How to create a ritual
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@danica said
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@Sarreth said
"I would like to hear everyone's opinions on how to create one's own ritual and also to share views on the "musts" and "mustn'ts" and the steps required to do so."my view on the "musts" (and thus the related "mustn'ts"), regardless of the technical aspects of preparing & performing the rit.: until you are an Adept, dedicate every ritual to Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
during the day, we perform many rituals, but mostly without any awareness of what we are doing and with what purpose. every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention."
So far all the answers I've seen had deep insight. Thank you all for your responses.
Now lets get more into the details.
So, in the begining is awareness. Then, being in awareness, one concetrates on the intent.
Question: How does one acquire awareness?
Say one is a neophyte, just joined a group of thelemites, how does the master advise him on being "aware"?Ok, so we have the awareness thing handled. Concentration is relatively easy if awareness is achieved.
"The first thing to achieve is communion with one's holy guardian angel" (I rephrased it) (Note: I suppose by holy guardian angel, you refer to what I call, the Being, or, occasionally, the higher self, although I don't like that term that much)
So, how does one achieve "conversation" with his Holy Guardian Angel?
Any suggestion?
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On the last question, I could say that you could see Sample Ritual #6 in my aforementioned book - or, for much the same thing, just download the free PDF version of Black Pearl #6 from <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thelema.org/publications">www.thelema.org/publications</a><!-- w --> for various discussions on this.
But that doesn't come first. That comes eventually. And awareness isn't usually sufficiently available at the beginning. So what is one to do? One is to stumble! Stumble and trip, trial and error. You use your very best common sense, intelligence, and intuition to detect what you want to demand from the universe, demand it absolutely, AND stand ready to accept whatever consequences abide in your getting it.
From this, you will learn how to make good choices. The method of learning that is to make sufficiently numerous bad choices.
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Sarreth, I have a funny feeling the concepts of awareness and concentration are not exactly what you are thinking of them as being at this moment.
Maybe awareness you've figured out - for instance, when you sit down for your morning ritual of having breakfast, are you aware of your action when you tuck your napkin into your shirt under your chin, or do you do so mindlessly out of years of repetition? That would be lacking awareness. If you happen to be in the habit of smoking cigarettes, have you ever lit a cigarette only to discover that as you place it to your ashtray that you already had one lit and burning just seconds before? That would be lacking awareness. Total awareness - or what I term "mindfulness" requires constant practice and vigilance before you will achieve that certain clarity of awareness that I can only describe as pure glass compared to what you were so used to expecting your awareness to be.
Concentration - yes, mindfulness and concentration for the yogi go hand in hand. It is one thing to stare intently and mindfully at a knot on a string, taking away from the mind all other distractions - but the kind of concentration that takes place involving ritual magick is partly that and partly built into the ritual. For instance, suppose you are doing a work that is decidedly Martian in nature (a war thing, a contest thing, a physical fitness booster thing, whatever) - then all the implements of your ritual will be of the Martian quality (again, referring you to 777 or Jim's updated 776 1/2 for resource material) such as using the color red, using the metal of iron, or various specific scents and some even go so far as to using specific key tones and of course, the language will be Martian. Your robe will be Martian. Personally I would set the entire day preceding the ritual to be dedicated to Mars by doing martial things and having martial relations and martial meals. This creates an entire climate of concentration - not just mental concentration, but the entire climate is concentrated with Martian energy.
How one attains Knowledge & Conversation of the HGA is the entire goal of your life. I can't tell you just one thing to do, it is the result of everything you will do in, say, the A.'.A.'. curriculum leading up to the grade of 5=6. A neophyte wouldn't deal with all of this just yet, but what the neophyte is specifically to deal with - and it will all eventually add up and make sense to you when that time comes. Another way to understand what danica and others mean when they say that all your aspirations should be toward the K&C of the HGA is that whatever ritual you are currently thinking of designing and enacting, you shall be able also to affirm that this and its results will be to ultimately lead you to the K&C.
Think of it this way: I work and earn money every day, which serves to nourish and guard my life so that I may accomplish the Great Work. See? See what I did there? I dedicated my mundane job to the K&C.
