GUEST POST: Atheopagan Testify! A Banishing Ritual

A guest post by Kaigi-Ron

I needed to purge some major ugliness from my life, and command it to GET LOST, so I could move forward with my life.

Banishing Ritual:

Cast a circle & call to the 4 directions
Inside the circle, you can call on anyone/anything you like to assist you
Place physical representations of the things or beings you want to BANISH in the fire pit
TELL them you are hereby banishing them from your circle – repeat for all 4 directions
Burn ‘em with Fire! Make certain any writing has been completely turned to ash
Disperse the circle
Dispose of ashes in the furthest part of the yard

For my banishment items, one was a stick figure of a particularly negative person. I embellished it with stink lines and 3 buzzing flies. Then X-d out her heart and face. And lastly, burnt her. So there, nyah.

Did it work? YES!! I felt immediate relief afterword. And I was left with a feeling of greater command over my life, and a feeling of stronger security. I kicked those creeps outta here!

So I hereby TESTIFY, AP clerics and allies: AP Ritual WORKS! (no woo required!)

…I was getting ready to wrap up the ritual when I suddenly realized I hadn’t “logged off” (!) – in other words, I had not dispersed the circle I’d cast. It was like leaving the phone off the hook.

The fact that this concept dawned on me during the ritual is proof that if you start off from the Atheist perspective, you can, through practice, better understand the Pagan perspective. “Magical” thinking does abide by rules, after all, even if it is not rational.

Ritual: The File Management System of Your Mind

A ritual uses IRL objects to represent thoughts and concepts. It’s basically a type of GUI.

Now you’ve truly “got a handle on it” – because through ritual, you are literally manipulating representative items. It’s tactile – simple, yet effective.

BUT you have to really MEAN it for it to work – it’s Method Acting time, my friend.