How to create your own rituals: writing a working that actually works

A ritual you wrote is not a ritual you improvised

There is a difference between writing your own ritual and making one up on the spot, and that difference is the whole subject of this article. A ritual made up on the spot, in the middle of a working, tends to wander. It covers every possible outcome, it repeats itself, it loses its shape halfway through, and afterwards you cannot tell what you actually did, because you never wrote it down. A ritual you wrote beforehand, even a short one, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can do it again, you can change one part of it and see what changes, and you can tell, weeks later, whether it did anything at all.

Writing your own ritual does not mean inventing a system from nothing. It means taking the beliefs you actually hold, the tools you actually have, and the matter you actually need to address, and putting them together in an order you can follow without improvising your way out of the difficult parts. That is a craft, and like any craft it can be learned, practised, and improved. It is also a craft where borrowing is normal: you will borrow forms, phrases, and structures from systems you have studied, and the skill lies in borrowing honestly, adapting carefully, and knowing why you kept each part, rather than copying a whole rite you do not understand and hoping it holds together.

Start with the matter, not with the props

Most rituals that fail do not fail because the candles were wrong. They fail because the matter was never stated clearly. Before you write a single line of ritual, write the matter down in one sentence. Not a paragraph, not a list of everything that is wrong in your life, but one sentence: what is this working for, and what would a good outcome actually look like?

If you cannot write that sentence, you are not ready to write the ritual yet. Sit with the matter, talk it through with someone you trust if that helps, and come back to it the next day. A ritual written around a vague matter will produce a vague working, and a vague working is hard to read afterwards, which means you will not learn anything from doing it, even if you do it carefully.

Once the sentence is clear, ask yourself a second question, just as plainly: is this a matter for ritual at all? If it is a legal matter, a safety matter, or a medical matter, deal with that matter in the ordinary world first, or at the same time. Ritual work is not a substitute for a lawyer, a doctor, or for leaving a dangerous situation. A well-written ritual for the wrong kind of problem is still the wrong tool, and knowing that is part of the craft, not a failure of it.

Circle casting, banishing, and the question of whether to banish at all

The course this article leads to covers basic circle casting, and banishing, with a question mark after it: banishing, or not? That question mark is important, and it is worth pausing on, because it tells you something about how this teaching works. It does not hand you a single rule and tell you to follow it forever. It asks you to think about what a circle is for, and what banishing is for, and whether a particular working needs either, both, or neither.

A circle, in the simplest terms, is a way of marking a space as set apart for the working. It tells you, in a physical way, that you have begun, and it tells you when you have finished, because you open or dismiss it at the end. That marking matters, because a working that has no clear beginning often has no clear end either, and it drifts. You do not need an elaborate circle for every working, but you do need a way of saying, to yourself, that this time and this place are set apart, and that ordinary errands and messages are not part of them.

Banishing is a different question. Sometimes you need to clear a space, to settle yourself, and to set aside influences that do not belong in the working. Sometimes a working is about honouring, welcoming, or listening, and a heavy banishing at the start works against the very openness the working needs. Learning to tell those two situations apart, rather than banishing by habit at the start of everything, is a real skill, and it is one of the skills this kind of teaching is for.

Protections, sacred space, and honouring

Protections belong in the same conversation as banishing, but they are not the same thing. A protection is something you set in place and keep in place, whether that is a boundary around a space, a practice you do before and after a working, or a simple rule about what you will and will not do in a particular kind of work. Good protections are boring, in the best sense: they are habits, not dramas, and they work because you do them every time, not because you do them impressively once.

Creating sacred space is the wider skill that holds circle, banishing, and protection together. It is the work of taking an ordinary room, an ordinary garden, or an ordinary corner, and making it, for the duration of the working, a place where attention can hold. That involves the physical space, clearing it and setting it aside, and it involves yourself, bathing or washing, changing clothes, and arriving in a state where you can actually pay attention. A room that is cluttered with yesterday's errands, and a worker who is exhausted, drunk, or already agitated, will not hold a working well, however good the written ritual is.

Honouring rituals are a different kind of working again, and they deserve their own attention. A working that honours a spirit, a deity, an ancestor, or a place is not a petition with a polite opening. It is a working whose point is the honouring itself: an offering, a prayer, a song, or a simple act of attention, done properly and finished properly, without turning it into a request for something else halfway through. Learning to write an honouring ritual that stays an honouring ritual, rather than drifting into a shopping list, is a discipline in itself, and it will improve your petitionary rituals as well, because it teaches you to mean what you say.

