A topic that I’ve seen come up in many circles (most recently in a recent Meet and Greet for those of us who attend Gracepointe church services online) is the topic of worship. And a common question seems to be one over whether there is an actual Divine experience there or whether it’s a purely emotional experience. As a witch who has come to greatly appreciate religious and magical ritual alike, I suspect that worship involves — or at least can involve both of those things.
One of the things that I have learned as a witch is the importance of a ritual state of consciousness (and other altered states of consciousness). I’ve also come to understand that well-crafted rituals are designed to create various states of consciousness in the participants. And that includes evoking certain emotions.
I also don’t think that this is a bad thing. Evoking certain emotions and states of consciousness can be very useful and beneficial. (I’ll come back to that in a bit.) It’s okay that the worship music (or other aspects of some other ritual) are carefully selected to have a particular impact on participants, as long as participants are aware of what’s happening and they consent to it.
And I think it’s that if that creates the problem. I think a lot of people go into worship not understanding that they’re essentially participating in an activity that is designed to evoke these things. Instead, they’ve often be encouraged to think of them as something that “just happens” or that it’s a sure sign that their experience is “from God.” In my opinion, that’s dishonest and discourages those people from going into that experience and viewing it afterward through critical analysis and thought. But for those aware that they’re participating in an intentionally constructed experience, I think it can be both beneficial and illuminating.
This doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s no experience of the Divine in such experiences. As a matter of fact, as a witch who is heavily interested in theurgy (loosely defined as magic related to connecting/uniting with the divine1), I think that we go through these rituals that evoke these emotions and states of consciousness to aid and encourage an experience of the Divine. In that moment of emotionalism or ecstasy, we may gain a new insight which may cause us to see things in a new light. Hopefully it causes us to gain a renewed or deepened sense of compassion, a heightened desire to be a champion for justice, or some other positive outcome.2
To me, the important thing is to understand the difference between the intentionally generated emotions and the experience of the Divine (or other spiritual insight) that comes from it. I think far too many people have been encouraged to mistake the former for the latter and even completely ignore the latter altogether. Such people tend to think that the emotional trip is the end goal rather than a means to seek out something deeper. On the flip side, some people who realize that worship (and similar ritual activities) intentionally invokes emotions and respond by throwing the whole practice out altogether. I don’t think that’s necessary to do, though.
1I’m not entirely satisfied with this brief definition of theurgy because I believe we are always united with the Divine. Instead, I think we’re just often unawareness of that fact. So maybe theurgy would better be described as magical acts that raise our awareness of our connection to/union with the Divine.
2I am firmly convinced that the measure of any mystical experience should not be how “real” it is, but what effect it has on you and whether it makes you more inclined to want to make the world a better place.