Do you need to follow rituals exactly?

I’m following J.S. Garrett’s rituals. For example one called for a fire bowl, I didn’t have that so I burned herbs instead, used 1 candle
instead of 2. I did feel a strong presence after the ritual for SuhnTalOck but are they supposed to be followed exactly? I want to to the initation rite with Astarte but I don’t have a finger pricker to put the drop of blood into the cup of water I would drink. Is that absolutely needed or can I just put menstruel blood on the sigil and burn it?

It’s better to try with what you’ve got than do nothing or wait. There’s no harm in doing that, looking at what it felt like, and doing it again with adjustments until you get the result you want.

I will add, I’ve never done a single ritual inspired by someone else the same way they do it. I am not them, my energy is different, my universe is different. It’s appropriate and will make your magick better to follow your intuition, trust yourself and listen to your subconscious.

If your intuition says, wait until you get get to the pharmacy to get some lancets, then do that too… but still, practice is important. You can still try without and all of that learning goes into making you a more experienced mage.

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if it’s not your own yes

If it’s not my own menstrual blood?? Why shouldn’t it be?

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I think he means, he thinks other people’s rituals should be followed exactly. Obviously I disagree and that doesn’t match my experience… you must make up your own mind - which you’ll know best if you try it both ways and learn from your personal experience.

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I mean if it’s not your own ritual as in if it’s part of an already existing system it’s best to follow the ritual exactly. Of course you can create your own ritual off the foundation of another to make a ritual unique to your own practice.

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My (albeit limited) experience so far is that all physical objects in a ritual are theatre to support immersion, which in turn can for many people make magick more effective.

So if you can believe in you substitutes with equal gusto, your results should be be the same either way. But if you have in the back of your head that you are doing it ‘wrong’, efficacy will diminish.

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I agree for the most part, but there are certain very advanced rituals you would be best to not change (unless it is making them more modern)

I don’t know, I didn’t find any yet, but never say never.

I think I’ve followed Connor Kendal’s rituals the closest so far, but again, that’s because I agreed in myself that that felt right for me. The point is, your own magickal sense should not be overriden by the words of a mage in a book, that you may not even have met. Why would you trust them blindly? There’s other complex rituals that I’ve dismissed outright as being too much fluff and nonsense to be worth editing.

Trust yourself first and foremost, always. It’s important, because if you don’t, your subconscious could feel ignored and stop talking to you and you’ll start feeling like your magic is blocked.

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Yes I agree. Also if you want to feel a glimpse of a Power that is with us that most do not even know about look at my profile history and find the first thing I posted today, it is a meditation of sorts and not a ritual, check it out, it could help you out quite a bit

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That’s lovely, thank you for the offer :slight_smile:

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