Word: ritual
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...secular and scientific religion for an elite which was to guide mankind." What happened? His "messianic impulses" struck a response in followers who had no strong religious, political and philosophic convictions, but a hidden need for them. In "the movement" they found everything: "A dogma, a ritual, a leader, a hierarchy, the feeling of possessing the truth, of being superior to the uninitiated...
...Oscar-awarding ritual is Hollywood's biggest pitch for dignity, but two years ago dignity suffered. When one Robert Rich was announced as top original writer for The Brave One, he never stepped forward. Robert Rich was a pseudonym, masking one of about 150 Hollywood writers (plus an estimated 75 actors, producers, musicians) blacklisted by the industry since 1947 as suspected Communists or fellow travelers. The case was particularly embarrassing because the Motion Picture Academy had barred any Communist or Fifth Amendment pleader from Oscar competition. Last week both the Communist rule and the mystery of Rich...
...self-incriminating confessions before or during the 21st Party Congress, which opens Jan. 27. The rhetoric of accusation is increasing in intensity. State Prosecutor Roman Rudenko recently accused Malenkov & Co. of having "committed criminal violations of Soviet legality." In the old days, using the word criminal was the first ritual step to a show trial and execution. How much does Khrushchev need victims now? At the very least, some of Khrushchev's old comrades, now in disgrace, will probably have to use the Party Congress as a public confessional. They will be lucky if their humiliation ends there...
...very nice one. It is well-dressed, well-spoken, and well-bred, Every word and action appears carfully premeditated and skillfully executed. When not a word of a play holds any surprises to many in the audience, its production may all too easily become a genteel ritual in propitiation of the gods of Culture. The Old Vic personnel do not fight against this tendency; they positively embrace it. Only at a few points is anything so unseemly as a spontaneous emotion allowed to mar the ceremonial calm. American productions of Shakespeare are likely to have abounding energy, but little technique...
Spirits were abroad on New Year's Eve along the beaches around Rio de Janeiro. The five-mile crescent of Copacabana and the other Rio beaches blazed with the ritual candles of some 600,000 devotees of Brazil's fastest-growing cult: "spiritism." Altars were set up everywhere in the sand, heaped with fetishes and food offerings, bottles of beer and the rotgut alcohol known as cachaça. Around the altars, while drums pounded faster and faster, men, women and children danced and shouted, stomped and babbled. Yemanjá, goddess of the sea, was the special object...