'Ritual' Articles
Ritual is any act letting you express your intent, and it has power in that expressing intention you move both your awareness and your inner mind to embrace and actualize it. Language, Hebrew, Greek, Chinese, their structure was founded on a form of intuitive recognition. The symbols were components of words. Direct symbols of objects, concepts and even numbers. Words, actions, symbolic tools, we operate on multiple levels. Everything you do can potentially be a ritual, but the intention, the focus, has to be there.
“We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.” Benjamin Cardozo
“Los Angeles is a city looking for a ritual to join its fragments, and The Doors are looking for such a ritual also. A kind of electric wedding. We hide ourselves in the music to reveal ourselves.” Jim Morrison (American Poet and Singer. Member of the American band The Doors. 1943-1971)
“To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.” Philip Andrew Adams
Ritual Statement
Some of the elements of language we don’t now recognize as ritual were actually former rituals. The handshake was a disarming process and bragging was a ritual both in Norse and Japanese cultures, but there is something deeper to ritual. Wedding ceremonies to birthday parties, if they have meaning it’s because they have a message. In the case of metaphysical rituals, the message isn’t necessarily a social one. Much like auto-suggestion the ritual is a statement of intent. What is auto-suggestion? Self hypnosis. We actually use it all the time, both negatively and positively. Is that like having a mantra?… Seek More
Using Ritual
The little ritual, or psychodrama if you will, might seem to have no power or meaning. But as often people have experienced, if you dream about something aggravating at night your next day may be very much affected. Much of dream and ritual are connected. Some tools are actually focuses to allow dream like imagery to emerge. Like a mirror or a scrying bowl, even the layout of a tarot spread is in a sense a ritual. The reader having a process for engaging their intuition and the sitter helping in it. What is a scrying bowl? A small matte… Seek More
Ritual Connection
Obstacles cease to be obstacles and become simply a part of the terrain as we become more aware. You won’t bemoan the wall when you see the door, and often times especially in the case of sculptors they say they don’t know what they are going to shape until they do. Is there not an aspect of all ritual that can be seen as creating the optimum conditions for the unconscious to become understandable in our waking awareness? In effect, the physical ceremony of marriage for example ‘promotes’ awareness of the intent to commit to another? To draw it into… Seek More
World as Ritual
Do you see a connection between the modern ‘worship’ of materialism/money as the root of many people being in a state of dis-ease, as in it being a good example of ‘bad’ ritual? Yes, I do indeed. The American bill says in God we trust, but in fact the ritual of money isn’t about trust or order. It’s about control and power, but not harmonious power. Government is all about ritual? Indeed, from a senate session and their rules of order to the proceedings to inaugurate a president, all kinds of ritual. It means much to them, but we won‘t… Seek More
Ceremony of Magic
I won’t be addressing any one style of ceremony, but will speak to styles across the board. What is ritual magic? It is ceremony. It is performance like song or dance, but not like these things in the conventional sense. There are simple ritual practices that those of organized religion wouldn’t want to acknowledge are magic, like singing hymns, but their purpose for singing these hymns is a spiritual/metaphysical one. Ritual magic seen from a superficial view would look “absurd”, though in fact much that is quite literal/factual also has that quality of absurdity. As they say, the truth is… Seek More
Ritual Magic Experience
Anyone have experience with ritual magic? Care to share your experiences? Kawa ceremony. At heiau, at midnight to 3 am. Kawa is kava. Heiau are our temples. At those hours we follow a protocol so as to invite the spirits of aumakua to come. Chant, share kawa, silence, etc. and for some multiple presences are seen at the same time, and the spirits do come. If you’re not prepared it is very upsetting for many. So preparations are necessary as in becoming a kumu, training. Even in scientific circles the Gaia theory allows for the response of natural sites to… Seek More
Ritual Space
The Hawaiian people have what could perhaps be called family gathering spots. The spot is automatically a meeting place between them and the spirits. Many sites like that here, yes. Ancient to present time. That’s done with the set up of the space, and people also use symbols to define their space. Mandalas, Navajo sand paintings, Voodoo ve-ve patterns. All serve to define the space as an area for the manifestation of your intent. The ritual space is a deliberate microcosm of the larger world. Ti leaf, olena, kai. Yes. Some traditions use the spiritual qualities of protective plant and animal… Seek More
