[Help] Why Ceremonial Magick?

I do not really follow path of ceremonial magic myself, but I believe that it's structure is very attractive to the mind of western person. Things are sorted like in encyclopedia in these systems, you get specific tutorials for rituals for specific purposes. It gives you rather clear guides. Complexity itself is also probably alluring as it is understandable by people as more real thing, because iot takes effort to master these systems.

Disadvantage in my opinion os that it makes it little difficult to improvise, at least for some people. It can be quite limiting, if you don't know what to use for what you need achieved.

I think it is pointless to perform ceremonial magic rituals if you are not part of the egregore of occult orders for whose members such practice is prescribed. Those rituals are designed to better integrate the aspirant into the egregore. If you are not part of the structure, then any pulling on someone else's energetic 'uniform' is pointless.

Results are what matter

Ceremonial magick provides the structure I require: clear boundaries, precise timing, controlled conditions. It keeps long-term work with autonomous spirits from drifting into chaos. It is not inherently superior. Without proper understanding, no system will deliver.
I use it because it allows precision and helps me aim at specific results.

If another approach proves more effective, I switch without hesitation.

Ceremonial magick provides structure when dealing with ambiguity. The routine and actions reinforce your psychological beliefs, theoretically strengthening your magick. Humans love ritual as it helps integrate the psychological as well. For those who are not in touch with their Will, the ceremony helps build it.

Perhaps not the best analogy - Ceremonial magick is like stationary machines at a gym. They're complicated, specific, and need to be done in a very certain way, but they ensure results and are very effective. Do you need to use a cross cable lat isolating machine? Of course not. You could lift free weights instead, but that isn't that easy either. If you've never walked into a gym, you can read the instructions on a machine and then try it yourself. You won't be perfect, but you'll be close enough - even on your first try. Now, if you've never walked into a gym before, and there's a giant intimidating row of free weights with no instructions and no clear idea what to do with them, what do you do? I would start with the machines, lol.

Johny111 said:

I think it is pointless to perform ceremonial magic rituals if you are not part of the egregore of occult orders for whose members such practice is prescribed. Those rituals are designed to better integrate the aspirant into the egregore. If you are not part of the structure, then any pulling on someone else's energetic 'uniform' is pointless.

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Yes, I feel the same. I participate in ceremonial magic mostly because it is an opportunity to perform ritual magic with other people. I still have my own practices outside of the lodge as well and I wouldn't be doing ceremonial magic if I wasn't in a lodge, but I definitely enjoy it and as I have learned more and memorized more of the rituals and practices performed at lodge and at home it has really started to click. I am not sure what I get out of it in terms of "results" as I primarily participate in it as a form of theurgy or spiritual practice rather than an expectation of practical results, but maybe I will see practical results too in the future. Right now, I'm still a neophyte and still learning. I enjoy learning, and that is another reason I participate, for the structured learning.

Morell said:

I do not really follow path of ceremonial magic myself, but I believe that it's structure is very attractive to the mind of western person. Things are sorted like in encyclopedia in these systems, you get specific tutorials for rituals for specific purposes. It gives you rather clear guides. Complexity itself is also probably alluring as it is understandable by people as more real thing, because iot takes effort to master these systems.

Disadvantage in my opinion os that it makes it little difficult to improvise, at least for some people. It can be quite limiting, if you don't know what to use for what you need achieved.

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I think that is true to an extent and there definitely is a benefit to having a ritual "coat hanger" to hang your correspondences and all that on. I think the overly analytic approach can also be a misstep though. We should avoid the tendency to make the art just about looking up theories and correspondences and then repeating that set of ideas on rote, like punching numbers into a machine. For me the relevance of ceremonial magic grew when I looked at it more like an art - creative, expressive, meaningful, a living thing. I don't say that to mean that you can just be arbitrary or to say that anything goes. I mean, anything doesn't go on the stage for opera or ballet either. But that said, personal expression and a sense of beauty isn't just a possibility, it is required.

deus ex machina said:

We should avoid the tendency to make the art just about looking up theories and correspondences and then repeating that set of ideas on rote, like punching numbers into a machine.

