Ritual: Power, Healing and Community

Malidoma Patrice Somé, born in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) West Africa, is initiated in the ancestral traditions of his tribe, and is a medicine man and diviner in the Dagra culture. He holds three master's degrees and two doctorates from Sorbonne and Brandeis University, and has taught at the University of Michigan. He currently devotes himself to speaking and, with his wife, Sobonfu, conducting intensive workshops throughout the United States.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments 
Introduction: by Michael Meade 
My Beginnings in Ritual 
The Dimensions of Ritual 
Ritual: The Anti-Machine 
Pain and Ritual 
Ritual, Ceremony and Us 
Our Role in Ritual 
The Hidden Space of Ritual 
Ritual as Show 
Power on Display 
Sabotaging Ritual Space 
Ritual and Community 
Models of Ritual and Constraints of the Modern World 
Money and Spirit 
Power and Corruption 
The Structure of Ritual 
A Ritual Sampler: The Funeral and the Language of Grief 
Invocation and the Funeral Ritual 
The Re-enactment 
Speeches and the Pyre 
Modernity and Death 
The Farewell