Russian biologists believe that microorganisms can be to blame for the popularity of rituals.

Where do bacteria live in humans?

Russian biologists Alexander Panchin, Alexander Tuzhikov and Yuri Panchin from the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IITP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences published in the journal Biology Direct an article “Midichlorians: a hypothesis of biomemes. Are there any microbial influences in religious rituals? ”It presents a new interesting point of view on the origin and survival of religious rituals.

If we leave aside the complex question of the origin of religion, and consider only the question of religious rituals, it becomes noticeable, with what surprising consistency they have been preserved for years and millennia.
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Researchers are increasingly inclined to believe that religious rituals are cultural memes. A meme is a unit of cultural information, any idea, symbol, manner or course of action, consciously or unconsciously transmitted from person to person through speech, writing, video, rituals, gestures.

The concept of the meme and the term itself were proposed by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in the book The Selfish Gene . Dawkins has suggested that all cultural information consists of basic units — memes, just as biological information consists of genes; and just like genes, memes are subject to natural selection, mutation, and artificial selection.

That is, it is believed that certain rituals associated with different religions were passed from person to person just as funny pictures on the Internet are now. But Russian researchers turned their attention to microorganisms and their possible participation in the lives of people.

It is known that parasitic microorganisms can control the behavior of their host hosts. Dicrocoelium dendriticum flatworm larvae force infected ants to climb tall blades of grass at night and stick to the top. This makes ants (and the parasite's larvae inside) easily accessible for cattle - the ultimate host of the parasite in which it breeds.

Mushrooms Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infect ants, after which they leave the colony, climb to a height of about 30 cm and is fixed on the sheet, glaring at the central vein. Mushrooms thus provide themselves with the best position to spread the spores. After that, the fungus grows through the entire body of the ant, and the red-brown fruit body of the fungus grows from the ant head. The parasitic fungi of this species, 48 ​​million years ago, were controlled by the behavior of ants, as evidenced by fossils from excavations.

The parasitic worm Spinochordodes tellinii (also known as “horsehair”) sends its grasshopper host, Meconema thalassinum, into the water, where the adult parasite breeds and the host usually dies.

Crustaceans of the genus Artemia infected with flatworms and microsporidia are much more likely to gather in flocks. These flocks become visible to birds (eg, flamingos), the ultimate hosts of the parasite. In this regard, there is an assumption that parasites can contribute to the socialization of crustaceans so that they can be eaten more actively.

Wasp-riders Glyptapanteles lay their eggs in the body of caterpillars. Having developed inside the "owner", the larvae gnaw themselves out outside, are fixed on a nearby branch or sheet and spin a cocoon around themselves. But the caterpillar does not die. In the body of the caterpillars there are one or two eggs, the “driver”, which control the owner during the pupation of other individuals: the still living caterpillar, instead of continuing its usual existence, remains in place and arches over the cocoons, protecting them from predators.

And the parasitic single-celled toxoplasma gondii, about which I already wrote , controls the behavior of not the insects, but the most real mammals. Rodents, in whose brain a microorganism settles, cease to be afraid of cats and even feel attracted to their smell, as a result of which they become easy prey for the latter. And the parasite is just the best feeling in the intestines of the cat.

But so far there are no proven cases for parasites to control human behavior (except, perhaps, for an unusual addiction to cats). Russian researchers believe that religious rituals can serve as an example of the ideal behavior of a group of people for parasites who need to breed and capture as many hosts as possible.

In most common religions, there are rituals that potentially contribute to the transmission of infections: circumcision, the sacrament, the ritual of "rolling" in Hinduism, ritual ablutions in Islam, and ritual pilgrimage to Mecca. "Holy sources" and "holy water" are often saturated with microorganisms, including pathogens.

In addition, sacred relics, which during religious ceremonies kisses many people, become a means of transmission and dissemination of microorganisms. Christians kiss crosses, icons and covers of the Bible, Muslims use the Black Kaaba Stone, and Jews kiss the Western Wall. What is not an incubator for microorganisms?

“In 2012, an article was published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, which showed the relationship between religiosity and parasitic stress in human populations: the more parasites, the higher the religion, on average,” says Alexander Panchin, one of the authors of the study.

It remains only to understand what these microorganisms may be and test these theories for statistical data — try to find a connection between religiosity and the presence of the parasite in humans. The search for the parasite can be done with the help of modern methods of reading and decoding DNA - in the framework of studies on comparative metagenomics , i.e. studies of genes of organisms that were not specifically cultivated, but were obtained from the natural environment.