As I learn more about ceremonial magic, it seems like everyone insists that following ceremony rigorously is super important, but it comes off as a kind of posturing.

Everyone knows this stuff is all made up or received personal gnosis, but we pretend that it's some kind of canon. (Well OK, not everyone at all, but there is a vocal faction who insist on correctness.)

There is a pretense toward rigor: "No this is REAL. It's essential to get this stuff right because there are CONSEQUENCES" And there are?

But then grimoires turn out to be full of errors, or have different manuscript copies that disagree with each other, are used for centuries and work OK?

And this pretense also feels like pro wrestlers puffing themselves up, talking shit before a match. Part of good style is to pretend to believe it's real.

Possibly part of effectiveness is pretending to oneself that one believes it's real and definitely not acknowledging the fakeness to one's Adversary. It feels like there's a degree of BDSM theater to Solomonic magic, to sorcery.

For a magician to reveal how the trick is done breaks suspension of disbelief and all the hotness drains out of the scene. People really can get hurt in power exchange or in pro wrestling. Physically, but also in subtle, less obvious ways.

Safety actually is important, but it turns out it's important in ways that seem largely orthogonal to the danger as presented in the ritual's narrative.

I'm... probably not supposed to be talking about this.

Tacere!