The Nine-fold Way: Conducting Sacred Ceremonies
A witch knows the consciousness altering and transforming power of rituals and how to conduct them.
By means of rituals we go from our everyday consciousness to an altered state in which we are transformed and then returned to our everyday state of consciousness as a different person. If the world is our everyday consciousness, the altered state is what witches commonly call “the world between the worlds”.
In the course of a ritual we can access the world between the worlds in wide variety of ways: by lighting candles, burning incense, going sky-clad or wearing a special rob, binding, flogging, chanting, drumming, visualizing, rhythmic breathing, invoking or evoking a goddess, god or other being, drinking “spirits”, ingesting entheogens, and sexual pleasure to name a few.
Once in the altered state we can engage in many different kinds of activities. We can simply connect and commune with our goddess or god. We can communicate with them or other beings directly or by means of divination. We can do creative energy work like curing, attracting money, love, sex or success. We can charge amulets and talismans or do bindings or loosenings. We can receive or convey knowledge.
The kind of ritual we conduct depends on the need or purpose at the time. Sometimes we conduct sacred ceremonies alone, just for ourselves to meet our own needs. Sometimes we conduct sacred ceremonies for others on special life- cycle occasions like a wedding, naming a baby, reaching puberty or becoming an adult, retiring, menopause, and death. At other times, we may conduct public rituals for our local community to mark the changing of the seasons. Sometimes we might conduct a ritual that reaches beyond our local community and reaches out to change the world.
Conducting sacred ceremonies is an act of love for everyone involved. Rituals change all who participate in them. By conducting rituals we gain knowledge, wisdom and power that we did not have prior to the ritual. In the Nine-fold Way of a Witch conducting sacred ceremonies is a given.
By means of rituals we go from our everyday consciousness to an altered state in which we are transformed and then returned to our everyday state of consciousness as a different person. If the world is our everyday consciousness, the altered state is what witches commonly call “the world between the worlds”.
In the course of a ritual we can access the world between the worlds in wide variety of ways: by lighting candles, burning incense, going sky-clad or wearing a special rob, binding, flogging, chanting, drumming, visualizing, rhythmic breathing, invoking or evoking a goddess, god or other being, drinking “spirits”, ingesting entheogens, and sexual pleasure to name a few.
Once in the altered state we can engage in many different kinds of activities. We can simply connect and commune with our goddess or god. We can communicate with them or other beings directly or by means of divination. We can do creative energy work like curing, attracting money, love, sex or success. We can charge amulets and talismans or do bindings or loosenings. We can receive or convey knowledge.
The kind of ritual we conduct depends on the need or purpose at the time. Sometimes we conduct sacred ceremonies alone, just for ourselves to meet our own needs. Sometimes we conduct sacred ceremonies for others on special life- cycle occasions like a wedding, naming a baby, reaching puberty or becoming an adult, retiring, menopause, and death. At other times, we may conduct public rituals for our local community to mark the changing of the seasons. Sometimes we might conduct a ritual that reaches beyond our local community and reaches out to change the world.
Conducting sacred ceremonies is an act of love for everyone involved. Rituals change all who participate in them. By conducting rituals we gain knowledge, wisdom and power that we did not have prior to the ritual. In the Nine-fold Way of a Witch conducting sacred ceremonies is a given.