Senses Cognition and Ritual Experience in The Roman World Ancient Religion and Cognition Blanka Misic All Chapter

Senses, Cognition, and Ritual
Experience in the Roman World

(Ancient Religion and Cognition)
Blanka Misic
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/senses-cognition-and-ritual-experience-in-the-roman-
world-ancient-religion-and-cognition-blanka-misic/
SENSES, C OGNITION, AND RITUAL EXPERIENCE
IN THE ROMAN WORLD
How do the senses shape the way we perceive, understand, and

remember ritual experiences? This book applies cognitive and sensory
approaches to Roman rituals, reconnecting readers with religious
experiences as members of an embodied audience. These approaches
allow us to move beyond the literate elites to examine broader
audiences of diverse individuals, who experienced rituals as partici-
pants and/or performers. Case studies of ritual experiences from
a variety of places, spaces, and contexts across the Roman world,
including polytheistic and Christian rituals, state rituals, private
rituals, performances, and processions, demonstrate the dynamic
and broad-scale application that cognitive approaches offer for
ancient religion, paving the way for future interdisciplinary engage-
ment. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also
be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for
details.
blanka misic is Instructor in Ancient Civilizations at Champlain

College Lennoxville. She researches and publishes on cognitive and
sensory aspects of religious rituals and was recently awarded the
HORIZON EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship
at Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Universität Wien.
abigail graham is Research Fellow at the Institute of Classical
Studies at the University of London and an honorary research fellow
at the British School Rome, where she is the founder and coordinator
of their Postgraduate Course in Roman Epigraphy. She researches
and publishes on cognition, epigraphy, and monumentality in the
urban landscape.
Published online by Cambridge University Press

ANCIENT RELIGION AND COGNITION
Series Editors
Esther Eidinow, University of Bristol
Thomas Harrison, University of St Andrews
This series seeks to take advantage of a critical moment in the development of the
study of ancient religion. This is one in which previous models (especially the sharp
oppositions frequently drawn between ritual and belief, or between the social and
the individual) are increasingly being questioned, and in which scholars of the
ancient world are more and more drawing on cognitive approaches in the search
for new paradigms. The ‘cognitive science of religion’ draws on insights developed in
a wide range of fields: cognitive and evolutionary psychology, social anthropology,
and neurobiology, amongst others. In essence, however, it seeks to understand
religious experience as rooted in the ordinary cognitive capacities of the human
brain. The series covers not only Greek and Roman religion but a range of ancient
cultures from the Mediterranean and Near East, including Greece, Rome, Egypt,
Babylonia, Persia, and Phoenicia, as well as cultures from Iron Age Europe. It will
also explore the implications for the study of these cultures of a range of different
cognitive approaches to religion and will include work by scholars from a wide range
of disciplines in anthropology, the study of religion, evolutionary psychology, and
neuroscience in addition to that by historians and archaeologists of the ancient
world.
Titles in the series:
Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience
Esther Eidinow, Armin W. Geertz, and John North

SENSES, COGNITION,
AND RITUAL EXPERIENCE
IN THE ROMAN WORLD
edited by
BLANKA MISIC
Champlain College Lennoxville
ABIGAIL GRAHAM
Institute of Classical Studies

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge cb2 8ea, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467
Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment,

a department of the University of Cambridge.
We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009355544
doi: 10.1017/9781009355513
© Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2024
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions
of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take
place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
First published 2024
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
A Cataloging-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
isbn 978-1-009-35554-4 Hardback
Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence
or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this
publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will
remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents
List of Figures page vi

List of Contributors viii
Acknowledgements x
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction: Experiencing Rituals 1

Abigail Graham and Blanka Misic
1 Remembering the Rites: Religious Learning Network Model and
Transmission of Religious Rituals in the Worship of Nutrices
Augustae (Poetovio, Pannonia Superior) 27
Blanka Misic
2 The Haptic Production of Religious Knowledge among the
Vestal Virgins: A Hands-On Approach to Roman Ritual 59
Emma-Jayne Graham
3 Haptic Colour: Experiential Viewing in Graeco-Roman Sacred
Spaces 89
Vicky Jewell
4 Nobody Is Gonna Rain on My Parade: Experiencing Salutaris’s
Procession As a Ritual Event 118
Abigail Graham
5 Objects and Ritual in Egeria’s Fourth-Century Pilgrimage: The
Props of My Faith 167
Steven Muir
Conclusion: (Re)Creating Ritual Experiences 200
Blanka Misic and Abigail Graham
Index 225

Figures
1.1 Religious Learning Network theoretical model: Part 1 page 30

1.2 Religious Learning Network theoretical model: Part 2 35
1.3 Nutrices Augustae relief (PMPO, RL 978), held in Pokrajinski 38
muzej Ptuj Ormož, photo Boris Farič (reproduced with
permission from the museum)
1.4 Nutrices Augustae relief (PMPO, RL 82), held in Pokrajinski 39
muzej Ptuj Ormož, photo Boris Farič (reproduced with
permission from the museum)
2.1 Detail of the small procession frieze of the Ara Pacis Augustae 60
showing six Vestal Virgins carrying objects
2.2 Restored fragments of the entablature frieze of the Temple of 63
Vesta in the Forum Romanum at Rome (late second
century CE)
2.3 Bronze simpulum/simpuvium (ladle), late first–early second 72
century CE
2.4 Detail of the small procession frieze of the Ara Pacis showing 74
the first three Vestals, preceded by two male figures
2.5 Detail of an altar from the Vicus Sandalarius, Rome (2 BCE) 75
2.6 Detail from the north frieze of the Ara Pacis showing a cult 76
attendant for the Septemviri epulones grasping a decorated
acerra in his left hand
2.7 Detail of the eastern passageway frieze of the Arch of the 79
Argentarii (Rome), depicting instruments used in the cult
2.8 Detail of the small procession frieze of the Ara Pacis showing 82
the final three Vestals, followed by a male figure
3.1 Relief of Mithras with a tauroctony from beneath the church 102
of Santo Stefano Rotondo Inv. no. 2005837
3.2 Tauroctony Fresco from the rear wall of the Mithraeum at the 103
Palazzo Barberini, Rome
4.1 Map of Ephesus depicting the Processional Route 128
vi

List of Figures vii
4.2 Photograph of Salutaris’s Foundation 131
4.3 Photograph of the Salutaris Inscription: Column One: lines 133
1–9
4.4 Photograph of the Salutaris Inscription: Column Six: lines 135
528–536
4.5 Photograph of the Kuretes Street from the Embolos 143
4.6 Statue base for the Teians. I.Eph 29 154
4.7 Diagram of theatre at Ephesus with added arrows indicating 155
possible base locations and the site of Salutaris’s foundation
on the south parodos
5.1 Diagram of Performance Theory 171
5.2 Reconstruction of the Constantinian Church of the Holy 177
Sepulchre
5.3 Reconstruction of Egeria’s procession experience 179
5.4 Comparison of Cyril and Egeria’s ritual experience 183
5.5 Reconstruction of the Network of Ritual Objects 193

Contributors
abigail graham has been a lecturer and taught a range of material

culture and history courses at the University of Warwick (2006–19)
and subsequently joined the Institute for Classical Studies in London
as Research Fellow in 2019. She specializes in monumentality and
epigraphy in Roman Asia Minor with a focus on the presentation of
writing and ‘experiencing’ epigraphy in the urban context. She has
published on new approaches and methodologies for monumental
writing (American Journal of Archaeology (2013 and 2021), La Sapienza,
2017, and Brill, 2019) including bilingualism, damnatio memoriae, re-
carving, and ‘copies’ of monuments. She also is the author of The
Romans: An Introduction (3rd and 4th editions: Routledge, 2014 and
2020). She is the founder and coordinator of the Postgraduate Course in
Roman Epigraphy at the British School at Rome, where she is also
a Research Fellow.
emma-jayne graham is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at The
Open University. Her research focuses on aspects of material religion,
the archaeology of Roman Italy, mortuary practices, and ancient dis-
ability. Recent publications include Reassembling Religion in Roman Italy
(Routledge, 2021) and Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives
Past, Present and Future (Routledge 2017, co-edited with Jane Draycott).
She is co-founder of TheVotivesProject.org and Deputy Director of the
Baron Thyssen Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion at The
Open University.
vicky jewell earned her PhD at the University of Warwick. Her thesis
focused on colour in the ancient Greek world, exploring both the ways
in which the Greek understanding of colour differed from our own and
the implications that can have for the examination of text and art filled
with polychromy. Her research interests include colour cognition across
cultures and the synaesthetic experience of the ancient world as a whole.
viii

List of Contributors ix
blanka misic is Instructor in the Department of Ancient Civilizations at
Champlain College Lennoxville. Her research focus is on religious cults
in Roman Pannoniae from cognitive and sensory theoretical perspec-
tives. She has published on cognitive approaches to religious rituals
(Oxbow, 2015 and Archaeopress, 2022) and funerary commemoration
(Steiner Verlag, 2019). She was recently awarded the HORIZON EU
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at Institut für
Klassische Archäologie, Universität Wien.
steven muir is Professor of Religious Studies at Concordia University of
Edmonton. He researches and publishes in New Testament and early
Christian studies, and classics. His academic interests include ritual
studies, inter-group relations, pilgrimage and sacred space, and health
and healing in the ancient world. He is a co-editor of Early Christian
Ritual Life (Routledge, 2017).

Acknowledgements
We started working on this volume in early 2020, shortly after the world came
to an abrupt halt. We owe our gratitude first and foremost to our families who
supported (and endured) our research endeavours through numerous lock-
downs and a global pandemic. This work is dedicated to them.
There are many people who contributed to this volume in a number of
ways. The past and present editors of the Ancient Religion and Cognition
series, Esther Eidinow and Tom Harrison, supported us throughout the
publication process – we could not have asked for more helpful, dedicated,
and kind individuals. Many thanks to Michael Sharp and Katie Idle at
Cambridge University Press who have been very generous and supportive
along the way, and to our anonymous peer reviewers who provided
invaluable feedback. We are deeply grateful to Thorsten Opper and the
team at the British Museum, Carlotta Caruso and the Museo Nazionale
Romano Baths of Diocletian museum, and Mojca Vomer Gojkovič and
the Pokrajinski muzej Ptuj-Ormož, who allowed excellent access to mater-
ials in their collections.
Our gratitude is also extended to many scholars who we may not have
met in person, but who have influenced our own scholarship and inspired
this work, notably Armin W. Geertz, Dimitris Xygalatas, Harvey
Whitehouse, Jörg Rüpke, Angelos Chaniotis, and Douglas Cairns.
The research in this volume was originally presented as part of a TRAC
panel in 2019, and we appreciated the opportunity to present to such an
innovative and engaged audience. The present chapters have evolved signifi-
cantly based on suggestions and discussions between contributors that took
place both during and after this panel. These discussions played a key role in
shaping the content of this volume and illustrating the strengths of dynamic
and diverse approaches to rituals and lived experiences. We are greatly
indebted to the contributors of this volume without whose kindness,
patience, and stellar scholarship this volume would not be possible.
Last but not least, we thank you, dear reader.
x

Abbreviations
AE L’Année Épigraphique, published

in Revue Archéologique and separately
(1888–)
AIJ Antike Inschriften aus Jugoslavien
(1938)
ANFThe Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the
Fathers Down to A.D. 325, 10 Vols.
Arist. [Mund.] Pseudo Aristotle De Mundo
Caes. BGall. Caesar Bellum Gallicum
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, series Latina
(1953–)
Cic. Att. Cicero (Marcus Tullius) Epistulae ad
Atticum
Cic. Brut. Cicero (Marcus Tullius) Brutus or De
Claris Oratoribus
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum (1863–)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Myst. Cat. Mystagogic Catecheses
Dio Cass. Dio Cassius
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. Dionysius Halicarnassensis
Antiquitates Romanae
Emped. Frag. Empedocles Fragmenta
Gell. NA Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae
Hes. Theog. Hesiod, Theogonia.
Hom. Hom. Hymn Dem. Homer Homeric Hymn to Demeter
Hom. Hom Hymn Hel. Homer Homeric Hymn to Helios
Hom. Hom Hymn Her. Homer Homeric Hymn to Hermes
Hom. Il. Homer Iliad
Hom. Od. Homer Odyssey
xi

xii List of Abbreviations
I.Eph. H. Wankel, R. Merkelbach et al., Die
Inschriften von Ephesos, I-VIII (Bonn
1979–84)
Joseph. AJ Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae
Juv. Juvenal
Livy, Epit. Livy Epitomae
Livy, Per. Livy Periochae
Luc. De mort. Peregr. Lucan De morte Peregrini
Mart. Ep. Martial Epigrams
Pind. Pae. Pindar (ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler,
1987–88) Paeanes
Pl. Ti. Plato Timaeus
Plaut. Truc. Plautus Truculentus
Plin. HN Pliny (the Elder) Naturalis historia
Plut. De def. or. Plutarch De defectu oraculorum
Procop. Bell. Pers. Procopius Bella Gothica, Persica,
Vandalica
Soph. Aj. Sophocles Ajax
Soph. Trach. Sophocles Trachiniae
Strab. Strabo
Tac. Ann. Tacitus Annales
Theophr. Sens. Theophrastus De sensibus
Varro, Ling. Varro, De lingua Latina
Vitr. De arch. Vitruvius De architectura
Xen Ephes Xenophon of Ephesus

introduction
Experiencing Rituals
Abigail Graham and Blanka Misic
Seeing Is Believing?
Pluris est oculatus testis unus, quam auriti decem.
Qui audiunt, audita dicunt: qui vident, plane sciunt.
One eyewitness weighs more than ten hearsays.
Seeing is believing, all the world over.
Plautus, Truc. Act II. Sc. 6 line 8.
The ways in which we engage with rituals are tied inextricably to cognitive
experiences: sound, sight, scent, taste, touch, and space. It is through these
mechanisms that an understanding and a memory of a ritual experience are
created and codified. But can we trust our senses or the cognitive process
that encodes experiences as memories? Plautus’s evaluation assumes that an
eyewitness account of an event is more valuable than hearsay; while this
may be true, it does not mean that one person’s version of events is
a reliable or definitive account. When assessing the ancient world, eyewit-
ness accounts seldom survive (one would be lucky to have ten hearsays) and
surviving sources must be approached with caution. Rituals are not only
scripted events but performed experiences, designed to ensnare the senses
of performers and participants alike. How these senses are engaged impacts
the perception and memory of an event. To understand how ritual mem-
ories were made, therefore, one must assess the sensory engagement and
cognitive processes through which ritual memories were created and codi-
fied; namely the experience of rituals.
Through engagement with different senses and cognitive processes,
rituals are transformed from a series of scripted actions in a specific place
to an interactive experience, whose outcome depends on several different
factors: the performance, the audience, the context, and the atmosphere of
the ritual event. While these factors often serve to strengthen the emotive
context and meaning of a ritual, they can also act as variables, resulting in
a plurality of different outcomes for a ritual event: some positive/inclusive,
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

2 abigail graham and blanka misic
others negative and/or exclusive. An ‘eyewitness account’ reflects an
embodied experience, a multifaceted memory that is the culmination of
sensory interpretations: not only seeing an event but also reading faces,
speech, tone, gestures, and atmosphere. For Plautus, this ‘first hand’
experience appears to lend value and credulity to an eyewitness account
as well as an opportunity to assess the source. Experience, however, is
a double-edged sword: what unites can create discord, what provides
a sense of belonging can alienate, what is meant to portray continuity
can represent change, and what is meant to honour can bring shame. While
an eyewitness account is undoubtedly valuable, one must also acknowledge
its limitations: a single version of an experience cannot capture the plurality
of possible experiences, interpretations, or outcomes of a ritual
performance.1 The experience of a ritual event is a crucial factor in the
perception and remembrance of ritual; but how can one embed the
variability of experience(s) into approaches and analyses of rituals?
Focusing too much on individual experiences (if there is enough evi-
dence in order to do so), can result in becoming myopic to larger socio-
cultural factors which inform religious experiences and drive religious
change. On the other hand, analysing only religious rituals and experiences
in terms of cult-wide and/or collective phenomena, risks overlooking
localized religious practices and of ignoring neurodiverse experiences.
Unlike other scholars who research rituals and ritual experiences (in
psychology or anthropology, for example), scholars of ancient religions
cannot rely on designing group experiments or conducting participant
interviews to gather data. Instead, our evidence is often incomplete or
corrupted and can be tainted further by bias or misinterpretation. All of
these elements render the tightrope between individual/subjectivist
approaches (i.e. where religious experiences are seen as subjective and
highly individual) and collective/constructivist approaches (i.e. where reli-
gious experiences are understood to be rooted in cultural and social factors)
even more perilous to tread.2 The cross- and inter-disciplinary cognitive
sciences, by viewing cognition as multifaceted – embodied, distributed,
situated, extended, materialized, and encultured3 – offer new perspectives
1
As Eidinow et al. (2022: 10) have observed, ‘humanities and social science accounts have not in
general informed attempts to identify the cognitive and brain processes underlying variations in
experience – in other words, the full set of processes by which religiously interpreted experience arises
within specific human contexts.’ On the limitations of historical sources in analysing religious
experiences see Martin 2022: 218–219.
2
Patzelt 2020: 11, 13.
3
Geertz (2017: 37) states: ‘cognition is embodied (i.e. that it is integrated in body and brain through
the nervous system), distributed (i.e. that we share with networks of other brains and bodies), situated

in understanding both individual and collective elements of rituals and
ritual experiences.4
In the last two decades, spurred by scientific advancements in neurosci-
ence and the cognitive sciences, a growing number of scholars have begun
to apply cognitive and sensory theoretical approaches to the study of
archaeological and historical evidence, especially with respect to ancient
religions and rituals.5 This edited volume assembles a series of case studies
from international scholars (at varying stages of their careers), which
explore interdisciplinary aspects of religious ritual and ritual experience
in the Roman world. Focusing on cognitive and sensory approaches, these
case studies critically (re)examine established views and material finds
relating to rituals and ritual experiences. As Esther Eidinow notes ‘some
current ancient historical research . . . has tended to privilege mind or body
as its focus . . . by distinguishing sensory from cognitive approaches’.6 By
understanding sensory and cognitive processes as inextricably connected,
and by merging sensory and cognitive scholarship and approaches, this
volume pushes disciplinary boundaries and offers novel interpretations.
The case studies in this volume were chosen because they address elements
of both polytheistic and Christian rituals, covering the period from the late
Republic to late Antiquity, while offering a comprehensive examination of
evidence (historical, archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic) from
Italy as well as (a range of) Roman provinces.
In discussions between contributors of this volume, it became clear that
the cognitive approaches applied to ancient rituals were relevant not only
to the ancient world, but reflect an approach to ritual performances and
events that could be applied across time, space, and disciplines on a broad
scale, including one’s own personal ritual experiences. While ancient
religion is often placed in a separate realm, viewed with values and
approaches that are distinct from modern society,7 the case studies in
this volume employ a broad range of cross- and inter-disciplinary
(i.e. that we learn from these others), extended (i.e. that we exude our emotions, thoughts and
experiences into the world), materialized (i.e. that we materially manifest and ground our cognition
in material culture) and encultured (i.e. that our cognition is deeply anchored in and realized by
cultural ideas, models, values and so on).’ See also Ambasciano 2017: 142, Geertz 2010, Kundtová
Klocová and Geertz 2019, and Eidinow et al. 2022: 3–4.
4
Anderson et al. (2018: 15) state: ‘notions of cognition can be shown to be fundamental to how we
conceptualise debates in every discipline – the study of cognitive phenomena cannot be considered
a specialist niche, but is rather a necessary underpinning of any study of humans in the world.’
5
Some of these studies include: Chaniotis 2006, Chaniotis 2013, Cusumano et al. 2013, Day 2013,
Hamilakis 2013, Rüpke 2013, Rüpke 2016, Van der Ploeg 2016, Cairns and Nelis 2017, Mackey 2017,
Driediger-Murphy and Eidinow 2019, and Papadopoulos et al. 2019, among others.
6
Eidinow 2022: 70, n.4. 7 Eidinow et al. 2022: 7.

