Freud, Football and the Marching Virgins (and William James)

If the title isn't fun enough on its own, read this wonderfully playful little essay about Freud and football by Thomas Hornsby Ferril. A very interesting thing about it is that it expresses the religious sense in ritual and meaning in a way that is very foreign to the rather clumsy religous sensibility that seems to monopoilize what we mean by "religious".
To book drop again, another person who I am doing lots of work with is William James (1842-1910). And, it just so happens, I am particularly interested in his work in philosophy of mind as it addresses religion, human immortality, and human blindness. The funny thing is, he has no formal religious creed to speak of. Lest he be ignored as some non-denominational hack, his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, is a must read for anyone interested in these things.