Pagan Ritual as a Means of Therapy and Self-Empowerment

The question that I attempted to consider relates to the advantages of contemporary Pagan rituals, as performed by a group of Israeli Pagans nowadays. Ritual is viewed as a special language that is expressed in structured actions, performed in a special space, at a specific period of time. Humans have the capacity to create a verbal language and use it for social communication. A similar mechanism enables humans to create rituals. Ritual behavior is initiated by a certain cause, which means that it has a purpose. Most scholars consider ritual as a social mechanism that enables society to experience its ethos, and bring different streams of ideologies into cohesion. It is also accepted that ritual is performed in order to restore order in the social type of existence that has been threatened or damaged. Among the different ritual theories on which I base my approach, I prefer Gruenwald’s ritual theory. Gruenwald understands ritual as a performative expression of cerebral (or cortical) processes, similar to the linguistic cognitive and conceptual processes. In religion, rituals are performed in a context that seeks meaning in the framework of the holy (Gruenwald, 2003, pp. 3, 12). The actual performance of ritual ceremony achieves its goal by causing actual transformation of the reality that needs change (for instance: creating a sacred time, or conferring a sacred status). The actual change is a mental transformation; the mind strives to gain control over reality. The ritual performed restores an infracted metaphysical condition. According to Gruenwald, in order to achieve the ritual goal it has to be performed in some context that is meaningful for the participants. The myth, of which the participants are familiar with, confers that context. The Neo-Pagan ritual context is based on the mythic idea that our universe is interconnected in an all-inclusive energetic web. I intend to demonstrate the process that enables the ritual participants to undergo an emotional and spiritual transformation that elevates their self-esteem, and give their life a meaning of a life worth living.