Rites of Passage Resources - Books
Barrett, Ruth. Women's Rites, Women's Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation.LLewellyn Publications, 2007.
Written by a Dianic, wiccan priestess, this book provides tools and instruction for creating meaningful and personal ritual. The book does not provide “ready made” rituals, but walks the reader through the process.
Beck, Renee and Sydney Metrick. The Art of Ritual: Creating and Performing Ceremonies for Growth and Change. Berkeley: The Apocryphile Press, 2012.
A “how to” book for creating and performing rituals. Also includes the relevant backdrop of myth and history, and why rituals are performed.
Bridges, William. Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes. Reading: Perseus Books, 1980.
Excellent resource for understanding the mechanics of transition and transformation.
Elgin, Duane. The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2009.
I’ve always felt that Rites of Passage must be embedded within a context that contains self, community, and cosmos. This is an excellent resource for pulling quotes and ideas that elicit this sense of belonging and being the cosmos. “It is through community that we can most fully realize and celebrate ourselves as citizens of a sacred cosmos” (p.176).
Fulghum, Robert. From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives. New York: Random House Publishing, 1996.
Fulghum tells stories to help us get at an understanding of the meaning of rituals in our lives. He explores public ritual, intra- and interpersonal ritual, and ritual that is so embedded in our behaviors that we do not recognize it as such.
Grimes, Ronald L. Deeply Into the Bone: Re-Inventing Rites of Passage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
This book has been recommended by nearly every resource I’ve accessed on Rites of Passage and is often required reading in courses on the topic. The power of this book seems to be that it blends the scholarly with the personal and inspires reflection on one’s own life while learning about ritual across cultures. This book also discusses reclaiming these rituals for healing and meaning-making and provides frameworks for more modern rites that speak to the transitions more particular to our times.
Imber-Black, Evan and Janine Roberts. Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing our Lives and Our Relationships. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
This book helps bring to awareness our levels of unconsciousness around cultural and family tradition and ritual. From the Amazon book description: “Filled with first-person stories and practical examples, this book will help all readers enhance the meaning of traditions old and new, reinforcing and celebrating life's many milestones and ties.”
Mahdi, Louise Carus. Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage.Edited by Nancy G. Christopher and Michael Meade. Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing, 1996.
This is a collection of fifty writings from visionaries and activists (including Jean Houston, Jack Kornfield, Christina Grof) that see the need for reinstituting rites of passage to help heal our personal and societal ills. Lack of these rituals and teachings from the community is causing generations of us to be ungrounded in our communities and our ancestors. This book seems firmly grounded in the Why, What, and How of initiation into adulthood.
Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
This is a beautiful, gentle book that in its totality captures the invitation of en-soulment into everyday life. It is more a feeling of this book that I want to bring into the rites of passage programs. A feeling of the importance of nurturing these aspects and cultivating “everday sacredness” (p. 214) within ourselves.
Rubin, Peggy. To Be and How to Be: Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theater. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 2010.
This book is filled with excellent exercises, many appropriate for Rites of Passage programs. The structure of the book, and the context creation of viewing life as a theatrical production is also compelling and an ideal way to help people externalize and mythologize their experience.
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Francisco: Harper, 1999.
Spiral Dance was an incredibly influential text in the rise of the neo-pagan and eventually Goddess worship in the West. It contains many rituals, invocations and chants that are in alignment with Earth and natural rhythms. Especially helpful is the table of correspondences in the back.
Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Transaction, 1995.
This is a foundational anthropological text which has become cross-disciplinary in its reach. Based on a series of Turner’s lectures, he introduces his concept of communitas, and demonstrates how analysis of one culture’s rituals and symbols sheds light on humanity’s experience of relationship both within, and in aberration of, the social structures created.
van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Mokia B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Seminal, foundational text that highly influenced anthropologists and sociologists in their framing and understanding of rites of passage and elements of universality. One Amazon reviewer noted: “Now, sometimes this is seen as a bit dated. In general the focus is heavily on the structures of male social transitions and further work has cast doubt onto the applicability to female rites of passage as well, but the book is still absolutely worth reading.”
Wall, Kathleen and Gary Ferguson. Rites of Passage: Celebrating Life's Changes.Hillsboro: Beyond Words Publishing, 1998.
