"Who needs ritual?" The short answer is, "We do." To explain why takes a little longer.

In a very real sense, it is the ritual of Masonry which makes Masonry work. Ritual is the channel through which Masonry teaches. But it is more than that. Because ritual is so important to Masonry, it’s worth taking a little time to talk about the nature of ritual itself, and why it is central to the Masonic experience.

First of all, ritual is a virtual necessity to all humans, in fact to nearly all animals. This is so true that all human brains come "hard-wired" to respond to ritual. Very few things in human beings are instinctive—almost everything is learned behavior. But the response to ritual has been located by brain anatomists in the oldest and most primitive part of the brain, just above the brain stem, in the same area which controls alertness and the emotions. Ritual is as natural to us as love, or aggression, or cooperation.

All of us engage in ritual all the time—we just don’t always recognize it. Most of us have a morning routine, for example. Some of us shave before showering, some of us shave after showering, and some shave while showering, but whichever it is, we usually do it the same way. A few people even have morning routines so exact that they always put on the right sock before the left sock. This morning routine is a ritual.

Most of us shake hands when we are introduced to someone. That is a ritual as is bowing in the Orient upon being introduced. Pledging allegiance to the flag is a ritual. Bowing the head during prayer is a ritual. Making coffee in the morning is a ritual. Starting a meal with soup or salad and ending with dessert is a ritual. Our lives are filled and surrounded with rituals from birth to marriage to death. Why?

• Ritual gives us a framework to organize events. We don’t deal well with chaos. We make lists of things to do, to buy, to read. Ritual does the same thing for us. By doing things in a given order (which is the essence of ritual), we make sure everything gets done. Even churches which try to make a point of not using ritual, use ritual in that sense. The order in which hymns are sung, the collection is taken, the sermon is given, and prayer is offered seldom changes for a given congregation. The primary reason most of us have a morning ritual is to make sure that we don’t overlook shaving, or brushing our teeth, or some other aspect of preparing for the day. Ritual provides a sort of mental checklist for many of life’s activities.
• Ritual helps us in our relationships to others. Almost all families have family rituals, things they just do in certain ways. Those rituals might include such things as making it a point to eat together on certain days, calling at certain times of the day, giving certain kinds of gifts. There are thousands of possibilities. Those rituals strengthen the unity of the family. Other rituals relate to those outside the family. Shaking hands when we meet, taking turns talking in a conversation—almost all the things we classify as polite (or consider a person as rude if he doesn’t do) are matters of social ritual. They help to make everyone comfortable and help situations move smoothly.
• Ritual is a powerful teaching tool. In fact, it was probably the very first teaching tool. Among some tribes, hunting rituals teach the young man how to hunt effectively. Mnemonics (phrases which help us remember things, such as "Thirty days hath September, April, June and November...") are rituals, as is learning the alphabet by singing the alphabet song. The military developed many rituals (patterns of repeated behavior) to teach recruits how to maintain weapons.
• Ritual helps give us a sense of identity. It may seem strange, but people often define themselves by their actions (I’m a salesman, a mechanic, a professor, a millwright, etc.). That’s not limited to what we do for a living. Our rituals, our actions, give an underlying sense of reality to our lives. We feel "right" or "complete" when we follow certain rituals, and we feel uncomfortable, even distraught, when these rituals are not followed.
• Ritual helps us prepare, helps us “get in the mood,” for what is to follow. Whether the event is a church service or a football game, most repeating events have a ritual of some sort which helps set the emotional tone. And we would have a strong sense of "wrongness" if those were violated—if a church service started with band music and cheerleaders or a football game started with a liturgical procession, for example.
• Ritual lets us condense a lot into a little time. Ritual enriches an experience by concentrating it. Rather than involving a full exposition, like a lecture, ritual makes references to things and leaves us to think about and fill in the details for ourselves. To illustrate with a portion of church ritual, consider just the last line of the Doxology, "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." The concept of the Trinity is a very hard concept to "wrap the mind around." Rather than giving the many hours of discussion which would be necessary to explore the topic, the ritual simply mentions it, and leaves it to us to do the thinking if we are so inclined.
• The ritual of Masonry involves all the above points and more:

  
  Masonic ritual—the opening and the closing, the Degrees, even the ritual of voting—organizes the events and makes sure that everything happens that is supposed to.

  Masonic ritual helps us define ourselves as Masons and strengthens the fraternal ties which bind us together as Brothers. And that effect is international and cross-cultural. We know we have shared experiences with Masons from all over the world.

  Masonic ritual is a teaching tool—the lessons and values of Masonry are taught through ritual and symbols.

  Masonic ritual helps set the tone and mood of the meeting—it helps us set aside the concerns of the outside world and focus on the great truths of human and spiritual nature.

  Masonic ritual obviously condenses experience. It contains elements which raise important questions but which are deliberately left unexplored because it wants the Mason to think them through for himself. To give just a few examples:

Why are the three ruffians fellow countrymen of the man they murder?

Why does a murderer mark a grave so it can be found again if necessary, when the very last thing a murderer would want is for anyone to find the grave of his victim.

Why is there a rubble heap at the Temple when we are told that all the stones are cut and finished in the quarries and fit perfectly without further adjustment?

Masonic ritual gives full range to Masons to explore their own interests. Many of my best friends love learning and performing the ritual. My own interests deal with interpretation of the ritual and the symbols it uses—especially with the effects the ritual is designed to produce in the minds of initiates and the ways in which those effects are produced. Others are especially interested in the history of the ritual and the way it has changed and evolved over the years. One Mason I know is interested in the ritual from the standpoint of a cultural anthropologist, and he enjoys tracing the ways the ritual relates to the great initiatory traditions of history.

Masonic ritual is large enough and complex enough to accommodate all those interests—and many more.

So, again, the answer to the question "Who needs ritual anyway?" is "We all do."

The ritual of Masonry meets many needs and many interests. It is not the same thing as Masonry—any more that a sermon is the same thing as a church—but it is a primary way we teach and learn. It is the glue which holds us together. It is important.
It makes us, us. 

Jim Tresner  is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of The Oklahoma Mason. A frequent con-tributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and its book review editor, Illustrious Brother Tresner is also a volunteer writer for The Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a life member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of the popular anecdotal biography Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument, and a member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information Center. Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite’s highest honor, during The Supreme Council’s October 1997 Biennial Session.

We teach the truth of none of the legends we recite. They are to us but parables and allegories, involving and enveloping Masonic instruction; and vehicles of useful and interesting information. They represent the different phases of the human mind, its efforts and struggles to comprehend nature, God, the government of the Universe, the permitted existence of sorrow and evil.... Every one being at liberty to apply our symbols and emblems as he thinks most consistent with truth and reason and with his own faith, we give them such an interpretation only as may be accepted by all.