The Cult of Tara

256 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
A full-scale ritual may utilize every element in this sequence, or
it may emphasize one element over the others. This provides us
with a basic typology of Tibetan rituals according to the predominant
function found therein.
Ritual type 1: General function.—This type class is perhaps furthest
from the fully structured ritual of the great monastic assemblies.
Here are included all the semiritualized activities of magic
power, performed usually in privacy and seclusion, ranging from
unstructured feats of levitation and invisibility to the more formally
structured rites of "the awakened corpse," "wind running," and
alchemy. Here there is no specific administration of the divine
power, and the rites are based upon a generalized magical understanding
and ability.
Ritual type 2: Soteriological function.—This type class is characterized
by an emphasis upon the acquisition of power and/or understanding;
often the greatest stress is placed on the Process of Perfection,
as perhaps best exemplified by the "six yogas of Naropa." But
here too are included those preparatory contemplations of the ritual
service where the divine power is acquired through the contemplation
of the mantra as well as through the final dissolution of the
divine appearance and ego into Emptiness.
Ritual type 3: Ritual function.—Under this category are all the
rituals of offering, where the object of the offerings, divine or demonic,
is evoked before the practitioner. If the evocation is divine, this
type class includes the effectuation of the mantra, but the ritual
type is also used in the bribery and coercion of lower spirits and of
frankly demonic forces. The offerings may range from simple tormas
to burnt offerings to all the complexities of a Four Mandala Offering.
Ritual type 4: Magical function.—Here we find perhaps the widest
variety of techniques. The practitioner may apply the mantra
directly upon public nonreality (as in erecting a contemplative "tent
of protection" about the person of a patron), or he may use some
physical intermediary (as in making potent the cleansing water at
the start of a ritual), but in every instance the power is applied to
some particular and palpable object, whether it be an amulet of
protection, an effigy of destruction, or the visualized heart of some
distant person. Many times, too, both techniques are used toward
a single end: in an initiation, for example, the recipient is cleansed