perspectives to address fundamental and universal questions about reli-
gious ritual and ritual experience. These questions include:
• What role do the senses play in the performance/understanding/
remembering of ritual?
• How does the organization of physical space (religious space, urban
space etc.) inform ritual movement?
• What role do emotions play in religious rituals/performances?
• How does material culture reflect/inform ritual understanding?
• How are religious rituals learned/remembered/transferred?
Cognitive Science of Religion and Cognitive Historiography

The cognitive science of religion is paving the way for new explan-
ations of religion. Indeed, CSR has changed the way we view the
world and how we analyze it.
Geertz, van Mulukom and Laigaard Nielbo8
The year 2020 marked the thirty-year anniversary since the founding of
cognitive science of religion (CSR) as a discipline.9 To understand the ways
in which cognitive studies have shaped approaches to religion, and specif-
ically to rituals, a brief exploration of this emerging field and its method-
ologies is necessary. The interdisciplinary field of CSR was initially
established to challenge the approaches and theories of cultural determin-
ism and extreme cultural relativism, which predominated in the study of
religion in the second half of the twentieth century, and which lacked
a comprehensive explanation for how religious concepts are formed,
learned and diffused. Departing from earlier approaches, CSR asserts
that religion and its components can be studied scientifically; that humans
have innate inclinations to hold certain cognitive biases (such as the
tendency to anthropomorphise10 divinities); and that cognitive processes,
influenced by evolutionary, environmental, and cultural factors, can
mould and constrain religious ideas, beliefs, and behaviours. As such,
CSR scholars explore how religions are formed, and how religious ideas,
8 9
Geertz et al. 2017/2019: 2. Geertz 2017: 36–37.
10
Anthropomorphism (i.e. the tendency to imagine and depict divinities in human form) has been
attested in cultures throughout the world, dating back to the Late Stone Age. The ancient Greeks
and Romans were aware of this cognitive bias, with the Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon
famously remarking that humans tend to depict their gods looking and behaving like humans, and
that if horses could draw their gods they would draw them as horses (fragments B14 and B15).

beliefs, and behaviours are learned, remembered, and transmitted between
individuals and groups (horizontal transmission) as well as through gener-
ations (vertical transmission).11 As CSR scholar Claire White states: ‘At the
core, CSR scholars accept that religion is a product of the mind situated in
its cultural environment.’12 Employing a methodology that deconstructs
religion into principal components (e.g. religious rituals and experiences,
supernatural agents, beliefs about the afterlife etc.), CSR scholars apply
a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to formulate and empirically test
theories and hypotheses concerning these components, in order to assess
cross-cultural patterns of religious thought and behaviour. This method-
ology contributes to a more comprehensive and universal understanding of
religion and religious phenomena.13
These bottom-up, scientific approaches to religion have been especially
lucrative with respect to the study of religious rituals. One particular
contribution of CSR is in explaining how religious ideas, beliefs, and
practices (including rituals) are successfully transmitted and why particular
concepts and practices endure across cultures and throughout history.14
Although most CSR scholars agree that ritualization initially developed
among early human populations and that humans are psychologically
predisposed to ritual behaviour,15 the extent to which ritual behaviours
are an evolutionary adaptation or a by-product of cognitive processes is still
debated.16 Whether one views the successful transmission and endurance
of religious practices as an adaptation or a by-product, it is a universal truth
11
White 2021: 1–6 and 20. For a summary of key CSR studies on ritual see White 2021: 255–305.
12
White 2021: 28.
13
White 2021: 11–15, 32–33, 36–37. By merging evolution, culture, and cognition to explore universal
cognitive and cross-cultural aspects of religion, CSR aims can be viewed to align with the omni-
culturalism imperative. Fathali Moghaddam (2012: 306) describes the omniculturalism imperative
as: ‘During the first stage, the omniculturalism imperative compels us to give priority to human
commonalities . . . in omniculturalism, the focus is on universals in human behavior as established
by scientific research . . . During stage two of omniculturalism, group-based differences are intro-
duced, and the value of also having diversity is highlighted. However, the priority remains with
human commonalities, and group-based differences are treated as secondary. The end result of
omniculturalism is a society in which people are knowledgeable about, and give priority to, human
commonalities, but also leave some room for the recognition and further development of group
distinctiveness.’ These approaches should be especially encouraged in the context of analysing
Roman religious rituals and ritual experiences, given the diverse socio-cultural context of the
Roman empire and the recent rise of globalization and glocalization theoretical approaches in
Roman archaeology.
14
White 2021: 255–256. 15 White 2021: 95, table 4.2, and 312.
16
Scholars such as Richard Sosis, Joseph Bulbulia, Cristine H. Legare and Ara Norenzayan propose that
aspects of ritual which promote individual health and/or group cooperation and cohesion may have
been selected for and were therefore successfully transmitted, enduring across cultures and historical
periods. However, other CSR scholars, such as Pascal Boyer, E. Thomas Lawson and Robert
N. McCauley, propose that aspects of religions (such as rituals) can be understood as by-products of

that certain religious ideas, beliefs, and behaviours recur across time and
societies. As Claire White states ‘This is in part because ideas are con-
strained by our experience of the world.’17 The common constraints of
ritual experiences, which have been observed across cultures, time, and
space, reflect the illuminating results of cognitive approaches to rituals:
finding commonality through a series of diverse and dynamic assessments.
By integrating perspectives from evolution, cognition, and culture into the
study of religion, CSR can provide us with a richer understanding of how
human cognitive processes merge with environmental factors to produce
and communicate ritual practices, and why humans have continued to seek
out ritual experiences.
CSR approaches also address longstanding challenges in the study of
ritual behaviours, in particular ritual deviations, emotional contexts (e.g.
fear of rejection or anxiety), and group dynamics, as is explored further in
Abigail Graham’s Chapter 4 in this volume. Since it is not always clear how
performed ritual actions achieve the desired ritual goal (i.e. rituals are
causally opaque) and since individual experience is limited, humans are
therefore less prone to deviate from ritual behaviours which are perceived
as traditional or ‘correct’. From an evolutionary standpoint, challenging
group norms or refusing to participate in group activities may have resulted
in social ostracism and death for our ancestors. Therefore, fear of social
rejection and the desire to signal group commitment may also explain why
individuals are prone to faithfully imitate and transmit ritual behaviours,
and why aspects of ritual persist over time.18
Why rituals persist can also be explained partly by the beneficial effects
that they produce. In terms of effects on individuals, CSR research has
shown that rituals contribute to improving the physical and mental health
of ritual participants, such as reducing anxiety, as well as providing
a semblance of control during tumultuous times.19 Pascal Boyer and
human cognitive processes and biases. See Bulbulia 2004, McCauley 2020: 112–115 and White 2021:
66–69, 257, and 315–316.
17
White 2021: 49.
18
See Legare and Nielsen 2015 and Watson-Jones et al. 2016. White (2021: 262) states: ‘As Legare and
colleagues have argued, from an evolutionary perspective, given the variability and limitations of
personal experience and intuition, and the cognitive effort involved in inferring intentions and goals,
natural selection ought to favor a social learning strategy where we imitate ritual behaviors as closely
as possible. In other words, what you know about the world is limited, and when uncertain about
something, a sound strategy is to copy others whom you think know better.’
19
White 2021: 65, 285. On the anxiety-relieving effects of rituals and sense of control see: Whitson and
Galinsky 2008, Sosis and Handwerker 2011, Lang et al. 2015, and Lang et al. 2020, among others.
McNamara (2014: 162–163) notes that several studies in neurosciences have found that religious
practices have beneficial effects on individuals, such as increased happiness and self-control.

Pierre Liénard’s ‘Hazard Precaution System’ theory posits that when faced
with unpredictable or threatening situations we spontaneously exhibit
ritualized behaviours, which provide an anxiety-reducing effect and re-
instil a sense of control over our environment.
Anxiety is lowered by subjectively containing it through scripted action . . .
Participants focus on the activity they are performing, not on the goal of
each behavior, which swamps working memory. Thus, attention is readily
deployed towards the concern to perform the actions correctly . . . These
effects are at least temporary, while the acts are performed, and so the
actions are repeated . . . to reduce anxiety.20
The ways in which we cognitively process and experience the world around
us influence our actions, which, in their turn, exert an effect on our
cognitive and affective states.
At the level of the group, rituals serve to build trust, cohesion, and
cooperation among group members, as well as to instil and reinforce group
values (these effects are discussed in Blanka Misic’s Chapter 1).21
Participating in extreme rituals can serve as a costly signal of group
commitment and belonging, promoting trust and cooperation between
group members.22 For example, experimental research in CSR indicates
that high-intensity and painful rituals create stronger bonds between ritual
participants. Physiologically, extreme rituals can lead to increased heart
rates and even synchronized heart rates among close-knit ritual participants
and spectators, in addition to inducing feelings of euphoria, which opens
ritual participants to social bonding as well as strengthening existing
bonds.23 Rituals can also become Credibility Enhancing Displays
(CRED) – an individual’s credibility is enhanced within their social circle
when they actively participate in a costly ritual, with other individuals then
being encouraged to follow and imitate their ritual behaviour, therefore
successfully transmitting ritual knowledge.24
Although CSR research on the psychological, physiological, and social
effects of rituals has yielded illuminating results, further research on ritual
experiences is still needed. Only a few CSR researchers have focused on
20
White 2021: 286. On Hazard Precaution System theory see: Boyer and Liénard 2006 and Liénard
and Boyer 2006.
21
White 2021: 288–289, Dunbar 2021: 24, Hobson et al. 2017: 11, and Watson-Jones and Legare 2016.
22
White 2021: 293–295. On costly signaling theory see Sosis 2004.
23
Konvalinka et al. 2011, Xygalatas et al. 2013, Xygalatas et al. 2013b, Fischer et al. 2014, Xygalatas et al.
2019, McCauley 2020: 107, and White 2021: 292–293.
24
McCauley 2020: 115–116 and White 2021: 295–296. On the theory of Credibility Enhancing
Displays see Henrich 2009. On costly rituals and Credibility Enhancing Displays see Xygalatas
2022: 198–207.

a detailed study of ritual experiences, such as Dimitris Xygalatas and his
colleagues on experiences of extreme, fire-walking rituals (discussed further
in the Conclusion chapter).25 Ann Taves and colleagues at the UC Santa
Barbara Religion, Experience and Mind Lab Group have also conducted
research on aspects of religious experience, such as near-death
experiences.26 Research on religious experience has further been informed
by neuroscientific approaches. For instance, neuroscientist Patrick
McNamara has observed that specific areas of the brain which generate
and process religious experiences also regulate a sense of Self, therefore
arguing that religion (and religious experiences) can serve to develop one’s
self-consciousness.27 However, criticisms have been laid against CSR
research for focusing too much on cognitive processes and not enough
on the roles of emotion, body, and environment in religion.28 Certainly,
ritual experiences cannot be studied without all of these elements – we use
our brains, our bodies, and our senses to perform ritual actions, and the
engagement of our brains, bodies, and senses with our environment and
our affective states produces ritual experience.
One promising way towards studying ritual experiences is by under-
standing individual brains and bodies as interconnected with each other
and with their environments, therefore viewing cognition as embodied,
distributed, situated, extended, materialized, and encultured. CSR scholar
Armin W. Geertz has championed this view with his biocultural theory of
religion ‘which is based on an expanded view of cognition that is anchored
in the brain and body, dependent upon culture, and extended and distrib-
uted beyond individual minds . . . Geertz proposes that understanding
which manipulations are at play in religion, and how they implement
cultural values, alter emotional states, and interact with cognitive process-
ing can enrich our understanding of religion’.29 The aim of this volume is
to contribute to CSR research on ritual experiences and to build upon
Geertz’s findings by analysing Roman ritual experiences as products of
cognitive processes, affective states, and sensory organs – all of which are
influenced by neurological, environmental, and socio-cultural factors. Yet,
how can these cognitive approaches enhance our understanding of the
ancient world?
Although the cross- and inter-disciplinary field of CSR is growing
every day, it is only within the last fifteen years or so that historians,
25
Konvalinka et al. 2011, Xygalatas et al. 2013b, among others.
26
Taves 2011 and White 2021: 324. 27 McNamara 2014: 246.
28
Geertz 2010b, and Gibson 2008. 29 White 2021: 318 (quote) and Geertz 2010.

classicists, and other scholars of ancient religions have started to engage with
CSR approaches, creating a new subfield of the discipline called cognitive
historiography.30 Inspired initially by the pioneering work of CSR scholars
such as anthropologists Pascal Boyer31 and Harvey Whitehouse,32 and phil-
osophy and comparative religion scholars Robert N. McCauley and
E. Thomas Lawson,33 scholars of cognitive historiography have enriched
and pushed the boundaries of the study of ancient religions, especially
through their (re)examination of ancient religious experiences and rituals.
For example, Harvey Whitehouse’s ‘Modes of Religiosity’ theory, which
describes ritual and ritual experience in terms of two modes – the imagistic
and the doctrinal – has been particularly popular among historians and
archaeologists, resulting in several publications which test Whitehouse’s
model within various ancient religious contexts.34 In addition to the
Modes of Religiosity approach, the application of a variety of other cognitive
perspectives to case studies of ancient religions have further enhanced our
understanding not only of ritual practices and ritual experiences, but also
recast the way we now examine religious texts, religious objects, religious
iconography, and religious beliefs and attitudes. These case studies range
from the study of monotheistic religions (Judaism and Christianity),35 to the
examination of select Graeco-Roman polytheistic cults (including
Asklepios,36 Isis and Serapis,37 Cybele/Attis,38 Dionysos,39 and Bona
Dea40), belief systems,41 and religious experiences.42
More than with any other ancient cult, the application of cognitive
approaches to the study of the cult of Mithras has yielded particularly
fruitful scholarship to date.43 In general, the cult of Mithras has been
30
The creation of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion (IACSR) in
2006, alongside the creation of the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion and the Journal of
Cognitive Historiography, whose first volumes were published in 2013 and 2014 respectively, has
spurred a wider range of scholars to engage with cognitive approaches in the study of religion;
bridging disciplinary gaps and encouraging collaboration among international scholars from the
Humanities, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences.
31
Boyer 1994.
32
Whitehouse 2000 and 2004, and Whitehouse and Laidlaw 2004, among others.
33
Lawson and McCauley 1990, and McCauley and Lawson 2002.
34
See, for example, Whitehouse and Martin 2004, Martin and Pachis 2009, Martin and Sørensen
2011, Martin 2015, Misic 2015 and 2019, and Panagiotidou and Beck 2017, among others. For a brief
summary of Whitehouse’s Modes of Religiosity theory see White 2021: 269–278.
35
Lundhaug 2014, Harkins 2015, Feder 2016, Hallvard Korsvoll 2017, and Robertson 2017, among
others.
36
Panagiotidou 2014 and 2022. 37 Pachis 2014. 38 Anders 2009.
39
Giovanni 2009, and Ulrich 2009. 40 Ambasciano 2016 and 2022. 41 Larson 2016.
42
Ustinova 2009 and 2018.
43
Beck 2004 and 2006, Martin 2006, Chalupa 2011, Beck 2014, Griffith 2014, Martin 2015, Misic 2015,
Panagiotidou and Beck 2017, and Panagiotidou 2018, among others.

approached from two cognitive perspectives: Harvey Whitehouse’s Modes
of Religiosity theory for the study of Mithraic rituals,44 and Roger Beck’s
‘Star-Talk’ for the study of mental representations and astrological/astro-
nomical elements of Mithraism.45 Luther H. Martin has emerged as the
leading scholar in applying cognitive approaches, and especially
Whitehouse’s Modes of Religiosity theory, to archaeological and icono-
graphic evidence from the cult of Mithras. Martin’s work, among other
contributions, has argued for the importance of emotionally arousing and
imagistic aspects of Mithraic rituals, and has helped to dispel the ‘top-
down’ approach to Mithraism (i.e. the view of a common, standardized
Mithraic myth-narrative belief system among all initiates of the religion).46
On the other hand, Roger Beck’s application of cognitive approaches has
helped Mithraic scholars gain a deeper understanding of astrological and
astronomical belief systems of Mithraism. His ‘Star-Talk’ concept, as a way
to understand mental representations and to decode systems of signs, has
influenced not only Mithraic scholarship,47 but has also been applied to
other ancient ‘mystery’ cults such as the cult of Isis.48 In addition to these
approaches, the ever-growing body of cognitive research on social cohesion
and extreme rituals,49 as well as ritual encoding and recall50 is helping to
open new pathways to understanding ritual behaviour and ritual experi-
ences both in modern and ancient religions.
The emergence of cognitive historiography and the broader application
of CSR approaches to the ancient world offer vast potential for further
study. This volume presents one small step in applying cognitive
approaches, including aspects of CSR’s successful framework, to explore
the role of ritual experiences in the ancient world. While ritual case studies
in this work fall across a broad range of time, space, and purpose, they
converge on similar aspects of ritual experience: the role of repetition, ritual
deviation, group dynamics, object agency, and the evolution of a ritual
within various emotional, physical, and spatial contexts. However diver-
gent the resulting ritual experiences may have been, these components
continue to emerge as the foundation of a ritual experience.
44
Beck 2004, Martin 2006, Misic 2015, and Panagiotidou 2018, among others.
45
Beck 2006 and 2014, Panagiotidou 2012.
46
Martin 2006. See also Martin and Pachis 2009 and Martin 2022. 47 Panagiotidou 2012.
48
Pachis 2012.
49
Dimitris Xygalatas and his scholarship on fire-walking rituals (see, for example, Xygalatas et al. 2019)
have been instrumental in understanding extreme and/or painful rituals from a cognitive perspec-
tive. Specifically, on Mithraic ritual and social cohesion see Panagiotidou 2018.
50
Hobson et al. 2017 and van Mulukom 2017, among others.

