The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Does anyone do their rituals without speaking at all?  If so, what's your approach - do you make writing things down into a part of the ritual, perhaps, or do you just make a point of devising your rituals as 'actions only'?  I am definitely by nature more of a 'words person' than anything else, so feel I would be losing something important if I tried to make my rituals 'action only', but does this work for other people?  Do you just have to get used to feeling silly and override it?

Maybe it's because I feel like it would draw attention to me?  I'm very rarely in the house on my own, so perhaps the feeling that I'm being 'overheard' is getting in the way for me, even though my partner is Pagan?  (I have never done any rituals with him around, so I'm uncertain as to what his feelings about it would be, exactly...)  Sometimes I do rituals outdoors, which tends to be in a bit of a dodgy area so although I don't have any difficulty finding a secluded spot, I also instinctively don't want to draw attention to myself there as the seclusion could work against me.  

Or perhaps I'm just being an idiot :p

First off, I don't think you're being any kind of an idiot.  IME, when something that I have no issue with in other areas of life becomes an issue in regards to ritual, I take that as a marker that I'm dealing with or approaching Something Important. Uncomfort for me is a flag that says 'pay attention'.

There are many traditions in which speech is considered to be sacred, or in which sacred utterance in ritual is important. Perhaps that is something of an issue here. Is your speaking in ritual impromptu, or prepared? Perhaps your instincts (or divinities) are nudging you towards a position of more considered speech in ritual, rather than no speech at all.

Many people believe that words have power, and words spoken in ritual circumstance even more so, but that said, a silent ritual can have great power, even if its simply because the absence of speech focuses intent by its very absence. But honestly, my feeling reading your words, that you feel like something will be missing if you go silent, is that focusing *more* on speech in ritual might be a better fit (not necessarily a more comfortable fit) for you.

But honestly, my feeling reading your words, that you feel like something will be missing if you go silent, is that focusing *more* on speech in ritual might be a better fit (not necessarily a more comfortable fit) for you.

That was the conclusion I came to when I started doing actual ritual.  Speaking out loud gave me a flushed, tingly, embarrassed feeling, but also made me feel a whistly kind of power around the edges.  I learned to anticipate that feeling as a signal that I was doing what I was supposed to do.

I still get that feeling when I speak in ritual, and it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm alone or in front of a dozen other people.  That feeling of being off my centre, in the spotlight, and working without a net somehow translates to total 'rightness'.  I'm supposed to be out on that ledge, I'm supposed to be hyper-aware, I'm supposed to not be comfortable.

If I'm too calm and measured I feel like I'm giving a recitation.  I'm good at that - presentation and improvisation were favourites of mine in public school.  But I feel like I have to a little out of control, a little off balance, to do anything 'real' with the words.

Absent

I haven't seen this mentioned on the old boards or heard it raised as a possible issue for newbies - does anyone else have this problem or am I just weird like that?

First, it is a totally normal and common reaction (and there are a number of books that mention it, though usually not at huge length.) Honest, you're really not alone here.

Does anyone do their rituals without speaking at all?  If so, what's your approach - do you make writing things down into a part of the ritual, perhaps, or do you just make a point of devising your rituals as 'actions only'?  I am definitely by nature more of a 'words person' than anything else, so feel I would be losing something important if I tried to make my rituals 'action only', but does this work for other people?  Do you just have to get used to feeling silly and override it?

 
It's possible to do ritual silently, but it's not the option I generally suggest for a variety of reasons.

Saying things out loud in some form - and I'll come back to that in a moment - does multiple things for our brains and bodies and ritual.

First, while we can think thoughts very clearly, nothing crystalises them like putting them into words.

Second, speaking aloud (even quietly) engages our body in a variety of ways: we must breathe (and can therefore be more conscious of our breath), we form the shape of the words with our bodies, and then we also hear them - so we're engaging multiple senses (kinesthetic, auditory) at the same time, which helps us focus and refine the energy we're working with.

And third, there's a reason why so many magical systems talk about words having power - putting something out into the air is a way of giving it shape in the world, which is a really potent step for magical or ritual work. Thinking them inside our heads doesn't do that in the same way, and it doesn't become as 'real' for us as hearing makes them. (And even writing them down is a bit more distant than saying and hearing them.)

And finally, there's a part of me that thinks that saying stuff out loud helps with better communication. Certainly, in group work that's true, but I think it's also true when we're talking to Gods or other beings, or the universe in general, all of whom are inclined to be mysterious and cryptic. There's no reason we should encourage that.

By being up front and pragmatic in what we say to *them* and how we say it, we set the tone for how they communicate with us. (This is not a perfect system, but I've found it at least helps the mystic and cryptic stuff I get be more useful, if you see what I mean.)

So, what to do if you feel really silly saying stuff out loud? Some options include:

- Look at what you're saying.

