2.3 The Voice of the Dead

Mathieu Deflem, ‘Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion vol. 30 (1991), p. 4-5:

“Rituals are storehouses of meaningful symbols by which information is revealed and regarded as authoritative, as dealing with the crucial values of the community. Not only do symbols reveal crucial social and religious values; they are also . . . transformative for human attitudes and behaviour. The handling of symbols in ritual exposes their powers to act upon and change the persons involved in ritual performance.”

What are the ‘meaningful symbols’ in the ritual suggested by Stanza 48? How do they ‘change the persons involved in [the] ritual performance’?