Why Ritual?

“Doing magic is about being responsive to the challenges of your environment – often a response borne out of necessity. The mistake that newcomers to practical magic often make is that, having identified a problem, they go looking for a ‘ritual’ or spell which they believe will remove it…For me, the crux of the matter is that ritual magic is fun. Moreover, ritual magic is a skill. A magical ritual is more than the sum of its parts. Ritual has elements of performance, and its own psychology; yet it would be a mistake to consider ritual to be merely psychodrama. Ritual can be broken down into the arrangement of sensory cues, voice techniques, gesture, visualization, movement, symbolism, role-shifting, and trance induction, yet it is more than any of this. Unaccountably, rituals, when performed, create an atmosphere – a space – in which something mysterious and wonderful may happen. If nothing else, ritual demonstrates how little we know of our potential, of ourselves, and the world through which we move.”

–Phil Hine, Prime Chaos

“The dilemma that we can find ourselves in is that we cane become obsessed with the “rightness” of the ritual, and we lose sight of the sacredness and devotional part of the ritual. We perform only out of fear of making a mistake or desire to make a good impression, rather than with reverence, out of obligation to perform the act rather than devotion, thoughtlessly rather than mindfully. Our focus narrows to doing the ritual precisely or correctly, rather than with love and commitment tot that which is beyond our ability to comprehend or understand.”

–Susan Quinn, The Deepest Spiritual Life

Related:

1. Review: Odin’s Booty Live, by the Dragon Ritual Drummers