others who participate in the ritual.  Michael Norton, Harvard professor of psychology and business administration, offered viewers a video called “Why Rituals Matter”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE42C8z9brE.  In the video, he commented on the power rituals have to achieve aims other than the culturally specific ones that seem to be their intended purpose.  In other words, rituals have hidden effects—usually positive ones such as creating a bond among participants or producing a sense of calm or control or engagement. 

My objection, then, is that these hidden effects are in fact hidden.  While it may appear that we are simply maintaining a tradition—honoring the dead, celebrating a milestone, whatever—we are also being manipulated, and I have a strong aversion to being manipulated.  Clearly, I should not resent being pushed into bonding with other humans.  I am sure this is a good thing for me generally.  However, such bonding can be abused, especially when people are unaware that they are being purposefully manipulated into feeling a bond with others—and perhaps acting on it. 

I do not hate rituals, but I am not fond of them either.  Perhaps more than is necessary, I am always aware of the manipulation behind the ritual, and it makes me uncomfortable.  Lighting a candle for a joy or a sorrow is fine, but the same sense of bonding, of belonging or control that comes with that ritual can be used to unite people in acts of violence, in seditious assaults on our national Capitol, for instance.  Tyrants and despots who would steal our freedoms know how to use the hidden effects of ritual as well as do the teachers and preachers we trust.