The hottest Ritual Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Philosophy Topics

On the Internet, You Don't Discover Reality. You Create It.

Default Wisdom • 247 implied HN points • 22 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Ritual
  1. Big jumps in communication technology reshape how people think, pushing consciousness into new imaginative and myth-making modes.
  2. Language and naming build the inner story of the self and the shared culture; to name something is to know it and gain power over it.
  3. The Internet breaks down old boundaries so identity and facts become fluid, creating a magical-like space where words and rituals can help create reality.

Notes on a Secular Age: the Death of Carnival and the Birth of Modernity

Secretum Secretorum • 303 implied HN points • 07 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Ritual
  1. Medieval carnival and similar rites worked as a sanctioned anti-structure that temporarily inverted roles, let off social pressure, and renewed communal energy and creativity.
  2. Secularization moved that balancing anti-structure out of public life into private spheres, leaving societies without a shared ritual outlet and making absolute, boundary-free codes and totalizing projects more likely.
  3. The Christian mix of authority and inversion generated a kind of "god-energy" that fueled cultural innovation, and when that ground of belief weakened modernity gained private creativity but lost a public source of regenerative tension.

The inhuman assault on Christmas

Thinking about... • 739 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Ritual
  1. AI and algorithm-generated Christmas music removes specific religious and human details, leaving bland, soulless versions that erase the songs' meaning.
  2. Attention-hungry algorithms and the companies that profit from them are weakening shared cultural practices like teaching, conversation, and holiday rituals.
  3. The real emotional and historical depth of songs—love, specific people, and stories—can't be authentically reproduced by machines, so preserving culture needs human care and transmission.

Myth and Metrics: How social media robs us of ritual, and how to revive it

The Bigger Picture • 1777 implied HN points • 28 Sep 23
🎭️ Culture Ritual
  1. Social media captures and monetizes attention through stoking outrage and shallow engagement, impacting social cohesion and politics.
  2. Digital communication lacks the depth and relatedness of traditional rituals, focusing on extensive content rather than meaningful connections.
  3. Repetitive practices and storytelling in rituals, like traditional music sessions, offer deep attention and a sense of belonging that can counter the shallow experiences of social media.

What Happened to me Inside the Great Pyramid

What's Important? • 76 implied HN points • 02 Jan 26
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Ritual
  1. Initiatory experiences often give you what you need, not the dramatic proof you want; the real result can be inner shifts like greater presence and healing rather than supernatural encounters.
  2. Sacred spaces and their acoustics can powerfully change bodily awareness and open access to somatic wisdom, with resonance and ritual highlighting the importance of the feminine and interoception in transformation.
  3. Lasting change often comes from practical somatic work and small shifts in the body, which can release long-standing pain and emotional patterns and make it easier to receive love and be present.
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Saharan Surprise

Weekly Wisdom • 179 implied HN points • 25 Jan 24
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Ritual
  1. The author describes a mystical experience in the Saharan desert under the night sky, feeling awe and vitality while performing a ritual with friends.
  2. During the experience, the author felt a surge of energy through their body, pondered on physical tension, and experienced a profound sense of stillness and peace.
  3. The author ended the experience feeling a deep presence, an absence of worries, and a state of non-ordinary consciousness, ultimately reflecting on the sacredness and simplicity of existence.

A couple videos I made about Iran war and earth shrines

Charles Eisenstein • 1 implied HN point • 10 Mar 26
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Ritual
  1. Two recent videos focus on the Iran war and earth shrines, using mythic and cinematic references like Kurosawa's Ran to illuminate contemporary crises.
  2. A live community call blends traditional, indigenous, and animistic perspectives with the horror of modern warfare and frames that synthesis with deep optimism about the present moment's potential.
  3. This work is part of an ongoing Sanity Project and New and Ancient Story community offering regular videos and live engagement, and a modest paid subscription is suggested to support it.

On Living in the Past

Castalia • 219 implied HN points • 31 Mar 23
🎭️ Culture Ritual
  1. Living in the past can offer a deeper connection to history and heritage. It helps us understand our identity and where we fit in the world.
  2. Many cultures naturally integrate the past into their present. This blending creates a richer experience of life, unlike the strict focus on the 'now' often seen in the West.
  3. Balancing past and present can enrich our lives. Embracing history alongside contemporary experiences can lead to greater happiness and fulfillment.

everything and nothing

NOW IS GOOD • 117 implied HN points • 02 Apr 23
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Ritual
  1. The writer explores the concepts of Keva and Kavanah in Jewish prayer.
  2. Attending a Passover Seder event leads to self-reflection and personal growth.
  3. Engaging in committed learning and familiar activities like cooking can bring a sense of fulfillment and grounding.

The Reckoning of Time

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 708 implied HN points • 06 Jun 23
📖 Philosophy Ritual
  1. Timekeeping has deep cultural roots and was originally intertwined with religious and social practices.
  2. Modernity saw a shift in the importance of timekeeping from a human endeavor to a machine-driven process.
  3. The modern expectation of universal and standardized participation in societal issues contrasts with the historical concept of individualized duties and roles.

The Long History of Magical Fluids

Daniel Pinchbeck’s Newsletter • 7 implied HN points • 05 Dec 25
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Ritual
  1. Ectoplasm is described as a mysterious, quasi-physical substance said to bridge spirit and matter, often pictured as a milky, fabric-like or vaporous material and likened metaphorically to plasma or life-force.
  2. Some occult thinkers claim female sexual or reproductive energy produces this etheric substrate, making women the ritual bridge to spirits, and they even frame modern online sex work as an unconscious form of sex-magic that pours out that energy.
  3. Investigations and skeptics found many ectoplasm cases were staged with cloth, egg white, wax, or other tricks, so there is no solid empirical evidence, even though spiritualism also served historically as a space for women's leadership and empowerment.

Letter #17: Source Temple

Charles Eisenstein • 1 implied HN point • 28 Jan 26
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Ritual
  1. Traveling to other countries reveals that the worries and obsessions people shout about online aren’t universal, and different places have different priorities. It’s a useful reminder that local noise doesn’t equal global reality.
  2. Stepping away for a retreat or focused time can refresh your perspective and supply new stories and insights. Returning after that time often brings clearer thinking and renewed creativity.
  3. Some material is reserved for paying subscribers, so fuller or deeper content may be gated behind subscriptions. That creates a split between brief public pieces and more extensive subscriber-only writing.