I need some advice on not to skip rituals in my workings.

[Sutekh]

I have a question to many of you who are involved in workings. I myself tend to do my workings outdoors or indoors, I also tend to meditate before I do my rituals to clear away unwanted thoughts. However lately I have been having some frustrations on accidentally skipping some of my steps, I tend to improvise a lot however I view the steps to be more important for a successful completion of my working. I may had asked some people about the current problems I have, on the chat room. But I would like to hear some advice's from other people who are familiar with ritual workings.

 

[Adramelek]

I have a question to many of you who are involved in workings. I myself tend to do my workings outdoors or indoors, I also tend to meditate before I do my rituals to clear away unwanted thoughts. However lately I have been having some frustrations on accidentally skipping some of my steps, I tend to improvise a lot however I view the steps to be more important for a successful completion of my working. I may had asked some people about the current problems I have, on the chat room. But I would like to hear some advice's from other people who are familiar with ritual workings.

Meditation before workings is good I do this as well. Rituals have their different steps for example some of my rituals include;

1. Decompression/meditation
2. Ring the bell 9x
3. Light the Black Flame/open the gate
4. Invocation of Set
5. Summoning of the Four Elements
6. Grail Invocation
7. Main Rite
8. Reading of the appropriate part of the Word of Set
9. Extinguish the Black Flame/"So It Is Done!"

It is important for a successful magickal working not to get too concerned about steps or procedure, by all means improvise. Remember you are the one working the rite, don't let the rite "work" you.

 

[lovesong]

I have a tendency to do the same thing, some steps just seem easier to skip when you sit down to do the working. The best advise I can give you is to meditate, really meditate, get yourself in a trance-like state so that the only thing in your mind is the ritual. Dance, chant, sing, play music, or just focus on your goal, anything that really gets you "feeling it." Once you get in the zone you're much more likely to stay on track.

 

[Sutekh]

I have a tendency to do the same thin, some steps just seem easier to skip when you sit down to do the working. The best advise I can give you is to meditate, really meditate, get yourself in a trance-like state so that the only thing in your mind is the ritual. Dance, chant, sing, play music, or just focus on your goal, anything that really gets you "feeling it." Once you get in the zone you're much more likely to stay on track.

When I tend to meditate I do things subconsciously in my workings, I do not however play music during my workings due to the fact that I consider music to be a distraction. I tend to utilize the 5 physical senses which I consider most important. I do however choose to clear away my mind after the ritual for a successful completion.

 

[Quintessence]

IMHO, there are really only a few steps a ritual needs to have:

1. Homework and Research. Establish the purpose of the ritual in advance
2. Preparations and Openings. Do something to get yourself in the right mindset for the work, based on its intended purpose
3. Main Body. Do the work, whose framework or methodology is also based on its intended purpose
4. Closings. Do something to signal it's over for now, but that the lessons learned will be carried forward

And this one is important enough that I would just about call it step five:

• Allow Deviations. Because this is where the creativity and inspiration happens. "Mistakes" are opportunities. "Distractions" are not the enemy. The best rituals I have developed came from "mistakes" and "distractions" and I decided to just go with it instead of going "man, I suck at this and ruined this" (because that sort of self-talk is never useful).

Odds are, if there was a "mistake" or "distraction," the current structure wasn't going to work for you, and your mind was seeking something that will work. Over the past year, I worked through OBOD's Bardic grade. Rituals for the eight solar festivals come along with that, and they've got a fair amount of structure to them. I made a point of attempting to practice the ritual as presented, but also to remain open to inspiration to take the ritual in a direction that was more meaningful for my own practice. By doing that, I've come up with a fantastic set of yearly rituals that beat the socks off the ones I had earlier. I had repeated gnostic experiences - those "ah hah!" moments - by having just enough structure but also allowing deviations to find what works for me. I repeated one of the rituals I wrote this year for Vernal Equinox, and it still works. Did I follow what I wrote exactly? Nope. Don't have to.

Another remark - what means a ritual was "successful?" Why and how do we set those standards for ourselves? And, are we willing to accept that there is simply no way that everything we do is going to be "successful" if we make a list of criteria we demand we meet each and every time?

 

[1137]

I have a question to many of you who are involved in workings. I myself tend to do my workings outdoors or indoors, I also tend to meditate before I do my rituals to clear away unwanted thoughts. However lately I have been having some frustrations on accidentally skipping some of my steps, I tend to improvise a lot however I view the steps to be more important for a successful completion of my working. I may had asked some people about the current problems I have, on the chat room. But I would like to hear some advice's from other people who are familiar with ritual workings.

What about simply keeping a list of the steps with you?

 

[Sutekh]

What about simply keeping a list of the steps with you?

I always keep my lists of the steps with me.