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The Essentials Of Ritual

New Venue: Selgars Mill Estate, Devon

13 – 17 June 2024

With Colin Campbell & Guests

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Joshua Newton
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Course Structure & Fees

Residential Programme

Structure

Dates: 13 – 17 June 2024

Times:
Arrive 5pm on 13 June
Depart 2pm on 17 June

Location: Selgars Mill Estate in Devon, UK. We spend our residential time together at this beautiful venue in single or shared accommodation, fully chef-catered with a plant-based menu. 

Fees: £710 – early bird price of £675 if booked before 31/01/24

If you are not able to attend for financial reasons, we do have a small bursary pot that allows for people to come who would not otherwise be able to. To apply for a bursary please fill in the application form.

An Invitation

Many of us are beginning to realise that the challenges we face, both personally and in our collectives, are not being solved by the logical, rational, materialistic interventions we are making in the world. A different way of working is required, which calls us into relationship with the unseen and subtle forces, flows and deeper levels of reality that surround us.

Ritual is one way of working with these invisible processes and all who have used these archaic and magical processes are aware, from experience, that calls are answered, that the world itself does respond, that there is possibility for reciprocity and conversation with these mysterious forces. Many are also aware that when we make these calls, when we perform ritual together, within a wider circle, we increase the potency of the working, both for ourselves and beyond.

This is a residential week for those who would like to explore and undertake ritual with others, and also to begin to learn the essentials of holding this kind of work for different purposes, individually or with groups.

Some of the questions we will be exploring are:

  • What kind of ritual is appropriate for use in different locations, with different groups and for different purposes?
  • What are the important elements of ritual?
  • To what extent must we follow a particular system or tradition of ritual, and how much can we include our own direct knowing of what is required; what permissions do we need and from where?
  • How much training is needed?
Our time together will include the following:
 
  • sharing our own individual experiences of ritual and what we use, or hope to use, them for;
  • teaching and discussion of what ritual is used for and how it is constructed in the traditions of South Africa and British Isles;
  • discussion of the common elements of ritual that can be designed specifically for place, community or individual;
  • a steam ritual as practiced in the traditions of South Africa;
  • experience of co-creating contemporary ritual together;
  • an overnight vigil with the land

The foundation of our exploration will be based in the ritual traditions of Southern Africa and the British Isles.

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Colin Campbell
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Your Guides

The lead guides of this event are Colin Campbell and Rachel Fleming.

Colin works with the wisdom traditions of South Africa, specifically those that are based on our relationships with the ancestors and spirits of nature. He looks at where these ancient indigenous practices collide and coalesce with the knowledge and belief systems of the west.

One of the most unique and precious treasures Colin Campbell bears is that he is one of the few who were accepted, taught and initiated by some of the wisest pre-industrial African knowledge carriers who lived in Southern Africa. Sadly, due to the decline of this indigenous culture and its associated natural habitats, Colin and his younger brother Niall, are now amongst the rarest-known custodians of ancient sacred African knowledge systems.

He now works around the world as a diviner, teacher and public speaker, developing forms through which to bring this knowledge to the modern world.

Rachel Fleming

Rachel Fleming has worked with animist education for many years, designing and delivering educational programmes for Schumacher College, University of Wales Trinity St Davids and Embercombe, with a focus on the meeting place between human, spirit and nature, between ‘ecology’ and ‘spirituality’. She is co-founder and curator of the Contemporary Animism programmes and loves to convene conversations that explore the deepest depths of why we are here, the ways we find belonging to the world and how to be in service to soul. She is committed to scholarship, word magic, creative imagination and the medicine of circles.