Making Rituals Longer And More Complex.

It seems like everyone who gets creative with rituals wants to streamline things so that they take less time and are less complex. I do this too, especially because I emphasize regular practice of high ROI exercises.

But I also emphasize occasional retreats and expanding practices into more elaborate versions so that they can be fully explored and experienced as a fully immersive operation.

The first time I ever did this was with the Modern Magic excercises. After regular practice for years when I was a teenager I could whip out the LBRP, BRH, and Watchtower Opening in just about 15 minutes, but as I started to get more and more exposure to the powers behind these rites, I decided to create a long form for them that took me several hours. Connecting the Kabbalistic Cross to the rest of the lords prayer and purification psalms. Separate invocations for each name and Archangel at each quarter. Breath work and other yogas. Invocation of all the major spirits of each Watchtower. Meditating after each portion.

I took a 15 minute ritual and stretched it to 5 hours, and though I don’t do those rituals much anymore, I strongly advocate doing this kind of work at least once with anything you really care about.

It gets even more intense when you get into Buddhist ritual. I have a Vajrakilaya practice that takes under 30 minutes, another that takes a couple hours, another that takes half a day, and another that takes 3 days to do properly. Now, I can be critical of some of the byzantine additions to Buddhist liturgy when they actually mask the yoga and magic that is behind it, BUT the longer sadhanas include many parts that simply cannot be accomplished within a few minutes. With the help of Lama Vajranatha I have been able to streamline the 3-day version into a 1-day version, but having done it both ways, I can attest to the fact that people should do the three day retreat version.

I am not backtracking on my desire to be the Oscar Goldman of magic and make things better/stronger/faster. I think that Parkinson’s law has had a negative effect on many rituals and operations that would actually be better and more effective if they were not trying to fill space and kill time. But I am writing this to say that if that is your only concern, and if you cannot apply your creativity to making things longer and more elaborate, then perhaps you need to explore it further.