Pierre Smith’s mind traps: The origin and ramifications of a theory of ritual efficacy

Abstract

The Belgian anthropologist Pierre Smith was a perceptive ethnographer and a forward-thinking theorist whose insights provided the fertile ground out of which grew influential anthropological approaches to ritual, ritual efficacy, and art some 30 years later. In this article, I trace the genealogy of the ‘mind trap’, a key concept in Smith’s theoretical writing and a true analytical gem in itself. The appeal of Pierre Smith’s theory lies with how ritual action (or art) might produce such entrapment of the mind, and why this might be a key process in ritual (and art) efficacy, i.e. ‘operations’ liable to trigger a transformation. I then go on to review the many reverberations and ramifications of his concept as reflected in two recent theoretical approaches to ritual and ritual efficacy, as well as the possible connections between Smith’s ‘mind trap’ and certain aspects of Alfred Gell’s anthropological theory of art. Pierre Smith points ethnographers and ritual theorists in the right direction to answer questions about the transformational nature of many rituals (and art works) around the world. While mind traps cannot fully explain ritual efficacy, they can serve as a starting point for a strong and ethnographically-grounded theory of ritual efficacy.