RITUALS: December 2024 podcast playlist

With the holiday season upon us, we are all likely to be engaging a set of rituals. Rituals have the power to give structure and meaning to our lives, bridging the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary. They can mark transitions, build connections, and ground us in shared values or personal intentions. Whether steeped in tradition or newly created, rituals provide a sense of continuity and purpose, often offering comfort and focus amid life’s unpredictability. What makes them particularly fascinating is their diversity—they can be deeply spiritual, purely practical, or even whimsical, yet they all reveal something profound about the human desire for meaning and connection. This playlist explores why humans (and animals) use rituals and digs into the rituals of specific cultures.

Podcast Playlist on RITUALS

Get the full playlist on your podcast player of choice using these platforms:

 
The Digital Human: “Ritual” (October 2017, 28 min)
From funerals to the Burning the Circle festival held every year on the Isle of Aran to surgeon’s scrubbing up before an operation, Aleks explores the very human experience of rites of passage and ritual and why this very human experience can help make sense of ourselves online.

A modern day rite of passage could be getting your first mobile or social media account but do we have rituals to accompany these new keys to the adult world? And why should we need them?
Nocturne: “Notes in Trees” (March 2021, 29 min)
Most parents would never consider leaving their kids in the dark woods at night, and letting them find their way back. The Dutch do just that, and they call it Dropping, and the kids mostly have fun.
The Why Factor: “Initiations” (December 2017, 26 min)
Coming of age rituals, hazing at universities or entrance rites into secretive organisations, initiations are present in every culture around the world. They are often secretive and can involve horrific ordeals and yet people are still prepared to put up with the pain. So why do we need them and what happens if they are absent?

Rhianna Dhillon talks to young men in South Africa who’s coming of age circumcisions went horribly wrong, learns about the inner workings of gang initiations and the mysterious rites held by the elite Skull and Bones organisation. She discovers that however harmful the initiation ceremony, it almost always serves a valuable purpose.
Passport: “Oaxaca: The Day of the Dead, Santa Muerte, and The Witch” (October 2020, 52 min)
“A journey to Oaxaca, the heart of Mexico, to find out what the Day of the Dead really is. It’s history, it’s present and it’s future.
We’ll sit at the dinner table with spirits. We’ll dive into folklore, fables and rituals to see how this celebration has lasted so many life times, through so much hardship, and repression. We’ll hear the stories of the people closest to the festival and discover the power of storytelling, and reinvention of stories in Mexico, that have kept the festival alive. But how can death be so celebrated in a country with such a high mortality rate? And why do people look to this hub of culture, history and creativity for inspiration in dark times, for better or worse?

Plus, we’ll meet a witch who has drawn from the history, used the spirits, a forgotten tradition and the folk music of Mexico to turn it into a powerful forward thinking statement about sex, death and gender.”
BBC Earth Podcast: “When Wolves Sing” (December 2018, 29 min)
Discover the rituals performed in the animal kingdom for love, life and death. Did you know painted wolves sing to vote for the next alpha couple? Neither did we. This behaviour was documented for the first time ever by the crew working on BBC Earth’s latest landmark. We explore the weird, and occasionally dark, acts that characterise crow funerals, how birds brandish themselves to potential mates and the awe-inspiring tale of witnessing a mass-baptism at the Blue Nile – a river steeped in myth and legend.
Bonus podcast episodes:

• Hidden Brain: “Creating God” (February 2021, 52 min)
  If you’ve taken part in a religious service, have you ever stopped to think about how people become believers? Where do the rituals come from? And what purpose does it all serve? This week, we bring you a 2018 episode with social psychologist Azim Shariff. He argues that we should consider religion from a Darwinian perspective, as an innovation that helped human societies to grow and flourish.
• Decoder Ring: “Gender Reveal Party” (November 2019, 39 min)
  Jenna Karvunidis invented the gender reveal party, but now she has regrets. On this episode of Decoder Ring, we explore the pink and blue world of the gender reveal party, and how Jenna’s small barbecue celebration turned into a global phenomenon that’s gotten way out of control. We talk to psychologists, historians, critics, and business owners, to figure out why the gender reveal is having such a big, bizarre moment right now, and how we can best understand the strange power they hold over social media.
• Humanize Me: “503: Rituals and our nature, with Sasha Sagan” (February 2020, 1 hr 25 min)
  Rituals are important. But why? And how is it connected to our own nature, and the nature around us? Sasha Sagan has written a book all about the subject. In this conversation, Bart Campolo talks with Sasha about the kinds of rituals we have, how they operate for secular people, encouraging deeper thinking about why we mark the occasions we do, and how to create good conversations around them. Sasha Sagan is a writer and speaker living in Boston. She shares another feature with Bart: a famous dad. Carl Sagan, the popular cosmologist and science communicator, was a huge influence in Sasha’s life, and they talk about him near the end of their conversation.

Conversation Starter Questions:

1. What is a ritual or tradition you’ve grown up with that still holds meaning for you today?
2. Do you have any personal rituals or routines that help you stay grounded or focused?
3. Have you ever participated in a cultural or religious ritual from a tradition different from your own? How did it feel?
4. What is a small, everyday habit of yours that could be considered a modern ritual?
5. If you could create a brand-new ritual for yourself or your community, what would it look like, and what purpose would it serve?