Why we need ceremony and rites of passage to make a major comeback in our culture

I recently got the chance to join Jordan Sather and Justin Deschamps on their show Knowledge Based, and close to the end of the episode I got the chance to unpack some of my insight into ritual, which is something I realize I have not been speaking to enough as a weapon in an information/culture war.

I am certified as what is called a Life-Cycle Celebrant, which essentially means I studied the history and elemental structure of all human ceremonies, and was then trained in the art of custom ceremony creation. It was an extremely beneficial certification, and something that has become increasingly relevant as time has passed.

Humans have always used ceremonial structures as containers to move through the life cycle.

We all encounter phases of our lives that challenge us, or uplift us, or both, but either way we come out the other side transformed.

The reason ceremonies are important is that they psychologically and socially acknowledge the transformations we undergo so that we can embody change and live from that newly embodied state.

As and example: It’s no secret that moving from childhood into adulthood is a tumultuous experience. Not only are our bodies undergoing immense changes that need to be grounded in spiritual, cultural and social meaning, but we are emerging into greater independence and responsibility.

Arguably, modern culture’s lack of ceremony for our youth is one of the reasons the mental health of pre-teens and teenagers is in such a bad way. In fact how many of us are suffering as adults because of this void?

Similar to teens, rites of passage for mothers are sorely lacking. The modern baby shower does not contain the traditional elements of a rite of passage in that it does not acknowledge her transformation.

In this way it is in fact a good example of what is called a support ceremony (in my training we learned that rites of passage and support ceremonies are the only two kinds that actually exist) where the mother is simply acknowledged and supported, rather than being moved through a journey of overt transformation and nurtured through the process of embodying wisdom from her own life and from her community.

We can of course make the same commentary on fathers. What father in modern times has been offered a rite of passage to prepare him for family devotion, and the radical transformation of his manhood? (Crickets)

When we don’t use ceremony as a container for moving through difficult life changes we run the risk of moving into a new phase of life disoriented and unprepared, rather than being wiser for having come out the other side. It can even make a life change that would have been uplifting into something traumatic instead.

Which brings me to the next crucial purpose for rites of passage. Rite of passage ceremonies also serve as a container for the movement of human knowledge and wisdom.

I talk a lot about the war we live in and about how the war being waged on the family unit is primarily designed to stop the passage of knowledge and wisdom from one generation to the next. I dive deep into this in my 6 part Docuseries Superorganism (available at DauntlessDialogue.com)

In the example of the teenager being invited into adulthood, insight from parents and elders recalling their own life lessons and experiences can give the teenager practical tools for cultivating self knowledge, material and financial success, or insight into finding a life partner and sustaining monogamy.

Today, this kind of knowledge is often cited in wedding ceremonies. While weddings are one of the few remaining rites of passage, they have become consumed by either mindless dogma and inauthentic traditions or by materialism and pop culture.

We have all heard speeches from friends and family members, telling the bride and groom how to cultivate a strong marriage, which is good and well intentioned, but since earlier rites of passage are lacking, it also shows how little we understand about the process of embodying wisdom.

Giving men and women insight into relationships during a coming of age ceremony, when they are young and entering the dating scene is much more practical and gives them the chance to embody this wisdom, and to blend the insight gathered by previous generations with their unique, present time, modern experience.

The same can be said for things like graduation ceremonies. The are stale, and lacking intention, and clear understanding of the deep purpose a rite of passage serves. Humans are meant to emerge from a proper rite of passage feeling transformed and uplifted in a way that they can embody.

While this occurs in a minimal way in modern graduation ceremonies, it is often lacking the structures humans have traditionally used to make such ceremonies more impactful, such as the Heroes Journey. When these structural techniques are applied, a rite of passage arrives deep into the human psyche and creates real, meaningful and lasting changes.

Whether we’re looking at the example of the student, or the young person being prepared for dating, they get to take old knowledge and test it in the field so that that which is still relevant can be utilized and transformed, while that which is irrelevant can be discarded.

Or, in the context of our current situation, it may be a chance to retrieve old knowledge we have lost and reintegrate it into our modern struggle.

This process of blending the past with the present is the birth of new and novel human wisdom, the expansion of human awareness, and arguably our central purpose as human beings.

In the example of motherhood, a rite of passage ceremony becomes an opportunity to give practical insight into preparation for a successful birth, healing from the birthing process, overcoming the challenges of breastfeeding and child rearing.

The loss of ceremony, and specifically rites of passage, coupled with the war on the family has been devastating to humanity.

This is why I am developing a course on custom rite of passage creation for you and your family (more to come on that soon). To give families the basic tools to integrate rites of passage ceremonies back into their unit, and even into their communities.

I am a big proponent of acknowledging the fact that we live in a modern war zone and from that perspective, the tools to construct meaningful rites of passage for families to me is a means of arming the family unit to survive the unavoidable onslaughts seeking to distrupt not only your family today, but to leave future generations devoid of necessary knowledge and wisdom from the past.

Giving future generations the opportunity to blend your knowledge and wisdom with their present, and to package it and send it into their own family line in their future is something we must idealize today.

Make sure you subscribe to my substack, and to all my social media channels to get info on my incoming course, it’s something I know can deal a serious blow to the powers that be and their sinister attempt at crippling our capacity to evolve as a humanity!