You're right in the sense that ritualised, repeated behaviour performed for no obvious gain is something very unusual. Most animals don't waste energy on things that don't have a material impact on their life.

I'd disagree with your point about intelligence though. It's simply that we have more resources than we need. Even the stupidest animals would develop rituals if they could afford to.

Sorry, animistic here did not reference the fact that we are animals, rather that we used to worship them and other entities we saw in nature, like the sun, and that we might come to view computers/machines as also having a spiritual essence.