This collection of 10 contributed essays is the first to explicitly address the question of ritual efficacy. The authors do not aspire to answer the question 'how do rituals work?' in a simplistic fashion, but rather to show how complex the question is. While some contributors do indeed advance a particular theory of ritual efficacy, others ask whether the question makes any sense at all, and most show how complex it is by referring to the sociocultural environment in which it is posed, since the answer depends on who is asking the question, and what criteria they use to evaluate the efficacy of ritual.

William S. Sax is Professor of Anthropology, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg
Jan Weinhold is research psychologist, Collaborative Research Centre Dynamics of Ritual (SFB 619 Ritualdynamik), Institute of Medical Psychology, University of Heidelberg.
Johannes Quack is lecturer of Religious Studies and Anthropology, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg.
Paul Töbelmann, Research Assistant, Historical Seminar, University of Heidelberg.

• 1: William S. Sax: Ritual and the Problem of Efficacy


• 2: Claus Ambos: Ritual Healing and the Investiture of the Babylonian King


• 3: Gerd Theiseen: Jesus and his Followers as Healers: Symbolic Healing in Early Christianity


• 4: Peter Dinzelbacher: Healing Rituals in the Mediaeval West


• 5: Paul Toebelmann: Excommunication in the Middle Ages: A meta-ritual and the many faces of its efficacy


• 6: Janice Boddy: The Work of Zâr: Women and Spirit Possession in Northern Sudan


• 7: Elizabeth Roberts: Ritual Humility in Modern Laboratories: Or, Why Ecuadorian IVF Practitioners Pray


• 8: Howard Brody: Ritual, Medicine, and the Placebo Response


• 9: Johannes Quack: Bell, Bourdieu and Wittgenstein on Ritual Sense