Hi, I’m John Green.

Welcome  to Crash Course Religions.

So, before I was a YouTuber,  and before I was a novelist,   I was a student chaplain at a children’s hospital.

And once a week or so, I would spend 24  hours as the hospital’s on-call chaplain,   sleeping–in between deaths, traumas,   and other chaplain calls–in a small windowless  room in the hospital’s pastoral care office.

I’d sleep in my clothes, on top of the covers,   so that I could move quickly when  calls came in the middle of the night.

But I would take off my shoes and my  chaplain jacket before lying down,   and I would arrange them just  so by my bed, as a ritual.

There is a fine and complex line  between superstition and ritual.

I hoped that if I placed the shoes and  jacket just so, the night might pass quietly.

But I also carefully arranged the shoes and  jacket because the act of doing so brought   me comfort, and gave some structure to  an otherwise chaotic life experience.

So is that the point of ritual?

To console and consolidate the self?

Or might there be more to it?

[THEME MUSIC] Now ritual, like religion, is hard to define.

On the simplest level, ritual is…  something we do—an extraordinary action.

But it could be basically anything!

Singing.

Cleaning.

Repeating a mantra.

Reciting a pledge of allegiance.

Or, it could be the absence of action.

Like not eating certain foods,  sitting quietly during meditation,   or pausing for a moment of  silence before a baseball game.

But just because any action could  be a ritual doesn’t mean it is one.

Scholars like Catherine Bell have suggested  there’s a process by which actions become rituals.

And this ritualization is what takes an  ordinary action and makes it extraordinary.

Like, let’s take handwashing as an example.

You probably – at least, hopefully  – wash your hands fairly often.

But you might not pay a lot of  attention to how or where you wash them.

It’s not, like, a significant event in your day;  it’s something you do without really thinking.

But for practitioners of Shintō, a  religious tradition indigenous to Japan,   handwashing is a ritualized process meant to  purify an individual before they enter a shrine.

Now there are a lot of ways  actions become ritualized,   but let’s look at a couple with Shintō in mind.

First, this sort of handwashing  requires repetition.

Practitioners wash their hands and mouths  every time they enter a Shintō shrine.

And not just at any available sink.

They do it at a special  fountain called a temizuya.

There’s also a formalized sequence.

At the temizuya, Shintō practitioners  pick up a ladle with their right hand,   scoop up some water, and  then rinse their left hand.

Then, they switch and rinse their right.

Then, the ladle goes back to the  right hand again to rinse the mouth.

Finally, the left hand gets one last rinse,  before cleaning out the ladle and replacing it.

The process is way more specific  and intentional than, for example,   singing the first verse of  “All-Star” every time you   wash your hands to make sure that you’re  scrubbing for the prescribed 20 seconds.

Which yes, I do do.

There are tons of other  ways people ritualize actions.

Sometimes rituals have to be  conducted by a religious figure.

Like in Catholicism, for example, a priest must be  the one to perform the Eucharist, a ritual during   which bread and wine are believed to transform  into the literal body and blood of Jesus.

Or, sometimes rituals require particular clothing.

Like, in order to be free from  distractions of wealth or privilege,   Muslims wear simple, white robes during  their pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

And rituals can have social, political,  and even psychological impacts.

They can calm us in times of uncertainty,  unite or initiate us into communities,   or simply create a boundary between what we  consider sacred and the rest of our lives.

Consider the adhan, or Muslim call to prayer.

[adhan caller sings] Five times a day, Muslims  perform a ritual prayer or Salat.

Before each prayer, a dedicated prayer-caller  will sing out the adhan from a mosque.

This ritualized process creates a special  time and space for Muslims to pray.

And this happens all over the world.

From the streets of Baghdad to  the cornfields of central Indiana.

Or consider how, in the U.S., the National  Anthem is played before sporting events.

Everyone stands and places their hands over their  heart as a way of saying, “I am an American.” It’s a unifying ritual that, much  like the Muslim call to prayer,   is meant to convey to others  that you’re part of a community.

And so it’s no surprise that not participating can   often cause controversy…but  more on that in just a bit.

Here’s the thing about rituals though:   it’s not like every Muslim doing Salat or  every American saluting the flag is actively   pondering the mysteries of the universe  or what it means to have national pride.

Like who among us hasn’t been caught  at church sleep-crossing ourselves,   where we’re just like… oh yeah,  going through the motions.

It’s 5 AM.

This is an  unreasonable time to have church.

Nothing should happen at 5 AM.

Is this just a me problem?

Which reminds me, the distinction  between habits and rituals can be fuzzy.

Many of us perform rituals out of habit.

But!

Performing the ritual still serves a function   regardless of the participant's level  of engagement with the symbolic meaning.

Because participation in a ritual reinforces   a shared community and identity, and  it lets other people know you belong.

For example, people who wish to join  the Khalsa, a special order of Sikhs   who follow specific codes of conduct, must  undergo a ritual known as “Taking Amrit.” Joining the Khalsa is a big step for a Sikh  and represents complete devotion to the faith.

It requires that five existing members of the   Khalsa stir an iron bowl of sugar  water with a double-edged sword.

