I want to know that could rituals be crafted by you, a brand new ritual? Or you should stick on ancient stuff? And if it can be, what are the steps/parts of a brand new ritual makes it a ritual?
A ritual is a number of steps taken in a specific order done with a specific intention. Someone with OCD who has to check that the door is locked exactly 12 times before leaving is performing a ritual. When you brush your teeth in the morning, you are performing a ritual. When you come home from work, take your work clothes off and put on your pajamas, you’re performing a ritual. In each of those examples, the purpose of the rituals are safety and security, health, and relaxation.
If you want to create your own ritual, then the first thing you need to decide is what the ritual will represent. The intention can be either symbolic or overt. Everyone knows why you brush your teeth because the intention is overt, but they won’t necessarily know why you light a green candle on a Thursday because it is symbolic.
Once you know what the ritual is going to represent, then you can determine what the symbolic or overt action will be. Stirring your morning coffee clockwise with the intention of drawing in prosperity, and then drinking it to solidify it into your body, for example.
Then you perform the ritual, holding the intention in your mind as you do so. It can take some time for your subconscious to connect the symbolic action with the intention but with enough use, it will be impressed and the result will manifest.
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Thanks.
Thank you for your reply,
Do you mean that the potency of ritual is more because of what it represents to the Magician rather than the ritual being something independent ? Or both,
I always asked myself this, for example, in some cultures, each entity is related to specific candle color, specific clothes, specific offerings , even specific music styles and rythms,
Which make me speculate that following the ritual is a way of increasing the potency of intervention of the entity, Since one uses a setup that the entity prefers,
Also, some go to the other extreme, believing its rather about intention and a ritual if not backed by an intention that will broadcasted correctly into the universe, then the ritual becomes empty,
I wonder about your personal stance, how you usually approach rituals,
Also, what do you think about changing things in a specific ritual, i saw @Mulberry talk about how she can know things that can be changed and change them,
I wonder what is your personal stance about this, since i am not at the level of having every incense every item and every candle etc.. so its veeeeeery hard for me to always match the setup presented in a book,
In arabic written books about magic, they claim the incense is paramount, and never to be overlooked, when they put a specific incense related to a work they insist of how important this is,
But i also noticed the same exercise being shared bh multiple credible sources with changes about incense or incantation needed, this hints at actually the incense not that important,
I am curious about your personal stance about all this,
Thank you in advance!
Both apply.
Some rituals are basically plug and play, where you just have to add the magician and the ritual works.The Golden Dawn’s Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is a great example of this.
Then you have personal rituals, like those mentioned in my post above, where it the belief and intention of the magician that is the primary factor more than the specific actions. The LBRP works whether or not you believe it does, but stirring your coffee clockwise to draw in prosperity only works because of your belief and intention in that specific action.
Correspondences such as candle colour, incense, etc. tend to be very system specific, and each tradition will have their own ideas as to their meaning. For example, in the West, black is seen as the colour of mourning, but in China, people wear white at funerals.
Before making changes to a ritual, you need to make sure you understand why things are set up the way they are, otherwise, you could end up short circuiting the whole thing or angering the spirit being summoned. Some entities are particular about the specific way they are called, for example.
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Ritual is utilized for a transition of consciousness, to go from a state of doing into a state of being. The ritual is a way to stimulate your conscious mind while it opens up the flood gates of omnipotent power within. Your magick will be most potent in rituals you have crafted yourself although the standard ritual format found in many ancient grimoires are valid they are still small acts geared towards initiating the same shift.
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My belief is it is more for the benefit of the magician that is just starting to use tools. Think about the Magician card in tarot and how he has all the tools layed out. It is more of getting in the practice and rhythm of doing the work and using the tools to where it becomes second nature.
Then you can draw the circle and the pentagrams with energy or have an astral temple or a space in your mind to do rituals.
And please yes write your own rituals. Just start simply by writing your own invocations. Look at languages to see what clicks. I tried enochian magic for example and it worked but it didn’t feel right to me. I have some in Latin and some in Greek. I wish I hadn’t picked Japanese as a second language sometimes.