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If I were in your shoes, (unconfused, unaddicted, unobseesed with forms of experience and Magic,) I would say it is an excellent place to start your training: you pretty much balanced and interested on all the basic levels.
You MUST start here:
The Equinox Vol I, no. 1
In it is the postures for meditation, breathing and thought control exercises, as well as the first installment of "Hashish", a pharmaceutical view in this first installment. It also has basic ideas on what you are looking for regarding consciousness, being, intent, and concentration. All of these are VERY important in tuning your mind to your HGA, all seriousness intended.
The next place you will need to go is the next Equinox:
The Equinox, Vol I, no 2
In it are the fundamentals of ceremonial Magick, including the lesser and greater rituals of the pentagram and hexagram.
In it as well, is the psychological part of the installment of "Hashish", by our man Crowley, intending to push this "strange drug"/sacrament of our lady Nuit for very important purposes...
Most of use here, were introduced to these strange sacraments earlier on in life, as you were as well, but a firm understanding of the need to remove the "dryness" of meditation by such things is very important. So important that the man who wrought the logos of the new aeon intended to make it's perfect use known in the very first installments of his organized literature, (and a few others',) which was the first "mass-distributed" literature and lectures on Magick itself, (himself/herself.
He stresses using very tiny amounts at a time, then meditating on it. Always by the eight and ninety rules of art.)Any how, I figured that is what you were looking for, right? Experienced magicians' versions of ritual that have been proven to work and how to go about rending change within your reality, (balancing yourself will balance all things around you, microcosm-macrocosm, and bring the changes you desire.)
In other terms, there's no need to fool around with "lesser" magic until you learn the fundamentals of greater magick. By lesser magick, I mean the abilities of rending change with your casual day-to-day life. With greater magick, I mean organized ritual with concentrated intent on purification/banishing of negative energies, and invoking/divinity of positive/light energies.
Good luck, Friend. And if you need any of these, I have them in pdf format. Please send a private message. Be forewarned, some versions on the internet have the wrong attributions of the banishing versions of the spirit pentagram in the greater pentagram ritual. The correct banishing of spirit active goes from Air to Fire, and correct banishing of spirit passive goes from Water to Earth.
93!
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@Takamba said
"Think of it as you would music or dance. If you were so inclined, you could just pick up anything and start banging out some noise in the effort to have a song, or you could just jump around and wiggle your body parts in an effort to dance. You would probably find yourself very happy in the doing but it wouldn't be a masterpiece and others would probably not be so moved by your performance
You said, "get things in order," so the first part of getting things in order is building a worthy foundation."I really like this.
K.i.s.s.
I grew up around ethnic people, and learned ethnic dancing. My favorite was learning to tell the story of Pele through Hula. Most ethnic dance is a form of storytelling, the dance, with its music and motion is a specific formula.
Ritual is an act of storytelling of weaving the threads into a coherhent whole that conveys meaning, and in a very real sence perpetuates, and brings mythology to life.
I believe that in order to create effective rituals it is vital to learn how to tell a good story. In order to learn how to tell stories, the stories must be internalized, known intimately to the story teller. -
@Sarreth said
"Therefore I would like to hear everyone's opinions on how to create one's own ritual and also to share views on the "musts" and "mustn'ts" and the steps required to do so."
Hello. William Gray has a book called Magical Ritual Methods you might want to look into as well as Temple Magic.
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Liber O is a good blueprint for various ritual engines. If you start there and customize the formulas I found it is a good basis. Understanding technical elements of rituals such as the LBRP and Star Ruby, why it is constructed the way it is, where it positions the operator in the Tree of Life and the dynamics of the forces that run through the paths from the quarters and intersect at the gateway of science is helpful. Why are stages of ritual, symbols, divine names, knocks, rings of the bell, widdershins, and gestures used. Everything has a very well defined purpose. Even to the point of Qabalistically significant aspects - use of the Keys - 13,31,26,39,56,61,78,93,111,156,161,201,207,217,393,418,666,718... What sequence of actions, symbols, words, or gestures produce Keys based on Qabalah, what is the Key of the ritual itself. Correspondences from 777 on colors, scents, words, etc. should be included based on the nature of the forces invoked.
