Prey into Hunter
：The Politics of Religious Experience
( Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures )
Publication subTitle ：The Politics of Religious Experience
Publication series ：Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures
Author： Maurice Bloch; Alfred Harris
Publisher： Cambridge University Press
Publication year： 1991
E-ISBN: 9780511879708
P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780521411547
Subject： B916 对宗教的分析和研究
Keyword： 社会学
Language： ENG
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Prey into Hunter
Description
Maurice Bloch has for many years been developing an original and influential theory of ritual. In this book he synthesises a radical theory of religion. Rituals in a great many societies deny the transience of life and of human institutions. Bloch argues that they enact this denial by symbolically sacrificing the participants themselves, so allowing them to participate in the immortality of a transcendent entity. Such sacrifices are achieved through acts of symbolic violence, ranging from bodily mutilations to the killing of animals. The theme is developed with reference to rituals of many types, from a variety of ethnographic sources, and Bloch shows that even exogamous marriage rituals can be reinterpreted in the light of this thesis. He concludes by considering the indirect relation of symbolic and ritual violence to political violence.
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