Cognitive Experience and Rituals: History, Memory, and Emotions
The brain, body and mind have often erroneously been thought to be
more or less independent organs. They are enmeshed, however, not
only internally (embodied) but also externally in a vast network of
other brains, bodies and minds (encultured).
Armin W. Geertz51
The relationship between rituals, history, and memory is clearly a productive

one, in which an understanding of past rituals and performers can contribute
to a better understanding of rituals in the present.52 How we understand and
access rituals as experiences and memories in a cognitive framework, however,
is less clearly defined in classical scholarship. Simon Price, a leading scholar on
ritual and memory in ancient history, had set out four contexts for the
construction of memory: objects, locations (place and space), ritual actions,
and textual narratives.53 Recent scholarship, such as Dignas and Smith’s 2012
volume Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World, dedicated to the
late Simon Price, covers an impressive range of rituals across time and space
and raises a number of questions about how ritual memory exists in the mind:
is it stable or unstable depending on the approach, does it exist as only an
image in the mind?54 These questions seem to be moving towards the concept
of a cognitive framework for ritual and memory but, as observed by Julia
Shear in her otherwise glowing review, engagement with broader interpret-
ative frameworks and scholarship on ritual memory is needed:
If scholars working on the Graeco-Roman world are to have any impact on
the larger field of memory studies, then they will need to start reading more
broadly and to engage with studies on the creation of remembrance in more
recent periods . . . One of memory’s great benefits as a subject is its lack of
conformation with the traditional subdivisions of the field: we need to
approach it holistically and not to allow the traditional boundaries to
limit our discussions and the questions which we ask.55
Price’s contexts for constructing memory (objects, locations, ritual actions,
and textual narratives) are very similar to the interpretive frameworks that
have been employed by broader disciplines in assessing ritual performances;
approaching rituals not only as scripted events but as individual and
51
Geertz 2017: 35. 52 Dignas and Smith 2012: 1–2.
53
Price ‘Memory in Ancient Greece’ in Dignas and Smith 2012: 15–36. Price’s observations, particu-
larly his four aspects of ritual perception, align very well with assessments from cognitive science of
religion which are discussed further in Blanka Misic’s Chapter 1.
54
Dignas and Smith 2012: 11. 55 Shear 2012.

interactive cognitive ‘experiences’. Psychologists, philosophers, geographers,
anthropologists, and archaeologists combine these contexts as part of
a cognitive network through which concepts of ‘place’ and ‘space’ are defined:
‘Place is how we make the world meaningful and the way that we experience
the world’; ‘Materiality, meaning and practice are combined in the produc-
tion of a place of memory’.56 Anthropologists, psychologists, and scholars of
‘performance theory’ have used similar factors as a means of assessing how
cognitive experiences impact the perception of ritual performances and their
codification in memory.57 These interdisciplinary approaches assess ritual
performances as embodied emotional events that are not only enhanced by
cognitive experiences but defined by them.58 Studies of ritual spaces and
performances illustrate how the experience of an event can transform
a viewer’s concept of self, imbuing objects, spaces, and places with new
meanings.59 Interdisciplinary scholarship on ritual and memory converge
upon a similar point: how one experiences a ritual event impacts both its
perception and its recollection.60 The inextricable connections between
56
Creswell 2015: 19 and 128. See also Hamilakis and Theou 2013: 192: ‘Place is produced through
sensorial practise, performance, and memory’, and Moser and Feldman 2014: 1: ‘Sacred space does
not exist a priori but is the outcome of actions, intentions, and recollections-it is the result of past
and present interactions among humans, material implements, architecture and landscape.’ For
Place Theory in geography and philosophy see: Tuan 1977: 6, Pred 1984, Smith 1987, Casey 2001:
408–9, Cresswell 2015: 15–19. For Place and Memory see a summary of scholarship in Cresswell 2015:
120–128. For an overview of scholarship on cognitive and biocultural approaches to religious place/
space see Geertz 2017: 48–51. For multi-temporal applications of Place and Performance theories at
archaeological sites, see Hamilakis and Theou 2013: 181–94. For the application of ‘Place Theory’ in
classical scholarship see summaries provided in the introductions of the following edited volumes:
Totten and Samuels 2012, Moser and Feldman 2014, van Opstall 2018.
57
For ritual theory in cognitive psychology see Lawson and McCauley 1990, McCauley and Lawson
2002 (esp. chapters 1–3), Whitehouse and Laidlaw 2004, Tyng et al. 2017, and Kundtová Klocová
and Geertz 2019, among others. For ritual and modern performance theory see Schechner 1988,
Garner 1994, Sofer 2010. Schechner 1988: 71 figure 30 describes and depicts the interaction between
different aspect of a performance (drama, script, location, performance). For ritual performances in
the ancient world see Chaniotis 2006: 9–16, Stavrianopoulou 2006, Chaniotis 2011: 211–38, Graff
2011, Chaniotis 2013, Latham 2016, and Cairns and Nelis 2017 (all of which are discussed in Abigail
Graham’s Chapter 4).
58
The role of cognitive factors in performance and ritual efficacy (Schechner 1988: 102–560) is
discussed further in Steven Muir’s Chapter 5 and Abigail Graham’s Chapter 4 in this volume.
59
For a discussion of space/place, ritual and religious experience see Wescoat and Ousterhout’s 2012
edited volume. For the role of props as accessories in sensory experiences and memory see Sofer 2010
(also discussed in Steven Muir’s Chapter 5 in this volume). For further reading: Smith 1987,
Schechner 1988: 121–160, Schieffelin 1998, Gardiner and Richardson-Klavehn 2000,
Stavrianopoulou 2006, Chaniotis 2006, 2011, 2013, 2017, Elsner 2007, Hüsken 2007, Moser and
Feldman 2014, Cresswell 2015, Dillion, Eidinow, and Maurizio 2016, Latham 2016, Ng 2018, van
Opstall 2018, and Driediger-Murphy and Eidinow 2019.
60
Cairns and Nelis 2017: 8 ‘The truth established by emotional research across the disciplines in which
it is practiced is the ubiquity, persuasiveness, and centrality of emotion in everything that human
beings do, and everything that they have ever done.’

cognitive experience, the understanding of rituals, and their codification in
memory are the founding principles of this volume and the tie that binds the
individual case studies in the various chapters together.
Recent scholarship on rituals in ancient history has benefitted from
broader interdisciplinary engagement in many ways. Of chief importance
for this volume have been assessments of rituals that transcend traditional
script-based approaches. As noted by many scholars, the limitations of
‘text’ or ‘script’-based approaches to ritual are manifold: this perspective
presents ritual from a single (often elite) perspective, depicting rituals as
static, repeated events with a universal perception, function, and meaning,
rather than as subjective experiences.61 Without situating rituals in emo-
tional contexts or applying practical human constraints, one risks disasso-
ciating these experiences from the cognitive frameworks that were used to
create and retrieve memories. Script-based rituals often present perfectly
enacted events with positive outcomes, which stand in contrast to the
elasticity and variation (in both experience and outcome) that pervade
performances in ancient and modern contexts.62
Key research initiatives on this topic include Angelos Chaniotis’s ERC
project The Social and Cultural Construction of Emotions which integrated
text, object, location as well as an emotional context in the recreation of
a ritual event.63 This study and those that have followed transcend trad-
itional limitations by incorporating a broader scheme of material evidence
together with concepts of object agency, embodied spaces, and sensory
experiences to illustrate the dynamic nature of rituals as events with
numerous possible perceptions, meanings, and outcomes.64 Similarly,
61
For limitations of script-based approaches to ritual see the following works, which cover materials
from historical and literary texts to art and archaeology: Chaniotis 2007: 49–51, Chaniotis 2012: 85–
95, Chaniotis 2013: 216–18, Masseglia 2013: 131–147, Moser and Feldman 2014: 1–2, Latham 2016: 29–
32, Rüpke 2016, Cairns and Nelis 2017: 13–15, and Driediger-Murphy and Eidinow 2019: 2–4.
62
For theoretical discussions of ritual deviance and failure see Schechner 1988: 151–162, Schieffelin 1998
and Hüsken 2007. For individual historical studies of ritual failures see Stavrianopoulou 2006,
Chaniotis 2007: 49–51, Graff 2011, Moser and Feldman 2014, Cresswell 2015, Rüpke 2016: 6–10, and
Latham 2016: 39–43.
63
Masseglia 2013: 132 states ‘If we are to engage with emotions in antiquity . . . we must engage equally
with their externalised expressions in form of textual and material culture, and with a cultural
medium through which this transformation occurred.’ Chaniotis’ project produced prolific publi-
cations, the following is a selection of those that are more relevant to ritual performances as
experiences: Chaniotis 2007, Chaniotis 2011, Chaniotis 2012, Chaniotis 2013, Chaniotis 2017 as
part of Cairns and Nelis 2017.
64
Cairns 2019: 8 state ‘Epigraphic texts, dedications, religious architecture and the configuration of the
site more generally, all contribute to the creation of a shared space for emotional experience. . . and
emotions- awe, fear, wonder, respect, hope, gratitude, and so on- on which religious experience
depends.’ For expansive studies on specific types of ritual performances see Latham 2016: 39–43 (on
pompa in Rome) and Driediger-Murphy and Eidinow 2019 (on divination).

Rüpke’s approach, shaped by the anthropologist Meredith McGuire,
assesses ‘lived religion’ which is ‘reconstructed as everyday experiences,
practises, expressions and interactions’, providing a broader framework for
exploring rituals.65 This dynamic framework addresses a larger corpus of
religious materials, practices, and outcomes, highlighting variance, devi-
ance, and failure in ritual performances, despite claims of repetition,
consistency, and positive outcomes.66 Both Rüpke and Chaniotis employ
imaginative approaches to ritual reconstruction, addressing the emotional
contexts of ritual accounts as individual experiences with divergent expect-
ations and outcomes. Their surveys and many others advocate further
investigation of specific ritual experiences through the application of
interdisciplinary cognitive approaches.67 These scholars also employ
a wider range of primary source materials connecting history (often
based on literary sources) with epigraphy, material evidence, and archaeo-
logical sites.
Experiencing Rituals: Challenges in Cognitive Approaches

This volume contributes to existing dialogues on ritual and cognition by
providing a series of individual case studies on cognitive experiences of ritual
in the ancient world. Approaching memory and ritual as a ‘lived experience’,
the chapters employ a range of cross- and inter-disciplinary perspectives as
well as a broader line of questioning on how ritual proceedings were
constructed, performed, processed, and remembered as an experience of
the mind, the body, and the external environment (material world). This
approach also builds upon Simon Price’s contexts of ritual (objects, loca-
tions, ritual actions, and textual narratives), using cognitive and sensory
approaches to expand the scope of ritual as a cognitive and sensory experi-
ence. The ritual case studies in this volume are not meant to be definitive
accounts of rituals but reflections of the plurality of experiences, perspectives,
and outcomes an individual might have. Understanding how we experience
events on a cognitive level is not so much a means of ‘knowing’ how rituals
were perceived but a means of exploring what we don’t know about ritual
experiences: how we are captives of subjective experiences, memories, and
evidence. The variance of ritual experiences in these case studies illustrates
65
Rüpke 2016: 4–5. See also Rüpke 2013.
66
Rüpke 2016: 5. Similar observations about ritual performances and constraints are also made in
cognitive psychology: McCauley and Lawson 2002: 1–6.
67
Day 2013: 2–4, Hamilakis 2013: 418–9, Masseglia 2013: 132 (supra), Moser and Feldman 2014: 6,
Latham 2016: 150, Cairns and Nelis 2017: 13–14, and Driediger-Murphy and Eidinow 2019: 9–10.

both how and why dynamic approaches to ritual experiences are necessary,
through a means of critical and imaginative engagement with a broad range
of evidence.
Constructing a broad-ranging study of ritual experiences across the
Roman world has a number of limitations. Providing one account of
a ritual can present it as a singular or universal experience with
a consistency in context, audience, atmosphere, performance, imagery,
and outcome that may not reflect the reality of ritual performances across
time and space.68 It is difficult to employ a ‘universal’ approach to assess-
ments of ritual experiences – each place/space, each context, each ritual
action and object, was as unique as the individuals or religious communi-
ties who participated in the event. Even when accounting for a successful
recreation of the same environment and a perfect repetition of a specific
ritual action, the shifting cognitive and affective states of the participants
and performers would have influenced ritual experiences, rendering each
experience inimitable. The existence of a single account of a ritual, there-
fore, should not be taken as proof of a singular experience or audience.
Assessing rituals as cognitive processes can be challenging: there are so
many rituals, places, and experiences in antiquity; what can be gained by
reconstructing a single experience? Several recent edited volumes on ritual
and ritual experience address the study of specific and individual rituals as
a means of exploring a single event within a broader framework of cognitive
perspectives (e.g. how a ritual may have functioned socially, politically,
spatially, historically, performatively).69 Chapters in this volume illustrate
a number of ways in which cognitive approaches can contribute to our
understanding of rituals as experiences. Blanka Misic’s Religious Learning
Network (RLN) theoretical model (Chapter 1) illustrates how rituals could
be learned and transmitted through engagement with objects, people, places,
and events, which formed a dynamic network of memories. Chapter 2 by
Emma-Jayne Graham and Chapter 3 by Vicky Jewell explore this concept
further in terms of haptic experiences. These object-based studies employ
interdisciplinary approaches to sensory engagement between objects, images,
performers, communities, and places.70 Stepping beyond ritual objects
68
Schieffelin 1998, Hüsken 2007, and Latham 2016.
69
This list is but a selection of edited volumes on the subject: Stavrianopoulou 2006, Corrigan 2007,
Chaniotis 2011, Chaniotis 2012, Dignas and Smith 2012, Totten and Samuels 2012, Cusumano et al.
2013, Moser and Feldman 2014, Dillion, Eidinow and Maurizio 2016, and Cairns and Nelis 2017.
70
Reconstructing ritual experiences solely with objects through cognitive and sensory networks has
been the subject of interdisciplinary scholarship, such as McCauley and Lawson 2002, as well as
recent archaeological initiatives: Papadopoulos et al. 2019 considers sensorial engagement with

themselves, this work also explores how one can recreate ritual experiences
without surviving ritual objects, by using accounts of ritual and/or ritual
performances in literature and epigraphy together with surviving ritual
contexts. The final two chapters, Chapter 4 by Abigail Graham and
Chapter 5 by Steven Muir, use cognitive approaches to explore the trans-
formation of a ritual performance through a broad range of sources, from
literary accounts to the ‘lived’ experience of an individual engaging with
ritual objects and spaces.
Rituals As Cognitive Experiences: Differing Contexts

and Approaches
Examining ritual experiences across a broad scope of time (from the late
Republic to the fourth century CE), space (across the Roman Empire), and
religion (Pagan and Christian, state cults and foreign cults in Rome, as well as
local cults in context), the volume does not claim to provide a comprehensive
survey of rituals and ritual experiences across the Graeco-Roman world. This
expansive scope does, however, illustrate both the variability and syncretism
that define ancient religion, demonstrating why its beliefs, rituals, sacred
spaces, objects, performers, and audiences require dynamic and flexible
approaches. On the whole, the volume aims to show how different cognitive
approaches to experiencing and remembering rituals can contribute to our
understanding of rituals as dynamic and emotional acts, which were subject to
a lived experience. As Emma-Jayne Graham notes in Chapter 2 (p.84):
Acknowledging the variability inherent within ancient lived religion is
important principally because it suggests that even the most strictly trad-
itional elements of Roman religion – those which on the surface appeared to
Romans (and which still appear to us today) as unchanging, inflexible, and
almost inevitably encoded within Roman ways of being – could still provide
space for personal, deeply individualized experiences of lived religion.
Each case study in this volume considers the role that experience and
cognition could play in the perception of a ritual event; how a sensory
experience with a specific place, time, and gestures could shape the mean-
ing and perception of ritual as well as the way that it was remembered in the
human mind.
In the first chapter Blanka Misic proposes a new, cognitive-based
theoretical model for analysing rituals, called the Religious Learning
Neolithic figurines and how sensory approaches can be applied more broadly to the study and
display of these objects.

