There is an instinct in modern magical circles to try and understand all magical experiences as functions of our internal psychology. For example, some magicians like to think of the various spirits that can be evoked as some representation of a subconscious part of the magicians mind.
Ceremony, through its ritual actions, externalizes the spiritual experience and reframes it as existing outside the individual. The individual can perform actions to call in forces much bigger than themself. The spiritual forces thus shift from being interior, individual pathologies, and become ecological and collective.
Ceremony asks us not to turn inward, but to turn outwards. Not only doesCeremony centers us within the material and temporal universeCeremony centers us within the material and temporal universe
During Ceremony 1 we often place representations of the universe around us. (Fundamental and common elements of Ceremony) placing us as the center. From this position in the center of the u..., but we are also placed within that universe.
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References
The Revolution Will not be PsychologizedThe Revolution Will not be Psychologized
Individualism is an Assumption
Typically in american culture and other secularized and capitalistic cultures, we make the assumption of the individual.
We are parts of a larger web and with that c..., The Emerald Podcast