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Thank you all for your responses, they've been most informative.
@Takamba said
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Sarreth, I have a funny feeling the concepts of awareness and concentration are not exactly what you are thinking of them as being at this moment.Maybe awareness you've figured out - for instance, when you sit down for your morning ritual of having breakfast, are you aware of your action when you tuck your napkin into your shirt under your chin, or do you do so mindlessly out of years of repetition? That would be lacking awareness. If you happen to be in the habit of smoking cigarettes, have you ever lit a cigarette only to discover that as you place it to your ashtray that you already had one lit and burning just seconds before? That would be lacking awareness. Total awareness - or what I term "mindfulness" requires constant practice and vigilance before you will achieve that certain clarity of awareness that I can only describe as pure glass compared to what you were so used to expecting your awareness to be."
You describe awareness very accurately. One should also note, that there have been masters/initiates that have focused SOLELY on awareness. Krishnarmuti and Osho come to my mind, but there have been so so many others who have focused on acquiring awareness. One reason being, in my point of view, that awareness is the basis of astral projection (and projection of all kinds) which allows one to perform his own research in the atsral rather than count on books, divinations and subjective opinions on matters. All true knowledge that we have been given from books and other stuff has come directly from the astral-spiritual world (higher or lower) and awareness is the basis of being able to perceive and be conscioussly aware of this world. Correct?@Jim Eshelman said
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And awareness isn't usually sufficiently available at the beginning. So what is one to do? One is to stumble! Stumble and trip, trial and error. You use your very best common sense, intelligence,"
There have been techniques given by various initiates on acquiring awareness. Although it's probably obvious that there is no actual "method" of one to be... aware. I hoped that modern Thelemic sects would have elaborated more on the subject but nevertheless the nature of it is quite subjective."You use your very best common sense, intelligence, and intuition to detect what you want to demand from the universe, demand it absolutely, AND stand ready to accept whatever consequences abide in your getting it. "
Well put.@danica said
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during the day, we perform many rituals, but mostly without any awareness of what we are doing and with what purpose. every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention."
I wish all beginers of magick could comprehend that.@ThelemicMage said
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You MUST start here:The Equinox Vol I, no. 1
In it is the postures for meditation, breathing and thought control exercises, as well as the first installment of "Hashish", a pharmaceutical view in this first installment. It also has basic ideas on what you are looking for regarding consciousness, being, intent, and concentration. All of these are VERY important in tuning your mind to your HGA, all seriousness intended.
"
I must have already read that in the past and even printed it. But I will check on the equinox material again."In other terms, there's no need to fool around with "lesser" magic until you learn the fundamentals of greater magick. By lesser magick, I mean the abilities of rending change with your casual day-to-day life. With greater magick, I mean organized ritual with concentrated intent on purification/banishing of negative energies, and invoking/divinity of positive/light energies.
Good luck, Friend. And if you need any of these, I have them in pdf format. Please send a private message. Be forewarned, some versions on the internet have the wrong attributions of the banishing versions of the spirit pentagram in the greater pentagram ritual. The correct banishing of spirit active goes from Air to Fire, and correct banishing of spirit passive goes from Water to Earth. "
Many thanks, for your interest and your advice.@Veronica said
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I believe that in order to create effective rituals it is vital to learn how to tell a good story. In order to learn how to tell stories, the stories must be internalized, known intimately to the story teller."
Heheh! Nice analogy with the dance. Just recently I realised that my ability to story tell has been..hmm..fainter. But maybe the problem lies in lack of inspiration (which is in itself a problem) or me not having worked with the throat chakra for some time. Things should be ok now.@v0rtex666 said
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Liber O is a good blueprint for various ritual engines. If you start there and customize the formulas I found it is a good basis. Understanding technical elements of rituals such as the LBRP and Star Ruby, why it is constructed the way it is, where it positions the operator in the Tree of Life and the dynamics"
Just thinking about the whole theoretics behind the tree of life, gives me headackes. There is just too much material on it. But I will check on liber O for the dynamics.@RosenKreutz said
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Hello. William Gray has a book called Magical Ritual Methods you might want to look into as well as Temple Magic."
