This book is a microsociological study of religious practice, based on fieldwork with Conservative Jews, Bible Belt Muslims, white Baptists, black Baptists, Bud

This book shows how contemporary religious groups arrange very different sorts of rituals in order to achieve collective encounters with “the spirit.” Mixed

Sex, smoking, and social stratification are three very different social phenomena. And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social

Examines particular rituals (social and religious) as a special kind of cultural performance or interaction in a wide variety of traditions and locations.

Often dismissed as "not serious", the notion of play has nevertheless been at the centre of classical theories of religion and ritual (Huizinga, Caillois, Turne