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    follow your gut or the rule book?

    do you think that there's a certain way in which ceremonies and spells should be performed? or do you think you should go with your gut and tailor them to you? do you need exact kinds of oils and candles, or is it the meaning behind the objects used that matters?
    wanted to get your take on it

    #2
    Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

    I follow what the energies tell me I need. Some of them are very ridged and like things just so-so. If I have to work with those kinds of energies I follow the rules. Others are much more free flowing and are never the same twice. Those I get to use my imagination a lot more with.

    Oil and candles are for the person who is doing the connection. Once the connection is made, they do nothing for the energies. So for those I say use what helps you make the connection. If a certain color or scent puts you in touch with the part of yourself that lets you connect with whatever you wish to work with, stick to that. If not, change it up until you find a way to make that connection.

    My 2 cents.

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      #3
      Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

      I'm a stickler. Colors, scents, tones, times/dates - all these things have an effect on magical workings. All things vibrate at their own frequency. It's embedded in our collective unconsciousnesses.

      It always makes me snort a little when I see a free & breezy 'oh, just use whatever color candle you like/whatever scent incense smells good to you' type witch complaining about their spells failing. It's like praying to Hades for fertility.
      The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.

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        #4
        Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

        I prefer to go by the rules the first couple of times and then, if my instincts tell me to change something, then I try it. It's really important to try things "by the book" first whenever possible and to understand why things are set up the way they are before you change anything. At least that's my opinion.
        Blog: http://thestarsafire.tumblr.com

        Kuchi wa wazawai no moto (the mouth is the origin of disasters)

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          #5
          Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

          Originally posted by alternatingSelves View Post
          do you think that there's a certain way in which ceremonies and spells should be performed? or do you think you should go with your gut and tailor them to you?
          I think you have to find a middle-ground between the two. You do have to find rituals and formulae that are in tune with your energy, your spirit, or whatever you wish to call it. But at the same time, certain things make sense regardless of your personal desires. Some rituals are done in a set of steps to make sure that they're maximally effective.

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            #6
            Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

            For me it truly depends upon who I am calling upon and what I am calling upon them for. I admit though I separate how I do things when it is directed at Spirit, a god or a goddess vice a daemon / daimon or lessor spirit type creature / entity. I think it also depends upon how I practice, which for me has many traditional aspects as best I can recreate them. For chthonic gods / goddesses I make offerings and prayers to them in a sunken depression while for celestial gods / goddesses I make them upon a raised altar. I tend to use pouring into the depression for chthonic while I use transmutation via flame for celestial.

            Yet when I call upon lessor spirits or such then I tend to go by what feels right at the moment. Offerings to land spirits for instance some times I leave tobacco, other times i'll leave something else. Sometimes its at dusk, other times at midnight still other times its at daybreak, the only common factor being all are liminal periods of the day.
            I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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              #7
              Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

              I personally use whatever I have on hand that I think will work. I have a tendency to change little details in the spell or ritual, insert an extra word here or there to make it more meaningful to me and to make it personal, or use water instead of oil sometimes, things like that. I typically stick to traditional candle colors though as far as color correspondences go. Generally I think it's best to do whatever feels right to you. Some people feel that the spell won't work properly if you don't follow all the rules exactly to the letter, and some people think there is some wiggle room involved with it. Either way is fine.

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                #8
                Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                Originally posted by alternatingSelves View Post
                do you think that there's a certain way in which ceremonies and spells should be performed? or do you think you should go with your gut and tailor them to you?
                I'm an odd combination of the two lol

                It depends on your level of skill and the ritual you're trying to perform. I've actually never in my life performed a ritual or spell out of a book... but that's not to say that I think no one else should. It's a bit like cooking... I think that beginners should probably stick to the recipe until they have the experience and feel for the ingredients to be able to wing-it. Some people will never be able to move past the recipe. Some people don't want to. Some people use the recipe as a starting point and make their own.

                The benefit of prescribed rituals is not just that the hard work has been done for you, but that the older ones that have been used for generations form a sort of Cosmic Groove that you can slide into, where people with very little experience or skill can still get good results simply because they've tapped into an existing imprint and energy current that will carry them along. That only works if you perform something exactly as it's written out.

                The one thing that people have to be very careful about when changing rituals is appropriation. Once you've changed it, it's no longer the ritual that it was before. And if you take it out of it's spiritual context, it's no longer the ritual that it was before. I think that it's important to be honest and transparent about rituals that you've changed... if you change the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram because you don't like a particular word or can't visualise the energy like it says, then it's not the LBRP anymore and you can't call it that. And just because you used that one ritual (changed or unchanged) you can't claim to be a part of the originating culture or practice. That's cultural appropriation and it's disrespectful.