Network (RLN) model, in order to explain how religious knowledge
(including ritual proceedings) could be learned, remembered, and trans-
mitted among worshippers. Relying on archaeological, iconographic, and
epigraphic evidence, she tests the RLN model within a case study of
Nutrices Augustae – a cult of protective mother-goddesses whose worship
was almost exclusively restricted to the city of Poetovio (modern-day Ptuj,
Slovenia), located in the Roman province of Pannonia Superior. The
model sheds new light on the type of rituals performed within the cult
and demonstrates that rituals were learned and transmitted through
a combination of emotional attachment and repeated sensory exposure
to fellow worshippers and the cult environment (objects, places, and
events). These elements helped to create a dynamic network of memory
associations in the form of a life-experience narrative for the worshippers,
therefore facilitating the storage and retrieval of ritual memories.
In the second chapter, Emma-Jayne Graham examines religious know-
ledge from another cognitive perspective. Combining ‘lived religion’ with
haptic, materially-informed approaches, she explores the important role
that objects played in the production of religious knowledge. By examining
the frieze of the Vestal Virgins from the Ara Pacis Augustae, Graham
demonstrates that the diversity of ritual ‘lived’ experiences, combining
human and more-than-human material things, created differing types of
religious knowledge. In her chapter, Graham sheds new light not only on
the possible ritual experiences of the Vestals but also on how the study of
individualized religious knowledge can contribute to broadening our
understanding of public and communal rituals.
In the third chapter Vicky Jewell adds to the analysis of haptic and
materially-informed approaches by exploring how polychromy informed
worshippers’ engagement with ritual space and ritual objects. By examin-
ing perceptions of colour on Mithraic reliefs and inside Mithraea, Jewell
contributes to broadening our understanding of Mithraic ritual and ritual
experience. Jewell combines ancient literary and philosophical explan-
ations with modern scientific examinations of sight and perception of
colour, in order to decode some of the semantic messages which colour
may have conveyed to the ancient viewer and worshipper. Jewell shows
that colour, in addition to form, design, and decoration of Mithraea,
served to instil fundamental concepts of the universe among worshippers
of Mithras.
In the fourth chapter, Abigail Graham applies cognitive theories to
interpreting and reconstructing a specific ritual event: Salutaris’s proces-
sion at Ephesus in the second century CE. Through a careful examination

of the monumental inscriptions (including a script of how the procession
was meant to take place: Salutaris’s foundation), the surviving urban
context, and a contemporary (albeit fictive) account of a procession in
Ephesus, Graham attempts to reconstruct the ritual within practical and
emotional constraints, juxtaposing the claims of the text with the reality of
the ritual experience. Employing Chaniotis’s ‘Murphy’s Law of Ritual
Events’, she explores the variant experiences and outcomes (successes and
failures) for viewers, performers, as well as the objects, spaces, and places
involved. Is repetition a medium for the expression of solidarity or change?
Her survey of a single ritual event illustrates the complexity and capricious
nature of performances as emotional and sensory experiences, whose
perception and memory were subject to many variables.
In the fifth chapter of the volume Steven Muir reconstructs the
Christian pilgrim Egeria’s experience of a Good Friday ritual in
Jerusalem during the fourth century CE. Through a detailed consideration
of literature, archaeological context, and object agency, Muir considers the
networks through which Christian rituals were experienced, remembered,
and recorded as complex ritual drama. Examining the archaeological site
and space of the sacred procession, he employs aspects of place theory as
a means of situating the ritual experience within a specific context: the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Then, applying performance theory to the
complex relationships between individuals and ritual objects (e.g. the ring
of Solomon, fragments of the true cross), Muir assesses the sensory and
emotional engagement between performers and a network of symbolic
images or ‘the props of faith’. His study illustrates how ritual performances
could transform ritual objects, which were often constructed for the
performance, from props into powerful and emotive symbols of faith.
Overall, this volume is an attempt to explore the cognitive processes
through which we experience rituals and the role this framework can play
in embedding meaning. Exploring the different sensory and cognitive
networks of ritual experience in Roman religion, these studies illustrate
the plurality of ways one could experience and remember a ritual. By
critically assessing and recreating rituals and their sources, this work also
demonstrates the various ways that one can approach rituals as dynamic
and emotive experiences. The aim is to set singular ‘eyewitness’ accounts
within a broader cognitive network of lived experiences and embodied
interactions between individuals, objects, spaces, and actions. The global
appeal of this work lies in the emerging field of study (cognitive and
sensory experience), the broad range of material (Pagan and Christian),
and the geographic scope of the work (from a local temple in Pannonia, to

an iconic monument in Rome, to a spectacular festival at Ephesus), which
offer a wide yet uniquely inclusive view of Roman religion. These case
studies contribute to scholarship across a broad range of disciplines,
engaging readers at various career stages from undergraduates to experts
in fields of history, archaeology, religion, anthropology, memory studies,
and beyond.
Concluding Thoughts
In his 2017 article, Armin W. Geertz praises cross- and inter-disciplinary
scholarship stating: ‘It is exciting and admirable that scholars of the classics
have opened their arms to the new cognitive approaches and the results and
theories of neuropsychologists. This area is indeed in urgent need of
exploration because their results are clearly relevant to our field of
expertise.’71
The present volume is an answer to his call and hopes to further the
disciplines of cognitive historiography and cognitive science of religion by
applying and testing cognitive theories within a wider array of Graeco-
Roman cults than has been done before (Nutrices Augustae, Vestal Virgins,
Artemis), as well as by contributing new cognitive perspectives to more
conspicuous religions (by examining theatrical aspects of Christian rituals,
and effects of polychromy on ritual experience in the cult of Mithras).
In approaching the study of ritual and ritual experience from a variety of
disciplinary and theoretical perspectives (archaeology, classics and ancient
history, religious studies, psychology and cognitive sciences, sensory stud-
ies, and performance studies) this volume offers scholars and students in
Humanities and Social Sciences a wide yet uniquely inclusive view of
Roman religion. Many preceding publications on Roman religion are
constrained not only by disciplinary barriers (requiring advanced know-
ledge of ancient languages, cultures, and disciplinary terminology); but
also by topical (often focusing on a specific cult, religion and/or religious
practice) and geographical (examining a specific province or settlement)
limitations. This approach can impede non-specialist readers from gaining
a grasp of the complexities of Roman religion. By critically examining
a series of different rituals and concomitant religious experiences across
time and space in the Roman Empire, this volume emphasizes the universal
importance of cognition in constructing, performing, experiencing, and
remembering religious rituals. Focusing on cognitive and sensory
71
Geertz 2017: 46–47.

experiences of Roman ritual is also an approach to ancient religion that is
relatable to broader audiences – all of whom have at one point in their lives
participated in a ritual. Observations made in this work represent a point of
connection between cultures, societies, and religions both ancient and
modern, with global relevance and transdisciplinary application.
RE F E RE N CE S
Ambasciano, L. 2016. ‘The gendered deep history of the Bona Dea cult’, Journal of
Cognitive Historiography 3(1–2): 134–56.
Ambasciano, L. 2017. ‘What is cognitive historiography, anyway? Method, theory
and a cross-disciplinary decalogue’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4(2):
136–50.
Ambasciano, L. 2022. ‘Who is the Damiatrix? Roman women, the political
negotiation of psychotropic experiences, and the cults of Bona Dea’, in
E. Eidinow, A. W. Geertz and J. North, eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient
Religious Experience, 167–90. Cambridge.
Anders, L. 2009. ‘The Cybele and Attis religion and the theory of modes of
religiosity’, in L. H. Martin and P. Pachis, eds. Imagistic Traditions in the
Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research,
179–202. Thessaloniki.
Anderson, M., Cairns, D. and Spevak, M. 2018. Distributed Cognition in Classical
Antiquity. Edinburgh.
Beck, R. 2004. ‘Four men, two sticks, and a whip: image and doctrine in
a Mithraic ritual’, in H. Whitehouse and L. H. Martin, eds. Theorizing
Religions Past: Archaeology, History, and Cognition, 87–103. Walnut Creek.
Beck, R. 2006. The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of
the Unconquered Sun. Oxford.
Beck, R. 2014. ‘“Star-Talk”: a gateway to mind in the Ancient World’, Journal of
Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 90–7.
Boyer, P. 1994. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion.
London.
Boyer, P. and Liénard, P. 2006. ‘Precaution systems and ritualized behavior’,
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29(6): 635–41.
Bulbulia, J. 2004. ‘Religious costs as adaptations that signal altruistic intention’,
Evolution and Cognition 10(1): 19–38.
Cairns, D. L. and Nelis, D. 2017. Eds. Emotions in the Classical World: Methods,
Approaches, and Directions. Vandoeuvres.
Cairns, D. 2019. ‘Introduction’, in D. Cairns, ed. A Cultural History of the
Emotions in Antiquity, 1–16. London.
Casey, E. 2001. ‘Body, self and landscape: a geophilosophical inquiry into the
place-world’, in P. C. Adams, S. Hoelscher and K. E. Till, eds. Textures of Place:
Exploring Humanist Geographies, 403–25. Minneapolis.

Chalupa, A. 2011. ‘What might cognitive science contribute to our understanding
of the Roman cult of Mithras?’, in L. H. Martin and J. Sørensen, eds. Past
Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography, 107–24. London.
Chaniotis, A. 2006. ‘Rituals between norms and emotions: rituals as shared experi-
ence and memory’, in E. Stavrianopoulou, ed. Rituals and Communication in the
Graeco-Roman World, Kernos Supplement 16, 211–38. Liège.
Chaniotis A. 2007. ‘Theatre rituals’, in P. Wilson, ed. The Greek Theatre and
Festivals: Documentary Studies, 48–66. Oxford.
Chaniotis, A. 2011. ‘Introduction’, in A. Chaniotis, ed. Ritual Dynamics in the
Ancient Mediterranean: Agency, Emotion, Gender, Representation, 9–16. Stuttgart.
Chaniotis, A. 2012. ‘Moving stones: the study of emotions in Greek inscriptions’,
in A. Chaniotis, ed. Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the Study of
Emotions in the Greek World, 91–129. Stuttgart.
Chaniotis, A. 2013. ‘Staging and feeling the presence of God: emotion and
theatricality in religious celebrations in the Roman East’, in L. Bricault and
C. Bonnet, eds. Panthée: Religious Transformations in the Roman Empire, 169–
89. New York.
Chaniotis, A. 2017. ‘The life of statues: emotions and agency’, in D. Cairns and
D. Nelis, eds. Emotions in the Classical World: Methods Approaches and Directions,
143–158. Stuttgart.
Corrigan, J. 2007. Ed. Oxford Handbook on Religion and Emotion. Oxford.
Cresswell, T. 2015. Place: A Short Introduction. 2nd edition. Oxford.
Cusumano, N., Gasparini, V., Mastrocinque, A. and Rüpke, J. 2013. Eds. Memory
and Religious Experience in the Greco-Roman World. Stuttgart.
Day, J. 2013. ‘Introduction: making senses of the past’, in J. Day, ed. Making Senses
of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology, 1–31. Carbondale.
Dignas, B. and Smith, R. R. R. 2012. Eds. Historical and Religious Memory in the
Ancient World. Oxford.
Dillion, M., Eidinow, E. and Maurizio, L. 2016. Eds. Women’s Ritual Competence
in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. London.
Driediger-Murphy, L. G. and Eidinow, E. 2019. ‘Introduction’, in L. G. Driediger-
Murphy and E. Eidinow, eds. Ancient Divination and Experience, 1–14. Oxford.
Dunbar, R. I. M. 2021. ‘Religiosity and religious attendance as factors in wellbeing
and social engagement’, Religion, Brain & Behavior 11(1): 17–26.
Eidinow, E. 2022. ‘Ancient Greek smellscapes and divine fragrances: anthropo-
morphizing the Gods in Ancient Greek culture’, in E. Eidinow, A. W. Geertz
and J. North, eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience, 69–95.
Cambridge.
Eidinow, E., Geertz, A. W., Deeley, Q. and North, J. 2022. ‘Introduction’, in
E. Eidinow, A. W. Geertz and J. North, eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient
Religious Experience, 1–16. Cambridge.
Elsner, J. 2007. Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text. Princeton.
Feder, Y. 2016. ‘Defilement and moral discourse in the Hebrew Bible: an evolu-
tionary framework’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 3(1–2): 157–89.

Fischer, R., Xygalatas, D., Panagiotis, M., Reddish, P., Tok, P., Konvalinka, I. and
Bulbulia, J. 2014. ‘The fire-walker’s high: affect and physiological responses in
an extreme collective ritual’, PloS One 9(2): e88355.
Gardiner, J. and Richardson-Klavehn, A. 2000. ‘Remembering and knowing’ in
E. Craik Tulving and F. I. M. Craik Tulving, eds. Oxford Handbook of Memory,
229–44. Oxford.
Garner, S. B. 1994. Bodied Spaces: Phenomenology and Performance in Contemporary
Drama. Ithaca.
Geertz, A. W. 2010. ‘Brain, body and culture: a biocultural theory of religion’,
Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22(4): 304–21.
Geertz, A. W. 2010b. ‘Too much mind and not enough brain, body, and culture:
on what needs to be done in cognitive science of religion’, Historia Religionum 2
(2): 1000–17.
Geertz, A. W. 2017. ‘Religious bodies, minds and places: a cognitive science of
religion perspective’, in L. Carnevale, ed. Spazi e luoghi sacri espressioni ed
esperienze di vissuto religioso, 35–52. Bari Santo Spirito.
Geertz, A. W., van Mulukom, V. and Laigaard Nielbo, K. 2017/2019. ‘The
cognitive science of religion: wherefrom? whereto?’, Journal for the Cognitive
Science of Religion 5(1): 1–4.
Gibson, N. J. S. 2008. ‘Once more, with feelings: the importance of emotion for
cognitive science of religion’, in J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis, E. Harris, R. Genet,
C. Genet and K. Wyman, eds. The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and
Critiques, 271–7. Santa Margarita.
Giovanni, C. 2009. ‘Dionysus’ image in the post-modern age’, in L. H. Martin
and P. Pachis, eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive
Modeling of History of Religious Research, 89–112. Thessaloniki.
Graff, F. 2011. ‘Ritual restoration and innovation in the Greek cities of the Roman
Imperium’, in A. Chaniotis, ed. Ritual Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean:
Agency, Emotion, Gender, Representation, 105–17. Stuttgart.
Griffith, A. B. 2014. ‘Dead religion, live minds: memory and recall of the Mithraic
bull-slaying scene’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 72–89.
Hallvard Korsvoll, N. 2017. ‘Same, same, but different? A cognitive analysis of an
early Christian apotropaic amulet’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4(1):
79–99.
Hamilakis, Y. 2013. ‘Afterword: eleven theses on the archaeology of the senses’, in
J. Day, ed. Making Senses of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology, 409–19.
Carbondale.
Hamilakis, Y. and Theou, E. 2013. ‘Enacted multi-temporality: the archaeological
site as a shared, performative space’, in A. Gonzalez-Ruibal, ed. Reclaiming
Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, 181–94. London.
Harkins, A. K. 2015. ‘Ritual mourning in Daniel’s interpretation of Jeremiah’s
prophecy’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 2(1): 14–32.
Henrich, J. 2009. ‘The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion’,
Evolution and Human Behavior 30(4): 244–60.

Hobson, N. M., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Xygalatas, D. and Inzlicht, M. 2017.
‘The psychology of rituals: an integrative review and process-based framework’,
Personality and Social Psychology Review 00(0): 1–25.
Hüsken, U. 2007. ‘Ritual dynamics and ritual failure’, in U. Hüsken, ed. When
Rituals Go Wrong: Mistakes, Failures, and the Dynamics of Ritual, 337–66.
Leiden.
Konvalinka, I., Xygalatas, D., Bulbulia, J., Schjoedt, U., Jegindø, E.-M.,
Wallot, S., Van Orden, G. and Roepstorff, A. 2011. ‘Synchronized arousal
between performers and related spectators in a fire-walking ritual’, Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 108: 8514–19.
Kundtová Klocová, E. and Geertz, A. W. 2019. ‘Ritual and embodied cognition’,
in R. Uro, J. J. Day, R. E. Demaris and R. Roitto, eds. The Oxford Handbook of
Early Christian Ritual, 74–94. Oxford.
Lang, M., Krátký, J., Shaver, J. H., Jerotijević, D. and Xygalatas, D. 2015. ‘Effects
of anxiety on spontaneous ritualized behavior’, Current Biology 25(14): 1892–7.
Lang, M., Krátký, J. and Xygalatas, D. 2020. ‘The role of ritual behaviour in
anxiety reduction: an investigation of Marathi religious practices in Mauritius’,
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 375(1805): 20190431.
Larson, J. 2016. Understanding Greek Religion: A Cognitive Approach. London.
Latham, J. A. 2016. Performance, Memory, and Processions in Ancient Rome.
Cambridge.
Lawson, E. T. and McCauley, R. N. 1990. Rethinking Religion: Connecting
Cognition and Culture. Cambridge.
Legare, C. H. and Nielsen, M. 2015. ‘Imitation and innovation: the dual engines of
cultural learning’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19(11): 688–99.
Liénard, P. and Boyer, P. 2006. ‘Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection
model of ritualized behavior’, American Anthropologist 108(4): 814–27.
Lundhaug, H. 2014. ‘Memory and early monastic literary practices: a cognitive
perspective’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 98–120.
Mackey, J. 2017. ‘Roman children as religious agents: the cognitive foundations of
cult’, in V. Vuolanto and C. Laes, eds. Children and Everyday Life in the Roman
and Late Antique World, 179–97. London.
Martin, L. H. 2006. ‘The Roman cult of Mithras: a cognitive perspective’, Religio
14: 131–46.
Martin, L. H. 2015. The Mind of Mithraists: Historical and Cognitive Studies in the
Roman Cult of Mithras. London.
Martin, L. H. 2022. ‘Identifying symptoms of religious experience from ancient
material culture: the example of cults of the Roman Mithras’, in E. Eidinow,
A. W. Geertz and J. North, eds. Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious
Experience, 218–42. Cambridge.
Martin, L. H. and Pachis, P. 2009. Eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman
World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research. Thessaloniki.
Martin, L. H. and Sørensen, J. 2011. Eds. Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive
Historiography. London.

