Why a Ritual Taxonomy Matters
People often use one word—ritual—for many different kinds of spiritual work. That can create confusion. A cleansing is not the same as a memorial; an initiation is not the same as a thanksgiving; a public seasonal ceremony is not the same as private corrective work.
This taxonomy gives Ancestral Egbe one consistent public language. It helps a visitor name their interest, helps the house organize events and historical records, and helps readers find the same term in the Glossary and Term Rules. It does not replace lineage instruction, consultation, divination, or the authority of the appropriate priesthood.
The 17 Ritual Types
Offering / Feeding
Respectful material support offered within an established spiritual relationship, such as water, food, libation, light, or other appropriate items.
Cleansing
Work directed toward clearing heaviness, disorder, unwanted residue, or conditions that call for renewed balance.
Available as a client-intake interest
Protection
Work directed toward spiritual safety, boundaries, stability, and the safeguarding of a person, home, family, or community.
Available as a client-intake interest
Prosperity
Work directed toward ordered resources, opportunity, livelihood, and the responsible circulation of abundance.
Available as a client-intake interest
Soul Healing
Within the house spiritual framework, Soul Healing encompasses Soul Restoration and Soul Retrieval. Restoration repairs what is present; retrieval brings back what is missing, followed by reintegration.
Available as a client-intake interest
Romantic Relationship Support
Guidance or spiritual support concerning a romantic relationship, including clarity, healing, communication, and appropriate next steps.
Available as a client-intake interest
Elevation
Work directed toward raising, clarifying, and stabilizing a condition, including ancestral or lineage elevation when the work concerns the dead and their descendants.
Available as a client-intake interest
Initiation
A structured threshold of spiritual formation, responsibility, and relationship that is approached through the protocols of the appropriate lineage or house.
Divination
A disciplined process of consultation and diagnosis used to seek clarity, identify conditions, and determine appropriate next steps.
Available as a client-intake interest
Consecration
The setting apart, preparation, or formal dedication of a person, space, object, or work for a defined sacred purpose.
Ancestor Work
Relationship, remembrance, prayer, offerings, repair, and responsibility involving the ancestral line and its living descendants.
Available as a client-intake interest
Community Work
Work undertaken for the care, protection, education, repair, or wellbeing of a collective rather than one individual alone.
Seasonal Ceremony
A ceremony organized around a seasonal transition, agricultural rhythm, cultural observance, or recurring time of communal significance.
Lunar Ceremony
A ceremony organized in relation to a lunar phase or lunar timing, with its purpose and protocol named clearly in context.
Corrective Work
Work directed toward recognizing, addressing, and helping to repair a named imbalance, obligation, pattern, or condition.
Thanksgiving
A practice or ceremony of gratitude, acknowledgement, and reciprocal appreciation for support, blessings, relationship, or completed work.
Memorial
A practice or ceremony of remembrance that honors a deceased person, a lineage, or a significant loss with respect and care.
How These Terms Are Used
Website and glossary
The public website explains these terms and may use them to identify the general purpose of a public event. It does not publish private ritual records.
Client intake
The intake form offers 8 interest options for an initial conversation: Cleansing, Protection, Prosperity, Soul Healing, Romantic Relationship Support, Elevation, Divination, Ancestor Work.
Operations records
Internal records use the same labels to support orderly follow-up and historical understanding, while retaining private information only for authorized house operations.
Diagnostic Groups and Prescribed Work
The house uses diagnostic groups to organize what needs assessment, ritual-purpose labels to describe what work is intended to do, and work forms to record the prescription. These are different views of the same process, not competing lists. A group is not itself a diagnosis or a spiritual path.
1. Aura / Orí
Cleaning and rebalancing assessed in the aura / Orí area of the house diagnostic sequence. The diagnosis and prescribed energy work are recorded separately within the same issue record.
Related ritual purposes: Cleansing, Corrective Work.
2. Egun / ancestral work
The diagnostic grouping for ancestral and lineage conditions, including ancestral curse removal and shadow clearing or sealing. Egun names the settled, benevolent ancestral base through which work may be approached; dark ancestors describe a different condition and are not called Egun.
Related ritual purposes: Ancestor Work, Cleansing, Protection, Corrective Work.
3. Dark Forces
Entity-related spiritual interference in the house diagnostic framework, distinguished from ancestral shadow conditions and from spells, hexes or jinxes. The assessed condition does not automatically determine a deity or removal method.
Related ritual purposes: Cleansing, Protection, Corrective Work.
4. Negative Conditions
Spell-related conditions, including spells, hexes and jinxes, distinguished in the house diagnostic framework from entity presences and ancestral shadow conditions. Prescribed work records the appropriate method rather than assuming one method for every case.
Related ritual purposes: Cleansing, Corrective Work.
5. Elemental
Feeding or rebalancing directed toward the elemental layer in the house spiritual framework. This is assessed as its own diagnostic group rather than automatically classified as a deity debt.
Related ritual purposes: Offering / Feeding, Corrective Work.
6. Deity Debts
Assessed spiritual obligations or debts within a person's deity relationships. The record identifies the relevant tradition, such as Orisha, Palo or Akan, and the prescribed work. A spiritual debt is not itself a financial invoice.
Related ritual purposes: Offering / Feeding, Corrective Work.
