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After one of the responses to a post in Higher Magicks, I began considering how much of my practice involves so little actual ritual these days. It is primarily rooted in thought and will, and I have largely shed any form of ritual unless I need to aid with maintaining focus.

It then occurred to me that perhaps, somewhat ironically, this may be at the heart of the concept of Thelema. Ritual teaches. Tradition teaches. Tone and vibration teach. Through these occult heritages we can discover and open the doorways of thought to new concepts that might not have otherwise entered our minds. And yet once the subconscious knows, it does not need the cumbersome tools of the conscious to replicate the act. But, as most of us are rather bound to the conscious level of thought, ritual practice is the key that allows us to open the doorway again, and make manifest that which or subconscious so readily knows.

So then what is the next step? Perhaps we must not allow ourselves to be chained to tradition and ritual. That which is done within ritual can be done without, and if it can be done without then the ritual becomes nothing but a cumbersome shackle-an attachment to the conscious mind, reinforcing the censor between subconscious and conscious will. Slip free of the prohibitive restrictions ritual, and the same results are manifest with a thought. And when one can manifest with a thought, one steps ever closer to True Will, harmony, enlightenment, or whatever you wish to call it.

Or perhaps I should just have been to sleep some time ago. One must live up to the name though.