A Pagan Ritual Prayer Book (7 page)

Since so many ancient deities were fond of sacrifices, it is good to do them; since modern sensibilities may be offended by sacrifices, it is good
not
to do them. There is a way out of this dilemma, however, a way that has been used by Pagans both ancient and modern—the use of symbolic substitutes. Something else is named an animal and then treated as one.

Bread has always been the most common substitute. Under the influence of vegetarian Hinduism, for instance, Zoroastrians in India took the bread and butter that had accompanied sacrifices (Jamaspasa, 1985) and used it to replace the sacrifice itself (Modi, 1922, 296–8). A modern example is the replacement of goats with rice wrapped in banana leaves in a 1975 celebration of the Vedic
agnicayana
ritual (Staal, 1983, II:464–5).

Bread can be indentified more closely with an animal by forming it into an animal shape. Baking pans in animal shapes are available for use as molds for forming bread, or as a way to make a cake (another possible substitute) in the proper shape.

Other substitutes are possible, and were made in ancient times as well, possibly by those unable to afford an actual animal. Clay animals have been found in ritual contexts, and make good sacrifices. They do, however, make sharing with the deities impossible. A piece of meat taken from a meal is another possibility. Butter is a great substitute for cattle—it comes from cows, can be part of a shared meal, and burns well. Melted clarified butter is a beautiful thing.

I don't want to give the impression that animal sacrifice is the most common form of offering. Traditionally, the libation was the most common. The Greeks, for instance, poured a libation before drinking anything. You can see here one of the meanings of sacrifice—the shared meal.

Libations are accordingly the most common form of offering you'll see here. They can be of any drink, although alcoholic ones and milk are the most traditional, and certain deities may prefer certain ones. For instance, a goddess connected with cows, such as Brighid, may prefer milk, whereas deities from Egypt, where beer was an important part of the diet, may like that. Here is another meaning of sacrifice; both milk and alcoholic beverages are offerings of life.

Distilled drinks make especially good offerings into fire, since they burn so well. If you use them, however, be careful; they flare up suddenly. (I once came close to a nasty accident with Drambuie.) Butter burns well, as do oils, and are far less dangerous.

Don't pour anything with a low alcohol content or with none at all (milk, for example) directly onto a fire. It will put the fire out—never a good thing in a ritual. Instead, pour it at the base of the fire.

Bread isn't just a good animal substitute, but a worthy offering in itself. It is the “staff of life,” a representative of food in general. By sharing it with the divine beings, we are therefore sharing part of all our meals. Bread burns pretty well, too, especially when it has been buttered.

Some offerings can't be burned or poured. No problem; coins can be cast into rivers, jewelry can be buried, etc. Here we find another meaning of sacrifice, giving something over to the gods.

Do you see now why I began my discussion of offerings with sacrifice? Its meanings reverberate throughout other forms. What applies to sacrifice applies to all other offerings, with the appropriate changes.

There are many other kinds of offerings as well. The only requirement is that your offering be seen as valuable to the being to whom it is offered. I've included an appendix with general advice on the kinds of offerings appropriate to various deities, but each will have their own preferences. These can only be found out by research and/or experimentation.

Of course, a prayer of praise can be an offering as well. In fact, it always is, and the more beautiful the better.

By now you may be thinking that every single thing about a prayer makes a difference. Good; that is the impression I
meant
to give. Prose or poem, meter, word choice, structure, gestures, movements, music, types of offerings—these all matter. Different choices will give different results.

Your choices reverberate on several levels. They will affect you psychologically, putting your mind into a certain frame to receive the presence of the deities. A prayer in an ancient and appropriate style will evoke thought categories associated with a certain culture.

On the theological level, certain styles may appeal to certain deities. Norse deities were used to being addressed with alliterative verse, Semitic with parallel imagery, etc. Praying in these forms can therefore be expected to strike them as pretty and to please them—something desirable in praises, but also when asking for a favor.

Philosophically, doing the thing appropriate for a given situation is an act of beauty. Joining the right words with the right gesture with the right music creates an even higher form of beauty. Yes, that word again—“beauty.” If you give the gods nothing else, give them beauty.

Pagans, both ancient and modern, have always been fond of ritual. This reflects a major characteristic of Paganism— that what is done is more important than what is believed. That was at once ancient Paganism's greatest weakness and its greatest strength. Because people wanted to perform the best rituals they could, rituals became so complex the average person could neither understand them nor afford to have them celebrated. An emphasis on performance could lead to an empty formalism, with rituals so lacking in emotional appeal that people looked for other ways to satisfy their spiritual desires.