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Well said, Alucard, aka deus ex machina!

Formal Color Theory is a great metaphor for theurgy, and how ceremony can better be seen an a progressive journey of exploration.

As a professional artist and art director (video games and film), early in my training I studied Color Theory on my own and in college, learning the names of pigments in Winsor & Newton oil paints, and paying close attention. Color Theory gave me conceptual framework to hang and organize my own explorations on, while it also expanded my ability to see colors and use them.

So later, over the years and now, when I take the Pantone Color Vision Test, I get a perfect 100 color vision score because I can detect minute gradations of, say, greens or blues. Learning and Ceremony are interrelated and are both psychoactive. They change what we expect to see, and so we do. So pick something that has stood the test of time, and not a framework that range-limits your own explorations.

Our brain needs a framework to notice data and then remember it. Data without a framework (the so-called and often derided 'scaffolding' here) gets forgotten, so it's as if you never even learned it in the first place. In psychology these frameworks are called Schemas. A schema is a cognitive structure that helps us organize and interpret information. Having theurgic maps from others who have travel that road before us helps tremendously, if we take them as a guide.

deus ex machina said:

I think that is true to an extent and there definitely is a benefit to having a ritual "coat hanger" to hang your correspondences and all that on. I think the overly analytic approach can also be a misstep though. We should avoid the tendency to make the art just about looking up theories and correspondences and then repeating that set of ideas on rote, like punching numbers into a machine. For me the relevance of ceremonial magic grew when I looked at it more like an art - creative, expressive, meaningful, a living thing. I don't say that to mean that you can just be arbitrary or to say that anything goes. I mean, anything doesn't go on the stage for opera or ballet either. But that said, personal expression and a sense of beauty isn't just a possibility, it is required.

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You do realize that the first sentence I said was that I do not do ceremonial magic, right?

Beyond that I agree with you.

This is largely dependent on your goals with magic. If your engagement with magic is purely for practical reasons then things like chaos magic, folk magic, and traditional witchcraft are effective enough to cause change. Stuff like curses, money, career, love, the normal things we seek from practical magic. Before we go into why ceremonial we have to look at the modern theories of magic.

Psychological/Unconscious - This is power of belief, and works off the idea that the subconscious mind is so powerful that it can unconsciously program you and your immediate surroundings to drive you towards your goal. This is where Chaos Magic, Manifestation, NLP, and Law of Attraction lie. This is an entirely effective model but somebody working with this model will not experience the same supernatural and paranormal phenomenon that their contemporaries do. There is also little in the way of transformation as this model is dependent on the self and self-will and requires no externalization to operate.

Spirits - This an incredibly ancient model and is one of the primary features of what makes western magic, western magic. Western theology and philosophy points towards a necessity for daimones or spirits to move upon the material world to enact the Will of the gods as they are too simple and transcendent. The manipulation of these active mediators is the logic and reason behind the development of the Mesopotamian exorcism, Goety, Necromancy, and Angel magic. We can see this belief and idea in a lot of shamanistic and indigenous cultures too, though not with the extreme philosophical architectures of spirit hierarchies that were developed by the West to aid in the manipulation and understanding of the realms of the spirits. People who operate off this model usually experience a lot of paranormal phenomenon and will have experiences that confirm that there is something way more than the psychological model happening in magic.

Occult Virtues & Sympathies - This is where we get into the magical properties of materials; this is very common amongst folk magic and witchcraft. In my experience people who are good at this are capable of some of the craziest manifestations of magic you can witness. The practice of this at an adept level is usually reserved to closed practices and requires either a natural ability or acceptance by somebody skilled in this art. You won't be able to study your way into mastery of this skill but if you are lucky enough to witness it in its most dramatic form you will understand that there is something incredibly real to the occult virtues.

Energy - The West has some energy practices from Egypt but it was largely tossed out and forgotten in favor of the spirit and occult virtue models. This is a way more common model in the Eastern Practices though it was reintroduced to the western lexicon in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is where there is a belief in subtle energy bodies that can be manipulated and used to manipulate the world around you.

