Ritual is psychodrama. For the most part, tools or ritual aids are only there to help us jar our subconscious minds into an altered state. Think of our waking consciousness as being a barrier to psychic and magickal abilities. Conditioned to dealing with purely physical aspects of the world, our waking minds block out the subtle states we seek in magickal rites. That’s why ritual is so important. It helps us break down our barriers and be more receptive to the unseen energies surrounding us.

You get out of a ritual what you put into it. And most rites need a significant amount of power. You cannot perform magick by only going through the motions, so to speak. You have to add energy or power to your words and actions in any ritual. It’s a matter of giving what you’ll ultimately receive. You need to expel some of your own power to make them work. You get what you give. The main factor or determinant is energy. The power of magic comes from within you. Ritual is the method to unleash that power.
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Magickal rites require the use of power, from the raising to the manipulation to the release of it. It also needs a circle for focus. Further, a magick circle is designed to create a place outside time and space. Magick is affecting the physical world of space and time from a higher realm that is beyond space and time. You are influencing a higher framework of reality, and then inserting those changes into the physical framework of reality. It is sort of changing the implicate order to manifest the explicate one.

Magick is the act of throwing your will out into the universe to manifest your intent. To cast is to throw. To spell is to recite or to recant. When you cast a spell, you are throwing your words out which is an expression of your will. You throw with feeling and action. Movement is action. Emotion is energy in motion, which is the action that moves the implicate order of reality. Move your will into the universe and so move the universe with it as you move your energy with the action of your emotion and magick.

The most important aspect of True magick is concentration. It is your ability to concentrate on and build energy, to concentrate on what you are doing your ritual for, and concentrating on what you are doing to direct the energy. It’s a lot to keep track of, and learning to keep it all steady in your head is the key to success. The better your ability to concentrate, the better you will perform in all aspects of magick. To train your concentration is to train your ability to direct consciousness at will and with power.

The whole idea behind any true Magick is to project your energy out into the universe to manipulate probabilities in your favor. To do that you can’t have doubts or disbelief. By using rituals to disassociate with the norm, you are setting aside your fears and doubts. If you can maintain a magical mindset, you can do magick all the time. Magic is a state of mind and reality that is apart from the mundane. It brings up all the emotions of delight, wonder, passion and power. These are life feelings that increase luck.

If ritual is just psychodrama, then all magick is really mind magick. And all mind magick is, in actuality, mind power unleashed. A properly created thoughtform, as well as properly performed magick of any type, always works. Therefore magick can be defined to be a science of controlling the visible world with invisible means. A science is something that works consistently all the time according to the fulfillment of certain key factors. Magick is the science by which you use mind power to alter the universe.

Don’t let others have power over you with their thoughts! The less they know, the less they can counteract. Your thoughtforms and spells will work better when they can act uninhibited. That is why it is best to keep silent about your goals and not to reveal your plans and intentions to others. The less you reveal, the less you set yourself up for others to interfere with your will. Only share with others your intents if you know they support you or if they can do little to interfere. Secret power is the most potent.

Err on the side of secrecy. Offer information sparingly, and watch your personal store of power build. By sharing information about your magickal life and actions, you are opening the door for others to connect and have influence in your world. Unless they are worthy, you wouldn’t want others to close down the magickal world that you are creating in a delicate way. Don’t feel a need to convert the world by talking about how wondrous your powers and religion are. Those who are ready will find it on their own.

When you are finished with the ritual, no matter what the ritual is for, put it out of your mind! Let it work and do its job! Don’t think about it or dwell on it or you will interfere with the energy. Once you have done a ritual to send forth your energy to manifest a certain intent, let go of it and let the magic do its work. It is not the constant objective concentration that brings your goal into manifestation, but the act of letting go and trusting that once you have set a line of probabilities in motion, that’s what will objectify.

Never spread your energies thin. Work on one problem at a time. The more places your energies go, the weaker they become. Energy should be directed like a laser. Set your ritual for a particular subject. All the goals stated within the ritual should be connected in a particular direction. If you have goals belonging to other subjects in life, set them at other rituals. Love and prosperity goals belong to different life subjects. The more you focus your energies in one direction at one time, the more effective you’ll be.[/hidepost]