I 've read the magical ritual methods, found it very interesting, but temple magick I've missed. Hopefully I'll find it in pdf somewhere on the net! -
"There have been techniques given by various initiates on acquiring awareness. Although it's probably obvious that there is no actual "method" of one to be... aware. I hoped that modern Thelemic sects would have elaborated more on the subject but nevertheless the nature of it is quite subjective."
I must throw in the idea of 360 degree awareness.
A perfect circle is 360 degrees, as well as there being 365 days in the year, 360 as the circle, and the five being the pentagram that experiences that circle.
When meditating, try to not just have a "eyes-in-the-front hunting/predator view" about your astral visions of things, but try to view everything as if your mind's eye were a sphere and can look in every direction.
This will tune and focus your vision from your lower eyes to your anja chakra, or third eye, which causes vast opening of awareness.
It is actually very simple, but mind-blowing when first experienced. You will then start to be aware of things going on all around you in every day life. "Eyes in the back of your head", as well as knowing where objects are without having to really look for them.
93!
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Sarreth,
ThelemicMage made a good point about 360 degree awareness. You've asked is "awareness is the basis of being able to perceive and be conscioussly aware of this [astral] world?" Yes. Partly. There's a lot of work to strengthen one's perception and functionality within the astral - ThelemicMage's consideration of "360 degree awareness" hints at some of the instruction you should already own - specifically, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. By maintaining the strong visualization of the flaming pentagrams and burning circle during the full performance of the rite, you will naturally be growing in this ability to perceive in all directions simultaneously (and astraly, as ThelemicMage says it). That's a product of concentration and awareness.Also the practices of raja as Crowley describes them in the first part of his magnum opus, Magick (aka The Big Blue Brick), will teach you what you need to know. There is a great deal of previous conversation on the subject if you use the search function on this website. There are loads of dos and don'ts discussed, hints about this and that, and corrections for things easily mistaken.
Liber Jugorum (you know, that training device where you cut the fuck out of your arm every time you catch yourself saying some particular word you've chosen to learn to control yourself not to say) is also a great method of increasing awareness and concentration. In fact, the whole program of magical training Crowley offers will entirely improve your awareness and concentration. If you actually do the work, it cannot avoid increasing awareness and concentration. If you have acquired no other magical or mystical power, you have at least out paced probably a good 80 or so percent of the world's population just by acquiring those two powers.
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@Takamba said
"Sarreth,
ThelemicMage made a good point about 360 degree awareness. You've asked is "awareness [] the basis of being able to perceive and be conscioussly aware of this [astral] world?" Yes. Partly. There's a lot of work to strengthen one's perception and functionality within the astral - ThelemicMage's consideration of "360 degree awareness" hints at some of the instruction you should already own - specifically, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. By maintaining the strong visualization of the flaming pentagrams and burning circle during the full performance of the rite, you will naturally be growing in this ability to perceive in all directions simultaneously (and astraly, as ThelemicMage says it). That's a product of concentration and awareness.Also the practices of raja as Crowley describes them in the first part of his magnum opus, Magick (aka The Big Blue Brick), will teach you what you need to know. There is a great deal of previous conversation on the subject if you use the search function on this website. There are loads of dos and don'ts discussed, hints about this and that, and corrections for things easily mistaken.
Liber Jugorum (you know, that training device where you cut the {****} out of your arm every time you catch yourself saying some particular word you've chosen to learn to control yourself not to say) is also a great method of increasing awareness and concentration. In fact, the whole program of magical training Crowley offers will entirely improve your awareness and concentration. If you actually do the work, it cannot avoid increasing awareness and concentration. If you have acquired no other magical or mystical power, you have at least out paced probably a good 80 or so percent of the world's population just by acquiring those two powers."
