Why Ritual?

For atheists new to the “pagan” part of Atheopaganism, the frequent question to crop up is: what’s up with these rituals? Why do you do those?

And to speak to the rational parts of their minds which are commonly what they most rely on, I answer that ritual enables us to enter the Ritual State (limbic/”trance” brain state, also known to artists as “flow”). It’s pleasurable. It adds depth and meaning to life.

But there is more than that. In marking the passage of the seasons, in conducting rituals to recognize, transform and heal our personal woundedness, we gain new hope and motivation towards our goals, and express deep intentions for the future. We connect with one another, building community.

We conduct rituals to mark special events in a person’s life, such as naming ceremonies, passage into becoming an adult, marriage, or death. These rituals are powerful reminders that our lives define an arc, with recognizable waystations, beginnings and ends. Indeed, we need more such rituals than we are generally offered: rites of passage into adulthood, for example, are sorely lacking in our mainstream culture.

But the core reason to do ritual is that it feels meaningful. Ritual practices help to sacralize the experience of living. And living in a re-sacralized world is a path to bringing respect into relationships which we have probably previously taken for granted, such as our relationship to Earth-given and labor-produced food, or the relationship between the plant kingdom and every breath we take.

And according to science, for the purposes listed above, rituals work.

We do ritual because humans are ritualizing organisms. We have been ritualizing the important moments and meanings of our lives since before we were fully human. Denying this, pretending that we have somehow transcended the manifold natures of our evolved brains to focus only on the “thinky” parts, is to deny the factual nature of the human experience.

We are still the creatures who painted the powerful and desirable/huntable creatures of their landscape upon cave walls, who left the prints of their hands in the caves to say, “I was here.”

And it is through ritual, even today, that we create memorable moments of power and meaning. That we connect with our deepest selves, and each other.

That’s why.

But don’t take my word for it. Give it a try. Give it several, because it may seem awkward at first.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Check out the Atheopagan Ritual Primer, and the posts here tagged Ritual Technologies and Techniques. And let me know how it goes–I may have suggestions or kudos or ideas for you!