Extreme public self-costing rituals attract devoted mass followings

Evidence

For a historical example of an extreme form of extravagance, we have the charismatic priests of the Anatolian goddess Cybele who ritually castrated themselves, and subsequently took on female identities. These public self-castrations often led to waves of popular devotion to Cybele in the early Roman Empire, and Cybele religion attracted a large following, often competing with the inroads made by early Christianity. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 327

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for costly signaling theory the reader is tracing; also connects to the sacrificial-corpse article’s logic of extreme ritual devotion.