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b"Abby Spinner MacBride: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/abbi-spinner-mcbride/267315505\\n\\xa0\\nRemember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com\\n\\xa0\\nS3E9 TRANSCRIPT:----more----\\nYucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Yucca.\\xa0\\nMark: And I'm Mark.\\xa0\\nYucca: And today we're talking about rituals and the ritual toolbox. So, yeah, there's a lot of different tools that we can use to help us in ritual. But before that, we wanted to talk about what ritual actually is, is something we talk about a lot on this podcast, but it's so central that it's really important to come back to.\\nSo what it is, what's the goal. And then these things that can help us in that process.\\nMark: Right. Yeah. Because one of the things that is different about paganism and this is true of science-based paganism as well, is that. Kind of just going to a church or a temple Or a mosque or something like that. And listening to somebody else, do the ritual mostly as a passive as a passive observer, except when you sing a hymn once in a while or something like that.\\nYucca: Or you go up for communion or\\xa0\\nMark: Right, right. Pagans create their own rituals and they engage everybody that's involved in the ritual, in the activities of that. ritual. And so we need to have our own ritual toolbox set up so that we have the skillsets necessary to be able to do effective ritual with ourselves. And then also with groups of people.\\xa0\\nYucca: Right. Yeah, because we're the ones doing it. It's not being done to us. So, yeah. And so these tools they're like any tool, there's something that you get good at when you practice it right. In the first time. It's, the first time you try and hammer that nail in, it it's harder than it looks.\\nRight. So that can be the same with some of these.\\nMark: Yeah, for sure. And of course, when we talk about ritual, what we're talking about as a, as a goal is to reach what I call the ritual state, which is also often called trance it's it's a state of, of the mind that is dominated by the limbic system. So it tends to be very emotionally open and vulnerable. And also very much in the present moment. So not thinking about what's going to happen next, not worrying about what happened last week, very focused in the present\\xa0\\nYucca: Right.\\nMark: and that trance state is very powerful because it's a state that once we get into it, it's sort of like the admin condition for a computer and start changing things in your, in your consciousness.\\nAnd changing stories that you tell yourself and memories that you have, you can, you can tinker with that stuff when you're in the trans.\\xa0\\nYucca: Yeah. It's like you've gotten past all of those walls that are built and all of the filters that you have and, and just kind of gotten back to that more raw place.\\nMark: Right, right. Which is a two-edged sword, right? Because on the one hand, it's very powerful and we can have very, very powerful, spiritual and emotional experiences by doing this. But it also means that if something goes wrong, it can really wound someone. So we want to be very careful when we do our rituals, that we create very self safe space and that we have good ritual etiquette, which we'll be talking about later\\xa0\\nYucca: Okay.\\nMark: and, really pay attention to the well-being of everyone that's in the circle.\\xa0\\nYucca: Exactly. Yeah. Including oneself.\\xa0\\nMark: Yes. Yes. So why don't we start in understanding that these are tools to help us to get into and to stay into trance and go to our first one, which is\\xa0\\nYucca: Well chance.\\xa0\\nMark: chanting.\\xa0\\nYucca: Yeah.\\nMark: Chanting is something that people have been doing for at least tens of thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands of years. And it's you, it's all over the world. You find people who sing for religious reasons. And typically those songs have certain characteristics. They tend to be repetitive. You repeated over and over and over. Because what happens in a trends is"