Barrett, Ruth. Women's Rites, Women's Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation.LLewellyn Publications, 2007.
Written by a Dianic, wiccan priestess, this book provides tools and instruction for creating meaningful and personal ritual. The book does not provide “ready made” rituals, but walks the reader through the process.
Beck, Renee and Sydney Metrick. The Art of Ritual: Creating and Performing Ceremonies for Growth and Change. Berkeley: The Apocryphile Press, 2012.
A “how to” book for creating and performing rituals. Also includes the relevant backdrop of myth and history, and why rituals are performed.
Bridges, William. Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes. Reading: Perseus Books, 1980.
Excellent resource for understanding the mechanics of transition and transformation.
Elgin, Duane. The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2009.
I’ve always felt that Rites of Passage must be embedded within a context that contains self, community, and cosmos. This is an excellent resource for pulling quotes and ideas that elicit this sense of belonging and being the cosmos. “It is through community that we can most fully realize and celebrate ourselves as citizens of a sacred cosmos” (p.176).
Fulghum, Robert. From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives. New York: Random House Publishing, 1996.
Fulghum tells stories to help us get at an understanding of the meaning of rituals in our lives. He explores public ritual, intra- and interpersonal ritual, and ritual that is so embedded in our behaviors that we do not recognize it as such.
Grimes, Ronald L. Deeply Into the Bone: Re-Inventing Rites of Passage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
This book has been recommended by nearly every resource I’ve accessed on Rites of Passage and is often required reading in courses on the topic. The power of this book seems to be that it blends the scholarly with the personal and inspires reflection on one’s own life while learning about ritual across cultures. This book also discusses reclaiming these rituals for healing and meaning-making and provides frameworks for more modern rites that speak to the transitions more particular to our times.
Imber-Black, Evan and Janine Roberts. Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing, and Changing our Lives and Our Relationships. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
This book helps bring to awareness our levels of unconsciousness around cultural and family tradition and ritual. From the Amazon book description: “Filled with first-person stories and practical examples, this book will help all readers enhance the meaning of traditions old and new, reinforcing and celebrating life's many milestones and ties.”
Mahdi, Louise Carus. Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage.Edited by Nancy G. Christopher and Michael Meade. Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing, 1996.
This is a collection of fifty writings from visionaries and activists (including Jean Houston, Jack Kornfield, Christina Grof) that see the need for reinstituting rites of passage to help heal our personal and societal ills. Lack of these rituals and teachings from the community is causing generations of us to be ungrounded in our communities and our ancestors. This book seems firmly grounded in the Why, What, and How of initiation into adulthood.
Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
This is a beautiful, gentle book that in its totality captures the invitation of en-soulment into everyday life. It is more a feeling of this book that I want to bring into the rites of passage programs. A feeling of the importance of nurturing these aspects and cultivating “everday sacredness” (p. 214) within ourselves.
Rubin, Peggy. To Be and How to Be: Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theater. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 2010.
This book is filled with excellent exercises, many appropriate for Rites of Passage programs. The structure of the book, and the context creation of viewing life as a theatrical production is also compelling and an ideal way to help people externalize and mythologize their experience.
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Francisco: Harper, 1999.
Spiral Dance was an incredibly influential text in the rise of the neo-pagan and eventually Goddess worship in the West. It contains many rituals, invocations and chants that are in alignment with Earth and natural rhythms. Especially helpful is the table of correspondences in the back.
Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Transaction, 1995.
This is a foundational anthropological text which has become cross-disciplinary in its reach. Based on a series of Turner’s lectures, he introduces his concept of communitas, and demonstrates how analysis of one culture’s rituals and symbols sheds light on humanity’s experience of relationship both within, and in aberration of, the social structures created.
van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Mokia B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Seminal, foundational text that highly influenced anthropologists and sociologists in their framing and understanding of rites of passage and elements of universality. One Amazon reviewer noted: “Now, sometimes this is seen as a bit dated. In general the focus is heavily on the structures of male social transitions and further work has cast doubt onto the applicability to female rites of passage as well, but the book is still absolutely worth reading.”
Wall, Kathleen and Gary Ferguson. Rites of Passage: Celebrating Life's Changes.Hillsboro: Beyond Words Publishing, 1998.
