The Importance of (Least) Ceremony

Michael Hoffman, Saturday, January 3, 2026

Contents:

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• List of Reasons Why Ceremony Is Important
• Least Ceremony: Steps in Liturgy, the Prep portion of Journey/Practice
• A Pastor on Ceremony
• See Also

List of Reasons Why Ceremony Is Important

• To contribute to legal protection.
  Risk, critique: “Gaming the system with theology”.
• Community/group helps support difficult or ambitious experiences.
• To build community bonds.
  The entire purpose of church is community – as opposed to individual journeying or a random crossing of paths of journeying individuals.
  Even a Rock Festival has some ceremony aspects.
• To increase control of the event and give insurance, to some extent.
• To reduce chance of one person commandeering the event.
• For increased safety (vs. “member-disorganized non-events”).
• To avoid chaos & leaving group formation to chance.
  Negative reasoning: If you don’t define or have a ceremony, the result is no ceremony, and less group cohesion in that way.
• Meanings of ‘ceremony’.
• Group prep is ceremony.
• The sequence [group prep; group journey; group integrate] is ceremony.

Least Ceremony: Steps in Liturgy, the Prep portion of Journey/Practice

Do prep steps as ceremony.

Contributors to this list: church members and friends, including latecomers; this exercise to define Least Ceremony was a group successful group project.

1. Days before: Announcement of planned event; invitation to come to location.
   Risk: “member-organized events that use non- or sched- subst.”
   Consider keeping the two separate, not interwoven in church conversation:
   Discussion of indiv sched journey.
   Discussion of group non-sched journey, eg religiously traditional Welch’s grape juice & cracker.
2. Gather in a circle.
   risk: people arrive & leave at different times.
   How can official church events and member-organized events manage to get ppl there on time, together?
3. Write down the time, T0.
4. Have water available.
5. Give an altar item, eg Pentel P205 pencil. [todo: image]
6. What’s your first & last name?
   risk: social freeze; excess privacy; legal worries in favor of anonymity.
7. What’s your contact info? Does someone have it?
   Community requires contact info.
8. Which sacrament are you taking?
   eg Welch’s grape juice & cracker; red wine & bread.
9. What dosage of sacrament?
   image: {balance scale} motif is 8x in Great Canterbury Psalter, meaning: to balance amount; to balance control.
10. Do you plan to consider redosing, re-sacrament, at 3 hours? eg more Welch’s grape juice & cracker.
11. Do a reading from a church document.
12. Are you making a contribution/donation?
13. State intention, in some sense, open or specific. See “Care”, in About page.
14. Take sacrament together: see each other take it.
    Risk; negative clarification: Not: go off alone doing/taking who knows what, when. Be able to answer: “Did person X ingest [item/qty]?”
    Risk: group cohesion falls apart during/after this step. Solution: Prayer after ingest.
15. Prayer together.
    Risk; negative clarification: Avoid multiple conflicting theologies. We only have 1 theology, Least Dogma; recite that as prayer.

/ end of Least Ceremony section

/ end of talk: The Importance of (Least) Ceremony.

A Pastor on Ceremony

A pastor emailed:

“I appreciate a beautiful ceremony.

“Least Dogma suggests that – while “ceremonial ritual” may be important to many lineages and paths, our way can support diverse (more or less ‘ceremonious’) forms of practice, 

“For example:

“very basic (little or no detailed performative ritual),
silent group meditations, 
more or less ‘traditional’ forms of ceremonies, 
much ritual, 
little ritual…

“As long as we bring care, respect, integrity / trust, and attention to basic steps including: 

1. “Navigation
2. Preparation [standard]
3. Initiation 
4. Practice [standard]
5. Integration [standard]
6. Community Integration. 

“It’s wonderful that our community can welcome detailed ceremonial forms as well as ‘least ceremony’ in our practices. 

“That opens the question: What is ceremony?  

“May sitting quietly at the beach with no explicit ritual behavior be considered ‘ceremonial’? That includes following our Wheel of Practice for practical guidance.”

moved draft content from here to idea development page 31, jan 7 2026

See Also

“psychedelic church”
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22psychedelic+church%22

https://www.ligare.org
https://www.ligare.org/about

https://www.sacredgarden.life
https://www.sacredgarden.life/about

Confirmation Liturgy page 1

Read from a church’s home page
https://www.sacredgarden.life
https://www.sacredgarden.life/about
https://www.ligare.org
https://www.ligare.org/about