Masseglia, J. 2013. ‘Emotions and archaeological sources: a methodological intro-
duction’, in A. Chaniotis, ed. Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the
Study of Emotions in the Greek World, 131–50. Stuttgart.
McCauley, R. N. 2020. ‘Recent trends in the cognitive science of religion:
neuroscience, religious experience, and the confluence of cognitive and evolu-
tionary research’, Zygon 55(1): 97–124.
McCauley, R. N. and Lawson, E. T. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological
Foundations of Cultural Forms. Cambridge.
McNamara, P. 2014. The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. Cambridge.
Misic, B. 2015. ‘Cognitive theory and religious integration: the case of the Poetovian
Mithraea’, in T. Brindle, M. Allen, E. Durham and A. Smith, eds. TRAC 2014.
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference,
Reading 2014, 31–40. Oxford. http://doi.org/10.16995/TRAC2014_31_40
Misic, B. 2019. ‘Cognitive aspects of funerary commemoration of soldiers and
veterans in Roman Poetovio’, in M. Giangiulio, E. Franchi and G. Proietti, eds.
Commemorating War and War Dead: Ancient and Modern, 207–18. Stuttgart.
Moghaddam, F. M. 2012. ‘The omnicultural imperative’, Culture & Psychology 18(3):
304–30.
Moser, C. and Feldman, C. 2014. Eds. Locating the Sacred: Theoretical Approaches
to the Emplacement of Religion. Oxford.
Ng, D. Y. 2018. ‘The Salutaris Foundation: monumentality through periodic
rehearsal’, in B. Longfellow and E. Perry eds. Roman Artists, Patrons and
Public Consumption: Familiar Works Reconsidered, 63–87. Ann Arbor.
Pachis, P. 2012. ‘Induction into the mystery of “Star-Talk”: the case of the Isis cult
during the Graeco-Roman age’, Pantheon: Journal for the Study of Religions 7(1):
79–118.
Pachis, P. 2014. ‘Data from dead minds? Dream and healing in the Isis/Serapis cult
during the Graeco-Roman age’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1(1): 52–71.
Panagiotidou, O. 2012. ‘The cognitive route of “Star-Talk”: the scene of the
tauroctony as a system of signs’, Pantheon: Journal for the Study of Religions 7
(1): 70–8.
Panagiotidou, O. 2014. ‘The Asklepios cult: where brains, minds, and bodies
interact with the world, creating new realities’, Journal of Cognitive
Historiography 1(1): 14–23.
Panagiotidou, O. 2018. ‘Secrecy in the Mithras cult: concealment, cognition and
social cohesion’, Acta Antiqua Hungaricae 58: 667–79.
Panagiotidou, O. 2022. Healing, Disease and Placebo in Graeco-Roman Asclepius
Temples: A Neurocognitive Approach. Sheffield.
Panagiotidou, O. and Beck, R. 2017. The Roman Mithras Cult: A Cognitive
Approach. London.
Papadopoulos, C., Hamilakis Y., Kyparissi-Apostolika, N., and Guardamino-Diaz,
M. 2019. ‘Digital sensoriality: neolithic figurines from Koutrolou Magoula,
Greece’, Cambridge Archaeology Journal 29(4): 625–52. https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0959774319000271

Patzelt, M. 2020. ‘Introduction to section one’, in V. Gasparini, M. Patzelt,
R. Raja, A. K. Rieger, J. Rüpke and E. Urciuoli, eds. Lived Religion in the
Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from
Archaeology, History and Classics, 11–22. Berlin.
Pred, A. 1984. ‘Place as historically contingent process: structuration and the
time-geography of becoming places’, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 74(2): 279–97.
Price, S. 2012. ‘Memory in Ancient Greece’, in B. Dignas and R. R. R. Smith, eds.
Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World, 15–36. Oxford.
Robertson, P. 2017. ‘Shadows in the New Testament: cognitive approaches to
early Christian literature’, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4(2): 199–222.
Rüpke, J. 2013. The Experience of the Individual in the Religions of the Ancient
Meditteranean. Oxford.
Rüpke, J. 2016. On Roman Religion: Lived Religion and the Individual in Ancient
Rome. Ithaca.
Schechner, R. 1988. Performance Theory, 2nd revised and expanded edition. London.
Schieffelin, E. 1998. ‘Problematising performance’, in F. Hughes-Freedland, ed.
Ritual, Performance, Media, 194–207. New York.
Shear, J. F. 2012. ‘Review of Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient
World’, Bryn Mawr Classical Review online edition 12 December 2012. [https://
bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012.12.36, accessed 14 April 2019]
Smith, C. Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward a Theory in Ritual. Chicago.
Sofer, A. 2010. The Stage Life of Props. Ann Arbor.
Sosis, R. 2004. ‘The adaptive value of religious ritual: rituals promote group
cohesion by requiring members to engage in behavior that is too costly to
fake’, American Scientist 92(2): 166–72.
Sosis, R. and Handwerker, W. P. 2011. ‘Psalms and coping with uncertainty:
religious Israeli women’s responses to the 2006 Lebanon war’, American
Anthropologist 113(1): 40–55.
Stavrianopoulou, E. 2006. Ed. Rituals and Communication in the Graeco-Roman
World. Kernos Supplement 16. Liège.
Taves, A. 2011. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the
Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton.
Totten, D. M. and Samuels K. L. 2012. Eds. Making Roman Places, Past and Present:
Papers Presented at the First Critical Roman Archaeology Conference Held at Stanford
University in March, 2008, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement. Portsmouth.
Tuan, Y.-F. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis.
Tyng C. M., Amin, H. U., Saad, M. N. M. and Malik, A. S. 2017. ‘The influences
of emotions on learning and memory’, Frontiers in Psychology 8: 1454 https://doi
.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454
Ulrich, B. 2009. ‘The imagistic tradition of Dionysos in the Graeco-Roman world’,
in L. H. Martin and P. Pachis, eds. Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman
World: A Cognitive Modeling of History of Religious Research, 25–54. Thessaloniki.
Ustinova, Y. 2009. Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in
the Search for Ultimate Truth. Oxford.

Ustinova, Y. 2018. Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece.
London.
Van der Ploeg, G. 2016. ‘Reconstructing the sensory experience of Caracalla’s
supplication at the Pergamene Asclepieion’, Exchanges: The Warwick Research
Journal 3(2): 185–98.
van Mulukom, V. 2017. ‘Remembering religious rituals: autobiographical mem-
ories of high-arousal religious rituals considered from a narrative processing
perspective’, Religion, Brain & Behavior 7(3): 191–205. https://doi.org/10.1080
/2153599X.2016.1232304
van Opstall, E. 2018. ‘General introduction’, in E. van Opstall, ed. Sacred
Thresholds: The Door to the Sanctuary in Late Antiquity, 1–30. Leiden: Boston.
Watson-Jones, R. E. and Legare, C. H. 2016. ‘The social functions of group
rituals’, Current Directions in Psychological Science 25(1): 42–6.
Watson-Jones, R. E., Whitehouse, H. and Legare, C. H. 2016. ‘In-group ostracism
increases high-fidelity imitation in early childhood’, Psychological Science 27(1):
34–42.
Wescoat, B. D. and Ousterhout, R. G. 2012. Eds. Architecture of the Sacred: Space,
Ritual, and Experience From Classical Greece to Byzantium. Cambridge.
White, C. 2021. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion. Connecting
Evolution, Brain, Cognition, and Culture. New York.
Whitehouse, H. 2000. Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity.
London.
Whitehouse, H. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious
Transmission. Walnut Creek.
Whitehouse, H. and Laidlaw, J. 2004. Eds. Ritual and Memory: Toward
a Comparative Anthropology of Religion. Walnut Creek.
Whitehouse, H. and Martin, L. H. 2004. Eds. Theorizing Religions Past:
Archaeology, History, and Cognition. Walnut Creek.
Whitson, J. A. and Galinsky, A. D. 2008. ‘Lacking control increases illusory
pattern perception’, Science 322(5898): 115–17.
Xygalatas, D. 2022. Ritual. How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living.
New York.
Xygalatas, D., Panagiotis, M., Fischer, R., Reddish, P., Skewes, J., Geertz, A. W.,
Roepstorff, A. and Bulbulia, J. 2013. ‘Extreme rituals promote prosociality’,
Psychological Science 24(8): 1602–5.
Xygalatas, D., Schjoedt, U., Bulbulia, J., Konvalinka, I., Jegindø, E.-M.,
Reddish, P., Geertz, A. W. and Roepstorff, A. 2013b. ‘Autobiographical mem-
ory in a fire-walking ritual’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 13: 1–16.
Xygalatas, D., Khan, S., Lang, M., Kundt, R., Kundtová-Klocová, E. Krátký, J.
and Shaver, J. 2019. ‘Effects of extreme ritual practices on psychophysiological
well-being’, Current Anthropology 60(5): 699–707.

chapter 1
Remembering the Rites: Religious Learning Network

Model and Transmission of Religious Rituals
in the Worship of Nutrices Augustae
(Poetovio, Pannonia Superior)
Blanka Misic*
Introduction
In recent years, an interest in the interdisciplinary study of religious ritual has
emerged among scholars of antiquity. In attempting to explain how religious
knowledge, including rituals, is learned and transferred, certain scholars of
antiquity have turned to theories from Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR).1
Although certain cognitive theories, such as Harvey Whitehouse’s Modes of
Religiosity,2 have become prominent, most current CSR theoretical models
were initially developed and based on modern religious practices and so may
not be best suited to examining ancient religions. Unlike scholars of modern
religions, scholars of ancient religions cannot conduct participant interviews
and surveys and instead must make inferences principally from material
evidence and texts, which are often incomplete and/or contradictory.
Therefore, reconciling the process of learning and transmission of religious
rituals between individuals, social groups, and material culture still proves
problematic. In order to address these issues, I propose a new, CSR-based
theoretical framework for understanding the process of learning and transfer
of religious and ritual knowledge within ancient religions, which I term the
Religious Learning Network (RLN) theoretical model.
* The author would like to express gratitude to participants at TRAC 2018, IACSR 2018, TAG 2018,
and TRAC 2019 who provided valuable comments for the development of the RLN model. The
author would also like to thank Lee-Ann McKay, Josipa Lulić, Jacob Mackey, Stephen Adams,
Emma-Jayne Graham, and Abigail Graham, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their comments
and suggestions on previous versions of this chapter. All errors remain the author’s own.
1
Beck 2004, Misic 2015 and 2022, Panagiotidou and Beck 2017, and Moser 2019, among others.
2
Whitehouse 2004, and Whitehouse and Laidlaw 2004, among other publications.
27

28 blanka misic
It is to be noted that the RLN model does not claim to provide
a universal explanation for ritual transmission3 – for example, it does not
yet account for ritual deviation4 or change in ritual practices that can occur
over several generations. The RLN model does, however, contribute to
bridging the gap between cognitive science research on ritual transmission
and memory and historical and archaeological study of ritual communica-
tion, performance, and experience.5 The aim of the RLN is to provide
a testable model for how religious rituals were learned and transmitted in
the context of the Graeco-Roman world. In this respect, the RLN aligns
with a fundamental CSR aim to produce ‘general models intended to
provoke further research by applying them to specific contexts with an
understanding of the cultural and historical context within which religious
ideas are communicated’.6 As a theoretical model of ritual learning and
transmission designed to be applied to material and archaeological evi-
dence, the value of RLN rests with the possibilities it offers to be tested
further in the context of different ancient cults. The RLN can therefore
serve as a model for comparing different religious ritual traditions and
practices throughout the Graeco-Roman world. The aim of the present
chapter is to outline the RLN theoretical model and apply it within a case
study of a Roman provincial mother-goddess cult, the Nutrices Augustae, so
that we may better understand the types of rituals that may have been
observed, the cognitive and social effects that these rituals may have
produced upon the ritual participants, and the methods through which
ritual knowledge was transmitted within this cult.
The cult of the Nutrices Augustae was chosen as the focus of this study for
two reasons. First, as one of the best-attested cults in southern Pannonia in
terms of iconographic and epigraphic evidence, the cult of the Nutrices
Augustae can provide us with invaluable insight into Pannonian religious
practices. Since the evidence for the worship of the Nutrices Augustae is
confined to the Pannonian colony of Poetovio and its vicinity, and since
this cult is not attested elsewhere in the Roman Empire, it becomes an even
more important case study for understanding local provincial religions and
3
As Robert N. McCauley (2020: 119) states: ‘CSR’s explanations are like any other scientific
explanations . . . They are theoretical, ergo, they are selective and not all-encompassing. Instead,
the best theoretical explanations of science provoke new and deeper questions.’
4
For a discussion of ritual deviation see Abigail Graham’s Chapter 4 in this volume.
5
Many scholars, such as Sosis (2020: 6), Legare and Nielsen (2020: 5), and Eidinow et al. (2022: 8),
have expressed a need for more interdisciplinary and integrative research between the Cognitive
Sciences and the Humanities in order to advance the study and understanding of religious systems
and rituals.
6
White 2021: 322 (quote), see also 204.

Remembering the Rites 29
ritual practices. Although previous publications on the Nutrices Augustae
have focused on exploring the nature and origins of the cult, no publication
to date has specifically explored its ritual practices. The application of the
cognitive RLN model to the material evidence of the cult of Nutrices
Augustae will offer a novel perspective for interpreting this evidence, thus
providing a deeper understanding of this cult and the religious rituals and
practices that occurred within it. Second, the cult of the Nutrices Augustae
was chosen as the focus of this study because it is one of the rare cults from
the Roman Empire that features cross-generational ritual participation, with
both parents and children recorded as worshippers of the Nutrices Augustae.
Thus, the application of the RLN model to the evidence of the cult of the
Nutrices Augustae can serve to further the understanding of both horizontal
(between individuals in the same community) and vertical (from one gener-
ation to another) transmission of cultural and religious knowledge in the
Roman Empire. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: what
insights can the RLN theoretical model offer regarding the nature of rituals
that took place in the cult of Nutrices Augustae? What cognitive and social
effects could these rituals have produced on their participants? And last, how
were rituals in the cult of the Nutrices Augustae learned and transmitted from
one generation to another (i.e. from parents to children)?
Religious Learning Network Theoretical Model

Central to the understanding and transfer of religious ideas is the individ-
ual worshipper’s mind. Despite individual differences in how we learn,
understand, and interpret information, all learning and exchange of infor-
mation requires interaction with external stimuli.7 These stimuli can be
divided into four categories: people, places, objects, and events.
Together, these stimuli form a common ground on which religious know-
ledge can be built and transferred among worshippers (Figure 1.1).
First, an individual learns by interacting with people, through observation,
imitation, collaboration, and/or verbal and non-verbal communication.8
Within a religious context, an individual gains religious knowledge by
7
Montague et al. 2002: 908. Harris et al. (2010: 271) state: ‘human cognitive processing is “hybrid”:
including not only the individual brain and body, but also the environment . . . an individual’s neural
system does not act in causal isolation from its environmental and social context’. According to Sosis
(2020: 2): ‘Like all communities, religious groups are influenced by external factors including the
social, political, economic, ecological and socio-religious environment in which the group is
situated.’
8
Legare and Harris 2016: 633, 635, Rogoff 2014: 70, 74, and Clegg et al. 2021.

30 blanka misic
Religious Learning Network (RLN) model
PEOPLE
EVENTS MIND PLACE(S)
OBJECTS
Figure 1.1 Religious Learning Network theoretical model: Part 1. Figure created by
the author.
observing, imitating, and communicating with fellow cult members and

religious authority figures, who serve as learning aides in initiating the
individual into the religion.9 Depending on situational contexts, individuals
employ differing variations and combinations of these approaches, con-
sciously or unconsciously throughout their lives, in order to achieve the best
learning outcomes.10 For example, children frequently engage in
overimitation,11 copying even unnecessary movements in a sequence of action,
which adults are less prone to do since they have a greater understanding of
causality of actions.12 These learning strategies (observation, imitation, collab-
oration, and verbal and non-verbal communication) do not only occur in the
context of religious and/or ritual learning, but are connected to everyday
experiences, existing in a wider ‘constellation of cultural practices’.13 Thus, as
individuals accumulate knowledge gained through life experiences within
9
Mackey 2017. In psychology and cognitive sciences this approach is referred to as social learning.
Lyons et al. (2007: 19751) state: ‘a remarkable proportion of our abilities are learned by imitating
those around us. Imitation is a critical part of what makes us cognitively human’.
10
Rogoff 2014: 77.
11
Legare and Harris 2016: 635. For Cognitive Science of Religion research on overimitation see Legare
and Nielsen 2015 and Clegg and Legare 2016, among others.
12
Nielsen et al. 2015: 191. Legare and Nielsen (2015: 688) state that: ‘For instrumental learning, with an
increase in experience, high fidelity imitation decreases and innovation increases.’
13
In her explanation of the LOPI (Learning by Observing and Pitching In) model, Barbara Rogoff
(2014: 77) accounts for cultural practices such as imitation, observation, and collaboration, stating
that they ‘are connected with many other aspects of children’s and families’ lives as aspects of
coherent constellations of cultural practices . . . The idea of constellations contrasts with treating
cultural practices such as schooling, parental occupations, or urban living as variables that operate
independently’. See also Rogoff, Nadjafi and Mejía-Arauz 2014.
Sosis (2020: 3) states that ‘cultural evolutionists emphasize the importance of context, that is, the
social environment, in explaining the transmission of particular religious beliefs’.