On the other hand, ancient Paganism allowed for more tolerance than belief-centered religion, because it didn't care about what went on inside its practitioners' heads. If practiced correctly, however, ritual-centered religions can be more powerful than creedal ones both at changing beliefs and influencing future actions. That actions change beliefs better than beliefs change actions has been known at least since Aristotle, and expressed since then by such luminaries as Shakespeare and Dr. Phil.

It's difficult to define “ritual.” Anthropologists have come up with many definitions, none satisfactory for everything that people look at and say, “Yep, that's a ritual.” It comes down more to “I knows 'em when I sees'em.”

Still, I should probably make an attempt at definition. I would say that a ritual is a structured sequence of symbolic actions, words, and objects that from the point of view of a performer at the time of performance are believed to be real, not symbolic. It is therefore wrong to take a tool that outside the ritual symbolizes, for example, air, and inside the ritual say, “With this symbol of Air, I call the element of Air into my ritual space.” Rather, you should say: “With this tool of air, I call the element of Air into my ritual space.” If the first is done, the element is symbolically present, but with the second it is
really
there.

This has a great effect on the prayers you use in your rituals. Remember to write your prayers and rituals with confidence, speaking your intent into existence. Outside the ritual, weave together symbols; inside the ritual, create reality. If you don't create reality in a ritual, how can you expect it to manifest when you are done? This is, in fact, the theory behind the use of sacrificial substitutes. A loaf of bread offered with the words “This goat to Thor,” is, for the time of the ritual,
really
a goat.

As we will see in Part II, there are many types of rituals, and rituals can have many purposes. There are rituals of praise, celebrations of life events, celebrations of seasons, and so on, and there are there are rituals for healing, inspiration, safety, etc. I have not exhausted all the possible purposes of ritual, which are as varied as people's relationships with the sacred and with each other. I hope that the prayers I've written for those I've covered can serve as models for those I haven't.

Ritual, as I'm using the term here, is more appropriate for groups than single prayers are. It would be odd to gather a number of people together to say one prayer, and then be done. At the very least, there should be something that says, “OK, we're here,” and another that says, “OK, we're done.”

This does not mean that a complete ritual can't be done by an individual. That's done all the time. It's just that rituals consisting of a single prayer are not common.

Some of the prayers in Part II are written just for groups. You don't need a prayer calling people together if there's only one person, and you need at least two people for a wedding. Others, such as the seasonal prayers, can quite easily be used by individuals.

The way the prayers in a ritual are put together, the ritual's structure, is even more important than the prayers themselves. Without structure you have chaos, and a ritual that is chaotic creates chaos in the rest of your life. Furthermore, a structure increases your understanding of a ritual's purpose as it unfolds. Different purposes may require different structures. However, there is a structure shared by many rituals, one that is almost as obvious as Aristotle's beginning-middle-end for stories, and that follows that pattern as well.

First the participants, if there are more than one, need to gather at the place where the ritual will be held. This often involves a procession, which is usually accompanied by singing, music, or at least a drumbeat. Since it is hard to speak in unison while walking, I haven't included any processional prayers here. Alternatively, people can just gather at the ritual site as they show up. This is especially common with either small or very large groups, and with permanent ritual spaces.

Whether people arrive on their own or after a procession, a ritual needs a clear-cut beginning. Even if it begins with a procession, there needs to be something to start the procession. This can be a musical signal like a drum or gong, but that will usually be followed by a prayer.

Opening prayers have two purposes. First, they bring people together, acknowledging that a ritual has begun and that everyone is there for it. Second, they announce the purpose of the ritual. Is it to present a petition? To celebrate a point in life? Simply to worship?

Once a ritual has begun, the participants must be prepared for the sacred. (This can also be done before a procession.) The usual way to do this is through purification. This was very important in ancient times, and is still important today for most modern Pagans. The bowl of water outside an ancient Greek temple and the water source outside a modern Shinto shrine serve the same purpose.

Although washing is the most common method of purification, sometimes what was necessary was time, or things done, or things not done. For example, inscriptions outside Greek temples give rules for how much time after intercourse, giving birth, or being connected with death had to pass before a person was pure enough to enter. Before a ritual, it's good to ask yourself: “Is there any reason why I shouldn't do this? And if so, how can I fix that?” This question is, in itself, a prayer, and its resolution may be one as well.

There are a variety of reasons for purification. It provides a clear distinction between the sacred and the mundane. It also provides a sense that what is to be done is important. It clears the mind of previous concerns.