The Lost Ritual

The university system will not fall until we offer a spiritual alternative

Our understanding of the college system is incomplete. Until we correct this, we won’t be able to fix or replace the system.

First, consider a paradox: college attendance remains near all-time highs¹, yet the majority of Americans no longer believe it is worth the cost².

The college system seems irrationally resistant to declining value. We must therefore ask: is there an important non-rational reason for college attendance which we have failed to acknowledge?

I believe the answer is ‘Yes’. College attendance is our society’s only meaningful initiation ritual, and it thus assumes an existential importance that renders it near-impossible to replace until an alternative is found.

Our culture is historically anomalous in lacking explicit initiation rituals.

Mircea Eliade, the great religious historian of the 20th-century, defined initiation rituals as “a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a decisive alteration in the religious and social status of the person to be initiated.”

In philosophical terms, initiation is equivalent to a basic change in existential condition; the novice emerges from his ordeal endowed with a totally different being from that which he possessed before his initiation; he has become another.

— Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth

In Europe, fully expressed initiation rituals were common until the end of the Middle Ages, and in the wider world, until the end of the First World War. Now, they only persist in the West in the sacramental practices of devout Christians (baptism, confirmation, and so forth).

Once, however, these practices were of tremendous importance to us, as Eliade makes clear:

To gain the right to be admitted among adults, the adolescent has to pass through a series of initiatory ordeals: it is by virtue of these rites, and of the revelations that they entail, that he will be recognized as a responsible member of the society. Initiation introduces the candidate into the human community and into the world of spiritual and cultural values. He learns not only the behavior patterns, the techniques, and the institutions of adults but also the sacred myths and traditions of the tribe, the names of the gods and the history of their works…

In the absence of local community rituals, the universities are a natural site for their replacement. These have always been religious sites, although the nature and expression of this religion has transmuted over time.

Dave Greene, in his recent essay The Bones of a Dark Age Academy, explores the continuation of their religious aspects even after universities ceased to be formal seminaries. As they evolved, they never relinquished their claimed reverence for ‘truth’ and other transcendent ideals seen as self-evident.

Likewise, much has been written about the quasi-religious aspects of the ‘woke’ movement that has gripped the postmodern academy, and I will not draw out these themes at length again. However, I do wish to draw attention to one facet of this religious dimension that is particularly relevant to the subject of initiation rituals.

Critical Theory, in its attempted destruction of our cultural ideals, closely parallels the common initiatory theme of the need for a process of self-annihilation that precedes rebirth into adult life (the moment at which innocence is lost and man becomes ethically conscious and responsible).

Esoteric though this all may seem, it is of great importance. The process of formal initiation, transformation, and recognition is of great psychological (and perhaps spiritual) importance to the young person. There is a good reason why the adoption of such processes is a near cultural universal throughout history.

Attending college is, of course, at best a ‘weak’, or pseudo-initiatory, ritual. It is lacking a genuine connection to the divine and capable of producing only faint religious experiences. But in the absence of alternatives, it will continue to hold strong attraction to the next generation.

College has a mythology and aesthetic represented in countless important cultural works. Lacking a better alternative, young people - so starved of structure, place, and identity - see it as their ritualized entry into the American story and history (the meta-narrative that frames their life and existence). It is their invitation to participate in the arc of history.

Without participation in the ritual of education, the worldview and machinations of the ruling class are impenetrable, and the individual feels without agency. Conversely, graduation conveys a sense of authority and a reassurance of one’s class and group status. It provides prestige and identity - even a title.

This is one of the reasons many highly capable individuals are hesitant to enter the trades, even when it would be financially advantageous and endow them with significant freedom. This is deeper than just a question of ‘prestige’, but relates to a more fundamental question of self-conception.

I once met the head of a highly significant global institution - an extremely impressive and successful man - who was visibly embarrassed when the subject of university came up, explaining that he hadn’t gone. It clearly still affected him, even after all he had achieved.

The American university has become the final stage of the most all-encompassing initiation rite the world has ever known. No society in history has been able to survive without ritual or myth, but ours is the first which has needed such a dull, protracted, destructive, and expensive initiation into its myth. The contemporary world civilization is also the first one which has found it necessary to rationalize its fundamental initiation ritual in the name of education.

— Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

The dullness and weakness of university as a pseudo-initiatory ritual presents a great opportunity for us. Young people crave stronger and more authentic forms of this rite; note the initiatory themes of the most successful young adult fiction of recent decades, like Harry Potter and Twilight (which culminates with the protagonist physically transforming her existential state to join a cadre of ancient beings). In the Potter universe:

Rowling’s school [Hogwarts] does not cater to your identity… You must lose yourself in the school and its being. It stands, unapologetic and unmoving in its eternal identity - its Otherness - inviting students into a world that is undeniably superior.

— Dark Academia & the Longing for Identity

This is why independent religious universities are flourishing, while newly-formed ‘classical liberal’ educational institutions (like A. C. Grayling’s ‘New College of the Humanities’) flounder. I suspect that Jordan Peterson’s project in this domain will largely fail: young people do not want to be initiated into a dying faith and caste.

Instead, we must focus on clarifying the spiritual reality that we wish to initiate young people into. What existential change do we offer them, and on the basis of what divine understanding? From there we can work backwards to initiation rituals, and from there to institutions to house them.

But creating new institutions that are devoid of initiatory significance is pointless; students can just learn online if this is what they desire. Our struggle is - for better or worse - more total than this. It is a spiritual struggle.

Before we attempt to recruit young allies we must understand what we are fighting for.

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1. https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics

2. https://www.businessinsider.com/college-degree-student-loans-value-worth-it-survey-wsj-2023-3