Welcome to Ritual Magick: Its Powers & Purpose 2! We’re so glad you could make it! This is the 2nd group with this name, but be patient because soon groups with this name and different numbers after it will be popping up like magick mushrooms after a rain all over the Internet. What, you may well ask, is ritual magick, and how does it differ from ceremonial magick? It is similar to ceremonial magick, and differs from the Craft of the Wise, in that it’s more formal than Wiccan magick. In all three you might have barbarous names used as words of power. That’s what the chorus of “The Witches’ Rune” is; barbarous names. Uncle Al, Aleister Crowley, used barbarous names extensively in his magickal rituals. He drew extensively from the Golden Dawn system of ceremonial magick, but with his pantheon composed of Pan, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Nuit, Heru-pa-Kraat, and the Lady Babalon, his magick was more ritual magick, that is, Pagan and polytheist, than ceremonial, that is, largely monotheist Judeo-Christian, and based on the Caballah.
All three forms of magick have various accoutrements associated with them. Some of them are magickal tools pertaining to the elements of Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Spirit. You might have a feather for Air, a seashell for Water, a dish of soil, or a stone for Earth, and a candle for Fire for a Craft of the Wise altar. But for either ritual or ceremonial magick, the elemental tools are more formal; phallic wand for Fire, Chalice for Water, Sword or dagger for Air, and pentacle for Earth, and a crystal for Spirit. In Wicca, we use much the same tools, but call the Air dagger an athame (pronounced ah-thah-may or a-tha-mee), and some traditions have the Wand for Air, and the athame for Fire. By the way, ADStephen Abbott/Abbottsinn will soon do a discussion on “Ritual Magickal Tools: Their Powers and Purposes.” Besides your basic elemental tools, you can have salt, oil, statues of deities, spirits, or other images, candles, a censer, and incense, and in certain rites, parchment paper and pens. You might also have a book, whether it is called a Book of Shadows or a Grimoire. Abbott's Inn International School of Magick
With ceremonial magick you need to have a group, and very elaborate furniture for ceremonies, while with ritual magick, you can do a ritual with just one individual, without all that elaborate furniture, although you can have all the drapery, watchtowers, and other things you want. With ceremonial magick, you have a time limit because you have a group of people who may have time constraints; they have to go to work, it may be a public event at a festival where other events are scheduled, but a ritual magick rite can go on forever if the magician has enough intestinal fortitude, and endurance. But if a ritual lasts more than an hour, whether it be Wiccan, ritual magick, or ceremonial, you start losing the focus of the ritual. There was one ritual that Stephen, my 3rd ex-hubby Richard, and I did that lasted all night, and Richard and I fell asleep, because it was very late, and had gone on for hours. So in spite of what Stephen says, set a reasonable time limit for your ritual, or it can be done over several days. “Crowley said that if you’re doing certain kinds of Enochian magick, it becomes timeless, and you do not notice the passage of time at all.” But the physical body has needs, such as the need for sleep, to relieve oneself, and the need for sustenance and fluids. “You can include much more content, or very little content in a ritual magick context, because it’s just you, while in ceremonial magick there are many more people who have roles, and you have to compete with others,” says Stephen. For me, it’s not that way at all. Each person has an important part to play, whether doing the ritual in a Craft context, ritual magick, or ceremonial rite, so that there are no small parts, only small magicians. It’s a cooperative process, not a competitive one.
Of course, there are several similarities the three kinds of magick have. For example, you can plug in ritual magickal elements, such as my Goddess-oriented Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram into a Craft-Oriented ritual. There is also a Wiccan LBRP, which I have used several times for my rituals. When doing Ritual magickal rites, I have used the Alexandrian quarter calls, and a Craft License to depart for all the spirits I have called up. Craft, ceremonial and ritual magick all have an end result. Depending upon the group of ceremonial magicians, or ritual magicians, there could be a statement of intent. For Craft rituals, there definitely will be a statement of intent. For Christian magicians, there might not be a statement of intent. Depending upon the ceremonial group, or ritual magicians, they might invoke similar deities. The Golden Dawn magicians tend to be a mixture of Judeo-Christian entities and Egyptian Deities. The historical exceptions to this are Aleister Crowley, Bram Stoker, S.L.MacGregor Mathers, Israel Regardie, Florence Farr, W.B.Yeats in his former years until his rabidly Jesoid wife got to him, Captain James Fuller, All three sorts of magick purify themselves and their ritual rooms before a ritual, as well as doing a banishing. This is called thaumaturgical hygiene. If they are of similar religions, they may have similar ritual structures. They can be equally fanatical, depending upon religion. I can’t see Wiccans being fanatical, though. All three of them can be equally dramatic in their rituals. So saith the AD.
We’ve come to the end of this discussion, since we’d like to keep it around a thousand words, but we’ve encountered a crux that could well mean a whole other discussion. What are the similarities between A ceremonial magician, A ritual magician and A Wiccan? What are the differences among these three practitioners of the arcane arts? Thus we see that there are differences, as well as similarities among the three groups of practitioners of the arcane arts. As the AD(ArchDruid) says, “Peace! Peace! Peace!”
