Pop-Up Ritual

I love doing ritual magick but I don't always love the rigidity of the way it's often practiced.  I want my ritual practice to be adaptable enough to be done anywhere and anytime it's needed, with whomever wants to join me.  Don't get me wrong, a complicated and exactingly crafted ritual can be a beautiful thing - but I tend to save that for rare major workings.  Most of the time I do magick on the fly, including rituals.

Like so many things, I first started doing ritual back as an undergrad at Wellesley.  We had an amazing group that focused on learning new things and trying out new practices.   We were students just getting into magick, what else would we be doing?  We met every week and would often begin meetings by asking if anyone needed any magickal help.  Most of the time someone needed something (help studying for an exam, healing of an injury, dealing with a conflict, etc.); so, we would circle up, call the quarters, and do some magick.  We were a diverse group with Wiccans, Witches, Druids, Red Road, and a few other practitioners, so we didn't exactly have a set liturgy.  We'd improvise on a theme and just figure out what we were doing as we went along.  Every ritual was totally different, but they pretty much always met our needs.  It was an extremely open and flexible way of doing ritual and I loved it.

Ah my Alma Mater

I still love it.  I pretty much never do something the exact same way in multiple rituals.  Yes, over the years I've developed a pretty standard way of casting a circle and calling the quarters, but they always vary at least a little from ritual to ritual and they're the closest thing to standard liturgy that I've got. I like being able to feel the energies around me when I'm doing ritual and then adapt the ritual accordingly.  Shouldn't the way you call air into a circle be different if you're standing on a wind swept bluff as opposed to when you're indoors?  Should you summon, stir, and call forth a spirit that you can feel is already standing right beside you or just acknowledge it's presence and thank it for showing up early?  I've always felt that such adaptability is key for an effective practice.

Ritual is, in essence, a formal framework for worship, magickal practice, or a bit of both.  In my practice a ritual needs to have: a statement of intent/focus, an opening, calling of supportive powers (elements, spirits, deities, etc.), a working (devotional, magickal, or both), thanking of supporting powers, and a closing.  As long as those elements are present, preferably in that order, you've got yourself a ritual.  To me, it doesn't really matter whether your celebration of Artemis takes the form of a 15 minute recitation of an original poem in perfect iambic pentameter or is just a few moments of heartfelt meditation and lighting some incense.

Oh My Gods Archive

The exact execution of any step in a ritual is far less important than the focus and intent used in performing it.  I've been to large, carefully executed, highly formalized ritual that had less power and meaning than a five minute improvised ceremony to honor a pretty tree found in a park.  It's a lot like feeling the power and beauty of a heartfelt jazz improv as opposed to a coldly, if perfectly, played Mozart concerto; like music, magick has to have soul!

Of course, nothing is ever quite as simple as that.  Unless you're really comfortable with public speaking (something my inner attention whore loves with an unholy passion), improvising in front of strangers can be intimidating.  If you're inexperienced you might not know what to say; you may fear being judged or laughed at.  It's important that ritual space be safe space.  I like to begin my public rituals by stating that there is no right or wrong way to do something (within reason) and that judgements are strictly prohibited.  When I ask for participants I try to be fairly specific about what roles are needed and any constraints on how something can be done (usually time or adapting to the needs of the particular atendees).  If someone wants to participate that doesn't know what to do or feels comfortable doing something alone I ask for a more experienced practitioner to help the newbie plan what to do and how to do it (think magickal spotter). 

This brings us to the idea of pop-up ritual.  I have a dream of building a network of magickal folk who can come together, without prior preparation, and perform ritual whenever it's wanted.  Just like you see pop-up retail stores appearing temporarily where they find a need, I want to see pop-up ritual that can be set up in a flash anywhere, anytime, with whomever happens to show up.  I want to see open, inclusive ritual being practiced in my community. If you're in the Seattle area check out Illustris on Facebook and see where you can participate in my pop-up rituals.

Pop Culture Magick for Geeks - The Things With The Stuff

This year at Pantheacon I'll be presenting a workshop on Pop Culture Magick for Geeks. Over the next few weeks I'll be doing a series of posts on that topic both for folks who won't be able to make it to the live presentation and to provide a little more info than I can reasonably give in a 90 minute presentation. 