Tools, implements, and writing for what you actually have

Creating tools and implements sounds grand, but in practice it is a practical question: what do you have, what can you make, and what does this working actually need? A ritual written for tools you do not own, in a space you do not have, with ingredients you cannot get, is a ritual you will not do, or will do badly while improvising substitutes at the last minute. Write for the tools you actually have, and for the space you actually work in, and be honest about the difference between a tool that is needed for the working and a tool that would simply look impressive.

That honesty extends to implements you make yourself. A tool you have made, cleaned, and kept for working use carries an association that a bought object does not, not because bought objects are bad, but because the making is part of the preparation. If you make a tool for a particular kind of work, keep it for that work, put it away properly when you are not using it, and do not let it drift into ordinary use. A tool that is treated carelessly tends to be worked with carelessly, and that shows in the record you keep afterwards.

When you write a ritual, write the tools into it in order, at the point where each one is used, not as a list at the top that you then forget halfway through. A ritual that says, at the right moment, to take up the tool, anoint it, or set it down, is a ritual you can follow without stopping to think about what comes next. That is what a written ritual is for: to carry the order, so that your attention can stay on the matter, rather than on remembering the order.

Group, elemental, planetary, and deity workings

The course also covers group workings, elemental workings, planetary workings, and deity workings, and each of those changes how you write. A group working is not a solitary working with more people in the room. It needs clear roles, clear timing, and a clear way for everyone to know when the working has begun and when it has ended. If you write a group ritual, write who does what, and when, and write it plainly enough that someone who has not read your mind can follow it. A group ritual that only makes sense to its author will fall apart in the room, however good its ideas are.

Elemental workings, planetary workings, and deity workings each bring their own language, timing, and correspondences, and the skill is not to pile all of them into one ritual, but to choose the frame that fits the matter. An elemental working speaks in terms of the elements and their qualities. A planetary working speaks in terms of a planet, its hour, and its character. A deity working speaks in terms of a particular god or goddess, and the proper way to approach them in the tradition you follow. Mixing all three in one rite, because each sounds impressive, usually produces a working that says nothing clearly. Choose one frame, write inside it, and let the other frames wait for their own workings.

That choice is also where your own belief system comes in, which is the starting point the course names: writing rituals based on your own belief system, as well as things which actually work. A ritual that contradicts what you actually believe will not hold your attention, and a ritual that follows a system you have not studied will not hold together under pressure. Write from what you believe and what you have studied, and be willing to say, plainly, when you do not know enough about a system to write inside it yet. That honesty is not a limitation. It is the beginning of good ritual writing.

Testing a ritual you wrote, and keeping a record

Once you have written a ritual, test it in the smallest honest way you can. Do it once, properly, with the tools and space you wrote for, and write down what you did, when you did it, and what you noticed, in plain language, not what you hoped would happen. That record is what lets you improve the ritual. Without it, you will change three things at once after every working, and you will never know which change mattered.

If the ritual did not work as written, revise one part at a time. Was the matter clear? Was the order followable without stopping? Did the circle, or the lack of one, help or hinder? Did the tools get in the way? Answer one question, change one part, and test again. That slow, unglamorous revision is how a ritual becomes yours, and how it becomes reliable, rather than impressive.

And know when to stop revising. A ritual that is rewritten before every working is not a ritual at all. Do the work properly, once, observe, and then decide, calmly, whether a second working, a revision, or no further working is the right next step. Repetition without reflection is not persistence. It is noise, and the same is true of revision without testing.

How to create your own rituals course

Writing your own ritual is a craft, and it can be learned.

In this course we cover how to write and create your own rituals based on your own belief system, as well as things which actually work. The topics covered include basic circle casting, banishing (or not?), protections, creating sacred space, honouring rituals, creating tools and implements, group workings, elemental workings, planetary workings, and deity workings. I make no promise about what the course will do for you, only that it teaches this craft directly, from practice, not from theory alone.

If you want to learn to write rituals in this way, this is the course I offer: How to create your own rituals course, $216 CAD. View the product

#WritingActually #CreateRituals #ElementalWorkingsPlanetary #WorkingsPlanetaryWorkings #CircleCastingBanishing #DeityWorkings #PlanetaryWorkings #WorkingsPlanetary #CircleCasting #WrittenRitual #BeliefSystem #RitualWrite #Protection