Ritual Sacrifice
Table of Contents
Intro
I don’t kill anything! To make that clear off the bat, but I tend to notice when things break or plants die right as major changes happen. And it’s all because of that damn witch in my home town!
Origins
Eight years ago I wore a promise ring that my girlfriend at the time bought me as a going to college present. I loved that thing as it reminded me of her while also being a beautiful ring and sturdy too. I had it for a year totally unscathed. When one day at work I smacked my hand against a stainless steel counter and I noticed the citrine (her favorite rock) set into it had cracked.
I took the ring back to the witch craft store she bought it from and asked if we could buy another like it and I’ll never forget the look of sadness on the witch’s face when I showed her the ring before I even told her why we were there. She had asked if there was anything wrong between us. We were there all the time and it’s a small town so she knew us and knew what the ring was for.
I told her no nothing I could think of, just some bad luck on my end. I thought maybe it’s an omen of strained relations as I was going to be long distance for college for a bit. then further driving it home there was no ring like it to replace it with. Shame. So I wore the cracked ring while I lived on the wrong side of the state constantly upset about the state of my relationship.
I learned much later that the relationship wouldn’t work due to events that were happening when the ring was sacrificed.
Modern Day Sacrifices
I’ve experienced other sacrifices right as major changes happened. I lost my roommate and good friend before I switched majors (he didn’t die, just moved to a solo room because of a job opportunity). I lost my favorite water bottle hiking before I met my fiance Jay. I lost a section of my intestines to crohns right as COVID started and my college career ended.
Many things have been sacrificed to the great nothingness before something could happen in my life. My first car died on me right after I received my A+ Certificate. I bear a permanent scar on my hand from an injury I received right before my first IT Job. And most recently, I lost my long time succulent I rescued from a dumpster my junior year of college right as I received my promotion to IT Engineer.
Real Talk
Logically these are just things that happen. I have suffered a great number more of minor losses than can reasonably be compiled here, but its fantastical to imagine the ones that happened close to major life events as a cosmological exchange. It is not an equivalent exchange as Alchemy would teach me, but a more symbolic exchange. I imagine it like an offering to a pagan god. The rose you set on the altar or the candle you burn is not really a good bribe to stop a god of love from ruining your dating prospects.
I like to imagine it as the final component of the constant stream of spells I’m casting to manifest a better life. This is what I’ve learned from Chaos Magick. You cast the spell by stating your intentions and loosing them upon the world, then you make the material changes necessary to guide the magick in the right direction and help manifest your desired outcome. One cannot simple cast a spell to manifest more money and then do nothing new to help the situation because the magick needs something to catalyze off of. In my case, nearly all my spells were vague requests for knowledge knowing that that would lead me to success in enough fields.
Now these spells, they don’t always have an immediately positive result, but they take their due no matter what.
Magick can go wrong
My first attempt at manifesting knowledge and wisdom seemingly cost me my relationship with my ex and returned the effect of changing degrees away from my passion for an Engineering degree in favor of a History Degree (Though, to be honest, I was doing gods awful at engineering). This was in hindsight, a dangerous alienating path, but I over came it because I still desired knowledge and I recognized that the incel path was not a rational one. But I did learn to respect the magick system I was developing. Even if I didn’t believe in it, I still maintained the rituals because it was a fun anchor to attach my mind too so I didn’t lose myself in emotional turmoil.
Now you can easily psychoanalyze me and realize, I was in a turbulent relationship and only sub consciously recognized it. Thus I wanted to invest myself into something to distract my mind from processing the hard stuff. That’s accurate and I would say the real reason this all was intertwined with my life. Its comforting still. A fun layer of abstraction to view the world through so that I can rationalize the bad into a good. It is fulfilling the role that religion does.
Habits as Rituals
Now my rituals are simple repeated rituals that I know help with growth. These are Habits as I learned from James Clear of “Atomic Habits” fame. There’s a reason spell casting as it’s described by the Chaos magicians works and it’s because they are habits. Light a candle and burn a page with your end goal intentions on it then work towards that goal. For me it’s a simple sacrifice of a candle and a stick of incense before I study or clean the house.
Conclusion: Atheists should try Magick!
Is it magick? Almost certainly not. Is it fun to act like it is and then see results because of the actions? Gods yes! I’m constantly larping and its great! You should try it. Truly the lack of belief in magick makes the task of picking a system to study very easy!
I experience a joy in pretending to be a magician and I hope you would too.
