EEs/EHEs in General ,Techniques Record Type: Review   ID: 312
The Art of Ritual: A Guide to Creating and Performing Your Own Rituals for Growth and Change Beck, Renee, & Metrick, Sydney Barbara
Major life changes and periods of transition can be assisted by some form of ritual. Rites that used to be performed by the church or family are now often left up to the individual and his or her private symbols. The purpose of this volume is to help people to recognize their relevant symbols and develop their own rituals. The types of rituals the authors specify, in a general way, are beginnings, mergings, cycles, endings, and healings. They provide chapters on the specific roles ritual plays in our lives: the type of symbols, historical, archetypal, and personal, that can be incorporated in ritual; the ritual process; the elements of ritual; the creation of tools and their consecration; how to make an altar; guidelines and a worksheet for creating one’s own rituals; applications of rituals; an example of ritual: the rite of spring, and a list of elemental correspondences for use in rituals. We usually think of ritual in connection with major life changes such as graduation, engagement, marriage, birthdays, holidays, death, and many more occasions that are rooted in objective occurrences and are collectively recognized. However, perhaps even more needful of ritual embodiment are exceptional experiences. I have often written of the importance of naming an anomalous experience, sharing it with others, looking up the lore of that type of experience, finding fellow experiencers or better yet, groups of people who have had the same or similar experiences. If the experience proves to be transformative (i.e., if it becomes an exceptional human experience) the person will be involved in realizing aspects of his or her potential that are probably new and sometimes unanticipated, as when an NDEer becomes psychic. Often there are powerful experiences that are not socially sanctioned or recognized. Specific types of EHEs can form the basis of ritual; ritual, in turn, can serve to extend and amplify the EHE. This happens more or less spontaneously in the development of a Project of Transcendence, but the process can likely be assisted by the deliberate creation and practice of ritual. This volume could be very useful in doing so and in helping others to do so as well.
Publisher Information:	Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1990. 146p. Bibl: 145-146; 26 figs; Glossary: 143-144

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