The surprising power of daily rituals

Ritual is really interesting to me, as a former cult member & leadership cadre. I saw and performed ritual, including those taken to extremes (of sameness) that outright excluded new information, new outcomes, and certainly newcomers. So much of it basically blocked anything that wasn't already somehow a treasured part of the group's past. In the end I learned that ritual can protect some huge cognitive blind spots. But I wonder if that's exactly why it's really valuable, too, albeit in more reasonable forms and doses. We all have this need to feel protected, whether we're aware of it or not.

I also saw that a lot of people who left the cult felt completely lost, and fearful, due to a lack of defined structure in their new lives. They were still vulnerable; some went right back in, not because of the cult being so great, but because it was their only past--it was them (identity function, a == b), and they had developed no "new them". Ritual is such a big part of the structure that helps us feel centered and grounded, but over time it easily builds into this concept of identity as well. So there is this crucial qualitative factor behind ritual.