Remembering the Rites 31
a particular cultural environment, they are able to extrapolate and apply this
knowledge across different situations within the same (or similar) cultural
context.
Second, an individual learns by interacting with a specific place through
sensory cues. The architectural layout, the decorative features, and the
smells, sounds, and objects specific to a particular place all contribute
towards building a memory of and around that place.14 Therefore,
a multifaceted ‘memory of place’ is created within the individual through
the combined sensory experience of a particular location.15 The focal place
for cultic activities is most often a temple, which through the numinous
quality placed upon it by the community of worshippers, as well as through
its repeated use (such as continued deposition of offerings), can become
not only a place that preserves memory (lieu de mémoire) but also an agent
in the transmission of religious knowledge.16
Third, an individual learns by interacting with objects through obser-
vation and/or physical manipulation (touching/handling). Objects, like
places, are not passive entities, but can tacitly communicate information.17
Within a religious context, for example, when a worshipper sees an altar,
they will quickly learn through observation what size and shape the altar
should take, and if they witness another worshipper interacting with it they
will be able to imitate the actions. Likewise, through physical manipulation
of cult instruments an individual learns how they should be used. When
handling a sacrificial knife, for example, an individual quickly discovers
that the knife should be gripped by the handle since holding it by the blade
is not only impractical but also dangerous, and since it is impossible to cut
the sacrificial animal with the handle. Moreover, by retrieving past mem-
ories of encounters with similar objects (e.g. kitchen knives, daggers etc.)
an individual who has never handled a sacrificial knife, for example, can
also extrapolate through memory association how a sacrificial knife should
14
According to Day (2013: 2) ‘the senses are the mediums through which humans experience their
world’. Connerton (1989: 74) argues that the senses form a key aspect of the ‘mnemonics of the
body’. Hamilakis (2013: 411) states that ‘sensorial experience is activated at the moment of a trans-
corporeal encounter; this is an encounter . . . between human bodies and objects, things, and
environments’.
15
Mackey, personal correspondence, 29 April 2019.
16
Van der Ploeg (2016: 189) states: ‘Sacred space . . . plays a vital role in the articulation and
transmission of socio-cultural practices. It is, furthermore, the physical embodiment of the memory
of a community and, as such, it reflects and expresses social behaviours, meanings and beliefs.’ See
also Sutton 2020. For a further theoretical discussion of space/place from a geographical perspective
see Steven Muir’s Chapter 5 in this volume.
17
Geertz (2017: 50) states: ‘Places and material objects have a life of their own which influences our
emotional and cognitive lives.’ See also: Day 2013: 8, 14, and Sutton 2020.

32 blanka misic
be handled.18 The individual may not be able to recall every single time
they have used a knife-like object in their life, but through accumulation
and association of these past experiences they will have gained the general
knowledge of what a knife looks like, how it should be used, what events/
situations require the use of a knife and so on.19 Therefore, objects can
exhibit agency by conveying sensory information about their appearance
and their mode of use, but also by ‘triggering’ memories of past experiences
that can then elicit particular emotional and behavioural responses.20
Last, an individual learns by interacting with events through observation,
imitation, and/or participation.21 An event, such as a religious ritual, is often
participatory in nature22 – it brings people, objects, and place(s) together
within the same temporal-spatial environment. Ritual events also bind partici-
pants together through shared, repeated, and choreographed proceedings.23
Therefore, the people, the places, the objects, and the events that an individual
interacts with become pillars on which their memories and knowledge are
built. So, for example, if we remember a specific ritual (event), we will also
remember by association where it took place, who we were with, what objects
we used, and what we were doing. These pillars (people, places, objects, and
events) dynamically form a network of memory associations, helping in the
encoding, storage, and recall of information.24 This network of memory
associations, in its turn, forms an autobiographical narrative particular to
each individual, which can facilitate the processing and remembering of
complex phenomena, such as religious rituals.25 As individuals reflect on the
events, people, objects, and places that form their life experience, and thus
construct their autobiographical narrative, they can derive a sense of meaning
18
This is not dissimilar to Lawrence Barsalou’s grounded cognition and situated conceptualisation
approach, as outlined in Eidinow 2022: 76–9 and Van Cappellen and Edwards 2022: 117.
Neuroscience research on memory retrieval (Sara 2000: 73) indicates that ‘remembering . . . involves
the apprehension and comprehension of contemporary stimuli in the light of past experience . . .
retrieval is usually brought about as a result of integration of incoming environmental information
with the “memory network” driven by that information’. The concept of ‘memory network’ within
the present RLN theoretical model is built on the cognitive/neuroscience understanding of memory
as a network of associations (see Tulving and Thomson 1973: 352, 358).
19
According to Eidinow et al. (2022: 3) ‘Cognition proceeds on the basis of maps that are configured by
prior experience, brain and body processes, and cultural and social models of behaviour that are
continually updated throughout life.’ Laidlaw (2004: 4) uses a similar example of an individual
getting a haircut in order to explain how the episodic (autobiographical) memories and semantic
(general knowledge about the world) memories are connected.
20
Moser 2019: 110–12, 119–22, 124.
21
Högberg et al. (2015: 848) state that: ‘It is the relation between observations and the experience of
execution that results in social learning.’
22
Hull 2014: 166. 23 Hobson et al. 2017: 10–12, and Mackey 2017.
24
Eagleman and Montague 2002: 811, and Hamilakis 2013: 413.
25
Martin (2022: 230) notes that humans have a tendency ‘for representing experiences through narrative’.

