VIII  ELEMENTARY FORMS OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE
     The genus of the idea that religion may be set for comparative analysis rests on dual assumptions that
the myriad variations in religion throughout the world have both common aspects at some recognizable
level and that these characteristics may be broken down into somewhat discernible categories which are
comprehensible. The most successful method for attempting to do that probably comes from the structural
functionalist vantage point which has been able to describe such common denominators of religious
activity. The methodology employed by a group of social scientists in the last half of the 19th century may
reflect the scientific classification schedules of biology, but that does not place them conclusively or
exclusively at the feet of Darwin. Some of them, it is true, may be cast in similar light, and some of their
analyses may suffer from some of the  problems which cast dark shadows across Darwin. Postulating any
scheme of social evolution can lead to profound abuse. It often seems as if Darwin was at least used to
justify the dominance over the world's people by Europeans and particularly the British. That does not
necessarily mean, however, that attempts to rank cultures  have to be dismissed as erroneous, or worse,
racist. The current forced march toward cultural relativism is at least as problematic on that score, and
offers little in return that is of benefit to systematic study. But to structure a classification scheme around
the functions of structure which allows cross-cultural comparison of widely divergent human acts because
of the common functions they serve entirely circumvents that problem. In order to reach that point of
analysis, however, defining matters must be honed for usage with extreme precision and caution. That, of
course, was the aim of the earlier sections addressing the issue of the definition of religion. 

     The intellectual tradition which culminated in the format employed here runs through a handful of
thinkers, Spencer, Tylor, Frazer, Boas, and Malinowski, and culminated in the work of Max Weber, but
even moreso in that of Emile Durkheim, on whom Anthony Wallace developed the methodology to be
used here. Durkheim plotted the direction:
	"Ever since the work of the Grimm brothers, who pointed out the interest
	that there is in comparing mythologies of the Indo-European peoples, scholars
	have been struck by the remarkable similarities which these present. "(1)

     A fundamental premise upon which Durkheim operates involves the idea that religion, itself socially
constructed, becomes one of the primary agents for the continued social construction of reality. Writing of
the purpose of his study, Durkheim entered in the Introduction:

	"The general conclusion of the book ... is that religion is something eminently 
	social,"(2)

and by the end of the study, he comments in the Conclusion:

	"We are now able to see what the part of society in the genesis of logical 
	thought is."(3)

     The fact of the existence of society as the environment within which we operate means that there is
outside of  ourselves a system of 'representations' through which we communicate, but also which "have
within them a sort of force or moral ascendancy, in virtue of which they impose themselves upon
individual minds."(4)

     This social origin does not debase cognition, but effectively anchors it in a form of universal by
"relating it to a cause which implies it naturally."(5) Durkheim references this back to Immanuel Kant:

	"According to him .., Rational thinking is thinking according to the laws which
	are imposed upon all reasonable beings; acting morally in conducting one's self
	according to those maxims which can be extended without contradiction to all
	wills."(6)


Nor does this deny the act of creativity, for it is only in society and, in fact, society itself, that is the real
creative power:
	"A society is the most powerful combination of physical and moral forces of which
	nature offers us as example. Nowhere else is an equal richness of different materials,
	carried to such a degree of concentration, to be found."(7)
     The power society possesses in imposing itself upon people marks it "with a distinctive sign
provocative of respect,"(8) molding the reciprocity between the, much as Liebniz argued regarding
discrete particulars and their field. And this power is conveyed as a supernatural force:
	"Since it is in spiritual ways that social pressure exercises itself, it could not fail
	to give men the idea that outside themselves there exist ... powers, both moral and
`	... efficacious, upon which they depend."(9)
And, Durkheim  contends, the emblems and symbols a society possesses help convey this spirit to people
from "outside themselves" and these are the genesis of its "mythological system of interpretation."
What the project he has articulated here was about was to discover by scrutinizing the most 'primitive'
societies and religious systems(the book is a systematic study of totemism arguably the most 'primitive'
model), the most elemental properties of religion, and "when primitive religious beliefs are systematically
analyzed, the principal categories are naturally found."(10) Importantly, he emphasized that:
	"... there are no religions which are false. All are true in their own fashion; all
	answer, though in different ways, to the given conditions of human existence."(11)
And if some can be termed 'superior' to others, some human need is translated by even "the most
fantastic" rites and myths:
	"However simple the system ... may be, we have found within it all the great ideas
	and the principal ritual attitudes which are at the basis of even the most advanced
	religions ... "(12)



     These "elementary forms of the religious life" are enumerated by Durkheim at this point in summation
of all the argument heretofore as follows:
	1) the division of things into sacred and profane
	2) the actions of the soul, of spirits, of mythical personalities, 
	     and of a national or even international transcendent divinity
	      or divine power
	3) a negative cult with ascetic practices which are its exaggerated form
	4) rites of oblation and communion
	5) commemorative and expiatory rites.

