been criticized. Though the religiously unaffliated, including atheism and agnosticism, have grown globally, many of the unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs. About 16% of the world's population is religiously unaffiliated.

The study of religion encompasses a wide variety of academic disciplines, including comparative religion and social scientific studies. Theories of religion offer explanations for the origins and workings of religion.

Etymology

Religion

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community", from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods", "obligation, the bond between man and the gods") is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is an interpretation traced to Cicero, connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect", which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius. The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".

Religious (Catholicism)

A religious (using the word as a noun) is, in the terminology of the Catholic Church, what in common language one would call a "monk" or "nun", as opposed to an ordained "priest". A religious may also be a priest if he has undergone ordination, but in general he is not.

More precisely, a religious is a member of a religious institute, someone who belongs to "a society in which members...pronounce public vows...and lead a life of brothers or sisters in common".

Some classes of religious have also been referred to, though less commonly now than in the past, as regulars, because of living in accordance with a religious rule (regula in Latin) such as the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Catholic canon law definition

Religious are members of religious institutes, societies in which the members take public vows and live a fraternal life in common. Thus monks such as Benedictines and Carthusians, nuns such as Carmelites and Poor Clares, and friars such as Dominicans and Franciscans are called religious.

Religious (song)

"Religious" is the second single from American R&B singer R. Kelly's studio album, Untitled (2009). The song was released on October 10, 2009, on R. Kelly's YouTube channel. The single was confirmed in R. Kelly's Twitter.

Chart performance

References