Gretchen Gonzaga

The conclusion part in Durkheim’s book, “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life”,
summarizes his findings from his ethnographic study of the religious beliefs of Australian
Aborigines. He tried to prove that his methodology to the study of Totemism is also applicable to
understanding the complexities of societies. Hence, if you want to know a society, you need to
understand its religion.

For him, religion has its origins in Totemism. Totems are collective symbols that signify
what is sacred from profane. Sacred are the things that people identified as religious such as god,
angels, deity, rock, moon, sun, star, cows, monkey, even satan or devils. They are sacred because
the society says so. Its sacrality lies to its distinction from profane. Profane simply means unholy
or anything ordinary and usual. Durkheim asserted further that religious ideas should have a
material form such as totem which we can relate as a group.

Durkheim explained, “If religion gave birth to all that is essential in society, that is so
because the idea of society is the soul of religion.” This means that religion makes a society
sacred, and that, society is the basis of all religious belief. Religion is not just a system of
practices but also a set of ideas in our consciousness that develops in pursuit of our idealization
of a perfect society. Religion is very powerful that it has the power to replace the real world by
creating an ideal world in our consciousness.

The notion of “ideal” stems from the sacralization of events/places through collective
effervescent. Effervescent is a collective feeling of being connected and excites people at the
same time. Societies need to maintain and strengthen this collective feelings and ideas which
provide coherence and reaffirmation. This can be achieved through social gatherings such as
meetings, assemblies, parties, and no different with religious activities such as Eid al-Fitr,
Christmas, Lenten season, etc.

In Durkheim’s theory of religion, he is also trying to imply that Totemism is just like any
or the origin of major religions. This means that Rizalista religious movement is no different
from Christianity, Islam, and etc. Their followers believe that Jose Rizal, Philippines’ national
hero, is still living and that will deliver them from oppression and poverty. Some of them believe
that Rizal is God himself while some believe that Rizal was the second son of God, the
reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Durkheim’s quest in uniting/connecting all religions by studying its origins means he was
stuck up too much on his structural-functionalism theory. Although religion can unite people
within a society and could create an illusion of an ideal world, still it could create conflict. It may
not be within groups but maybe between two different societies. Is it possible that Durkheim
failed to mention how religion created conflict because an ideal world might be imperfect for
others? Instead of having coherence among people, it divided them instead. For example
between Christianity and Islam; then those who thought Rizalistas are illogical.