We are ruled by the same daily routines that we create to bring order to our lives. Our mundane routines bring us security and a sense of purpose especially when we work in conjunction with other people. And as we learn and grow, these rituals evolve and make us who we are. We know what to do and anticipate what will happen when the alarm clock wakes us up in the morning.

We learn from our parents how to live life- how to create order from chaos. We learn about mundane rituals and as a 2-year-old it was our instinctive mission to question these limits of ritual and order and to push these boundaries of what we could do within this structure. This was a time when we began to see ourselves as people, separate from our parents and yet deeply connected to them. We learn about our parents’ expectations and rituals, then we learn about ourselves and we create our own rituals. When we get older we begin to carry that knowledge into the world so that we can learn about our relationship with society and the Divine.

Whether its mono- or polytheist, the purpose of most religions is to commune and communicate with the Divine, to meet with the Gods and Goddesses on a spiritual level. Religions create rituals to help worshippers find a vehicle to achieve an altered state of consciousness to help “tune out” the mundane so that we can hear the will of the Gods and Goddesses. While rituals of the mundane are more self-centered, rituals of religion create a sense of selflessness. You need to let go of Ego, allowing the self to celebrate with our Gods and Goddesses without the “static” of our mundane lives interfering.

Rituals are especially difficult, but vitally important when we are working in a group setting. In the mundane world, once we step into the realm of large society with our expectations of order, we must navigate the sea of chaos our fellow citizens create, when they are only trying to create order for themselves. So when we want to engage in conversation with the Gods and Goddesses it can be more difficult to strip away the individual Egos in order for all the participants to come together for a common purpose.

When we are working on our own it is easier to achieve that state of spiritual consciousness, because our rituals are more familiar and practiced. However, as a community, we come from different backgrounds, many of us were not born into the religion we are practicing now, and we are in varying stages of personal spiritual development. But we can’t stay at home alone we crave the company of people and community. We genuinely want to celebrate our relationship with our Gods and Goddesses together. So I think that for rituals to work, especially group rituals, the three most important things that need to be addressed are purpose, mindset, and experience.

Why are you having this ritual? What is its purpose? This is perhaps the easiest question to answer, but also the most important. Participants have their own reasons for being at a group ritual, and it may not be for the same reasons the ritual was designed. If everyone knows what will happen and it is made clear what is to be expected in the ritual then it helps all participants to get into the right frame of mind.

Creating a cohesive mindset in a large group is difficult because of the individual expectations of the participants. Rituals in themselves are tools to create structure in a large group to assist everyone in altering their consciousness. Within a ritual the tools many people use to create a group consciousness involve any activity where everyone can participate, whether its meditation, chanting, or dancing. These tools are a way for people to come together and function as a collective. It helps the participants to focus their energy on the purpose of the ritual. Sumbel is also another great example, where the participants can come together and share their experiences with their Gods and Goddess and also with their community.

People want to be active participants in a ritual. When people are involved in a group ritual they not only want to give something of themselves to the ritual, but they also want to experience something from the ritual. If the person leading the ritual has made the purpose of the ritual clear and brought the participants to a group state, then it should be relatively easy to make the experience a positive one.

I have been to many rituals of several different faiths and some have been done by rote, with little effort or enthusiasm on the part of the “leader” and the participants and I have been to others where I have been deeply moved. I also don’t think you need to compromise your own faith, in order to participate and gain something from another religion’s rituals. Going to a wedding in a Catholic Church may not be your cup of tea, but you are ultimately witnessing and sharing in the community experience of that ritual. Some of the group rituals that have completely awed me were a FreeSpirit Opening ritual, an Ecumenicon Sabbath ritual, a Starwood Dancers Circle, a Nordic Sweatlodge, and an Othala Acres Yule. Knowing the purpose and the mindset of the ritual these groups were able to come together as a collective and create a space to communicate with the Divine.