Desire is one of the fundamental aspects of ritual. It is also comparative. That is, it is born from the recognition that something could be better in relation to an ideal. The first step in ritual is then to look at the desire, what we actually want to change.
After understanding our base desire (such as to have more money), we then need to understand a few key features. Preliminary divination can help us here:
1. What prevents us from obtaining what we desire?
2. What supports us in obtaining what we desire?
3. What are the short term consequences of what we desire?
4. What are the long term consequences of what we desire.
Having an answer to the four, we can work our ritual but also decide whether it's a removal or a generating spell.
1) Removal: Made for the task of reducing an issue or influence of a concept.
2) Generation: Made for the task of increasing an influence of a concept
If/then statements can then be derived. Let's carry on with our money spell example. We note that we want enough money to survive the month, since we're assured of long-term finances through a salary, so we just need something to cover the bills that suddenly came up. Likewise, we have a business on the side that can provide a stream of avenue. Our If/Then statement can then be:
If I do a ritual to bolster my conversion rate then I can get money to cover my bills.
We can then also note that the spell is generative:
If I can get my customers interested in my product, then they'll be more inclined towards buying it.
Mercury seems to be a good fit for the ritual, as well as his associations with opening doors, and short-term luck (making him good for gamblers). He also governs over communications in various forms, making him the Planetary patron of marketers and salespeople. Thus our ritual is to invoke the Generative Aspect of Mercury
If I invoke Mercury as the Provider of Sales, then I can increase traffic and conversion rates for my product.
As said, desire is one of the cornerstones of ritual. By this action of thinking, we also generate desire that is then released at the ritual towards Mercury. Now begins the process of developing a ritual for invoking the Planet. Luckily, there's multiple sources for what we can use for the ritual, as well as personal correspondences.
We then invoke the force, resulting in the climax of the mental accumulation and desire. This process is the resolution phase of the spell, remarking that we have gone and done what we needed to do.
After this, we can do post liminary divination to understand how the forces may impact our work.
1) What changes should I expect?
2) What will be removed in the ritual?
3) Will the ritual itself work as intended?
4) What signs should I look out for?