I feel really silly saying lousy poetry with bad scansion out loud, and there's rather a lot of it in some Craft books. So I don't say that stuff, and go find and/or create stuff that works better for me in terms of pure use of language. (My pet peeve here is faux-archaic language, like thee and thou, which most people get very wrong. But there's other stuff like that, too.)  

- Start small

One really simple thing to do is to start with a very simple thing (say, a daily blessing that's out loud) and build up to longer more formal ritual language or things that seem a bit sillier to say.) For a lot of people, something like "I welcome today. Let there be [whatever blessings: clear communication, good fortune, whatever]" is a little easier than saying, say, a circle cast or a quarter call.

- Talk softly

Nothing says you have to declaim your ritual speeches like an actor if you're working by yourself (If you're working with others, it helps for them to hear you, of course.)

It's perfectly fine to speak quietly - especially if there are other people around who would be disturbed by you saying stuff in the next room (because they're trying to concentrate, watch something on TV, whatever.) But even speaking in a near-whisper is, in my experience, more effective on multiple levels than doing it all silently.

- And, of course, experiment.

I do think it's good to experiment with how we do things in ritual, including doing things based on actions alone. The trick is that this works better when you have solid experiences to compare it to - so doing stuff silently when you don't have much experience saying things out loud isn't much of a comparison. Doing it when you do have more experience gives you a better basis to compare. (And for the reasons outlined already, doing stuff out loud tends to be easier for us once we get over feeling silly.)

I've got some more comments about things feeling silly here: http://gleewood.org/seeking/practices/feeling-silly/ in case that's also helpful.

This is the best advice I can think of.  I could never say stuff like "So mote it be" because honestly, it sounds... dumb.  Before you do your ritual, examine the words you're going to say.  If you were to make a recording of yourself during the ritual, would you really want to have a copy of yourself saying those words lying around for all time?  If you're embarrassed by what you're saying, your words aren't going to have much effect, psychologically or otherwise.  Good luck

 
Interestingly enough, I'm fine with "So mote it be" in ritual context, because it's reasonably correct archaic usage. (Though I think it's silly sounding in most other contexts.)

(This is the problem with being a medievalist by undergraduate training: you can never again read faux-archaic language without going "No, no, that's not how that works!"

There's also a difference that might be worth digging into here between 'silly' and 'embarassing'. There's lots of stuff we can learn from the edge of discomfort that's where silly often sits - things that feel unusual or weird to us, but that help us get into a different frame of mind. (And personally, that's been a particularly rich vein of learning and growth in my Craft life.)

It's uncomfortable, but it's uncomfortable like doing improv acting exercises is,  or like talking about why I read certain genres is, or talking about why I paint my toenails blue as a religious devotion: it feels weird but it's also useful (to me, and to people around me) because it illuminates new ideas.

Embarrassing, for me, is the stuff that feels weird, but that I regret doing later. Ritual shouldn't be embarrassing, because you should figure out before you do whatever you're doing whether you want that outcome (it's just plain good ritual planning.)

That doesn't mean it might not happen occasionally, but that's usually due to some other factor - someone interrupting you, something going wrong in a weird way, stuff like that.

I think speaking quietly might help.  I kind of felt like if I do that, am I being too tentative, or not giving the ritual it's due weight?  But if I speak more loudly, I do get that feeling like I'm doing a recitation or speaking to an 'audience', and that messes up the vibe for me, so perhaps quietly is the way to go.  :cf:

 
That's also pretty common.

Part of what can help with that is thinking about *how* you talk in different situations. After all, we talk differently when we're speaking to a friend than when we're making a big presentation to an audience.

There are some ritual styles that are more like dinner with one or two friends. And there are some that are more like a big presentation. If there's a mismatch, then it can feel very odd.

..

There is one aspect that does not appear to have been mentioned here, that is the final releasing of ones old beliefs.  To make an audio statement of beliefs of ones new beliefs is the final hurdle many must face to release the old.  Yet there is apprehension and hesitation in doing so which many newbies I have encountered have difficulty in doing.

To say it out loud is to broadcast it to the world some what.  As long as it is simply held inside no one is the wiser about the change in belief.  Once spoken there really is no way to unspeak what was said.

I have a really hard time saying things out loud too!
I notice turning them into a song is better for me, sometimes.
I think the sillyness will subside after it becomes comfortable with doing ritual...

 
When I started out with ritual, I would do them in silence or speaking very softly. Most of the time one could not hear me over the music.  Part of this was because of nervousness and being new, part of it was because I was in the Army barracks at the time... ;-)

I still am much more comfortable keeping my voice at a low volume.  One reason is that pitch and tone can lend a lot of power to a word, and it is easier for my voice to hold that at low volume.  The other is that I am simply not comfortable shouting.  I have worked whole rituals in complete silence before and found them to be completely effective- one need not necessarily voice intent.

Your mileage will vary.