So then why Ceremonial Magic? Ceremonial magic at its core is a structured and developed vehicle utilizing Western symbols and mythology for the purposes of Self-Mastery and in turn, the ability to exact the Will onto the world around us. It doesn't really get codified into the form we are familiar with until French Occultism in the early 19th century which then went on to influence the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. Before then what we consider "Ceremonial" was really just operative procedures for binding and commanding spirits. The philosophy of Ceremonial Magic is that by self mastery and personal transformation the Magus is granted authority and powers over the spirits. Within its 20th century expression energy practices like yoga/transcendental meditation/astral projection/light bodies begin getting incorporated as well. Though we can see within ancient grimoires, neoplatonism, and jewish mysticism these practices are heavily implied, and all these currents informed Ceremonial practice and structure. The Ceremonial Magician approaches magic with the understanding that their power comes from molding themselves into a demigod archetype, like Hermes Trismegistus. That their spiritual authority to command spirits at will are directly correlated to their personal development. This is what protects the ceremonial magician and is also a marker of their "wizard-dom". Ceremonial magic is the living embodiment of As Above So Below. The ritual itself is a construction of the cosmos as the magus understands it, their timing and procedures are them working copascetically with the spiritual realm, the ritual is a material construction that is a reflection of the unseen forces they are working with.

The reality of the situation when it comes to Magic is all models work and are true. Anybody can cum on a sigil and make a hundred dollars appear, but thats not really the goal of the ceremonial magician. Its like comparing a fitness coach to a physician. One seeks results the other seeks to diagnose and cause lasting change. The reason spirits are so heavily intertwined in Ceremonial Magic is because the spirit-model is how the West has understood the agents of magic for millennia.

Morell said:

You do realize that the first sentence I said was that I do not do ceremonial magic, right?

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Yes. Just speaking generally and to the crowd here in regards to the topic of the thread.

I read somewhere once that an apostate could not practice magick. That was long ago, so it would have been in one of those old yellowed library books by Montague Summers, or by Lervi. I don't know. Can't remember. But now, I wonder. Could one employ Ceremonial magick effectively if one did not share in it's implicit and explicit metaphysical implications? And if so, what does this tell us about magick? On the other hand, if this form of magick only works if you believe in its metaphysics most people today would be doing it completely wrong.

Lucien6493 said:

I read somewhere once that an apostate could not practice magick.

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Well, as a Neoplatonist (if very updated a bit with current models) , I think most here would agree we can't be an apostate from our own inner divinity - but history suggests maybe you can be maybe a little apostate theologically to practice Goetia.

There was a defrocked priest associated with the French diabolist Catherine Monvoisin, who known as as La Voisin. He was named Abbe Etienne Guibourg. He assisted La Voisin, who was a central figure in the Affair of the Poisons, and the resultant Burning Court, a massive scandal during the court of King Louis XIV between 1677 and 1682 or so. Guibourg reportedly performed "Black Masses" for members of the French aristocracy. The most alarming allegation was that he performed these rituals for Madame de Montespan, the King’s official mistress, using her naked body as an altar to help her retain the King's favor. The King was horrified and shut down the Burning Court rather than risk further embarrassment.

In 17th-century France I think "apostate" and "defrocked" describe different things. While Abbe Etienne Guibourg was certainly defrocked, in these sense he was a rogue priest operating outside the authority and discipline of the Church, he was not apostate , which meant someone totally abandons their entire faith. Guibourg remained technically a priest because the Church believes ordination is permanent.

So when you are Catholic, you simply live in a Catholic universe. Everything you meet is Catholic, which means "universal" and is gets interpreted as being Catholic. In this worldview, which I don't get the sense he ever left to become 'apostate' - he simply spoke to a different part of the same Catholic universe using "Black Masses." Continental Diabolism of the time was a bit hardcore - but he did not become Hindu, pagan, or atheist - and just flipped to the other side of the same coin for his rituals involving Asmodeus, Astaroth, Beelzebub, and Lucifer. At least that's my interpretation.