>Spirits.....kind of escape me. Sure, it is called "ecstatic
>worship," but that only gets me so far.
>
>For starters, what is the verb? You sacrifice to a god, you venerate
>a saint, you ???? a spirit? Adore? Bond with? ?????
Bargain with. It's a much more direct transaction than sacrificing to a god.
>Second, obviously you need to achieve an altered state of
>conciousness somehow, but then what? Do you gain the ability to
>think like a spirit, so you can convince it work with you? Or do
>they just like it when you party? i.e. I don't quite get what it is,
>beyond spinning around in circles, fasting, taking drugs, whatever
>that is the key to "worshipping" a spirit.
You give the spirit something it wants in exchange for what it can do for you. That might be remembering a friendly ancestor in exchange for information or the soul of the chief's virgin daughter in exchange for destroying an enemy tribe. IMO a lot of the rituals are to do with contacting the right spirit and avoiding dangerous ones. You won't contact Storm Bull for example without a lot of blood and alcohol. A few heads of chaos beasts will get you some anti-chaos magic.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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