A Grimoire of Ancient Magics

Chapter III The Basics of a Ritual

There are some who will tell you that in order to perform a ritual you will need candles, a pentagram, incense, and so on so forth. while candles are definatly a must the rest of this stuff just contributes to the, as called earlier, grand spanking mindf***. As a magus it is nescissary to write your own rituals and spells. but for clarity sake, i will use one of my own for demonstration.
this ritual is called the summonig of the solar serpent. The solar serpent is an astral spirit who, according to myth, vomits out the sun each morning. it supposedly bestowes upon the summoner at request knowledge of the travels of the heavenly bodies and alchemal operations. as i wrote this myself it might seem a bit...boring as i tend to stick to old magics. PLEASE NOTE: No magus should EVER give out his own incatations.
to perform this ritual you will need a sword, 6 white candles, a dark area, 4 helpers, the ritual itself written by your hand, and the Tetragramaton Triangle (see The Key of Solomon a.k.a. Clavicula Salomonis) on the floor.
Light the candles and extinguish any other light source. arrange the candles into a rough hexagram on the floor. The 4 helpers will stand at the four cardinal points of the compass and the triangle will be at the northwest. The magus will step into the centre of the hexagram and raise the sword in salute to the four helpers. he will then raise the sword above his head and recite his incatiation. to end the ritual, the magus will recite his banishment and give his permission to the spirit. then raising the sword he will salute his helpers and call the ritual to and end.
Now As you are reading this you may be saying to yourself that this is pretty easy. NO IT ISNT! A ritual like this requires mental preperation and physical stamina. As for the spirit invoked, the Solar Serpent, he is a very hard entity to control if you don't know what you're doing.
As i said before, no magus should ever tell another his incatations. this is a personal rule that i live by because of some nasty things that happened in the past. There are a few entities that require a set incantation. Such beings include the Archangel Michael, Beelzebub, Pazuzu, Gabriel, Azazel, and Azriel. In the case of these beings, you will have to look up the proper ritual on your own.