Performing the Purification Ritual -- Italy, 2020.
In a recent post, Dr. Sebastian Rushworth asks the question, "Why did the world react so histerically to covid?" His answer is that it is China's fault for having sent the global media in overdrive with over-dramatized images of the epidemic.
Personally, I think this is not the explanation. China has nothing to do with what's happening in the West, it is something way deeper. I came to the conclusion that what we are witnessing is nothing less than a worldwide ritual of purification. All the trappings well-known to be involved in these rituals are present: from the ritual ablutions to the wearing of special clothing, including the believers being involved in various forms of penance in order to purify not just the body, but also the spirit.
The correspondence is nearly perfect: face masks, compulsive hand washing, isolation of the cathecumens and the generalized punishment of all the "ludic" activities, from restaurants to tourism. If you read the piece below, written by prof. Sherry B. Ortner and published on "Britannica." You could be thinking that you are reading a description of the current Covid-19 pandemic, yet it was published more than 20 years ago, in 1999.
So, we are going through this ritual just because we have to. The only problem is that the rituals observed in "primitive" societies tend to last for a short time and to end with the believers ready to restart their normal life. Here, there is no end in sight for this series of rituals that seem to be going on forever.
Sherry B. Ortner
Concepts of purity and pollution
Every culture has an idea, in one form or another, that the inner essence of man can be either pure or defiled. This idea presupposes a general view of man in which his active or vitalizing forces, the energies that stimulate and regulate his optimum individual and social functioning, are distinguished from his body, on the one hand, and his mental or spiritual faculties, on the other. These energies are believed to be disturbed or “polluted” by certain contacts or experiences that have consequences for a person’s entire system, including both the physical and the mental aspects. Furthermore, the natural elements, animals and plants, the supernatural, and even certain aspects of technology may be viewed as operating on similar energies of their own; they too may therefore be subject to the disturbing effects of pollution. Because lost purity can be re-established only by ritual and also because purity is often a precondition for the performance of rituals of many kinds, anthropologists refer to this general field of cultural phenomena as “ritual purity” and “ritual pollution.”
The rituals for re-establishing lost purity, or for creating a higher degree of purity, take many different forms in the various contemporary and historical cultures for which information is available. Some purification rituals involve one or two simple gestures, such as washing the hands or body, changing the clothes, fumigating the person or object with incense, reciting a prayer or an incantation, anointing the person or object with some ritually pure substance. Some involve ordeals, including blood-letting, vomiting, and beating, which have a purgative effect. Some work on the scapegoat principle, in which the impurities are ritually transferred onto an animal, or even in some cases (as among the ancient Greeks) onto another human being; the animal or human scapegoat is then run out of town and/or killed, or at least killed symbolically. Many purification rites are very complex and incorporate several different types of purifying actions.
Ritual purity and pollution are matters of general social concern because pollution, it is believed, may spread from one individual or object to other members of society. Each culture defines what is pure and impure—and the consequences of purity and pollution—differently from every other culture, although there is considerable cross-cultural overlapping on certain beliefs. Cultures also vary greatly in the extent to which purity and pollution are pervasive concerns: Hinduism, Judaism, and certain tribal groups such as the Lovedu of South Africa or the Yurok of northern California in the United States seem highly pollution-conscious, whereas among other peoples pollution concerns are relatively isolated and occasional. Even within the so-called pollution-conscious cultures, attitudes toward the cultural regulations may vary considerably: the Yurok, on the one hand, are said to consider their purification rituals to be rather a nuisance, albeit necessary for the success of their economic endeavours; but Hindus, on the other hand, seem to incorporate and embrace more fully the many regulations and rituals concerning purity prescribed in their belief and social systems.
Pollution is most commonly transmitted by physical contact or proximity, although it may also spread by means of kinship ties or co-residence in an area in which pollution has occurred. Because purity and pollution are inner states (though there usually are outer or observable symptoms of pollution), the defiled man—or artifact, temple, or natural phenomenon—may at first show no outward features of his inner corruption. Eventually, however, the effects of pollution will make themselves known; the appearance of a symptom or disaster that is culturally defined as a consequence of pollution, for example, may be the first indication that a defiling contact has occurred. Common cross-cultural, human symptoms of pollution include: skin disease, physical deformity, insanity and feeblemindedness, sterility, and barrenness. Nature also may become barren as a result of pollution; but, on the other hand, the natural elements and magical or supernatural forces may run amok as a result of pollution.