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
le thé, et nous demeurâmes assez silencieux durant tout ce temps,
Mahon, le vieux couple et moi. J’eus fini le premier et m’esquivai
pour aller fumer une cigarette, ma cabine se trouvant dans un rouf
tout contre la dunette. C’était l’heure du plein, le vent avait fraîchi, il
bruinait : les deux portes du sas étaient ouvertes, et les charbonniers
allaient et venaient dans l’obscurité, avec leurs feux très clairs, au
milieu d’un grand bruit d’hélices battant l’eau, d’un ferraillement de
treuils, et de voix qui hélaient au bout des jetées. J’observais la
procession des feux de pointe qui glissaient en haut et celle des feux
verts qui glissaient plus bas dans la nuit, lorsque tout à coup
j’aperçus un éclat rouge qui disparut, revint et resta. L’avant d’un
vapeur surgit tout proche. Par la claire-voie de la cabine, je criai :
« Montez, vite ! » puis j’entendis une voix effrayée qui disait au loin
dans l’ombre : « Stoppez, capitaine. » La sonnerie d’un timbre
résonna. Une autre voix cria pour avertir : « Nous allons rentrer dans
ce voilier. » Un rude « Ça va ! » y répondit et fut suivi d’un violent
craquement, au moment où le vapeur vint, de sa joue avant, taper
de biais dans notre gréement. Il y eut un moment de confusion, de
vociférations, un bruit de gens qui couraient. La vapeur siffla. Puis
on entendit quelqu’un qui disait : « Paré, capitaine. » « Vous n’avez
rien ? » demanda la voix bourrue. J’avais couru devant pour voir
l’avarie et je leur criai : « Je crois que non ! » « En arrière
doucement », dit la voix bourrue. Un timbre retentit. « Quel est ce
vapeur ? » hurla Mahon. A ce moment il n’était plus pour nous
qu’une ombre massive, manœuvrant à quelque distance. On nous
cria un nom, un nom de femme, Miranda, ou Melissa, ou quelque
chose de ce genre. « Ça va nous faire encore un mois dans ce sale
trou ! » me dit Mahon, comme nous examinions avec des fanaux les
pavois éclatés et les bras coupés. « Mais où est donc le capitaine ? »
« Nous ne l’avions tout ce temps-là ni vu ni entendu. Nous
allâmes voir derrière. Une voix dolente s’éleva du milieu du bassin ;
« Ohé ! Judée ! » Comment diable se trouvait-il là ? Nous criâmes :
« Oui ! » — « Je suis à la dérive dans notre canot, sans avirons, »
nous cria-t-il. Un batelier attardé nous offrit ses services et Mahon
s’entendit avec lui moyennant une demi-couronne pour remorquer
notre capitaine au long du bord. Mais ce fut Mrs Beard qui monta la
première notre échelle. Il y avait près d’une heure qu’ils étaient là à
flotter dans le bassin sous une froide petite pluie fine. Je n’ai jamais
de ma vie été aussi surpris.
« Il paraît que lorsqu’il m’avait entendu crier : « Montez, vite », il
avait aussitôt compris ce qui se passait, il avait empoigné sa femme,
grimpé sur le pont qu’il avait traversé en courant, pour dégringoler
dans le canot amarré à l’échelle. Pas si mal pour un homme de
soixante ans. Imaginez un peu ce vieux, sauvant héroïquement sa
femme dans ses bras, — la femme de toute sa vie. Il l’avait déposée
sur un banc et s’apprêtait à remonter à bord, quand, je ne sais
comment, la bosse fila. Et les voilà partis ensemble. Naturellement
au milieu de toute cette confusion nous ne l’avions pas entendu
crier. Il avait l’air tout penaud. Elle s’écria d’un air enjoué :
— « Je suppose que cela ne fait rien si je manque le train
maintenant.
— « Non, Jenny, descends te réchauffer, — grommela-t-il. Puis
s’adressant à nous :
— « Un marin ne devrait pas s’embarrasser de sa femme. Voyez-
vous ça, je n’étais pas à bord ! Bon, y a pas trop de mal cette fois.
Allons voir ce que cet idiot de vapeur nous a démoli. »
« Ce n’était pas grand’chose, mais cela nous retint tout de même
trois semaines. Au bout de ce temps, le capitaine étant occupé avec
ses agents, je portai le sac de voyage de Mrs Beard jusqu’à la gare
et l’installai confortablement dans un compartiment de troisième
classe. Elle abaissa la vitre pour me dire :
— « Vous êtes un brave jeune homme. Si vous voyez John, — le
capitaine Beard, — sans son foulard la nuit, rappelez-lui de ma part
de bien s’emmitoufler.
— « Certainement, Mrs. Beard, — lui dis-je.
— « Vous êtes un brave jeune homme. J’ai remarqué combien
vous étiez attentionné pour John, le capitaine… »
« Le train démarra brusquement. Je saluai la vieille dame. Je ne
l’ai plus jamais revue… Passez-moi la bouteille.
« Nous prîmes la mer le lendemain. Quand nous partîmes ainsi
pour Bangkok, il y avait trois mois que nous avions quitté Londres.
Nous avions pensé mettre une quinzaine tout au plus.
« C’était en janvier et le temps était magnifique, — ce beau
temps d’hiver ensoleillé qui a plus de charme que le beau temps
d’été, parce qu’il est plus inattendu, plus vif, et qu’on sait qu’il ne va
pas, qu’il ne peut pas durer longtemps. C’est comme une aubaine,
une bonne fortune, une chance inespérée.
« Cela dura tout le long de la mer du Nord, tout le long de la
Manche : cela dura jusqu’à trois cents milles environ à l’ouest du cap
Lizzard : alors le vent tourna au suroît et commença sa musique.
Deux jours plus tard il soufflait en tempête. La Judée se vautrait
dans l’Atlantique comme une vieille caisse à chandelles. Il souffla
jour après jour, il souffla méchamment, sans arrêt, sans merci, sans
relâche. Le monde n’était plus qu’une immensité de vagues
écumantes qui se ruaient sur nous, sous un ciel si bas qu’on aurait
pu le toucher de la main et sale comme un plafond enfumé. Dans
l’espace bouleversé qui nous environnait il y avait autant d’embruns
que d’air. Jour après jour, nuit après nuit, il n’y eut autour du navire
que le hurlement du vent, le tumulte de la mer, le bruit de l’eau
tombant en trombe sur notre pont. Il n’y eut ni repos pour lui, ni
repos pour nous. Il ballottait, il tanguait, il piquait du nez, il plongeait
de l’arrière, il roulait, il gémissait ; et il nous fallait nous cramponner
quand nous étions sur le pont, nous agripper à nos couchettes
quand nous étions en bas, dans un effort physique et une tension
d’esprit qui ne nous donnaient pas de cesse.
« Une nuit Mahon m’interpella par la vitre de ma cabine. Elle
ouvrait sur ma couchette. J’y étais étendu, tout éveillé, tout habillé,
tout chaussé, avec l’impression de n’avoir pas dormi depuis des
années, et de ne pouvoir le faire si je m’y efforçais. Il me dit avec
animation :
— « Vous avez la tige de sonde, Marlow ? Je ne peux pas
amorcer les pompes. Sacrédié, ce n’est pas une plaisanterie. »
« Je lui passai la sonde et me recouchai, essayant de penser à
des tas de choses, — mais je ne pensais qu’aux pompes. Quand je
vins sur le pont, ils y travaillaient encore et ma bordée vint les
relever. A la lueur du fanal qu’on avait apporté pour examiner la
sonde, j’entrevis des visages graves et las. Nous passâmes les
quatre heures entières à pomper. Nous pompâmes tout le jour, toute
la nuit, toute la semaine, quart après quart. Le navire se déliait et
faisait de l’eau dangereusement, pas au point de nous noyer
immédiatement mais assez pour nous tuer à manœuvrer les
pompes. Et tandis que nous pompions, le navire nous lâchait par
morceaux. Les pavois partirent, les épontilles furent arrachées, les
manches à air écrasées, la porte de la cabine sauta. Le navire
n’avait plus un pouce de sec. Il se vidait peu à peu. Notre grand
canot, comme par magie, fut réduit en miettes, à sa place même, sur
ses chantiers. Je l’avais saisi moi-même, et j’étais assez fier de mon
ouvrage qui avait défié si longtemps la malignité de la mer. Et nous
pompions. Et la tempête ne cessait de faire rage. La mer était
blanche comme une nappe d’écume, comme un chaudron de lait qui
bout : pas d’éclaircie parmi les nuages, pas même un trou grand
comme la main, pas même l’espace de dix secondes. Il n’y avait pas
pour nous de ciel, il n’y avait pour nous ni étoiles, ni soleil, ni univers,
— rien que des nuages en courroux et une mer en fureur. Quart
après quart, nous pompions pour sauver nos vies, et cela sembla
durer des mois, des années, toute une éternité, comme si nous
eussions été des morts condamnés à quelque enfer pour marins.
Nous oubliâmes le jour de la semaine, le nom du mois, quelle année
l’on était, et jusqu’au souvenir d’avoir jamais été à terre. Les voiles
partirent ; le navire était en travers au vent sous un bout de toile :
l’océan nous dégringolait dessus, et nous n’y prenions plus garde.
Nous manœuvrions les bras des pompes et nous avions des regards
d’idiots. Quand nous avions réussi à ramper sur le pont, j’entourais
d’un filin les hommes, les pompes et le grand mât, et nous
pompions, nous pompions sans relâche, avec de l’eau jusqu’à la
ceinture, jusqu’au cou, jusque par-dessus la tête. C’était du pareil au
même. On avait oublié ce que c’était que d’être sec.
« Et j’avais quelque part en moi cette pensée : « Ça, ma foi, c’est
une sacrée aventure, comme on en lit dans les livres, — et c’est
mon premier voyage comme lieutenant, — et je n’ai que vingt ans,
— et je tiens bon, tout autant que n’importe lequel de ces hommes,
et je garde mes gens d’attaque. » J’étais content. Je n’aurais pas
renoncé à cette expérience pour un empire. Il y avait des moments
où j’exultais véritablement. Quand cette vieille coque démantelée
piquait du nez lourdement, l’arrière dressé en l’air, il me semblait
qu’elle lançait comme un appel, comme un défi, comme un cri vers
ces nuages impitoyables, les mots inscrits sur sa poupe : « Judée,
Londres. Marche ou meurs. »
« O jeunesse ! Quelle force elle a, quelle foi, quelle imagination.
Pour moi, ce navire, ce n’était pas une vieille guimbarde charriant
par le monde un tas de charbon, en guise de fret, — c’était l’effort,
l’essai, l’épreuve de la vie. J’y pense avec plaisir, avec affection,
avec regret, — comme on pense à un mort que l’on aurait chéri. Je
ne l’oublierai jamais… Passez-moi la bouteille.
« Une nuit qu’attachés au mât comme je l’ai expliqué, nous
continuions à pomper, assourdis par le vent, et n’ayant même plus
en nous assez de courage pour souhaiter notre mort, un paquet de
mer déferla sur le pont et nous passa dessus. A peine eussé-je
repris mon souffle que je me mis à crier, avec l’instinct du devoir :
« Tenez bon, les gars ! » quand soudain je sentis quelque chose de
dur qui flottait sur le pont me heurter le mollet. J’essayai de m’en
emparer sans y parvenir. Il faisait si noir qu’on ne se voyait pas les
uns les autres à deux pas.
« Après ce choc, le navire demeura un moment immobile, et la
chose revint heurter ma jambe. Cette fois je pus la saisir, — c’était
une casserole. Tout d’abord abruti de fatigue, et ne pouvant penser à
rien d’autre qu’aux pompes, je ne compris pas ce que j’avais dans la
main. Mais tout d’un coup je me rendis compte et m’écriai : « Dites-
moi, les gars, le rouf est parti. Lâchons cela et allons voir où est le
coq. »
« Il y avait à l’avant un rouf qui contenait la cuisine, la couchette
du cuisinier, et le poste d’équipage : Comme on s’attendait depuis
des jours à le voir emporté, les hommes avaient reçu l’ordre de
coucher dans le carré, le seul endroit sûr du navire. Le steward,
Abraham, persistait toutefois à se cramponner à sa couchette,
stupidement, comme une mule, par pure terreur, je crois, comme un
animal qui ne veut pas quitter une étable qui s’écroule pendant un
tremblement de terre. Nous allâmes à sa recherche. C’était risquer
la mort, car une fois hors de notre amarrage, nous étions aussi
exposés que sur un radeau. Nous y allâmes tout de même. Le rouf
était démoli comme si un obus avait éclaté dedans. Presque tout
avait passé par-dessus bord, — le fourneau, le poste d’équipage,
toutes leurs affaires, tout était parti : mais deux épontilles, qui
maintenaient une partie de la cloison à laquelle était fixée la
couchette d’Abraham restaient comme par miracle. Nous
tâtonnâmes parmi les ruines et nous découvrîmes Abraham : il était
là, assis sur sa couchette, au beau milieu de l’écume et des épaves,
à bredouiller gaiement en se parlant à lui-même. Il avait perdu la
tête : il était devenu bel et bien fou, pour de bon, après ce choc
soudain qui avait eu raison de ce qui lui restait d’endurance. On
l’empoigna, on le traîna derrière, et on le précipita la tête la première
par l’échelle de la cabine. On n’avait pas le temps, voyez-vous, de le
descendre avec des précautions infinies, ni d’attendre pour savoir
comment il allait. Ceux qui étaient en bas sauraient bien le ramasser
au pied de l’échelle. Nous étions très pressés de retourner aux
pompes. Cela, ça ne pouvait pas attendre. Une mauvaise voie d’eau
est chose impitoyable.
« C’est à croire que le seul dessein de cette diabolique tempête
avait été de rendre fou ce pauvre diable de mulâtre. Elle mollit avant
le matin, et le lendemain le ciel se dégagea ; et, la mer s’apaisant, la
voie d’eau diminua. Quand on put établir un nouveau jeu de voiles,
l’équipage demanda à rentrer, — et il n’y avait vraiment rien d’autre
à faire. Les embarcations parties, les ponts balayés, la cabine
éventrée, les hommes n’ayant à se mettre que ce qu’ils avaient sur
le dos, les provisions gâtées, le navire éreinté. Nous virâmes du
bord pour rentrer, — eh bien, le croiriez-vous ? — le vent passa à
l’est et nous vint droit sur le nez. Il souffla frais, il souffla sans répit. Il
nous fallut lui disputer chaque pouce du chemin. Le navire
heureusement ne faisait pas autant d’eau, la mer restant
relativement calme. Pomper deux heures sur quatre n’est pas une
plaisanterie, — mais cela tint le navire à flot jusqu’à Falmouth.
« Les bonnes gens qui habitent là vivent des sinistres maritimes
et sans aucun doute nous virent arriver avec plaisir. Une horde
affamée de charpentiers de navires affûta ses outils, à la vue de
cette carcasse de navire. Et certes ils se firent de jolis bénéfices à
nos dépens avant d’en avoir fini. J’imagine que l’armateur était déjà
dans de mauvais draps. Les choses traînèrent. Puis on décida de
débarquer une partie du chargement et de calfater la coque. Ce qui
fut fait : on acheva les réparations, on rechargea : un nouvel
équipage embarqua et nous partîmes, — pour Bangkok. Avant la fin
de la semaine, nous revenions. L’équipage avait déclaré qu’il n’irait
pas à Bangkok, — c’est-à-dire une traversée de cent-cinquante
jours, — dans une espèce de rafiau où il allait pomper huit heures
sur vingt-quatre : et les journaux maritimes insérèrent de nouveau le
petit paragraphe : « Judée. Trois-mâts barque. De la Tyne pour
Bangkok : charbon : rentré à Falmouth avec une voie d’eau :
équipage refusant le service. »
« Il y eut encore des retards, — d’autres rafistolages. L’armateur
vint passer une journée et déclara que le navire était en parfait état.
Le pauvre capitaine Beard avait l’air d’un fantôme de capitaine, par
suite de l’ennui et de l’humiliation de tout cela. Rappelez-vous qu’il
avait soixante ans et que c’était son premier commandement.
Mahon affirmait que c’était une aventure absurde et que ça finirait
mal. Quant à moi j’aimais le navire plus que jamais et je mourais
d’envie d’aller à Bangkok ! Nom magique, nom béni !
« Mésopotamie » n’était rien à côté. Rappelez-vous que j’avais vingt
ans, que c’était mon premier voyage comme lieutenant et que tout
l’Orient m’attendait.
« Nous sortîmes pour mouiller en grande rade avec un nouvel
équipage, — le troisième. Le navire faisait eau pis que jamais.
C’était à croire que ces charpentiers de malheur y avaient fait un
trou. Cette fois-là, nous ne quittâmes même pas la rade. L’équipage
refusa tout bonnement de virer le guindeau.
« On nous remorqua dans le fond du port et nous devînmes un
meuble, une particularité, une institution de l’endroit. Les gens nous
montraient du doigt aux visiteurs en disant : « Ce trois-mâts que
vous voyez là en partance pour Bangkok, voilà six mois qu’il est là,
— il est rentré trois fois. » Les jours de congé, les gamins qui se
promenaient dans des canots nous hélaient : « Ho, de la Judée ! » et
si une tête se montrait au-dessus de la lisse, ils criaient : « Où
qu’c’est que vous allez ? à Bangkok ? » et ils se moquaient de nous.
Nous n’étions que trois à bord. Le pauvre vieux patron broyait du
noir dans sa cabine, Mahon s’était chargé du soin de faire la cuisine
et il déploya inopinément tout le génie d’un Français dans la
confection de bons petits plats. Moi, je m’occupais nonchalamment
du gréement. Nous étions devenus des citoyens de Falmouth. Tous
les boutiquiers nous connaissaient. Chez le coiffeur ou le marchand
de tabac, on nous demandait familièrement : « Croyez-vous que
vous finirez par arriver à Bangkok ? » Pendant ce temps l’armateur,
les assureurs et les affréteurs se chamaillaient à Londres et notre
solde courait toujours… Passez-moi la bouteille.
« C’était abominable. Moralement c’était pire que de pomper pour
sauver sa peau. On eût dit que le monde entier nous avait oubliés,
que nous n’appartenions à personne, que nous n’arriverions jamais
nulle part : on eût dit que par l’effet d’une malédiction, nous étions
condamnés à jamais à vivre dans ce fond de port en butte à la risée
de générations de dockers oisifs et de bateliers malhonnêtes.
J’obtins trois mois de solde et cinq jours de congé et me précipitai à
Londres. Cela me prit un jour pour y aller et près d’un autre pour en
revenir, mais mes trois mois de solde n’en filèrent pas moins. Je ne
sais trop ce que j’en fis. J’allai, je crois, au music-hall, je déjeunai,
dînai, soupai, dans un endroit chic de Regent-Street et je revins à
l’heure dite, sans avoir rien d’autre à montrer pour prix de trois mois
de travail, que les œuvres complètes de Byron et une couverture de
voyage toute neuve. Le batelier qui me ramena à bord me dit :
— « Ah bah ! je croyais que vous aviez quitté cette vieille barque.
Elle n’ira jamais à Bangkok.
— « Vous avez vu ça, vous ? — lui dis-je avec dédain ; mais cette
prophétie ne me disait rien de bon.
« Soudain un homme, — un agent de je ne sais qui, — survint,
muni de pleins pouvoirs. Il avait un visage qui bourgeonnait, une
énergie indomptable : c’était un fort joyeux luron. Nous rentrâmes,
d’un bond, dans la vie. Un chaland vint le long du bord, prit notre
chargement et nous allâmes nous faire caréner et enlever le cuivre
pour visiter les fonds. Rien d’étonnant à ce que cette barque fît eau :
harcelée par la tempête au delà de ses forces, la pauvre avait
comme de dégoût craché l’étoupe qui garnissait ses membrures. On
la recalfata, on la redoubla, on la rendit aussi étanche qu’une
bouteille. Nous retournâmes au chaland et on remit la cargaison à
bord.
« Alors, une nuit, par un beau clair de lune, tous les rats
quittèrent le navire. Nous en avions été infestés. Ils avaient détruit
nos voiles, consommé plus de provisions que l’équipage, partagé
bienveillamment nos lits et nos dangers et maintenant que le navire
était fin prêt, ils avaient décidé de décamper. J’appelai Mahon pour
jouir du spectacle. Rat après rat, on les vit paraître sur notre lisse,
jeter un dernier coup d’œil par-dessus leur épaule et tomber avec un
bruit sourd dans le chaland vide. Nous essayâmes d’en faire le
compte, mais nous ne tardâmes pas à nous embrouiller. Mahon
s’écria : « Eh bien ! qu’on ne vienne plus me parler de l’intelligence
des rats. Ils auraient dû partir avant, quand nous étions à deux
doigts de couler. Cela vous prouve combien est stupide la
superstition qu’on attache à eux. Les voilà qui lâchent un bon navire
pour un vieux chaland, où il n’y a rien à manger, en outre, les
imbéciles !… Je ne crois pas qu’ils sachent ce qui est sûr ou bon
pour eux pas plus que vous ou moi. »
« Et après quelques considérations à ce sujet, nous convînmes
que la sagesse des rats avait été grandement exagérée et qu’en fait
elle ne dépassait pas celle des hommes.
« L’histoire du navire, à cette époque, était connue de toute la
côte, depuis le cap Land’s End jusqu’aux Forelands, et sur toute la
côte sud il n’y eut pas moyen de dénicher un équipage. On nous en
envoya un au complet de Liverpool et nous partîmes une fois de
plus, — pour Bangkok.
« Nous eûmes bonne brise et mer calme jusqu’aux Tropiques, et
notre vieille Judée se traîna cahin-caha dans le soleil. Quand elle
filait huit nœuds, tout craquait dans la mâture, et nous attachions
nos casquettes sur nos têtes, mais d’ordinaire elle se prélassait à
raison de trois milles à l’heure. Que pouvait-on en attendre ? Elle
était fatiguée, — cette vieille barque. Sa jeunesse était là où est la
mienne, — où est la vôtre, — vous autres qui écoutez cette
interminable histoire : et quel ami oserait vous reprocher vos années
et votre fatigue ? On ne grognait pas après elle. Nous autres à
l’arrière, en tout cas, il nous semblait être nés, avoir été élevés, avoir
vécu à son bord depuis des siècles, n’avoir jamais connu d’autres
navires. Je n’aurais pas davantage reproché à la vieille église de
mon village de n’être pas une cathédrale.
« Et quant à moi, il y avait en outre ma jeunesse pour me rendre
patient. J’avais tout l’Orient devant moi, et toute la vie, et la pensée
que c’était sur ce navire que j’avais subi mon épreuve et que je m’en
étais tiré à mon honneur. Et je songeais aux hommes d’autrefois qui,
bien des siècles auparavant, avaient eux aussi suivi cette même
route sur des navires qui ne naviguaient pas mieux, pour aller au
pays des palmes, et des épices et des sables jaunes et des
peuplades brunes que gouvernaient des rois plus cruels que Néron
le Romain et plus magnifiques que Salomon le Juif. La vieille barque
se traînait, alourdie par l’âge et le fardeau de son chargement, tandis
que moi, je vivais la vie de la jeunesse, dans l’ignorance et dans
l’espoir. Elle se traîna ainsi pendant une interminable procession de
jours : et sa dorure neuve renvoyait ses reflets au soleil couchant et
semblait clamer sur la mer assombrie les mots peints sur sa poupe :
Judée, Londres, Marche ou meurs.
« Puis nous entrâmes dans l’Océan Indien et fîmes route au nord
pour la pointe de Java. Nous avions de petites brises. Les semaines
passaient. La Judée se traînait — marche ou meurs, et on
commençait chez nous à se dire qu’il fallait nous porter « en retard ».
« Un certain samedi que je n’étais pas de quart, les hommes me
demandèrent un ou deux seaux d’eau supplémentaires pour laver
leur linge. Comme je n’avais pas envie, à cette heure tardive, de
monter la pompe à eau douce, j’allai devant, en sifflotant et la clef à
la main, pour ouvrir l’écoutille du pic avant et tirer de l’eau de la
caisse de réserve que nous tenions à cet endroit.
« L’odeur qui monta d’en dessous fut aussi inattendue
qu’abominable. On eut dit que des centaines de lampes à pétrole
flambaient et fumaient dans ce trou depuis des jours. Je
m’empressai de sortir. L’homme qui m’accompagnait se mit à
tousser et me dit : « Drôle d’odeur, monsieur Marlow. » Je répondis
négligemment : « On dit que c’est bon pour la santé, » et j’allai
