Symbols

Types of symbols

• Visual

Spatial

Kinesthetic

Also…

• Verbal (spells/prayers – words have meaning in excess of their literal meaning)

• Aural (music, drumming)• Other – smell/touch….

Metaphor

• Metaphor as building block– Linking two distinct domains of experience

together– Component we want to know more about

is illuminated by identification with what is known, e.g.• If heaven IS (like) a garden or palace• If god IS (like) a king• Then other imagery to describe heaven or god

will be taken from similar domain

Power of symbols

• Symbols = conventional – there must cultural consensus to

understand them– Sometimes arbitrary but seem

“natural” to those familiar with them

– Anthropology of religion is very much about learning the meaning of symbols

What do we mean when we use symbols?

– Symbols are gateways to understanding–Provide perspectives by offering new

way to perceive phenomena–Mystical perspective = symbols become

real– E.g. Eucharist in Catholicism

Symbolic actions, or real?–Central ritual of

Christianity• Is what’s going on --

miracle/magic/symbolic?

–Bread=body/wine/juice=blood• A “cognate” of Jewish bread and

wine sharing after services• Transubstantiation vs. primarily

symbolic/memorializing

Symbols and action• What do symbols mean to people as they

make sense of experience?• Symbols concentrate (summarize) lots of

connections together into a singularly powerful form (the flag, the cross, the idol)

• Geertz on how symbols direct and synthesize thinking to help people make sense of life

Motivating symbols• Victor Turner argued that

symbols have cognitive and emotional elements (what they make people think and what they make people feel)– Motivate people to action– Are both cognitive and

emotive – Allow people to think about

the world and also act upon it

Belief and coercion?

• Do people all think the same way about symbols or act in the same way concerning them?

• Symbols as “collective representations”– Durkheim– Compliance and defiance