There's something wonderful about being a magickal geek.  You see geeks, by their very nature, don't do things by halves.  Geeks don't "like" the things they do, they "obsess."  If a geek doesn't obsess over what they're doing with an all consuming passion (e.g. working on the same bit of code for five straight hours with nothing but a gallon of Code Red for fuel), they usually won't bother.  We see this in our fandoms (Doctor Who obsession anyone?), our gaming (World of Warcraft nearly destroyed my life and don't even get me started on DnD), and, of course, our magick (we can take daily practice to a whole new level).  The beauty of being a magickal geek is that we can actually harness the hundreds of hours of obsession with stories, the years of intense energy fixation into characters, into our magick.  

The Things With the Stuff!

One of my favorite ways to incorporate my geekery with my magick is to work with characters.  Like many inveterate nerds, I often find myself involved in deeper relationships with the characters of my favorite stories (books, tvs, movies, comics, etc.) and games than with other people; and certainly deeper than my relationships with many spirits or unapproachable deities.  I cannot count the number of hours or the amount of energy I've put into my favorite characters.  I can honestly say that I know more about The Doctor and Buffy as "people" than my own sister.  So, I've learned how to harness my obsessions and make them useful to my magick. There are two main ways of using a beloved character in magick: as a familiar or guide, or as a representation of a natural force or deity.


My favorite way to work with a character I obsess over is as a familiar or guide.  Popular characters, think Batman or Aragorn, have a life of their own.  They have tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people pouring energy into them over many years; shaping them and bringing them into our collective unconscious.  Many of these characters are more universally beloved than a lot of deities these days (just look at the crowds at the premier of any Marvel movie).  All of the love and devotion poured into these characters creates a thoughtform of them in the astral plane.  As we individually strengthen our relationships with these characters (by engaging with their stories, talking about them, getting their merchandise, and generally making them a part of our lives) we connect to the energy of that character in the astral.  It's just like strengthening the potential power of a ritual through repetition - the more energy we engage in with a character the more energy we can get back out of them when we need it.  

Once you've got a relationship with a character you can work with that character in the same ways you would with just about any other sentient entity.  I once had a rather difficult encounter with some vampiric spirits and called on the character of Van Helsing to assist my divination in finding a way to deal with the problem.  The character of Van Helsing has more than a century's worth of energy of people believing him to be the absolute authority on vampires - his expertise did not disappoint me.  I've also called on the occasional superhero to escort me home when taking the bus late at night or walking through sketchy parts of town.

And, of course, The Doctor is my spirit guide.  He's a character that embodies pretty much every quality I want in my spirit guide - intelligent, cunning, empathetic, wise, and kind.  He gives fantastic advice and is an excellent intermediary between myself and otherwise less understandable forces.  

I basically work with familiar characters from my favorite geeky obsessions the way other folks work with fae, spirits, daemons, or minor deities.  

Some people also use pop culture characters as representations of deity.  It can be difficult for the modern mind to feel strong connections with antique deities.  Ancient mythology is filled with references to what was once everyday life, but really how much empathetic connection can an office worker have with tales of hunting wild boar afoot or the growing of barley?  It can be easier to look at modern characters as intermediaries or embodiments of the deities of our ancestors.  It can be easier to use a Wonder Woman action figure on your altar to represent Diana than a museum replica (not to mention astronomically less expensive).  I'm rather partial to using Captain Jack Harkness as a representation of Eros (just think about it, it totally fits).  If your brain as an easier time connecting to a modern character that can symbolize a deity you want to work with, go for it.

I have also heard of folks actually worshiping pop culture characters as deities in their own right.  Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that.  It's not something I would do, but I can understand the inclination.  I'm very comfortable with ancient mythology and have no problem forming relationships with antique deities, but I can understand how that might be difficult for some.  Why wouldn't an avid comic book reader make an offering to Superman?  I vastly prefer to think of modern characters as spirits or advanced thoughtforms because I'm not sure they've been around long enough to have the power I feel like a deity should have, but that's just me.  If it works for you, more power to ya. 

Next up in Pop Culture Magick for Geeks - Who's Your Doctor? 
 Pop Culture Magick for Geeks - Bag of Holding