derrière.
« Mon premier soin fut de passer la tête par le trou carré de la
manche à air milieu. Comme je levais la trappe, une haleine visible,
quelque chose comme un léger brouillard, une bouffée de brume,
s’échappa de l’ouverture. L’air qui s’en exhalait était chaud et avait
une odeur lourde de suie et de pétrole. Je la reniflai et laissai
retomber la tape doucement. C’eût été inutile de m’asphyxier. La
cargaison était en feu.
« Le lendemain, le navire se mit à fumer pour de bon. Voyez-
vous, il fallait s’y attendre, car de si bonne qualité que fût ce
charbon, il avait été tellement manipulé, tellement brisé par les
transbordements qu’il ressemblait plus à du charbon de forge qu’à
quoi que ce fût d’autre. — Et puis il avait été mouillé, — plus souvent
qu’à son tour. Il avait plu tout le temps que nous l’avions
retransbordé du chaland : et maintenant, au cours de cette longue
traversée, il s’était échauffé et c’était un nouveau cas de combustion
spontanée.
« Le capitaine nous fit appeler dans sa cabine. Il avait étalé une
carte sur la table et avait un air malheureux.
« — La côte occidentale d’Australie n’est pas loin, — nous dit-il,
— mais j’entends faire route pour notre destination. C’est le mois
des cyclones, avec ça : mais nous garderons le cap tout simplement
sur Bangkok et nous combattrons l’incendie. J’en ai assez de
retourner, même si nous devons tous rôtir. Nous allons d’abord
essayer d’étouffer, par le manque d’air, cette satanée combustion.
« On essaya. On aveugla toutes les ouvertures et la fumée n’en
continua pas moins. Elle ne cessait de sortir par d’imperceptibles
fissures, elle se frayait un passage à travers les cloisons et les
panneaux, elle filtrait ici et là, partout, en minces volutes, en buée
invisible, d’incompréhensible façon. Elle s’introduisait dans le carré,
dans le gaillard : elle empoisonnait les endroits les plus abrités du
pont : on pouvait en sentir l’odeur du haut de la grand’vergue. Si la
fumée sortait, il était évident que l’air entrait. C’était décourageant.
Cette combustion-là refusait absolument de se laisser étouffer.
« Nous résolûmes d’essayer l’eau, et nous retirâmes les
panneaux. D’énormes flocons de fumée blanchâtre, jaunâtre,
épaisse, grasse, fluide, suffocante, s’élevèrent jusqu’au sommet des
mâts. Tous les hommes décampèrent derrière. Puis le nuage
empesté se dissipa au loin et nous nous remîmes à l’œuvre dans
une fumée qui maintenant n’était guère plus épaisse que celle d’une
cheminée d’usine ordinaire.
« On arma la pompe à incendie, on adapta la manche et peu
après celle-ci creva. Que voulez-vous, elle était du même âge que le
navire, — c’était un tuyau préhistorique et irréparable. Alors on
pompa avec la piètre pompe d’étrave, on puisa de l’eau avec des
seaux et on parvint ainsi à la longue à déverser des quantités
considérables d’Océan Indien par le grand panneau. Le clair
ruisseau étincelait au soleil, tombait dans une couche de fumée
blanche et rampante, et disparaissait à la surface noire du charbon.
De la vapeur montait, mêlée à la fumée. Nous versions de l’eau
salée comme dans un tonneau sans fond. Il était dit que nous
aurions à pomper sur ce navire, pomper pour le vider, pomper pour
le remplir : et après avoir empêché l’eau d’y pénétrer pour échapper
à une noyade, nous y versions de l’eau avec frénésie pour n’y être
pas brûlés vifs.
« Et il continuait à se traîner, — marche ou crève, — par ce
temps limpide. Le ciel était un miracle de pureté, un miracle d’azur.
La mer était lisse, était bleue, était limpide, était scintillante comme
une pierre précieuse, qui s’étendait de toutes parts autour de nous
jusqu’à l’horizon, — comme si le globe terrestre tout entier n’eût été
qu’un joyau, qu’un saphir colossal, qu’une gemme unique façonnée
en planète. Et sur l’étendue lustrée de cette eau calme, la Judée
glissait imperceptiblement, enveloppée de vapeurs impures et
languissantes, d’un nuage nonchalant qui dérivait au souffle d’un
vent lent et léger : nuage empesté qui souillait la splendeur de la mer
et du ciel.
« Il va sans dire que pendant tout ce temps-là, nous ne vîmes
pas de flammes. Le feu couvait dans la cargaison, à fond de cale,
quelque part. Comme nous travaillions côte à côte, Mahon me dit
avec un singulier sourire :
« — A présent, si l’on pouvait seulement avoir une bonne petite
voie d’eau, — comme la première fois que nous sommes sortis de la
Manche, ça mettrait l’éteignoir sur cet incendie, hein ?
« Je lui répondis par cette remarque ironique :
« — Vous vous souvenez des rats ?
« Nous combattions le feu et naviguions avec soin comme si de
rien n’était. Le steward faisait la cuisine et nous servait. Des douze
autres hommes, huit étaient à l’ouvrage, tandis que quatre se
reposaient. Chacun prit son tour, y compris le capitaine. L’égalité
régnait et à défaut d’une complète fraternité, une franche
camaraderie. Parfois, en envoyant un seau d’eau par le panneau on
entendait un homme hurler : « Vive Bangkok ! » et les autres se
mettaient à rire. Mais, en général, nous restions taciturnes et graves,
— et nous avions soif ! Ah ! quelle soif ! Et il nous fallait économiser
l’eau. De strictes rations. Le navire fumait, le soleil flamboyait…
Passez-moi la bouteille.
« On essaya de tout. On tenta même de creuser jusqu’au foyer
de l’incendie. Ça ne servit naturellement à rien. Personne ne pouvait
rester en bas plus d’une minute. Mahon, qui y descendit le premier,
s’évanouit dans la cale et l’homme qui alla le chercher en fit autant.
Nous les hissâmes sur le pont. Je sautai en bas pour leur montrer
comme c’était facile. Mais alors, ils avaient appris la sagesse et ils
se contentèrent de me repêcher au moyen d’un grappin fixé, si je ne
me trompe, au bout d’un manche à balai. Je ne proposai pas d’aller
rechercher ma pelle qui était restée en bas.
« Les choses commençaient à prendre mauvaise tournure. On
mit le grand canot à la mer. La seconde embarcation était parée à
mettre en dehors. Nous en avions encore une autre, de quelque
quatorze pieds de long, aux bossoirs arrière, où elle ne risquait rien.
« Alors, imaginez-vous, que la fumée tout à coup diminua. Nous
redoublâmes d’effort pour noyer le fond du navire. Au bout de deux
jours, il n’y eut plus de trace de fumée. Tout le monde rayonnait.
C’était un vendredi. Le samedi, pas de corvée, mais, bien entendu,
on tint la route. Pour la première fois, depuis quinze jours, les
hommes lavèrent leur linge, et se débarbouillèrent : et on leur donna
un dîner soigné. Ils parlaient en termes méprisants de combustion
spontanée, et ils donnaient à entendre qu’ils étaient, eux, des gars à
éteindre des incendies. En fin de compte, il nous semblait à tous
avoir hérité chacun d’une grosse fortune. Mais une horrible odeur de
brûlé empestait le navire. Le capitaine Beard avait les yeux caves et
les joues creuses. Je n’avais jamais autant remarqué auparavant
combien il était tordu et courbé. Lui et Mahon rôdaient gravement
aux abords des panneaux et des manches à air, en reniflant. Je fus
soudain frappé de voir que Mahon était un très, très vieux
bonhomme. Quant à moi, j’étais aussi satisfait et aussi fier que si
j’avais contribué à gagner une grande bataille navale. O jeunesse !
« La nuit fut belle. Au matin, un navire qui rentrait en Angleterre
passa à l’horizon, les mâts seuls en étaient visibles, — c’était le
premier que nous eussions vu depuis des mois : mais nous
approchions enfin de la terre, le détroit de la Sonde n’étant plus
guère qu’à cent quatre-vingt-dix milles et presque droit dans le nord.
« Le lendemain j’avais le quart sur le pont de huit à midi. Au
déjeuner du matin, le capitaine avait fait remarquer combien cette
odeur persistait dans le carré. Vers dix heures, le second étant
monté sur la dunette, je descendis sur le pont un moment. L’établi du
charpentier se trouvait derrière le grand mât : je m’y appuyai tout en
tirant sur ma pipe ; et le charpentier, un tout jeune homme, vint me
parler. « Je trouve, dit-il, que nous nous en sommes très bien tirés,
n’est-ce pas ? » et je m’aperçus avec quelque agacement que
l’imbécile cherchait à faire basculer l’établi. « Ne faites donc pas
cela, » lui dis-je. Et au même moment j’eus conscience d’une
sensation bizarre, d’une absurde illusion, — il me sembla, je ne sais
comment, que j’étais suspendu en l’air. Il me sembla entendre autour
de moi comme un souffle retenu qui s’exhale, comme si mille géants
tous ensemble avaient fait « Ouf ! » — et je sentis qu’un choc sourd
venait m’endolorir soudainement les côtes. Il n’y avait plus aucun
doute, — j’étais en l’air et mon corps décrivait une courte parabole.
Mais si courte qu’elle fût, elle suffit à faire naître en moi plusieurs
pensées, et autant que je me le rappelle, dans l’ordre suivant :
« Impossible que ce soit le charpentier ! — Qu’est-ce que c’est ? —
Quelque accident ? — Un volcan sous-marin ? Le charbon, des
gaz ? » Bon Dieu ! nous sautons. — Tout le monde est mort. Je vais
tomber dans le panneau arrière ! Je vois du feu là-dedans. »
« La poussière de charbon en suspension dans l’air de la cale
avait pris un reflet rouge foncé au moment de l’explosion. En un clin
d’œil, durant l’infinitésimale fraction de seconde qui s’était écoulée
depuis que l’établi avait commencé à basculer, j’étais venu m’étaler
de tout mon long sur la cargaison. Je me ramassai et me tirai de là.
Ce fut aussi rapide que si j’avais rebondi. Le pont n’était qu’un chaos
d’éclats de bois, entremêlés comme les arbres dans une forêt après
un ouragan, un immense rideau de haillons sales se balançait
doucement devant moi. C’était la grand’voile déchiquetée. Je me
pris à dire : « La mâture va s’affaler dans un moment », et pour me
déhaler de là je filai à quatre pattes du côté de l’échelle de la
dunette. La première personne que je vis fut Mahon, les yeux tout
ronds, la bouche ouverte et ses longs cheveux blancs hérissés
autour de la tête comme un halo d’argent. Il était sur le point de
descendre quand la vue du pont qui bougeait, se soulevait, se
métamorphosait devant lui en éclats de bois, l’avait comme pétrifié
sur l’échelon d’en haut. Je le regardai ahuri, et il me regarda lui aussi
avec une singulière expression de curiosité scandalisée. Je ne
savais pas que je n’avais plus de cheveux, plus de sourcils, plus de
cils, que ma jeune moustache avait flambé, que j’avais la figure toute
noire, une joue fendue, une entaille au nez et le menton en sang.
J’avais perdu ma casquette, une de mes savates, et ma chemise
était en loques. De tout cela, je n’avais pas la moindre idée. J’étais
stupéfait de voir le navire encore à flot, la dunette intacte, — et
surtout de voir des gens encore en vie. En outre, la paix du ciel et la
sérénité de la mer étaient véritablement surprenantes. Je suppose
que je m’étais attendu à les voir bouleversées d’horreur… Passez-
moi la bouteille.
« Une voix hélait de je ne sais où, — en l’air, du haut du ciel, — je
n’aurais pu le dire. Immédiatement je vis le capitaine, — il était fou. Il
me demanda avec insistance : « Où est la table du carré ? » et
d’entendre une question pareille me causa un choc affreux. Je
venais de sauter, vous concevez, et j’étais encore tout vibrant de
cette expérience, — je n’étais pas tout à fait sûr d’être encore en vie.
Mahon se mit à taper des deux pieds et lui cria : « Bon Dieu ! Vous
ne voyez donc pas que le pont a sauté ? » Je retrouvai ma voix et
me mis à bégayer, comme si j’avais eu conscience d’avoir
grandement manqué à mon devoir : « Je ne sais pas où elle est, la
table du carré. » C’était comme un rêve absurde.
« Et savez-vous ce qu’il demanda ensuite ? Eh ! bien, il voulut
faire brasser les vergues. Placide et comme perdu dans ses
pensées, il insista pour faire brasser carré la vergue de misaine.
« — Je ne sais pas s’il y a encore du monde en vie, — dit Mahon
qui pleurait presque. — Sûrement, — fit-il doucement, — il doit en
rester assez pour brasser la misaine.
« Le vieux était, paraît-il, dans sa cabine à remonter les
chronomètres, quand le choc le fit tournoyer sur lui-même. Aussitôt,
il lui vint à l’esprit comme il le dit par la suite, que le navire avait
touché et il se précipita dans le carré. Là il s’aperçut que la table
avait disparu. Le pont ayant sauté, elle s’était naturellement
effondrée dans la soute à voiles. A l’endroit où nous avions déjeuné
le matin, il ne vit plus qu’un grand trou dans le plancher. Cela lui
parut si terriblement mystérieux, et lui fit une si forte impression, que
ce qu’il entendit et vit, une fois monté sur le pont, ne lui sembla
qu’une pure bagatelle en comparaison. Et, notez bien, qu’il
remarqua aussitôt qu’il n’y avait personne à la barre et que son
navire n’était plus en route, — et son unique pensée fut que cette
misérable carcasse de navire dégréée, béante, fumante, il fallait la
faire revenir en route, le cap sur son port de destination. Bangkok !
Voilà ce qu’il voulait. Je vous dis que ce petit homme tranquille,
voûté, les jambes arquées, presque difforme, était magnifique par la
simplicité de son idée fixe et sa paisible indifférence à toute notre
agitation. Il nous envoya devant d’un geste d’autorité et alla lui-
même prendre la barre.
« Oui ! ce fut la première chose que nous fîmes, — brasser les
vergues de cette épave ! personne n’était tué ni même estropié,
mais tout le monde était plus ou moins touché. Vous auriez dû les
voir ! Quelques-uns de nos hommes étaient en loques, la figure noire
comme des charbonniers, comme des ramoneurs, et leurs têtes
rondes avaient l’air d’avoir été tondues ras : la vérité était qu’ils
avaient eu les cheveux flambés jusqu’à la peau. D’autres, — les
hommes non de quart, — réveillés et jetés à bas, ne cessaient de
frissonner et de geindre, alors que nous étions tous à l’ouvrage.
Mais ils en mettaient tous. Cet équipage de mauvaises têtes de
Liverpool avait le cœur bien placé. J’ai pu me convaincre qu’ils l’ont
toujours. C’est la mer qui leur donne ça, — le grand espace, la
solitude qui environne leurs âmes sombres et taciturnes. Enfin ! on
trébucha, on se traîna, on tomba, on se meurtrit les tibias sur les
débris, mais nous tirâmes dessus, tout de même. Les mâts tenaient,
mais nous ignorions jusqu’à quel point ils pouvaient bien être
carbonisés en dessous. Le temps était presque calme, mais une
longue houle d’ouest faisait rouler le navire. Les mâts pouvaient
tomber à tout instant. Nous les regardions avec appréhension. On
ne pouvait prévoir de quel côté ils tomberaient.
« Puis, nous nous retirâmes à l’arrière et regardâmes autour de
nous. Le pont n’était plus qu’un ramassis de planches de champ, de
planches debout, d’éclats de bois, de boiseries arrachées. Les mâts
se dressaient sur ce chaos comme de grands arbres au-dessus de
broussailles enchevêtrées. Les interstices de cet amas de débris se
remplissaient de quelque chose de blanchâtre qui se traînait,
bougeait, — et ressemblait à un brouillard gras. La fumée de
l’invisible incendie montait, rampait comme une brume épaisse et
empestée dans un vallon comblé de bois mort. Déjà des volutes
languissantes s’enroulaient parmi la masse des débris. Çà et là, un
morceau de poutre planté tout droit avait l’air d’un poteau. La moitié
d’un cercle de tournage avait été projetée à travers la voile de
misaine et le ciel faisait une trouée d’un bleu éclatant dans la toile
ignoblement souillée. Un débris fait de plusieurs planches était
tombé en travers de la rambarde et l’une de ses extrémités
débordait, comme une passerelle qui ne conduisait à rien, comme
une passerelle qui menait au-dessus de la mer, qui menait à la mort,
— qui semblait nous inviter à franchir cette planche tout de suite et à
en finir avec nos absurdes misères. Et toujours en l’air, dans le
ciel…, on entendait un fantôme, quelque chose d’invisible qui hélait
le navire.
« Quelqu’un eut l’idée de regarder : c’était l’homme de barre qui,
instinctivement, avait sauté par-dessus bord et qui voulait remonter.
Il hurlait tout en nageant avec vigueur comme un triton et en se
maintenant à hauteur du navire. On lui lança un bout et il se trouva
bientôt parmi nous, ruisselant d’eau et fort penaud. Le capitaine
avait passé la barre à quelqu’un d’autre, et, seul, à l’écart, le coude
sur la lisse, le menton dans la main, il contemplait la mer,
mélancoliquement. Nous nous demandions : « Et puis quoi
encore ? » Moi, je me disais : « A présent, ça vaut vraiment la peine.
C’est magnifique. Je me demande ce qui va bien pouvoir arriver… »
O jeunesse !
« Mahon, tout à coup, aperçut un vapeur, loin, sur l’arrière. Le
capitaine Beard lui dit : « On peut encore le tirer de là. » On hissa
deux pavillons qui voulaient dire dans le langage international de la
mer : « Feu à bord. Demandons secours immédiat. » Le vapeur
grossit rapidement et nous répondit bientôt au moyen de deux
pavillons à son mât de misaine : « Je viens à votre secours. »
« Une demi-heure après il était par notre travers, au vent, à
portée de voix, et il roulait un peu, ayant stoppé. Nous perdîmes tout
sang-froid et nous nous mîmes tous à hurler comme des fous.
« Nous avons sauté ! » Un homme en casque blanc, sur la
passerelle, cria : « Oui, oui, ça va bien, ça va bien ! » et il hochait la
tête, il souriait, il faisait de la main des gestes rassurants, comme s’il
avait eu affaire à une bande d’enfants effrayés. Une des
embarcations fut mise à l’eau et vint vers nous au rythme de ses
longs avirons. Quatre Calashes souquaient d’une nage balancée.
C’était la première fois que je voyais des marins malais. J’ai appris
depuis à les connaître, mais ce qui me frappa alors ce fut leur air
détaché : ils accostèrent et même le brigadier du canot, debout,
crochant sa gaffe aux cadènes des grands haubans, ne daigna pas
lever la tête pour nous jeter un regard. Je trouvais, moi, que des
gens qui avaient sauté méritaient vraiment plus d’attention.
« Un petit homme sec comme une trique et agile comme un
singe, grimpa à bord. C’était le second du vapeur. Il lança un seul
coup d’œil.
« — Holà, les gars…, vous feriez mieux de l’abandonner. »
« Nous nous taisions. Il s’entretint un moment à l’écart avec le
capitaine, — il semblait discuter avec lui. Puis ils s’en allèrent
ensemble à bord du vapeur.
« Quand notre capitaine revint, nous apprîmes que le vapeur était
le Somerville, capitaine Nash, allant d’Australie occidentale à
Singapour via Batavia, avec le courrier, et qu’il était convenu qu’il
nous remorquerait jusqu’à Anjer ou Batavia, où l’on pourrait éteindre
l’incendie en sabordant, puis poursuivre notre voyage, — jusqu’à
Bangkok ! Le vieux semblait très excité. « Nous y arriverons tout de
même », dit-il à Mahon, d’un air farouche. Il montrait le poing au ciel.
Nul ne disait mot.
« A midi le vapeur nous prit en remorque. Il s’en allait devant,
svelte et haut, et tout ce qui restait de la Judée suivait au bout de
soixante-dix brasses de remorque, — suivait rapide comme un
nuage de fumée avec des bouts de mâts qui dépassaient. Nous
montâmes serrer les voiles. Nous toussions dans les vergues et
nous faisions soigneusement le chapeau. Vous nous voyez là-haut
en train de serrer comme il faut les voiles de ce navire condamné à
n’arriver nulle part ? Il n’y en avait pas un de nous qui ne pensait
qu’à tout instant la mâture pouvait s’affaler. De là-haut, la fumée
nous empêchait de voir le navire, et les hommes travaillaient
soigneusement, passant les rabans avec des tours égaux.
« — Et serré comme dans un port, hein ! là-haut ! — criait Mahon
d’en bas.
« Vous comprenez ça ? Je ne crois pas qu’un seul de ces
gaillards-là pensait redescendre de là-haut de la manière habituelle.
Quand ce fut fait, je les entendis qui se disaient l’un à l’autre : « —
Eh ben, je croyais bien qu’on dégringolerait par-dessus bord, tous en
tas, les mâts et le reste, du diable si je ne le croyais pas ! — C’est
juste ce que je me disais aussi ! » — répondait avec lassitude un
autre épouvantail, harassé et enveloppé de bandages. Et notez bien
que c’étaient des hommes qui n’avaient pas l’obéissance ancrée
dans la peau. Un spectateur n’aurait vu en eux qu’une bande de
vauriens cyniques que rien ne rachetait. Qu’est-ce qui leur faisait
donc faire tout cela, qu’est-ce qui les fit m’obéir quand, pour la
beauté de la chose, je leur fis deux fois lâcher le chapeau de la
misaine pour essayer de le refaire mieux ? Dites-le-moi. Ils n’avaient
pas une réputation professionnelle à soutenir, pas d’exemples, pas
de compliments. Ce n’était pas le sentiment du devoir : ils savaient
tous tirer au flanc, se la couler douce, se défiler, quand ça leur
chantait. Était-ce les deux livres dix par mois qui les faisait grimper
là-haut ? Ils trouvaient que leurs gages n’étaient pas de moitié assez
bons. Non : c’était quelque chose en eux, quelque chose d’inné, de
subtil, d’éternel. Je ne veux pas dire que l’équipage d’un navire

Senses Cognition and Ritual Experience in The Roman World Ancient Religion and Cognition Blanka Misic All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Senses Cognition and Ritual Experience in The Roman World Ancient Religion and Cognition Blanka Misic All Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Senses Cognition and Ritual Experience in The Roman World Ancient Religion and Cognition Blanka Misic All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Senses, Cognition, and Ritual

Experience in the Roman World

How do the senses shape the way we perceive, understand, and

blanka misic is Instructor in Ancient Civilizations at Champlain

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment,

Published online by Cambridge University Press

List of Figures page vi

Introduction: Experiencing Rituals 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press

1.1 Religious Learning Network theoretical model: Part 1 page 30

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

abigail graham has been a lecturer and taught a range of material

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

AE L’Année Épigraphique, published

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Cognitive Science of Religion and Cognitive Historiography

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

The relationship between rituals, history, and memory is clearly a productive

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Experiencing Rituals: Challenges in Cognitive Approaches

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Rituals As Cognitive Experiences: Differing Contexts

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Remembering the Rites: Religious Learning Network

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Religious Learning Network Theoretical Model

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009355513.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

EVENTS MIND PLACE(S)