Virtual Ritual on Grex?

Dec 28 23:53 UTC 1994

So here I am, reading the Autumn issue of _Green_Egg_ on the bus
today, and I see an article about rituals on the computer.
"Great!" I thought. "I've always been interested in doing
rituals within cyberspace."  Imagine my surprise when the author,
a professed computer program, blasts at the entire concept
of "virtual ritual", denigrating the entire realm of cyberspace
as a flimsy veil covering the Real reality, whatever the Hecate
that's supposed to mean.  He said that it was "an inherently
dead, mechanistic place..."  And here I've been astounded at the
beauty of this place, where people from across the world can
interact, hopefully to create a new understanding of life,
the universe, and all that.

Well, feh.  My credo is "If you're angry, do something about it or
shut up."  So I decided to do something about it.

How many folks here are interested in attending a virtual ritual
right here on Grex?  Suggestions?  Comments?

response 2 of 82:

Dec 29 04:06 UTC 1994

Real-time interaction is what I had in mind.

response 4 of 82:

Dec 29 06:53 UTC 1994

Oh I'm sure it'd make a mess.

response 6 of 82:

Dec 29 14:55 UTC 1994

In the words of the silly naif...
What harm could it do?
We could do it in a private channel on Party, even.

I"ve done Tarot readings in party, and they worked fine, in fact,
better than in real life.  :)

response 8 of 82:

Dec 29 23:53 UTC 1994

Yes, I was figuring on a private party channel, the only other way
to do multiple folks in real-time would be ytalk, which will give
us each one or two lines at a time.  >8(

response 10 of 82:

Dec 30 18:03 UTC 1994

The keyboard limitation is the problem, Kami dear.  The singular
log-in problem can be overcome by prefacing one person's entries
(the person whose log-in is NOT being used) with their initial.
It's been done on Party; I 've done it.  E.g.:
kami:    We invoke the powers to the east.
robh:    We invoke the powers to the south.
kami:    (B) We invoke the powers to the west.
anne:    We invoke the powers to the north.
(Powers that be... the above is an example, we're not starting a ritual,
please don't be invoked!  :)

I'm sure we can get over the keyboard hogging, or I could just be there 
for moral support.  :)

response 12 of 82:

Dec 30 22:20 UTC 1994

I'm beginning to think I should have gone upstairs.

response 14 of 82:

Dec 31 02:12 UTC 1994

I think most of us have at least some Wiccan background, so that might
be the best general format, but even then, do we need to specify a
tradition of Wicca?  What deities?  Are we trying to work with a particular
pantheon, a generalized "great goddess" and "horned god", or each person
name their favorite/patron, or do we try to choose those most appropriate
to the purpose and medium regardless of pantheon?  Also with quarters:
are we calling them as guardians or qualities?  Into where- the computer,
(that is- the Sun3 which is Grex), the network, all of our own spaces,
ourselves, or what?
Do we plan to raise energy?  How?  To what purpose? HOw to contain it
so that it doesn't diffuse into the ether and so it doesn't fry anyone's
hardware?  Who sends it and who directs the ritual?  Yourself, I would
think, Rob. 
I know a delightful woman who is one of the moderators of the pagan live
discussion on AOL and has done cyber-ritual.  I'll see if I can get her
to log in here and talk with us about it.

response 16 of 82:

Dec 31 06:00 UTC 1994

Oh stop it, you two.  We're having a serious conversation here.
Gerund, you *should have* come upstairs, but you didn't feel comfortable,
and you should never enter a ritual space when you're not completely 
comfortable.  It's not only a bad experience for you, it's a bad 
experience for the others whose energy is diffused as a result.
So no, in the end, you *shouldn't* have come upstairs.

Now that we've confused everyone else, let's get back to the topic.

I would think we would want to start with an impromptu ritual with 
pre-assigned roles (which we'd need an HP or HPess to assign to
interested parties... Rob, would you be willing?  I'll HP if no-one
else wants to.).  While specific magic might be an idea, it would
have to be known that the first ritual would most likely have shaky
energy at best... the first time is always the most anxiety-riddled,
and many of us are unfamiliar with each other's magic.  I've ritualed
with a few of you (Kami, of course, and Val and Vampyre, and probably 
a few others here), but other than that and conversations, the 
unknown factor would be tense.  But I think impromptu is better than
scripted for this, at least the first time, because a script would
have to be *saomebody's* script.  Unless Rob wants to write the whole
ritual, seeing as this was HIS idea.  :)

response 18 of 82:

Dec 31 14:08 UTC 1994

Yeah, it was my idea, wasn't it?  >8)  I will gladly HP, of
course.  As for script vs. improv, I'd at least like us to
have it organized in ageneral way, i.e. first we cast the
circle, then we call the quarters, then invocations, then
whatever the Hecate we're doing this ritual for, then
the devocations/sending/opening.

But I would want people to type things in as they wanted
to, during the ritual itself.  If all I wanted was to get
a scheduled display of exact sequences of text, I could write
a program to do that.  >8)

So, should we figure out a good time for this?  I just
noticed that my calendar doesn't have lunar phases marked,
so I'll drag out my Old Farmer's Almanac, hang on...

OK, Full Moon is the 16th, which is also when the next
Grex Board election starts, interestingly enough.  The next
New Moon after that is on the 30th.

response 20 of 82:

Dec 31 17:59 UTC 1994

Rob, of course... that's the way our coven works.  A skeleton of
who does what when, and the specific words and actions are up to
the individual.  Now that I'm thinking about it, would we want to
restrict the first one to people who are fairly familir with party 
(familiar enough to do noises, etc.)?

Has anybody asked this:  Should the ritual be open (via invite) or
closed (only the participants)?  And once the circle is cast, I assume
we ignore people knock-knock-knocking on the door.

response 22 of 82:

Jan 1 02:48 UTC 1995

next time?

response 24 of 82:

Jan 1 20:53 UTC 1995

(But after Imbolg is Ostara, which is hopefully outside, so "upstairs"
will then become a metaphor :)