In Buddhism, the story begins with a prince named Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the enlightened one. Siddhartha’s father hired soothsayers to tell him his son and they predicted that Siddhartha would inherit his father’s kingdom or start a religious movement. This is one of the first lessons that is taught in Buddhism: life is filled with uncertainty. When thinking of this lesson, people try to find a way to calm their anxiety and doubt and that is through rituals. Rituals are a response to anxiety and gives people a sense of control. George Gmelch’s “Baseball Magic”, illustrates this by discussing about different rituals that baseball players engage in when they are about to hit, pitch or field, which will be elaborated further on. His …show more content…
The difference between these two terms is that unlike rituals, routines have no symbolic meaning (p.2). Rituals can come from the simplest and mundane things such as eating, clothing, and behaviours, and so forth. For instance, baseball player Wade Box eating a chicken before a game (p.2). Various baseball players engaged in rituals in order to have good performances during their game (p.2). However, sometimes, rituals do not give the desired outcome that many players wished for. Instead, they become taboos, which results into behaviours, objects or foods that baseball players try to avoid (p.3). A ritual becomes taboo when a player performs poorly. For example, one player avoided eating pancakes because he did not perform well (p.3). Moreover, when a ritual becomes taboo, many players would try and find a new pre-game ritual in order to avoid bad performances. In addition, other than rituals, some people believe that objects such as bracelets, necklaces, and so on are thought to have supernatural powers and bring good luck (p.3). These are known as fetishes. For instance, some baseball players wore the very same clothes in games because of their winning streak (p.4). Nevertheless, some fetishes are prone to disappear. For instance, in the past, finding a hairpin was a sign of good luck for baseball players, but presently, hairpins are not worn as much as they used to be, hence,