A Compendium of the History and Use of Magics Ritual

8th Edition

Volume I

Introduction to Rituals and Ritual Magic

Understanding the Nature of the Magical Arts

Rituals. Divination. Necromancy. Of all the magics known to us, these three schools are amongst the most controversial, the most feared, and unfortunately in this age, the most forbidden. These facts are well known to even most magical children. But what is not often known is why these areas are so controversial.

Some would say that the answer is obvious – that rituals are banned in many nations because they are too powerful, that necromancy is a forbidden art because we as mortals have no right to meddle with the natural flows of life and death, and that divination is so controversial due to its inconsistent nature. While these responses may hold some modicum of truth and are certainly not incorrect, there is still yet an underlying motivation for their separation from other schools of magic – something that these three areas specifically share in common.

Rituals, divination, and necromancy are all magical arts whose performance depends on the invocation of a greater power.

In order to understand the significance of this fact, one must understand the nature of magic itself – or rather the nature in which we as witches and wizards use magic today.

When a witch or wizard performs a feat of magic belonging to a classical art (such as charms, transfiguration, conjuration, curses, etc.), the magician in question collects, focuses, and bends magic to their will in order to create the desired outcome. For example if one wishes to transfigure a stone into a stool, it is their focus and force of will that directs magic itself to perform the change upon the stone when the specific spell is cast.

This is known as "command magic" due to the way in which a magician is able to command magic to create the desired outcome. The vast majority of magic performed daily throughout the world is such command magic – and in fact most magicians will only ever perform command magic, as few schools of magical arts do not belong to this classification.

Those that do, however, belong to the classification of "invocation magic" – and as stated previously these schools include rituals, divination, and necromancy among others. Unlike command magics, invocation magics cannot be "forced" to create a desired outcome. A witch or wizard cannot bend magic to their will in order to perform feats of magic involving invocations. Or rather it should be said that magicians are able to use invocation magics when they cannot bend magic in order to create their desired outcome.

So what does it mean for something to be classified as an "invocation"? As hinted at previously, in order to perform invocation magic, a magician calls upon (or invokes) a power greater than that which they can command on their own. Now, the reader may make the immediate assumption that this implies calling upon a god or other deity in order to perform the desired action. However, while this can be and has been the case (see the section Theurgy of the Ancients), an invoker may call upon all manner of entities. These entities can include everything from deities and spirits of nature to emotions and ideas or concepts themselves. Even long past witches and wizards can be called upon during an invocation. The reason in which so many things may be invoked, including humans, is because something cannot exist within this world and this world's magic without affecting and changing it in some way. By simply existing, a person or an idea changes the very flow of magic around us – sometimes dramatically and other times minisculely. However all such things may be invoked.

Take for example divination. There are no spells that will allow one to view the future. As we are, magicians are unable to bend enough magic to their will in order to reveal what is yet to come. However, the art of divination clearly (though perhaps inconsistently) does this very thing - the key factor being the mechanics behind successful divination. As invocation magic, divination depends upon calling some higher entity, whether it be Apollo the patron of divination itself or simply an ancestor who frequently performed the art, to add its power to the magician's in order to create the desired outcome – in this case unveiling some aspect of the future.

The Invocation Arts

Divination

Alchemy

Rituals

Animagus transformation as overlapping example

Aspects and Components of Rituals

Runes as focus

The Capabilities and Limitations of Rituals

Given that rituals belong to the classification of invocation magic and cannot be forced to work by a magician, why use rituals at all? Power.

Affecting mind, body, soul, and connection to magic

Payment vs. Sacrifice