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Jim has a point about beginning with whatever appeals to you as adequate for purpose ('giving' the Will, the aim of a ritual), going with that and learning from mistakes, that is - understanding deeper and deeper the whole concept of Ritual through your own practice.
and I completely agree with Takamba on this regarding awareness & concentration:
"If you have acquired no other magical or mystical power, you have at least out paced probably a good 80 or so percent of the world's population just by acquiring those two powers."
but when I said above that "every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention" I did not have in mind necessarily awareness in its highest sense; just simple being there and acknowledging one's own action (even on only mechanical, or only physical plane) - "I'm doing this-and-this".
if one adds to it "I'm doing this-and-this with the intent to produce this-and-this" voila - there's the magical act in a simple ritualistic form. -
@danica said
"Jim has a point about beginning with whatever appeals to you as adequate for purpose ('giving' the Will, the aim of a ritual), going with that and learning from mistakes, that is - understanding deeper and deeper the whole concept of Ritual through your own practice.
and I completely agree with Takamba on this regarding awareness & concentration:
"If you have acquired no other magical or mystical power, you have at least out paced probably a good 80 or so percent of the world's population just by acquiring those two powers."
but when I said above that "every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention" I did not have in mind necessarily awareness in its highest sense; just simple being there and acknowledging one's own action (even on only mechanical, or only physical plane) - "I'm doing this-and-this".
if one adds to it "I'm doing this-and-this with the intent to produce this-and-this" voila - there's the magical act in a simple ritualistic form."I don't know if this is a disagreement or an intent to ask you to make clarification or dig deeper, but if it were true that "every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention," then every child who blows out their birthday candles should have their wish come true. Of course, there are "ineffectual magical acts," so maybe that's why "the Secret" got out.
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I love birthday cake.
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@Takamba said
"I don't know if this is a disagreement or an intent to ask you to make clarification or dig deeper, but if it were true that "every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention," then every child who blows out their birthday candles should have their wish come true. Of course, there are "ineffectual magical acts," so maybe that's why "the Secret" got out.
"That's why "energy work" is becoming a prominent term in the occult... hehe
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@Takamba said
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...if it were true that "every act, and sequence of acts, can become a Ritual in magical sense, if the awareness is there, accompanied with intention," then every child who blows out their birthday candles should have their wish come true. "well - yes - but they do not know that, or are not sure of that, or wish for something which is not in accordance with Will... hence, so many wishes not fulfilled
today I was thinking about the subject more, and realized that - I can argue for two apparently completely different perspectives on the matter of approach to ritual: the one stated above ("every act with awareness&intent") and the other which emphasizes 'rigid-form' ritual, ritual magic in traditional sense as ceremonial and strictly formal. and the main question is: for whom is what.
for the beginner, the second approach is I think better. because there is structure, symmetry, geometric beauty in the already developed forms, and the preparations are an important part, like the foreplay in the art of love-making.
for someone who had practiced for at least some time this kind of ritual magick, who in his own experience knows 'what it feels like' and what kind of results can be produced that way, I would advise the artistic, free-form approach; basically, that boils down to: do not make magick just some 'part' of your life! live it! be it! every act can be transformed so that it becomes sacred, becomes a vehicle of Will in the highest sense, if you Will-with-Love it to be!
--- and there is the 'catch' which I will call now 'catch BBB'! because, when you 'just' Will something, without Loving, which means essentially connecting it to the Highest, dedicating it to the Most Holy, than there is no real truth in it for you - it's just the partial wish of the 'I', it's not the Will in the utmost sense.
how, then, can anyone at all do magick without being a Magus ? (this question names the catch )
partially, only partially, everything under the grade of Magus is "partial magick"! the solution may only be: to Will to Love. and if this is successful Magic, if this Ritual is rightly done, than it's no different from Mysticism at all! it's surrendering to That which is one's Will in the highest sense, True Will.
so, ego does not 'make magic' - or if it does, it is not Magick, it has no real results - his fruits are soar, they lead away from the Work, not Uphill to the City of Pyramids. the only magick it can make is - to surrender.
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