Ritual is an important part of religious
life to people the world over. The goal of ritual is to connect with the
Great Mystery: be it Deity, the Force in nature, the spiritual worlds, or
even the simple rhythms of the turning seasons.
Rituals come in two flavors: public and private. As their names suggest,
private rituals are those we do individually, and public rituals involve
many persons. But it gets a bit trickier than that.
Private rituals are those we do on the individual level --- there can be
more people around during them, but each person does their own ritual. For
example, the daily routine of praying towards Mecca several times a day is
a private ritual each Muslim performs to attune him/herself to the sanctity
of that holy city.
Public rituals can involve any where from one person on. One person may perform
a ritual designed to help the entire community, while the community may actually
stand outside the Sacred Space of the ritual.
Rituals have many major components. The area where the ritual takes place
is the Sacred Space. This may be a church or temple, or a stone Circle, or
a clearing in the woods, or a prayer mat. It can be anywhere which is "holy
ground" as far as the ritual is concerned. Also, there is the Altar. The
Altar is the focal point for the ritual, whatever its goal. The Altar may
be a simple collection of ritual symbols, a table containing magickal tools
and/or symbols, or even the world surrounding the Sacred Space. In short,
it may be anything which gathers the focus of the ceremony. The participant(s)
for the ritual is(are) also important, for obvious reasons. Finally, the
final components are those which reflect the nature of the ritual: for a
magickal ritual, magickal tools, and for a ritual using symbols or deities,
those symbols and images of the deities involved.
Now, lets touch on the construction of ritual. Rituals work in three simple
ways: first Sacred Space is cleared and any invocations are made, then the
Main Body of the ritual is performed, and finally the Sacred Space is closed.
In between, the ritual generally has any number of things designed to get
us -- the "audience" -- involved until the ritual reaches its climax.
Rituals vary the world over as far as their internal structures are concerned,
yet the generally follow this basic format.
