Ritual: Making the invisible, visible ✨ Casper ter Kuile, author of “The Power of Ritual”
Episode at a glance:
GUEST: Casper ter Kuile
COMMUNITY: Harry Potter and the Sacred Texts and author of The Power of Ritual
HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh
“Ritual makes things real.” – Casper ter Kuile
Show Notes
If you're passionate about how the world builds meaningful communities, you likely know Casper ter Kuile. After an early career in grassroots climate organizing, Casper earned masters degrees in Divinity and Public Policy from Harvard. While there, he started a reading community around the Harry Potter texts, that has grown to more than 70 chapters and millions of podcast listeners around the world.
Casper is also co-author of the How We Gather report, a cultural map of Millennial communities, and now a brand new book: The Power of Ritual, which is available for pre-order and will publish on June 23, 2020.
In this episode, we go deep on two things Casper knows a lot about: rituals and communal reading. As Casper says, “ritual makes things real,” taking what’s invisible and making it visible, tangible to us.
While you’re listening to Casper, keep an ear out for three of our favorite insights:
Ritual breeds connection.
Casper’s upcoming book began as a study into connection, exploring connection to self, connection to others, connection to the natural world, and connection to transcendence. But as he neared the completion of his draft he had an epiphany. The stories in each chapter all centered around practices–the behaviors that help people access a feeling of connection. “And I was like, wait, each of these [practices] is a ritual. Ritual ended up being this really beautiful thread that tied these different levels of connection together.”
Rituals help us remember the connections that already exist in our lives and make them visible.
“Rituals don’t make things different, they make things real,” Casper told us. For community builders, rituals offer us a way to stoke the fire🔥. They’re focused moments for new and old members of growing communities to connect over the identities and experiences they have in common.
“Intention, attention and repetition” are the three key ingredients that transform habits into a ritual.
Casper emphasizes the best rituals are simple, everyday acts that you experience anew through focused intention, attention, and repetition.
Bonus: Popcorn Q&A with Casper.
As a supplement to our podcast interview, we hosted an AMA-style conversation with Casper on our Substack. There, he shared his thoughts on all things ritual and favorite Harry Potter characters. Read the full thread here.
What advice do you have for designing rituals for welcoming people into your community? For saying goodbye? Are there other key moments we should be bringing ritual into?
Casper: The first thing to remember is that there are always already rituals to build on. Simple things like handshakes and hugs, or welcoming folks with a cup of coffee or a tour of the building. In a digital context, there might be some basic introductions or words shared at the beginning of every event.
So the first thing to do is look at what’s already happening and try to lift that up into a ritual. We turn a small habit into a ritual by bringing intention, attention and repetition to it. So be clear about what you intend the ritual to symbolize. Be present while you’re performing it. And repeat it over time.
One of my favorite examples of this is a Unitarian Universalist church on the US-Mexican border that starts every service and event with someone saying out loud this simple statement — “We are a church at the border and our mission is to serve the immigrant.” Simple words, but by naming these values over and over, everyone understands what they’re doing.
My favorite quarantine zoom meeting closer is the dance party. For our 8-week digital Harry Potter and the Sacred Text class, we closed every session with a different ABBA track and invited folks to dance in front of their cameras. Nothing better!
You talk about community leaders being “shepherds,” being part of the community but also separate from it with a different set of responsibilities. What advice do you have for being a good “shepherd?”
Casper: If we can take inspiration from sacred texts, a good shepherd is one who cares about every member of the flock. So the first thing is that a good community leader genuinely cares about the community! I know this sounds obvious, but it isn’t always true.
A shepherd is inherently itinerant, so your job is to encourage and lead the flock across a landscape — which we can read as a changing world. In my experience, although it might help to have a community strategy, what is most important to have as a community leader is a clear moral/ethical compass and the capacity to spread that culture within the community. Then, when change comes (as it will), everyone has the same/similar commitments to how we want to be together and can figure out the best next step.
What are your rituals, Casper? And for those of us who want to start new rituals — say, deepen our spirituality or create new meaningful memories for our kids — where to start?
Casper: My very very fave ritual is my tech sabbath on Friday nights.
But honestly, I think the best way for many of us to deepen our spiritual lives is to rediscover and translate rituals/practices/songs/stories that we grew up with. Are there any traditions that you might be able to reimagine from your own life/family/ancestry?
My approach to ritual design is all about starting with things we’re doing already in a small way and then adding in the wisdom of tradition to deepen the practice.
Which Harry Potter character do you most identify with?
Photo via The Federalist
Casper: Ron. He just really loves food :)
See the full thread of Q&A with Casper here.
👋🏻Say hi to Casper and grab a copy of The Power of Ritual.
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