Group Rituals

Okay, looks like we have some issues with a certain group ritual so I am gonna point a couple things out. The main issue that I see going on with this stuff is clarity of intent. The last group rite that I saw on here was sufficiently vague that there was no agreement on what the actual purpose of it was even among those who said “I’m in”. A few thought it was about battling fucking space aliens. It should come as no surprise that months later noone could tell me what the outcome was.

It is vital that the purpose of any ritual is concise and clear. The outcome should be something that can be described with the the five senses and there should be some kind of evidence procedure for knowing if it has worked, also rooted in the five senses. An evidence procedure is simply knowing what visible signs to look for as evidence of progress. Vague poetic statements of intent filled with occultnik jargon like “igniting the black alchemy of infernal gnosis to fuel ascent” sounds cool but really means nothing. It’s feelgood fluff and will do nothing in the end.

A clear goal is necessary if you want the purpose to understood. It is not enough to get a bunch of people to say 'I’m in". If there is not a proper understanding of the end goal then there is no true agreement and no unity of purpose. There is therefore a muddying of the waters and a dispersal of energies as each participant is focused on their own private idea of what they think the purpose is.

Instructions for the performance of the rite should also be clear and everyone should be on the same page as to what any symbology means. This is one of the difficulties involved in public rituals when everyone is trying to perform the exact same rite. An alternative approach here is to form a loose cabal of people all working on the same properly understood goal but each using their own methods. Not everyone is adept in the same things so this can work well at times.

Once the rite is done, this is where the evidence procedure kicks in. When a reasonable time has passed you start looking for the signs of progress. This way a decision can be made as to whether or not the rite should be repeated, tactics should be changed, or the situation left alone.

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I like getting involved in group rituals from time to time, I think it’s healthy and common sense for someone who calls themselves an occultist to do research if it’s through divination, basic questions, etc or all of the above.
Mainly because just saying I’m in with 0 information is kind of iffy. Questions help you grow and in my opinion help to figured out what way you want to approach the working rather than just feeding your energy to something or someone like a good little battery.

Waiting for signs needs to be like in your face signs because often times people will find a sign in anything, like some see it starting to rain as a sign for something or leaves blowing in a circle in the wind. Vague signs like that should not classify as one so to speak.

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Right. I mean actual signs of the goal coming to pass. Not omens or the feels or anything subject to interpretation.

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someone in my AFK community I don’t really know was telling me about a group sex ritual they gave their uniformed consent for and was wondering what to do about the strange draw and power on them after. I was like “um duh???” some people (that person) are careless and naive, and some people (whoever organized it) are careless and malicious…

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You mean I’m Reaching Out To The Adepts, The Advanced, To Be a Part Of Something Great - #104 by anon84896414

Please, don’t be Karen from accounting, “Someone seems to be taking another person’s sandwiches from the fridge xoxo…”

You could have made an awesome OP on how to structure a group working first post, and instead this is going to become an extension of the referendum on that topic, a referendum which is completely fucking pointless since, get this:

participation is not mandatory

… and extend the drama here.

Oh bliss, oh joy. :laughing:

Do you know what the correct action is if you see a group working proposed that seems iffy, unclear, poorly structured, etc?

Sure, ask a question or two, but if OP says “Look, this is a ‘You get it, or you don’t’” then either stay the heck away, or do your own divination.

Black magick is not risk free so I’m not entertaining any “think of the children” arguments here, the whole forum cannot safety check the age, mental maturity and psychological state of everyone who so much as reads a post.

People who are inexperienced, or otherwise vulnerable should really seek out advice from someone responsible in their offline life about whether taking part with things posted on a black magick forum is right for them.

We have ALL posted things which could easily detabilise someone who is uninformed or just not in the right place for magick, that’s why this is primarily a black magick forum and not Uncle Eric’s Fluff-Demons For All The Family. :man_shrugging:

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Hey Fluff demons can be taken sexually so I’m down for fluff demons for the whole fam lol :joy::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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PS In hopes this does morph into something useful about group working OPs, I always like to see date/s and time/s, things that you can set countdowns to, which work from all timezones viewing them on sites like Countdown Timer to Any Date

That saves trying to list times for people’s locations (we have a lot of members east of the dateline) and math can be pretty hard, since the forum’s own time is your browser, and it’s been the norm for BALG release dates and a lot of other US stuff to be based on EST, which is 5 hours behind UTC.

