Basics of Ritual- Lecture 1 By Nauticus, 8+ years experience What is the purpose of Ritual? For the sake of simplicity, I will spare you the endless diatribe about how it opens you to the Deities and sets the mood, blah b lah blah... And simply say that the purpose of ritual is to convince your subcon scious that it is Magick Time. You see, the way the mind works, it can perform m agick in everyday life quite easily. BUT it takes a lot of training and conditio ning to bring yourself to the point that you can lull your mind into a magickal point of view at a moment's notice. So until then, ritualistic psychodrama is ve ry necessary to the aspiring mage. Will you eventually move on? Yes. Will it be quick? No one but you can determine that. It all depends on how well you can lea rn, how your mind works, and how dependent you are on psychodrama. But this is a ll a big soapbox of mine. On to the rest of the lecture... Ritual... There are many templates upon which rituals are written, but they all typically contain the same basic elements. There is the Altar Setup (1), the Cir cle of Protection (2), The Quarter Calls (3), The Sanctification (4), The Invoca tion/s (5), Meditation/Divination (6), The Spellwork/ Purpose of the Ritual (7), The License to Depart (8), Releasing the Quarters (9), and the Uncasting of the Circle (10). Other elements can be added, and these can even be changed or remo ved entirely. But this is the typical catch-all ritual setting. In this lecture, I will cover the first three topics: The Altar, the Circle, and the Quarter Cal ls. In later lectures, I will cover the next few sections, as well as focus on t he finer points of the broad strokes I make here. Section 1- Altar Set up This step is obvious. You bring bring out your altar, altar, or gather to it if it is a perm anent altar, and make sure everything is assembled. Ritual tools vary, but essen tially, you need the following: An Athame, a Wand, An Incense burner, candles an d holders, an Altar cloth, representations of the elements, and representations of the god and goddess. Section 2- The Circle Take up the Athame and Wand, point them at the floor, and visualize energy flowi ng out of the ends of them, like intertwining laser beams, cutting into the floo r. Begin in the East, and walk a full circle three times around. If you wish, yo u may also chant something like, "Round and round, thrice about, safe within, ev il without" or something like that. This Circle will keep the energy you raise w ithin the ritual area, and keep harmful deities and unnecessary energy out. An i mportant note- Do not cross this circle at any point. This will break the Circle and mess the ritual up. (Of interest- it seems that cats are capable of crossin g the Circle with no ill effects.) Section 3- Quarter Calls The Quarter Calls are rather important to the ritual setting. The quarters sit a t the cardinal points of the compass, at East, North, West, and South. They rela te to the elements of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, respectively. There are sever al versions of this as well. Some call on gods to stand in the quarters, some ca ll out to guardians of the Watchtowers, and some call out to the Elements direct ly. I personally call on the elements in my workings. However, one thing that is constant is the necessity of candles of the proper color to represent the Quart ers. The necessary colors are Yellow at the East, Green at the North, Blue at th e West, and Red at the South. Set these candles at the proper points of your cir cle, light them, and then do whichever call you wish to perform, in the order of East, North, West, and South.
So concludes my first lecture on ritual magick. Yes, I know... broad strokes. Ho wever, once I finish the basic ritual set up, I will go back and cover each topi c in much greater detail. If there are any questions, feel free to ask them. May the Thorns Stay Themselves from Your Flesh. Nauticus, Nothing Special... Just a Man in a Hat.