82 SVETOVI / WORLDS leto 2, št. 2, julij 2024 Dimitris Xygalatas is an anthropologist and cognitive scientist interested in religion, rit- ual, music, and sports fanship among other topics. Xygalatas’s book Ritual: How Seem- ingly Senseless Acts Make Life W orth Living (Profile Books, 2022; henceforth Ritual) results from years of rigorous ethnographic and experimental work. Ritual follows the perspective of the cognitive and evolution- ary science of religion (hereafter referred to as CESR) and brings the reader up-to-date findings in the naturalistic study of religion and rituals. Xygalatas follows a neo-Dar- winian and functionalistic approach to the study of religion, whose theoretical premises he describes in a way that is accessible even to the lay public throughout the book, but mainly in its second chapter. Xygalatas deeply discusses the role of ritual, individual or collective, in evolution, history, culture, and society. He has devot- ed a large portion of his career to studying extreme rituals, that is, rituals involving high emotional and physical strain, which may or may not be directly related to religion. Enduring physical suffering in the form of walking on burning coals, piercing parts of the body with needles and hooks, or vol- untarily exposing oneself to painful insect bites, etc., is typical for extreme rituals. In particular, the author has studied thorough- ly the fire-walking rituals and the extreme rituals on the island of Mauritius. In the book, Xygalatas asks the fol- lowing questions among others: What are the origins of rituals? Do rituals help main- tain and strengthen social cohesion? What is the role of extreme rituals in human socie- ties? Are people performing extreme rituals more prosocial? What is the relationship between participation in extreme rituals and social status or attractiveness? T o answer these questions briefly, Xygalatas argues in favour of rituals as mechanisms promoting social cohesion, in-group cooperation and prosocial behaviour, and as instruments to acquire control over activities whose out- come is more difficult to predict. Xygalatas argues for the rituals, religious or non-reli- gious, including extreme rituals, to be an important part of our societies and an inher- ent part of our existence as human beings. BOOK REVIEWS / KNJIŽNE OCENE Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life W orth Living, by Dimitris Xygalatas Michal Uhrin 1.19 Recenzija DOI 10.4312/svetovi.2.2.82-83 83 V ol. 2, Nr. 2, July 2024 Book Reviews / Knjižne ocene In 2012, Xygalatas published a major monograph entitled The Burning Saints: Cognition and Culture in the Fire-W alking Rituals of the Anastenaria (Routledge, 2012; henceforth The Burning Saints ) dealing with fire-walking rituals in Greece, Spain, and Bulgaria from the CESR perspective. While The Burning Saints is aimed primarily at scholars engaged in the scientific study of religion, Ritual is, in my humble opinion, more accessible to a wider range of readers. First and foremost, of course, Ritual is of interest to scholars engaged in CESR. Sec- ondly, it is an excellent gateway book for scholars studying religion from a different theoretical and methodological perspective than CESR. Thirdly, it is also one of the best and most accessible publications to the lay public concerning CESR because Xygalatas explains even complex theoretical concepts in clear and understandable language. The author does not only discuss theoretical concepts and methodological approaches in the naturalistic study of ritu- als. The book is replete with ethnographic and historical examples of rituals that the author analyses thoroughly. In the final chapter, Xygalatas addresses the function of rituals in the 21st century, including the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. I hum- bly believe that this section could have been more extensive. Nonetheless, through nine chapters and 268 pages of text, Xygalatas draws the reader in with a clear and perva- sive writing style. It should be said that the author's aim is not to present a comprehensive overview of the anthropological, psychological, or sociological theories of ritual. Xygalatas’s aim is to present current findings in CESR and thus to argue in favour of a naturalistic study of rituals and religion as an approach with a strong interdisciplinary focus and explanatory potential. In conclusion, Ritual is a brilliant demonstration of how one book can communicate current scientific knowl - edge to the general public and at the same time be a major contribution to the scientific and naturalistic study of ritual and religion. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This book review was funded by the European Union ( ERC project DEAGENCY, № 101095729). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.