    Obviously informed by the direction Wallace took this methodological approach and without being
presumptuous toward Durkheim's effort, these might conceivably better, and with more universal
applicability, be reorganized into the following categories:
	Sacred and Profane World
	Animism and Naturism
	Totem, mana and taboo
	Emblem
	Pantheon: powers and spirits
	Mythology
	Magic: contagious and sympathetic
	Ritual: sacrificial, imitative, commemorative
	Practitioners
	Ethic System

But the organization of the categories is a relatively minor point. The overriding purpose of the
classification scheme is the hypothesis that every society will possess some manifestations of these
elementary forms and that the collective set of such activities will constitute for any culture its religion.
Durkheim's contention is that 'religious' behavior exists in all societies but that, blinded by our
predispositions, we may be unable to recognize it, but for such a system of analysis. He also argues that in
every society, there will be, coexistent, a duality of 'religious' forms:

	"There is no religious system, ancient or recent, where one does not meet,
	under different forms, two religions, as  it were, side  by side, which, though
	being united closely and mutually penetrating each other, do not cease,
	nevertheless, to be distinct. The one addresses itself to the phenomena of
	nature ...  the great cosmic forces ... [and] has been given the name of naturism.
	The other  has spiritual beings ... divinities properly so-called, animated and 
	conscious agents like man, but distinguished from him, nevertheless, by the 
	nature of their powers and especially by the peculiar characteristics that they
	do not affect the senses in the same way ... This religion of spirit is called
	animism."(13)

     It does not necessitate a tremendous leap of the imagination to read this last assertion of Durkheim
broadly enough to at least ponder the possibility that the duality some might see in contemporary America
of general membership in 'traditional' religious bodies simultaneously as the same individuals subscribe to
a 'public faith' to be such a phenomenon. However, whether or not one wishes to pursue such prospects,
the elemental categories methodology will suffice to raise at least serious consideration of the civil religion
as effectively the genuine article.




IX  THE MINIMAL UNITS OF RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR

     Reductionism can be a quagmire. The reducing of complex patterns of human behavior, whether
individual or collective, runs the risk of not seeing the forest for the trees. That should not, however, bar
the use of such measures altogether,  but only warn us of the pitfalls to be avoided. Coming out of the
tradition of anthropological theory just examined, Anthony Wallace has constructed a typology of
religious behavior which not only allows for comparative analysis across cultures, but also permits the
identification of component units making it possible to classify such behavior in any societal context. In
order to recognize a religion, to ascertain religious behavior, one must look to:

	" ... the fundamental pattern, or structure, which the layman and the ethnographer
	alike recognize when the look as a society, and which, whenever it is found, it called
	'religious,' despite the manifold diversity of its forms."(1)

     Beyond the premise, which Wallace identifies as "religion's defining characteristic," that there are
existent supernatural forces, 
	' ... there are certain minimal categories of behavior which, in the context of the
	supernatural premise, are always found in association with one another and 
	which are the substance of religion itself."(2)

     Although he confesses that there can be religiousity invested in most behavior, and that there are other
possible classification schema dependent on choice of the level of abstraction utilized, he asserts that there
are a 'finite number' of categories of behavior which can be found in any religious system combined in
patterns which then can be further "organized into rituals, belief systems, and cult institutions." These
make it possible to transcend cultural diversity in identifying the "fundamental pattern of religion." To the
extent that the thirteen minimal units he articulates are found manifest in a culture, they make it possible
to classify "the kinds of actions that most observers recognize as religious."(3)

     In his study, Wallace makes a number of references to the application of his categories to his home
town, with the clear inference that they therefore represent religious behavior. He does not, however,
make the qualitative jump of coordinating them per se into a 'religion.' This undertaking is an attempt to
do just that. Having established his classification scheme for religious behavior, much in the manner of a
litmus test, it is arguable that a pattern of such behavior must be a religion. Applying his anatomy of
religion to the corpus of what has been called American civil religion in a rather metaphorical sense,
makes it possible to characterize that construct much more firmly as concretely a 'religion.'

