A Clockwork Universe

This short ritual takes as its starting point the idea that the lives of people are intermeshed in much the same way as the gears in a clock or giant machine are interconnected with each other. Turn one gear wheel and the others turn according to their connections to the wheel being turned.

For the purposes of this ritual, try to imagine a scenario where a magician stands at the control room of his universe. This room resembles the inner workings of a giant clock. He stands upon a giant gear wheel that is itself revolving slowly. About this giant gear are a series of leavers, similar to those found in old-fashioned railway signal boxes. The walls of the control room are hidden from view by the numerous various cogs and gears that mesh with the master wheel on which the magician stands. As the magician pulls upon the levers the various cogs and gears are engaged and disengaged, allowing some to be driven by the master wheel, while others are allowed to freewheel or stop turning all together.

THIS THEN, is the process of manipulating one part of the magician's universe while leaving other parts undisturbed. It is intended to allow the magician to manipulate parts of his life that need a small adjustment, particularly where his life interconnects with another person. Should you find that your life is held back by person A's lack of success, while person B will come into play when A's success arrives then a ritual for one of the three of you may not be sufficient.

However, if you can move all of these interconnecting lives forward by just the right amount, while disengaging and leaving alone all the parts that are satisfactory, then you may need a clockwork ritual.

All words to be spoken during the ritual are presented in quotation marks in bold italic as in this line.

Preparing The Temple

Image Copyright Winged Feet Limited (c) 2002 The temple is prepared with the altar in the centre, decorated with the usual magical weapons; wand, athame, cup and disk. The centre of the alter should be given over to circular symbols. The idea is to create a visual impression of interconnecting wheels. The workings of a giant clock would be perfect but not necessary. At the least make something up from circular shapes within each other, where the circles can be shown touching edge to edge.

The specific number of wheels on the alter is unimportant as this is only symbolic. Disengaged elements of the lives of the subjects are not represented for the sake of simplicity and to avoid the danger of the dreaded ten inch pianist.

The rest of the temple should be decorated as for any other ritual, except that any symbols of clocks, gears or other suitable paraphernalia should be added where appropriate according to the practitioners' wishes.

Abbreviated Pentagram Ritual to open

Statement of Intent (with anti pianist clause)

This speech is delivered by any magician so designated:

"In this ritual the wheels of the universe will be turned according to the wishes of he who turns them.

Turning the wheels will have the affect that the lives of [substitute the names of the people to be affected] will move forward in just the way desired by myself, with the affect that each person named here will receive the outcome that they so desire. The effect will be that each person gains the most satisfactory outcome from their present situation while overcoming whatever obstacles they currently face.

Existing satisfactory elements of the lives of the people mentioned will be unchanged, as by the performance of this ritual those elements will be temporarily disengaged so as to be unaffected.

Nothing harmful, untoward, unintended, misinterpreted, misunderstood or unforeseen shall befall any person involved in or affected by this ritual"

Evocation of Nirvana

Instead of evoking a god or other entity for this ritual it was decided to evoke a state of being, in this case Nirvana. The reasons for this are that this state of being is wholly satisfactory for the purposes of this ritual but also because we found an obscure reference to Nirvana and a clockwork universe. This may come from the idea that Nirvana is seen as the extinction of individuality and therefore implies an interconnectedness with other parts of the Universe.

The evocation should be performed by the magician who will make the changes to the positions of the wheels hereafter. The purpose of the evocation is to imbue the symbol of the clock or wheels on the alter (the microcosm referred to), with the qualities of Nirvana and so allow its manipulation to represent the changes required in the external world.

"We call upon the Lord of the Forces of Life to evoke into this Microcosm before us the state of Nirvana so that my actions here turning the interconnecting wheels affect my desired outcome in the Macrocosm."

Turn the wheels

Taking great care the magician makes minute adjustments to the wheels upon the alter. If a real clock is being used then adjusting one part of the mechanism may be sufficient, but be careful not to allow it to run on uncontrolled. If a symbol of a clock is used as when this ritual was first performed, then each touching wheel will have to be adjusted separately with just a minute movement per wheel. Remember that when two gears mesh a gear turning clockwise will drive the next anticlockwise.

Only small adjustments are required as the intention is to make small but crucial changes to specific areas of the lives of the subjects while leaving other areas unaffected.

Repeat Pentagram to finish

Once the adjustments have been made the state of Nirvana can be granted license to depart. This is done at the same time as closing the ritual by performing the pentagram again, either abbreviated or in full.

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