Ritual Space
&
The Crooked Path Beyond

Peter Hamilton-Giles

Photography by Daniel Yates

Explanation of the Ritual space series

Ritual Space and the Crooked Path Beyond series discusses in some detail the thought that goes into constructing a ritual space. Whether it is for the purposes of reverence, working with the spirits, or meditation, the construction of a ritual space requires deliberation. Location, a ritual space’s situated constitution, the installation of artefacts, along with having a sense of belonging all coincide to enhance the allocation of a space where the line between physical and metaphysical can be divulged and discussed. Indeed, this is what the Ritual Space and the Crooked Path series attempts to do, and yet there is more to it than that, because underwriting this appraisal is the suggestion that all our actions when constructing a ritual space come from choices which are fundamentally crooked in nature. We arrive at this conclusion because a ritual space is not historically isolated from other ritual spaces that we may have encountered and experienced. Our interpretation, which is what a ritual space is, requires the practitioner to naturally deviate away into their own assemblage of fascinations and interests. Each space is accordingly made unique, and yet, underlying its construction is the individual expression of belief and practise which draws on countless and unconnected actualities.

A primary focus for all of this is the author’s own ritual space. For therein are found artefacts that span the world. It is truly a crooked point which has been made, and it is one which has proven fundamental in the writings of the author and all of Andrew Chumbley’s work. Together they brought the idea of eclecticism through unconnected ritual object gathering to a new level of acquisition and installation. Building on the influence of Afro-Caribbean shrines, where all objects are considered to have a quintessential resonance broadened the transmissive load and acuity of their contacts. This is then a living endorsement of the crooked path, and as a result it is down to each practitioner to consider their part in making a ritual space, for it is in this place where absolutes can no longer claim dominion where the subtle nuance of an individualised ritual arena comes into its own.

What these volumes are doing, and what they are designed to do, is to explain in detail something that every practitioner knowingly or unknowingly has gone through when attempting to increase their chance of establishing a relationship with those who dwell beyond physical form. This is as much the author’s story as your story, for everything found across these volumes is ultimately a shared tale.