     His 'anatomy' again identifies thirteen minimal units of religious behavior: (4)

	Prayer
	Music
	Physiological Exercise
	Exhortation
	Reciting the Code
	Simulation
	Mana
	Taboo
	Feasts
	Sacrifice
	Congregation
	Inspiration
	Symbolism


    These 'smallest religious things' are then combined "in more complex, stereotyped sequences which we
shall call rituals."(5) Ritual, rather than consisting of "an arbitrary program of meaningless events"(6)           
are given meaning by a belief system which rationalizes them, composed of values and cosmology. And
the rituals themselves, together with their associated belief systems, are further organized into greater
complexes he terms 'cult institutions,' which are yet further structured into often competing, sometimes
intermingled, sets of such institutions which are the 'religion of a society.'(7)



     'Addressing the supernatural' is what he generally means by the concept of prayer. Cultures possess
"customary ways of addressing" the supernatural.  Generally this is done is prescribed ways of oral speech
with stereotyped posture and gesture. Although content and purpose vary, it is often public, at special and
specified location, and accompanied by particular apparati. The use of the appellation 'prayer' is taken as
the practice is recognizable as that in Christian contexts. As with his other categories, a variety of
examples from religions of many cultures are referenced, and these range from abject pleading to arrogant
demands, may be extremely formalized, and may be self-centered or vicarious. Requests, praise, thanks,
exorcism, and speaking to souls are additional variations on this theme. (8)

     Few religious systems do not have as part of ceremony "dancing, singing, chanting, poesy, and the
playing of musical instruments," and often form the vehicle for prayer though they themselves may
constitute the "substance of communication,"(9) and may be performed "in honor of , or in the name of"
the supernatural without address. Although there may be an assumption that the form enhances the
efficacy of the transmission, the medium may be functional for facilitation of psychological state it may
engender, ranging from trance to spirit of camaraderie.(10)

     There are, though, a number of other devices which may be utilized toward an inducement of such
spiritual states which occur in every system of religion. The third behavioral unit of Wallace's schema is
'the physical manipulation of psychological state.' he suggests a four part classification of such
manipulations which includes drugs, sensory deprivation, mortification of the flesh (through pain,
sleeplessness, and fatigue), and finally deprivation of water, air, or food.(11) He offers examples of peyote,
mushroom, and psychedelic drug use to induce euphoric experiences, some of which are held to bring the
individual into communication with the supernatural. The native American peyote cult is still practiced in
the southwest while the vision quest among the Sioux has largely vanished, but both represents examples
of this category. Some of these mechanisms have found adaptation to international intrigue in a variety of
'behavior modification'  techniques often called 'brainwashing.' It is alleged that the SLA used such
methods on kidnap victim Patti Hearst. Wallace has it that some form of this behavior is exhibited nearly
universally in religions although variations on it run from extreme to rather modest.

     The practice in Roman Catholicism of  'going to confession' in which one addresses, supposedly
anonymously, a priest who represents God in a special relationship is one typical case of what Wallace
calls 'exhortation,' the addressing of another human being. The characteristic of an intermediary is a
requisite here although the status takes a number of forms. The special 'favor' held by such an individual
may be obtained by hierarchical mantle as with a priest or some sort of earned through unique experience
trait as with the shaman or prophet. Such 'clergy,' although his use of that term is meant to refer to sacred
specialists generally, either of themselves or as part of a complex bureaucracy, serve as a conduit to and/of
from the supernatural. Wallace provides this schematic:


					God
				              //
				            //
				          //
				"Clergy"< = = = = = = = >"Laity"


