Hey there,
I’m considering doing some ritual workings outside, but I live in a large city.
Anyone have any tips, tricks, or advice on how to do ritual in the city without being noticed? I just wonder where I could go and light incense and candles without people passing by or risking fire (e.g. the city I live in has a ton of parks, could sit under a fir tree, but that’s just asking for a fire).
Anyone have any success doing rituals outside without incident?
I grew up a few blocks from downtown Atlanta, and the way I would perform outdoor rituals is by finding older buildings with fire-escapes and climb up to the roof where I’d do my thing. I was never disturbed once. And the power you feel being that high off the ground, surrounded by sky scrapers with the noise and wind is intensely powerful.
Thanks, that’s a great idea! For the particular workings I’m thinking about unfortunately, I need more of a connection to nature, but will definitely check out some rooftop workings. 
Find a spot in a park. Dig a hole big enough to place a candle and just a little deeper than candles height. You cam carve your intent in the candle such as a sigil. Lay candle in there. Light it. Do ritual. As an addition you can also carve runic sigils into the ground around it. After this, burn the candle down and then bury it. I usually just use small candles so the burn time doesnt take forever. Be aware of the timing of your ritual.
Prior to doing a spell I will usually scout out a territory to sense the layout of the energies of the area. It depends on the spell. I will likewise do rituals in multiple spots forming a grid. Where such sites can be revisted for reinforcement and layering in of new magickal things. I do not do not do it often unless its a bigget spell, but it creates a sort of large vortex.
I think the moral of this is you should consecrate and prepare the area to be receptive to ritual work much like an altar.
Ive literally taken a rock and drawn a circle on concrete behind a building before.
The fire escape trick is good.
Cemeteries are typically left open in smaller cities after dark. There was a prison cemetery near my home in Huntsville, TX, but i never used is more than for ghost hunting.
Go to a park, walk out a rough circle, sit in the center, do your thing.
Remember that no fences can still mean no trespassing…
Thanks, everyone! Great tips. I think I have a better idea about how to plan for outdoor rituals.
I can see this for rituals but how do people in this scenario do evocations get done if you have no indoor place inside to do them?
You could do an evocation outside. My op is actually asking about a week long daily ritual ending with evocation of sorts…
Evocations can be really rather short once you get the hang of it. Some of mine are 5 minutes. Outside, I’d use blood magick (like two drops of blood using a diabetic lancet) to open the sigil as it’ll call less attention than say shitloads of copal resin smoke or a big ass fire, haha. You can pretty easily evoke with blood, fire, incense, or moving water. So, you might focus on moving water if you want a natural outdoors location too.
Think about what limits you indoors and see if you can get around it. Do you want to keep it secret? Could you pack it up afterwards? It’s often a good idea to not have your altar and stuff laid out for the world to see. Is all the incense smoke too much? Blood and fire are easier to mask as they leave little trace in the room afterwards as long as you’re careful… Is it a personal space or timing issue? Maybe you could take up “meditating” or “self-hypnosis” (as you’re not lying, just a different utilization) and just be doing that instead of overt ritual magick. Is it a too much stuff/don’t want to be weird vibrating god names while my wife sleeps thing? Most of the “rules” can be broken.
You could also practice in a temple in your mind or astrally. When I first began, I figured it was all in my head anyway. So, I practiced chaos magick in a temple I imagined. It was pretty cool. You can be whoever you want there as well, which is interesting…
Thanks for the ideas. Your response helped me realize a limitation I have to overcome. I tend to take things such as rules and make them literal rather than finding ways to modify them as needed.
The element of air is nature and you can bring a small plant with you as well. The Earth element can still be felt through a building which was once rock and earth.
One of the examples I like is Toph from Avatar. The episode where she learns to bend metal by finding the earth that is still deep inside the steel.
I also liked the way it’s brought up through the Glass Walkers (I think they were called) from Werewolf the Apocalypse.
Same with real city buildings, what it once was is still there, just takes practice to get in touch with it.
The idea of separation is false. Everything is been made or carries some of the elements. Even the elements themselves carry some parts of the other elements. So you’re never too far, in fact you’re closer than you think.
While I agree big picture, I think we’re talking about apples and oranges. The point is to do the ritual outside to imbibe the energy of nature and chaos, which is harder to attain inside of a domicile, a basic archetype of structure. This of course all depends on your tradition and what you mean by the words you’re using… And I never said connection with those things inside is impossible, just easier discovered outside. It’s also a specific ritual in a specific initiatory path. Thus, I can either go with it or I can fight against a path I’m working to be initiated into, which is frankly stupid as I could have easily kept up my solitary path.
So I would do my banishings, evocations, and communications in my astral temple just like in the physical? Is there any danger of doing this in this way? Either way you’re creating a reality for the spirit to manifest in so I would guess not
Exactly. Just imagine a temple, see yourself, and do the ritual. (This obviously requires some developed imaginative and trance skills.) I started this from the meditation/hypnosis realm, so I just imagined it all in my head in a hypnosis vision of sorts. Now, I would describe it as astral, but I can understand why people argue the occult is all in your head. I now prefer doing the rituals in the world, but because I spent so much time doing it in my mind, I also drastically shorten the rituals in the world as I can pretty much sit anywhere and extend a strong circle/area. I also pretty much instantly achieved contact when I went to do evocation IRL the right way.
I haven’t noticed any heavy dangers or repercussions different from doing magick in this world. It’s basically like astral travel prep + trance/meditation work + learning the magick stuff. It’s also really helpful if your living environment is inhospitable to magick.
I imagine there are dangers in doing things this way, but pretty much everything is dangerous… I also work heavily with qliphothic energies, so I’m used to them rocking my world quite a bit, haha. You could do like a LBRP or call the elements/corners, use salt (IRL or in the astral), work with a deity you trust as an advisor (or do likewise with a guardian angel, higher self, HGA, etc.), talk about it to your higher guides, etc. But at least for me, I know that the most powerful work I’ve done is the stuff I’ve been leery to do.