And each member recites a special prayer,  while stirring, that transforms the sugar   water into the Amrit, or immortal  nectar, a process that can take hours.

Once the Amrit is prepared,   initiates are called forward one at  a time to kneel and drink the Amrit.

Then the nectar is sprinkled on their hair and  eyes as they affirm their commitment to God.

They arise as members of the Khalsa and are  then given new names – men become Singh,   or lion, and women become Kaur, or princess.

The new names mark the initiates as the  sons and daughters of Guru Gobind Singh,   who created the Khalsa in  1699, and his wife Sahib Kaur.

And the process of taking Amrit shows us  another common way that we ritualize actions:   by linking them to a significant  figure, god, or sacred narrative.

It’s similar to graduation,  which is itself a kind of ritual, right?

Like, you go through a set of steps led  by people with authority—in this case,   your principals and teachers—who  are wearing ceremonial clothes.

And at the end – usually several hours later – you  cross a threshold, moving from students to alumni.

That’s the thing about rituals:  they aren’t religious by nature.

Rituals can also grant a person  authority within a community.

Like the elaborate process through which we choose  an American Idol, which is surprisingly different   from the elaborate process through which we choose  a new Pope, the head of the Catholic Church.

Stan says that when referring to that process I can’t say “we choose” a new   Pope because I am not myself a cardinal of  the Catholic Church under the age of 80.

But to that I say I’m not yet, Stan.

But life is full of surprises, okay?

I’m only 46,  I’ve got every opportunity to become a cardinal.

The series of steps begins with a plume of  white smoke coming from the chimney of the   Sistine Chapel, indicating that the cardinals  have agreed upon a new Pope, and it ends with   an announcement, in Latin, from the balcony of  St Peter's Basilica confirming the new Pope.

The process even involves the newly  promoted pope choosing a papal name.

Something like Benedict or Francis.

The names are usually pulled from  history and carry great significance.

And that ritual, too, is designed to convey  the Pope’s authority over the Church.

In the event that I do become a cardinal and my   fellow cardinals agree to make me the  Pope I would be Pope John the 24th.

I would stick with my name.

It’s the same in the secular world  and not only with American Idols.

Presidential inaugurations often involve a set of   highly visible ritual practices meant  to convey power and bestow authority.

That’s why we call election winners  “president-elect” until they go   through the inaugural swearing-in ceremony.

The inauguration marks the transition of  power and the “making” of a president.

Now, in the same way that rituals can grant  power and authority through their functions,   they can also be used to speak out  against that same power and authority.

Which is what happened in 2016  when the San Francisco 49ers were   about to play a preseason game  against the Green Bay Packers.

The opening lines of the National Anthem began  to play, and everyone stood to face the flag.

Well, almost everyone.

49ers quarterback Colin  Kaepernick wasn’t standing.

Instead, he sat quietly on the bench.

The song ended, people returned to their seats,  and the 49ers went on to lose to the Packers.

Kaepernick told a reporter afterward that  he wouldn’t “stand up to show pride in a   flag for a country that oppresses  Black people and people of color.” Pretty soon, Kaepernick and his teammate Eric Reid  were kneeling while the national anthem played.

And by the beginning of the regular season,   more players were kneeling and  more people were paying attention.

Even President Obama weighed  in to support Kaepernick.

But the backlash became deafening.

Kaepernick and other kneeling  players were accused of “disrespect.” Some people called him “ignorant,” “ungrateful,”   and a bunch of other awful things  I’m not allowed to say on YouTube.

And at the end of the season,  Kaepernick became a free agent   and no team signed him; he  never played in the NFL again.

The anger that followed these protests  shows how impactful rituals can be.

For many, the National  Anthem is a unifying ritual;   it inspires positive feelings of  connection and national pride.

And when Kaepernick intentionally violated the  social norm, he invoked a sort of counter-ritual.

As scholar Joseph Winters wrote, “These bodily   refusals invoke dissonant memories of  incessant Black suffering and death,   memories that cannot be converted into a moment  of celebration and collective self-worship.” In other words, he challenged  the idealized image of the United   States represented by the National Anthem,  pointing instead to disunity and oppression.

And in some ways, his critics  experienced this as a threat   both to their personal and to their national identities.

How could they both have national pride  and face the reality of racial injustice?

It’s easier to choose one idea or the  other than to sit with that complexity.

So clearly, rituals are powerful.

They can mark time and space, create new  identities, and even launch political movements.

And they’re everywhere, not just within the  strict traditional boundaries of religions,   but also in our daily lives.

Even if you aren’t a religious person, the chances  are you still participate in a ritual or two,   whether that’s making your coffee a certain  way each morning, crafting a carefully curated   playlist for your workout, or just taking a  moment for silent reflection before you go to bed.

We ritualize the actions that are important to us.

They might also work some deep,  supernatural magic – but even if   they aren’t, they can still  bring us comfort and peace.

And they matter, because at their best,   rituals bring us to a new kind  of attention and connection.

I’m reminded of Annie Dillard writing,  “We live half our waking lives and all   our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and  insensible waters we never mention or recall.” Ritual can be one strategy for jolting  us out of those insensate waters,   bringing us, albeit momentarily, to awareness.

In our next episode, we’re going to think  about who gets to speak for a religion.