I hold this axiom of chaos magick to be self evident – magick should be performed to get results. Practicing rituals just to call oneself a magus seems an enormous waste of time and energy. The results a magus seeks can, however, be somewhat nebulous.
In fact, magick seems to work better with a wide target. Conjuring to obtain $500.00 tomorrow at noon will most likely result in failure. Performing a ritual to ensure the commercial success of a book you have just written stands a much better chance of succeeding.
It has become apparent to me that this may be where we separate the good magi from the mediocre. One needs to have a good sense of what magikal operations are worth doing.
I don’t have anything against sigil magick. I’ve used it myself, but I seem to have greater success using ritual magick. For whatever reason, my unconscious mind taps into the long and drawn out processes of the ritual. I also believe that ritual magi are better at raising gnosis due to the constant practices that ritual magick advocates.
Here’s where I am hitting a wall. I see the wisdom in taking the common rituals used by the Golden Dawn and Thelema, The Rituals of the Pentagram, The Hexagram, The Star Ruby, etc., and adapting them to my symbol system. I respect that magi in the past have had success with these practices. At the same time, I balk at performing any magick that does not seek some kind of result.
In all of my research, I have yet to find WHY ceremonial magi perform the Ritual of the Hexagram. WHY do Thelemites perform the Star Ruby? The Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram seems self evident as a basic exercise in raising gnosis and manipulating magikal energies, but they can’t all serve that same purpose? Can they?
I was wondering if one of my excellent tumbler followers could tell me, why do you perform these rituals? What are their purpose?