7. Soul Healing
The diagnostic group for Soul Healing, with its distinct Soul Restoration and Soul Retrieval forms. The prescription identifies the deity, energy work or offering appropriate to the case; the group is not limited to Babalu Aye. Forward-looking protection is a related but distinct purpose, and soul work is not automatically a deity debt or an ancestral clearing. Spiritual healing does not replace medical care.
Related ritual purposes: Soul Healing.
8. Ifa / Destiny
Work concerning destiny alignment within the Ifa field, including feeding when prescribed. Corrective destiny work is distinct from a recommendation for an Ifa spiritual path or priesthood initiation.
Related ritual purposes: Offering / Feeding, Corrective Work.
Forms of prescribed work
Deity work: Prescribed work involving a named deity or established deity relationship. The deity and the work belong in the prescription; they are not automatically the speaking authority recorded for a spiritual path.
Energy work: Prescribed work whose primary form addresses an energetic condition or rebalancing within the house framework. The record retains what was actually prescribed rather than inferring a deity.
Offering: A relational gift such as water, food, drink, candlelight, flowers, incense, prayer, service or restitution, supporting relationship and balance rather than mechanically guaranteeing a result. When prescribed as work, an offering or feeding corresponds to Offering / Feeding in the shared ritual-purpose taxonomy; the prescription also records its deity relationship when applicable.
A diagnostic group identifies the kind of issue; its display number is not the work's priority. The reader recommends an initial operating sequence and records relevant dependencies. Several issues in the same group may have different recommended sequence numbers. The operator may be someone other than the reader and may adjust the working order for dependencies, an emergency or evolving context, documenting the reason. An omitted area remains visible as not recorded and pending verification; it is not automatically a confirmed No. Final verification is recorded by the operator rather than inferred from payments or checked boxes.
Each issue stays one record: diagnosis and signature, prescription, cost and status, followed by close date, closing Odù and optional message when the work is done. The diagnostic signature, closing Odù and a spiritual path's Odù and speaking authority remain distinct.
Recommended paths link to their initiation and training estimates. Client reports can introduce the paths first, explain blockages and clearing works with their costs next, and discuss path costs afterward. The report order follows the process without disconnecting the underlying costs or creating an invoice or enrollment.
See the shared Spiritual Diagnosis definitions and the distinction between Egun and dark ancestors.
Soul Healing: Restoration and Retrieval
Soul Healing is the shared category in the reading, services and ritual taxonomy. Its two forms are Soul Restoration and Soul Retrieval, not additional top-level ritual types or spiritual paths.
Soul Restoration
Spiritual work addressing wounds or damage within the soul when its parts remain present, seeking renewed wholeness, vitality and balance. The house recognizes ceremonial ayahuasca plant medicine as one approach to restoration; the category does not prescribe a method or establish medical efficacy.
Soul Retrieval
Spiritual work seeking and returning soul parts understood within the tradition to have broken away, become lost or remained elsewhere, followed by reintegration. It may involve spiritual journeying and assistance from deities or spirits associated with healing, hunting or seeking. The actual deity and method belong in the prescription.
The distinction is purpose: restoration repairs what is present; retrieval brings back what is missing. The prescription names the actual deity, spirit or method rather than fixing all healing work to one deity. Protection is forward-looking safeguarding and remains a related but distinct purpose.
These descriptions explain the house spiritual framework, not a medical diagnosis or a promise of treatment. Plant medicine is not a self-treatment instruction; spiritual work does not replace qualified medical care.
A Label Is Not a Promise
A category communicates purpose, not a guaranteed result and not a universal recipe. Spiritual work has context: the person, the condition, the lineage, timing, consent, practical responsibility, and sometimes further diagnosis all matter. No one should copy private rites from a label on a webpage or treat a public description as a substitute for qualified guidance.
Public Record and Privacy
Some public rituals and events may later appear on the Ancestral Egbe event page. When they do, the public record is limited to the event name, date, and general purpose. A private or semi-private event may be recorded historically without appearing on the website at all.
Invocation language, ritual details, participant names, specific locations, internal notes, and client information are not public through this taxonomy.
Ritual Taxonomy FAQ
What is a ritual taxonomy?
A ritual taxonomy is a shared set of labels used to describe the general purpose of a ritual, ceremony, or requested support. It makes public communication, client intake, event records, and the glossary more consistent without revealing private ritual details.
Does a ritual type tell me exactly what will be done?
No. A type names the general purpose of the work. Appropriate methods, timing, materials, participation, and protocol depend on the tradition, the people involved, the condition being addressed, and—when needed—divination or priestly guidance.
Are all of these types available as client requests?
No. The client intake uses 8 interest options: Cleansing, Protection, Prosperity, Soul Healing, Romantic Relationship Support, Elevation, Divination, Ancestor Work. Other categories describe events, ceremonies, formation, or work that requires a different pathway.
Are ritual details public?
No. When a ritual or event is shared publicly, Ancestral Egbe may show only its name, date, and public-safe general purpose. Private details, invocations, participant names, locations, notes, and records remain private.
Find the Right Starting Point
If you are seeking support, name the general area that concerns you and begin a conversation. If you are studying, use the glossary to understand how Ancestral Egbe uses these terms across the site.
Review this foundation reading
Public practice quiz · Private student assessment
Practice includes explanations and retries. The private assessment requires active adult student enrollment and completed reading; results are saved to your student record. A score does not confer initiation, office or authority.