American anthropologist Clifford Geertz further elaborated the theme of symbolic anthropology, suggesting that religious ritual provides a model for people to understand reality.
In other words, we perform rituals and then comprehend the meaning (symbolism) as if they were a kind of blueprint for how we should see the world.
According to anthropologist Clifford Geertz, the role of ritual is to bring the model of the world (symbol) and the actual world (participants) together. In this formulation, ritual is thus the bond between symbol and reality.