Sacred Ceremony: How to Create Ceremonies for Healing, Transitions and Celebrations

by Steven D. Farmer

Offers ideas on how to create your own ceremonies to consecrate the critical events and passages that you experience on your life's journey. Rather than complex rituals or exacting formulas, this book also offers guidelines and suggestions for honoring the spiritual nature of these important milestones.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spirituality, Paganism, Metaphysics

268 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2002

About the author

Dr. Steven D. Farmer is the author of the best-selling Animal Spirit Guides, Power Animal Oracle Cards, Messages from Your Animal Spirit Guides Oracle Cards, Power Animals, Sacred Ceremony, Messages from Your Animal Spirit Guides guided meditation CD, and the soon-to-be-released Earth Magic: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom for Healing Yourself, Others, and the Planet (Feb 2009). He’s also host of his own radio show, The Shamanic Hotline on HayHouseRadio.com. Dr. Farmer is a shamanic practitioner, ordained minister, and former psychotherapist, offering workshops on various shamanic topics and private consultations.

Picture of Dr. Farmer Having explored, studied, and taught shamanic practices, spiritual transformation, trauma recovery, and men's issues extensively, Dr. Farmer brings a wealth of skills and experience to his writing, teaching, and healing work. In addition to being a licensed psychotherapist, he is also an ordained minister in the Circle of Sacred Earth Church, and has conducted a number of ceremonies in his role as minister and shamanic practitioner.

Dr. Farmer's education includes a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Chapman University, and a Ph.D. from Madison University. He brings a unique blend of common sense and esoteric knowledge to his work, and by sharing his ideas and life experiences in a personal, down-to-earth, and humorous way, he inspires any audience to deeply appreciate the challenges, pleasures, and rewards of creating a fulfilling and spiritually directed life. He makes his home in Laguna Beach, California.

Reviews

[S. Harrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is useful in gaining an understanding of the difference between ritual and ceremony, the basic components of each, and how to adapt them to specific needs for self, other, or community. If you're very adept with ritual you won't learn a lot from this text. It seems to be predominantly crafted for someone just beginning to work with creating sacred ceremonies. It's a pleasant and uplifting read, regardless.

[Maria Andreu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book which you not only want to read but hold. Filled with practical but spiritual suggestions for creating ceremony and celebration at all important times of life. The recommended reading list in the back alone makes it worth the price.

[Athena Macmillan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a comprehensive look at how spiritual ceremony as opposed to ritual can be utilised to mark certain events in our lives and understand ourselves when we face life changes.

In all the writing is pretty dry and matter of fact, but Farmer really shines when he talks about personal anecdotes that have clearly had a lot of impact on him. These parts are genuine and heartfelt.

He cops out a little by saying that as a man he shouldn't write too much about women's ceremonies for life events such as menstruation, pregnancy and menopause; however he could have easily asked a woman to help him write this section or asked women their personal experiences and presented it that way. There is also an air of cultural superiority towards those who might not practice the same way he understands the world as lacking full comprehension somehow.

A good book if you don't know where to start incorporating ceremony in your life. Worth it for the personal anecdotes.

[Quetzalzotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great, enjoyable high level reference guide with a lot of ideas to pull from! I definitely don't do a lot of ceremony, so this is a great guide for people like me who aren't really into ritual, but are ritual curious (I tend to just follow my intuition and vibes).

Some is a little dated, being a product of 2002 and may not appeal to current 2024 witchcraft spaces, but the general information is pretty good. If you're at all interested in leading rituals, this is a good book to have. When I got this book originally, I had aspirations of being some sort of priestess (I think) and while I love it in theory that's not really what my path took me on. I like having this in my library though for if I do want to ever run a ritual.

I do love how there are ideas for traditional milestones, like births, but also ideas for more uncommon ones, like losing your first tooth. Lots of additional resources too. Solid 4 stars.

[Tamira Thayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and used this book in my interfaith minister classes and ceremonies. I discovered throughout the process that I'm not really the minister type, but it's nice to have around anyway. I love ceremonies in theory, in practice I didn't feel comfortable leading them. What I liked about this book is that the author is very comfortable and very thoughtful in his use and direction of ceremony. He provides ceremonies for all the normal things like weddings and baptisms, but also unusual things such as home clearings, late adult transitions, etc. They can be practiced by anyone from the layperson to the minister, and if you're interested in such things, you'll want this on your shelf.

[Alan Garner, author, “The 16% Solution” ’endorsed by “ Rich Dad, Poor Dad” author. How to safely double your passive income. GARNER · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely useful, beautiful written book. My best friend died in a motor cycle accident. We were all devestated! We decided to follow the advice in Sacret Ceremony and have a ceremony to honor our friend as well as heal ourselves. And it was healing. And that was something this book and this ceremony supplied that we all so much needed. Thanks to Steven Farmer for writing this book. I will be recommending it to friends.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a mix bag of ceremonies from different cultures without an in depth look at any of them or the history behind them. It gives components of how to make a ceremony but it isn't actually a guide for that. One can take ideas from here about what to do but it just was similar stuff repeated over and over.

[Liaken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haven't read this one cover-to-cover. I use it more as a reference book. It has some good ideas, but isn't very easy to use as a reference book.

[Lisa]

very good ex library