     The broad collection of oral or written sacred literature which attests to the 'truths' in any religion are
referred to as 'reciting the code' by Wallace among others. It may contain information that is of divine
revelation or sanction and include data about pantheons, cosmology, myth, and moral injunction.
Sometimes it is specifically to be employed in ritual,  but may be separate from it, and often there are
degrees of sanctity ascribed to various texts. Myths range from those about 'tricksters' to others telling the
exploits of cultural heroes, but in the process describe god, creation, societal structure, or morality and
values.
     James Frazier referred to a phenomenon he called 'imitative magic'  which is illustrated by the voodoo
dolls Wallace describes:
	"In this witchcraft procedure, it is believed that by the 'law of symmetry'
	between similar objects, what happens to one will happen to the other ..,"(12)
but he would expand the category beyond the 'occult' to all behavior which would involve some kind of
simulative procedure which is aimed at establishing some measure of control or influence over
supernatural power or beings. 'Simulacra' has a wide scope of manifestations around the world, from
divination to substitution ordeals. It might be contended that the 'scapegoat' sacrifice variation is
represented by the crucifixion of Christ. Imitation or impersonation is a frequent expression of this
simulation category and reaches to manipulation of surrogates for the supernatural, the impact of which
imparts vicariously the supernatural itself. It often entails the use of masks, but in some version is almost
universally found.(13)



     Two basically 'opposite' categories in his classification scheme are the contagious but impersonal mana
(for touching things) and taboo (not touching things). There exists some power or characteristic which is
transferred to the person. Illustrative of mana might be relics and medicine bundles, while religious taboos
often circumscribe certain sexual activities or involve foods prohibitions. Both of these units of behavior
represent what Frazier and others have termed 'contagious magic.'(14)

     An outcaste riding on top of a train which Gandhi was touring India in tells an Episcopalian priest
who has climbed up to join the untouchables in the motion picture GANDHI that he knew some
'Christians' and though them peculiar because they were cannibals, regularly indulging in a feast on the
body and blood of Christ. Whether there is more humor than seriousness in such comment, the various
derivations of the 'sacred meal' are representative of the category of the feast (eating and drinking) which
it is exceedingly rare to find any religion without a version of. This "consumption of food and beverages
in a religious context"(15) is often one of any number of such events arranged calendrically in religions.
Often, the meal involves consumption of materials which have supernatural properties which the recipient
can thereby safely obtain such virtues (i.e. powers, forces) through, and are "usually believed to be the
property of a particular supernatural being."(16) But Wallace explains that the feast appears in many more
"diffuse forms." Social eating -- the act itself of eating together -- is widely held to possess sacred
qualities. This it especially true if there has been some form of sanctifying ritual (such as saying 'Grace').
Even 'profane' food might become invested with sacred value, and the act of consumption is often
associated with aspects of mana and taboo in regard to what is or is not consumed. Important 'blessings' or
injury may result.

     We also find widespread use of some form of sacrifice in religious conduct. Not only are the
intermediaries in need of goods and services, but it is widely held that the supernatural world can have
interest in them, as well:

	"Thus, the payment of fees and the making of contributions may be rationalized
	as a sacrificial service to the supernatural beings themselves,"(17)

or to those possessed of a special relationship with them in exchange for "carrying out religious
exercises." The range of offerings is as broad as is the potential class of human possessions and activities.
It is important that the making of the sacrifice carries with it characteristics of appeasement of injury
avoidance.                                                                            

     It is also the case that most religious behavior is fundamentally social where adherents 'come together
as a group' on occasion, often to perform, take part in, or observe some ceremonial activity. This may 
usually be accomplished with some others of the minimal units, the ritual acts in some way being
"rationalized by their relevance to the supernatural."(18) Such processions, meetings, and convocations
are labeled by Wallace as 'congregation.'

     Some sort of experience resultant of 'divine intervention in human life' but short of the more dramatic
physiological manipulations categorized above is demonstrative of behavior he terms 'inspiration.' These
may appear as 'mystical ecstasy' or 'states of dissociation' but are regarded as 'temporary union' with the
supernatural. There is a differentiation among religions as to the cultivation of experiences like these, but
they are all interpreted in religious ways.

     The manufacture and utilization of symbolic objects constitutes the final one of the thirteen 'simplest
religious things' Wallace incorporates in his model. Whether the supernatural is directly or less obviously
represented in or by the artifact, a great variety of such symbolic devices can be found. They range from
amulets to idols but always convey something of "supernatural forces, values, and relationships:"(19)


  	"These abstract symbols are sometimes the object of efforts to discover
	a universal symbolism ... [but] ... are to be interpreted as compressed, 
	symbolic statements of major religious principles and beliefs."(20)

At the very least, they serve to keep the faith before the adherent, though, in many instances, they
themselves are held to possess some 'virtue' which like mana, 'rubs off on' the user. It has come to possess
some of the power of that which is represented, and may very well "be thought of as the essence of that
power."(21)


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