This page groups rituals by the year their recorded history begins. Wikipedia notes that "the word 'ritual' is first recorded in English in 1570, and came into use in the 1600s to mean 'the prescribed order of performing religious services'." Browsing by start year lets a visitor see how far back a given ritual's documented history actually reaches.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe magic-and-religion boundary that produced this category was built by Victorian evolutionist anthropology, Tylor and Frazer above all, as a way of ranking other people's rites below one's own. It is no longer accepted as a descriptive distinction and survives here as the name of a self-identified Western tradition. 2 Overview
What Defines This GroupingRites held to produce an effect directly through the correct performance of a procedure - banishing, evocation, circle-casting, the drawing of a deity into a celebrant. The grouping follows the self-description of practitioners in the modern Western ritual-magic tradition rather than an outsider's judgement about what works. 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryUsed, but its validity as a comparative category is disputed 2 Learn More
The Magical Rituals
This group gathers magical rituals, the operative ceremonies of the magical traditions, by which the practitioner seeks to act upon the world or the self through contact with spirits, powers or hidden forces, following prescribed timings, tools and words.
The browser will find magical rituals from the esoteric traditions. The entries describe each rite's structure and purpose, treating the ceremonies as objects of a documented tradition.
1st century
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Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Cambridge University Press, 2012
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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