For as long as humankind has walked the earth, there has been ritual. Ritual helps us make meaning of our lives, providing an opportunity to connect with the great big Whatever and achieve a particular goal. People carry out rituals for a wide range of reasons, everything from wanting to reduce stress or boost confidence through to marking those important milestones of birth, marriage and death.

While many people think you need to be part of an organized religion to experience meaningful ritual, this simply isn’t true. Anyone can write and perform their own rituals for whatever purpose they need. A good ritual has a powerful effect on the participant(s) and be literally life changing. Conversely, a bad ritual leaves the participants dissatisfied, even if they don’t know why, and fails to achieve its intent. While ritual creation is a straightforward process, it is all too easy to fall into various pitfalls, undermining your ritual’s effect.

Whether you want to create rituals for solitary use, you’re running a ritual group, or you’d like to work as a celebrant, this course will take you through the principles of ritual so you can have confidence that every ritual you write will do what you need it to do. Over ten modules, Thea Faye walks you through all the aspects surrounding ritual creation, including practical considerations, how to structure your rituals, and a wide range of spiritual techniques you can incorporate into your rituals for greater effect.

An experienced ritualist, Thea is an initiate of both Craft and Ceremonial Magick, as well as a qualified LifeRites celebrant. She teaches the ritual component of the LifeRites course and has helped many people transform their ritual practice into a moving, effective experience. With this course, you will receive homework for each module for you to complete and return for personalised feedback from Thea.

This course is for you if:

You would like to create rituals but don’t have the confidence or don’t know where to start
You work as a solitary but would like support with your ritual work
You run a group, or work as a celebrant and want to be sure your rituals achieve their purpose
You want to create powerful, meaningful rituals which truly move everyone involved

Module One: Introduction to Ritual

In the first module, you’ll learn the difference between a ritual and a routine, as well as why rituals matter. You’ll discover what delineates a good from a bad ritual and how to be sure your rituals are always great.

Module Two: Practical Considerations

In the second module, you’ll be taken through everything you need to think about when planning a ritual. You’ll look at location issues, what to think about as far as the audience is concerned, and you’ll get a bonus ritual checklist to ensure you remember everything you need.

Module Three: The Basic Components of Ritual

In this module, we dive deeper into the different stages of ritual. You’ll learn about: how to open your ritual to set an appropriate mood; the liminal phase, where ritual transformation takes place, and how to effect that change; how to close your ritual and set the seal on everything you’ve just done. We’ll also talk about the importance of strong leadership when facilitating a group ritual.

Module Four: Creating Ritual Space

In the fourth module, you’ll learn about what defines ritual space and various techniques for creating it. You’ll be taught how to cast and close circle, a common method in pagan ritual, as well as whether circle casting is always necessary.

Module Five: Working with Deity/Spirit

In module five, we’ll discuss whether it’s necessary to work with deity or Spirit, and you’ll be given methods for invoking their presence if you want to include them in your ritual. You’ll learn about etiquette when working with deities or Spirit and how you can give thanks for their support.

Module Six: Raising Energy

In the sixth module, you’ll learn about why it’s important to raise energy in your rituals and where that energy comes from. You’ll be given a range of techniques for raising energy and learn what to do with it once you’ve generated it.

Module Seven: Seasonal Celebrations

In module seven, you’ll be taken through the Wheel of the Year, a cycle of eight different ‘sabbats’ or festivals. We’ll discuss the various reasons why you might like to celebrate the Wheel and the differences between the lesser and greater sabbats. You’ll discover how to know when to celebrate the various festivals and you’ll be given ideas on what to do at each sabbat, as well as some bonus rituals you can follow or adapt for your own purposes. In addition, we’ll look at other reasons why you might want to put together a ritual.

Module Eight: Ritual Emergencies

In the eighth module, we’ll look at why you might be asked to create ritual at short notice, even if you’re a solitary practitioner, and what you can do to put together a high-quality ritual in as little as ten minutes. You’ll learn about what’s important and what’s not when you don’t have time to prepare so your emergency rituals are just as powerful as the ones you’ve planned for longer.

Module Nine: Ritual Tools

In module nine, you’ll discover which tools are necessary and which ones are nice to have. We’ll look at the various ways of sourcing tools and how to consecrate them when you get them. Also included in this module is a bonus ritual for you to use when consecrating your tools. You can adapt this to suit your personal way of working.

Module Ten: Final Thoughts

Learning about how to write good ritual is a lifelong process. In the last ritual, we’ll look at ways of getting feedback on your rituals so you can constantly improve your work. We’ll also discuss the importance of diarizing your rituals and how you can use this to generate powerful rituals in the future.