Ebook: The Problem of Ritual: Based on Papers Read at the Symposium on Religious Rites Held at Åbo, Finland, on the 13th-16th of August 1991

Since 1962 the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History in Åbo/Turku, Finland has regularly organised Nordic symposia in comparative religion and published the symposium papers in its own series Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis. The theme of the symposium, 'Religious Rites', of which the papers are published in this work is a broad one. The advantage of a regional theme is that the volume of papers from the congress tends to be uniform and homogeneous. The disadvantage is that only Nordic scholars of religion specialising in the area covered by the symposium consider it of benefit to attend. On the other hand, a broad theme means that the symposium can attract scholars interested in many different religions; this means that the symposium can be a truly pan-Nordic meeting of scholars of religion. However, the result is that the published papers are then often marked by a certain heterogeneity as far as content is concerned.

The theme of this symposium, 'Religious Rites', is justified by the key role played by ritual in religion. Rites as the focus of research have the advantage that they can be studied to a large degree empirically. This, in turn, means that it is easier to compare the research results of different scholars; at the same time it opens up greater possibilities for cumulative research. Unfortunately this is not the case with all research topics in comparative religion.