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.
In Geertz’s theory, symbols, as revealed in rituals, actually shape society.
This view is different from the functionalist anthropologists, who saw society as the agent, and the ritual as the mere reflection of social structure.
For this reason, we can call Geertz’s approach “symbolic anthropology.”
On the other hand, some scholars have seen ritual as a kind of language system, which thereby regulates or controls society through that linguistic structure.
One such scholar was Mary Douglas, a British anthropologist. Inasmuch as she saw ritual-symbol regulating society, she was essentially a functionalist.
In one book, Purity and Danger (1966), Douglas examined cultural notions of purity and pollution. Ritual was a prime method for producing a pure place, which made that space suitable for the divine.