Every day, around the world, strange - and sometimes shocking - rituals take place. Rituals gives a guide to the lengths human societies go to get in touch with the spiritual world.

Vicar Pete Owen Jones takes a year-long journey as he travels the world to explore the shocking, bizarre and often dangerous rituals practised by some of the world’s major religions and tribes.

Arriving in time for each festival, he meets the practitioners of the faith, attempts to understand their beliefs and immerses himself in their ceremonies.

Amid the often baffling and intense events, Pete finds moments of serenity and also terror: from the remote beauty of the Henan Mountains in western China as he meets Taoists in search of immortality to the Japanese Fire Festival where hundreds of young men soaked in sake hurtle down a mountain with torches.

Continuing his travels, in Indonesia Pete experiences the remarkable funeral of a woman who has been lying in state for 20 years, joins in a Wicca dance in Australia, witnesses’ Voodoo priests sacrificing animals in Benin, and joins in a spiritualist séance in Florida.