The Psi Forum: What Does Ritual Do?

What does it mean for a ritual to “work”? Explore ritual efficacy through research, practitioner knowledge, experience, and inquiry. What does it mean for a ritual to work? Human beings ritualize nearly everything. We use ritual to worship and mourn, prepare for competition, mark transitions, regulate ourselves, create sacred space, seek protection, focus intention—and, in some traditions, attempt to influence people, places, consciousness, or phenomena that may not be readily observable. But when someone says a ritual worked, what exactly are they claiming happened? Did something change in the practitioner? Their attention, physiology, emotion, or perception? Did something change in the experience of the people around them? In the environment itself? And how would we tell the difference? Welcome to the October edition of The Psi Forum, the monthly public forum of the Midwestern Center for Parapsychological Studies (MCPS). Inquiry · Experience · Research · Practice Each month, The Psi Forum brings together research, practitioner knowledge, lived experience, and critical inquiry around a question, phenomenon, or practice relevant to parapsychology and extraordinary human experience. This month, we’re asking: What does ritual do? Rather than beginning with whether ritual “works,” we’ll examine the harder question of what working would actually mean. We’ll consider what research can tell us about ritual, attention, expectation, meaning, embodiment, altered states, and human experience—while also taking seriously the claims made within ritual traditions themselves. Where does established evidence end? Where do interpretation and practitioner experience begin? And where might there be questions that are genuinely open to investigation? This month's practice: The LBRP As a working example, we’ll examine the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), one of the best-known ritual practices within the Western ceremonial-magical tradition. We’ll look at its structure, intended function, practitioner interpretations, and the kinds of changes it is claimed to produce. Then we’ll move from discussion to observation. Following a baseline observation, the LBRP will be demonstrated while participants attend to their own experience without being told what they are supposed to perceive. Afterward, we’ll record observations before discussing them together. A change in experience is not automatically evidence of a paranormal mechanism. A lack of perceived change does not necessarily resolve the question, either. So we’ll take the investigation one step further: How would we actually study this? Together, we’ll consider what a meaningful investigation of ritual efficacy might require. What would we measure? What constitutes an appropriate control? Could participants be blinded? How might expectation or suggestion affect the results? Does practitioner experience matter? What outcome would support the claim being investigated—and what findings wouldn’t? The goal isn’t to arrive at a predetermined answer. It’s to learn how to ask a better question. What to expect The evening will include discussion of the month’s central question and relevant research; historical and practitioner perspectives; an introduction to the LBRP; an experiential demonstration and structured observation; collaborative discussion about research design and interpretation; and a take-home field question for continuing the inquiry beyond the Forum. We’ll also reserve time for MCPS Forum business—updates on current projects, upcoming programs and research interests, and an opportunity for participants to suggest future Psi Forum topics and help shape the developing MCPS community. You do not need previous experience with parapsychology, research, ritual, or ceremonial magic. Experienced practitioners, researchers, experiencers, skeptics, students, and curious newcomers are all welcome. The Forum doesn’t teach to the least-experienced person in the room. It gives everyone a way into the conversation. YOUR OCTOBER FIELD QUESTION Take this question with you: When you encounter a ritual, what is it supposed to change—and how would you know whether it did? Consider religious ritual. Therapeutic ritual. Cultural ritual. Magical ritual. Family ritual. Athletic ritual. Even the tiny rituals you’ve created without realizing you created them. Observe first. Interpret second. Keep asking. ABOUT THE PSI FORUM The Psi Forum is the monthly public forum of the Midwestern Center for Parapsychological Studies. Each Forum approaches psi, consciousness, anomalous phenomena, extraordinary human experience, and related practices through four intersecting dimensions: Inquiry · Experience · Research · Practice Some months may center on an established body of research. Others may examine a practice, case, methodology, spontaneous phenomenon, historical tradition, or unresolved question. The Forum is deliberately participatory. We believe serious inquiry can include empirical evidence, methodological rigor, lived experience, practitioner knowledge, competing interpretations—and the intellectual humility to say we don’t know yet. You don’t have to believe in the paranormal to belong here. You don’t have to dismiss it, either. Midwestern Center for Parapsychological Studies Inquiry · Investigation · Interpretation A serious home for extraordinary experience.