Occult, Qabalah, Golden Dawn disillusionment

[Lighthead]

Nah, I don't need rituals. I'm working on enlightenment.

They are tools one might or might not need or want to use. What tells you an enlightened person wouldn't see purpose in rituals?

To me a ritual is like a snack whereas meditation is like dinner. It's just something to hold you over for the main meal, but it's not necessary in and of itself. For example, you perform a ritual to raise planetary consciousness and then what? Why not just encourage people to meditate so that they can actively have a hand in raising their own consciousness? To me, ritual just seems so unnecessary. It seems like something someone did before they found out about meditation. 

I'd like to do more research into it, but my intuition tells me that meditation is far more superior. To me ritual seems more clumsy and "ornate," whereas meditation is more streamlined and simple. Even Zen aesthetics with their minimalism are more to the point. It doesn't beat around the bush. It is the bush.

I'm no expert in rituals myself because I do also have some retissance in using them, although I've been experimenting a little bit.

But since you do want to focus on connecting to the Creator, what about using a ritual to enhance your meditation. Perhaps making one of your own, simply to create a routine which you will link to a state of mind in order to access it more easily. As such you'd enter into transe before starting your meditation as a pre-meditation work. 

I was thinking about doing this, just creating something of my own, with my own symbolism in it which will serve the purpose helping going into my desired state of mind through something I would feel I can relate to. I still do not exclude the idea of using known rituals though, just that they are not something I can channel myself into as of now.

Well, to be very honest, I don't have a lot of privacy here in my house to really do any rituals like that. I live with my mom (and with my uncle who comes in from time to time) and it's not a very large house, so I wouldn't really be able to create a ritual space. I wish that Aion could suggest what somebody could do in my situation, but he completely shuts down the conversation by acting all abrasive like that. And, by the way, I'm not talking behind anybody's back. This is, obviously, out in the open for everyone to see.

So maybe since I don't have that sort of privacy, I've allowed a certain bias to build up against ritual that's out in the open like that (the ritual, that is). I used to have a book called Teutonic Magic by Kveldulf Gundarsson. I actually found it really fascinating. But, the same thing, since I didn't have any privacy back then either, I was very limited in the practical use of it. He (the author) also mentioned the idea that it would be ideal if you were Northern European to take part in those folkish traditions, but I've seen, in at least one instance, that that might be a misinterpretation of the ancient Teutonic religious texts (the Havamal, etc.). But that last part is a whole 'nother story.

Edit: And I'm a big believer in symbols. I wonder if the lessened accessibility of ritual is a hint as to something deeper. Maybe that's why it is theorized that the really powerful in today's society gravitate towards rituals and the like. Something to ponder over.