Enhancing the Experience: Rituals, Magic, and Theater

Magic or Theater?

As long as the participants go away with the right sense of having had a religious experience, it doesn't matter whether the elements of the the ceremony were designed to give good theater or good magic. In fact, I'd bet that at any given successful blot, some of the participants will walk away thinking it was great magic and some that it was a great service.

Practical experience tells us that, with a larger group, you get better results with a more controlled and elaborate ritual. It could be crowd control, group dynamics, or the need to overcome magical static. In the long run, we have no way of knowing which aspect is more "real".

I note that the rough structure of a good "performance" is very similar to the structure of a magical rite (disclaiming that my experience with magic of this kind is vicarious, mostly from reading scripts).

Every ritual ought to have a portion of what I call "magic of belief". It seems to me that the purpose of certain acts is to speak to the belief within those who participate and to put them into a desirable frame of mind, to develop the correct emotional states to give an uplifting experience.

The Hammer Rite, toasting, and the other, smaller, rituals of everyday life remind us of our troth and of the nature of the occasion, bind us together as believers, things like that. Any magical effect (if any) is a side effect. In my observation, it comes from feedback from the participants, not directly from the ritual act itself.

Structure and Pacing

You can see that most effective public ceremonies and religious rituals have similar structures. Success or failure is not based on magic at all, but on how well you design and execute the program to meet the expectations and emotional needs of the participants. You have to build in their beliefs and the symbols associated with those beliefs. But a lot of the effect comes from pacing and emotional pitch.

When I was young (way back in Yore), I designed drill team routines--old fashioned ones, with marching rather than dancing and music. Anyway, when we were developing a drill, we had to pay a lot of attention to the natural rhythms of people's emotional involvement and attention. Here is the structure of a short drill:

  1. Pause (to focus the audience's attention and center the team)
  2. Big opening move (to mark a definite beginning)
  3. Strong follow-up (to draw the audience in)
  4. Lull (build up to first climax)
  5. Small climax (this gives the audience an emotional attachment)
  6. Lull (build up to the major climax)
  7. Major climax (focal point of the drill)
  8. Lull (set up for exiting sequence)
  9. Short, powerful sequence (echo major climax)
  10. Big closing move (to mark a definite ending)
  11. Pause
  12. Exit
The proportions of the sections are important. For example, a lull that is either too long or too short will ruin the effect of the next active section. If you are building a longer program, you put in more alternating large and small climaxes separated by lulls, all building up to the Major Climax. Too many Big Moments burns out the audience.

So this is why I say that no magic is required to organize or lead a religious ceremony. You can make an excellent, satisfying, uplifting, fully rewarding religious experience using completely mundane methods.


[Whirl] To the Reeves Hall

Last Modified 28 January 1998.
Comments to Manny Olds, oldsma@pobox.com