                Originally posted by alternatingSelves View Post
                do you need exact kinds of oils and candles, or is it the meaning behind the objects used that matters?
                Perzephone mentioned about things vibrating at their own frequency... I agree. I don't think that you can just throw any old thing together from random shit you dug out of the bottom of your drawer and expect it to work. Pink candles aren't going to do much good in a banishing rite, and hematite isn't going to help much with astral projection. But if you know your ingredients, then you can make alterations and substitutions to the recipe that will still work harmoniously and get the job done. Or you can build one from the ground up.

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                  #9
                  Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                  I'd say follow your gut but use the knowledge you get from books.
                  And this pretty much goes for everything. We feel certain things for certain reasons, and if you are just following the rules but inside you are not content with this and feel you should be doing it slightly different, nothing will really work. Whatever you do, how you do it, your will is what makes everything happen.
                  Remember all these things (books, candles, incense, statues, symbols etc etc) are merely tools, YOU are the main energy pole. Follow your heart and your gut.

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                    #10
                    Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                    I make it all up as I go along.

                    Works fine.
                    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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                      #11
                      Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                      Many years back when I was first introduced to paganism through Wicca, a lot of books made it seem like every color, number, day, herb, stone, etc all had specific meanings, and that's just how it was. The thing is, as I started looking at how different cultures through history did things, while I did sometimes see different cultures having overlapping symbolism for the same thing, very often different cultures would associate different, and perhaps even conflicting, symbolism to the same thing. If, say, the number 4 really had some underlying universal meaning, you'd expect that to show up in all cultures, but that's not always the case. So for a lot of these general ideas, I don't think there's anything truly set in stone - we have to look at things through our own cultural and subconscious lens, and see what makes sense where.

                      Which isn't to say there's no value in 'going by the book.' For example, if you're looking to work with a particular deity, and they're associated with certain things, understanding what those things mean to that culture can really be helpful. It's not just a matter of what is associated with what, but also why.
                      Hearth and Hedge

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                        #12
                        Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                        It's not just with numbers that the complete overlapping and conflicting culture thing that goes on but with color too.

                        Take for example the color white. To a lot of european/western countries we think of innocence and purity with white, but to a lot of eastern countries white is a color of mourning. Both parties wore white for weddings, but western countries wore to to express a brides "innocence" while the eastern countries wore it in mourning because they were losing a family member that in most cases they would never see again.


                        So doing things by the book so to speak is always going to be subjective as to what they mean to YOU and the culture you've been raised with when it comes to things like numbers, colors, symbols, and the like. The only thing that I might suggest being super careful to make sure you go by the book with is herbs on the basis of some things might not be safe to ingest-so make sure you do your research and stick with that kind of thing.
                        Always taking art commissions, especially for fantasy and pagan related artwork
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                          #13
                          Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                          I do find it interesting that it seems every component mentioned so far pertains to low or folk magics none of them pertain to ceremonial or high magics. The rigid structure of ceremonial or High magics based upon complex sigils, enchantments, word usage which also ties into sound variations through incantations and implied word meanings. Things like Keys of Solomon, Goteia usage and workings, Enodian, Chaldean, other major magical schools are all very much rigid and heavily structured. Yet that structure often obtained over years / decades of usage where words and forms invoke sounds and harmonics that serve very specific functions such as attuning gateways for instance. Change so much as a single word and you've changed the entire song and the harmonics and beat of everything. That and the fact historically words were used because of the sound and vibration they created on various plains of existence. But more so I suppose because one had to actually study and be committed to their pathway at all times.
                          I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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                            #14
                            Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                            Originally posted by monsno_leedra View Post
                            I do find it interesting that it seems every component mentioned so far pertains to low or folk magics none of them pertain to ceremonial or high magics. The rigid structure of ceremonial or High magics based upon complex sigils, enchantments, word usage which also ties into sound variations through incantations and implied word meanings. Things like Keys of Solomon, Goteia usage and workings, Enodian, Chaldean, other major magical schools are all very much rigid and heavily structured. Yet that structure often obtained over years / decades of usage where words and forms invoke sounds and harmonics that serve very specific functions such as attuning gateways for instance. Change so much as a single word and you've changed the entire song and the harmonics and beat of everything. That and the fact historically words were used because of the sound and vibration they created on various plains of existence. But more so I suppose because one had to actually study and be committed to their pathway at all times.
                            I've got a High Magic/ceremonial background, so that's part of why I'm a traditionalist. Folk magic is like cooking - you can toss a bunch of ingredients in a pot and still have something tasty. Ceremonial magic is like classical French baking. If you don't follow the recipe, your souffle is just scrambled eggs.
                            The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.

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                              #15
                              Re: follow your gut or the rule book?

                              Neither.

                              Both.

                              ...context is everything.


                              (and that ^, perze, is perfectly worded)

                              (which, I think, explains monsno's comment perfectly...folk magic is just alot more accessible than ceremonial magic)
                              Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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