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That can a useful bit of evidence procedure as well if applied within reason. Usually I like to see movement on a goal within a couple of weeks

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It is vital that the purpose of any ritual is concise and clear.

I can see why that’s comfortable, but this is only your personal judgement of the working. If everyone else interested in it thought they had enough info to be ok joining in, clear of unclear, I don’t see the problem.

I think it’s great that you want to advise people on how you think they should make the most of a group working, but it’s also ok to allow people to do what they want. If you think they’re wasting thier time, then, so what? No more than watching TV.

Also, sometimes, in magik you get the clarity after you start talking to the entities as the working progresses anyway. So if you wait for the perfect plan, you’ll never get started.
Since it sounds like you didn’t even join this working, you can’t say what use they got out of it or didn’t, right?

Personal example - Samael wanted a pactworking. I had no idea what for, or what the goal was, it was an invitation I accepted based on my intuition, that lower subconscious level of kenning, that this was in my interests.
It turned out to be amazing, I learned exorcism and fixed my necromancy issues directly from his instruction, and gained a very firm new ally and freind, and we’re not done yet.

So yeah, as an occultist, that strongly believes in following intuition and clair-sensed info, and knowing that ‘occult’ literally means ‘hidden’, this isn’t making sense to me.

If I wanted it to be rooted in physicality, I’d not be looking to do magik, I’d join mundane meetup.

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Nah, I don’t think the personal data of the members can opposite the rational and common sense of those who wants to know because this a place where everyone learn and know, specially because half of the members who derailed the topic with spam questions are advanced practitioners (if I can call them like that), but the misconceptions of the right behaviour in this community yes.
It’s good learn through practice the importance of how structuring our works published online :+1: :wink:

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Plus it is being rooted physically as they are rooting and solidifying the hell realms and void here physically. what this will do to our physical senses, I am not yet sure. Probably it will make the spirits from these places manifest a lot clearer than before.

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If the ritual is geared towards physical change then there should be in your face physical change not really “my intuition tells me this mundane happening is proof of the ritual” basically

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Is this the “let’s talk about Conner’s ritual some more” topic?

Come on guys, if you don’t like a thing don’t join in and don’t feed it energy, simple as that.

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The point of this thread is about crafting a group ritual towards causing change in the real world and giving some pointers on how to do that and monitor progress. The reason that I wrote it in the first place is for the same reason I write other things. Specifically because I am seeing problems in this area across the board. And i am seeing it being propagated in balg material.

Some time ago we had a private thing going called the war room. It was a loose cabal of people working towards a common goal. There were no group rituals as such but goals were very clearly defined and everyone understood them. We were therefore able to see movement towards those goals or a lack thereof.

The war room would have been impossible without a clear mission. Hazy statements of intent would have dispersed our energies and nothing would have gotten done. We had successes and we had failures but there was never any doubt as to how things were going one way or another.

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For me this isn’t just about Conner’s group ritual, it is about group rituals in general. If the intention, processes, and goals are concise and easy to follow people wouldn’t be having a problem because they know exactly what they are getting into. Rites that are figurative and not straight forward can be dangerous because the person is essentially going in blind which can make things problematic for them down the road.

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YAY! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

True, but I’m not going to start insisting OP’s word things in a specific manner, and again no-one is ever compelled into a group rit, and are free to give things the old sniff test. :+1:

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The reason that I use examples of jargon laden statements of intent is because I am seeing it quite a lot these last couple of years. It isn’t something new thats tied to a particular ritual but rather something that is becoming rather common in balg material. It seems like a slide away from practical working into something more mystical.

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Noone should be intervening in that at all. We are adults and people can succeed or fail on their own merits.

Agreed. This is an example of how I work and how I apply the smell test to things.

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If I’m not clear even tho u trust someone judgement I won’t dive in blindly I need to to know the what where why how and who plus out come and conscience before I join…I like to be knowledgeable before the I’m in part other wise I’ll sit and watch

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