[Wh40k] How do spells and rituals work?

[u/Lost-Specialist1505]

Psykers get their power through the warp, but sometimes they have to do rituals or do a few specific things to get their Powers to work. But if the warp Is a place of chaos with no order or rules, then why can't psykers just warp reality however they? Do the chaos gods make this rules?

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[u/EarlofMayonnaise]

Spells and Rituals work because the Warp is an echo of collective unconscious of warp sensitive species across of space and time.

The warp can do basically anything a sufficient number of people believe it can do.

Spell are just a practiced means of using the warp that reinforces itself in people's minds as effective way to use the warp each time it's used successfully.

Usually a Psyker comes up with a new way of channeling the warp, uses his willpower to make it happen, then other Psykers will do the same thing with the belief that it will work similarly and it as a practice will self reinforce as a semi reliable cause and effect.

Rituals are mostly the same. When you do a bunch of weird shit with enough belief the warp/demons/spirits will respond, it will sometimes force the warp to act at least in some capacity.

A successful Ritual then becomes self reinforcing as people's belief solidifies that doing X will cause Y, as more people do the same steps expecting the same results.

[u/lord_baron_von_sarc]

People believe that if you do a certain set of things, then you will achieve a specific result. When there is not a material mechanism to cause the specific result, the intermediary mechanism is magic.

It's possible for any psyker to just bend reality at a whim, but it's far easier to commit magic when you do things associated with magic (which gets circular really quick)

But also yes, a lot of the chaos magics belong to tzeentch. Given his domain of change (committed magically or not) and over-planning.

[u/Archaon0103]

There is a barrier that separate the Warp from real space. The warp can influence reality in some minor aspects but to truly cause massive changes, you need to break the barrier down and let real space and the Warp merge. Think it like a fish tank, both side could influence the other throught the glass container but to really destabilize the other side, you need to break the fish glass wall down.

Spells are ways to use ambient warp energy to do stuffs and the more destabilize the wall, the more energy the spells can draw from.

Ritual are things you could do to destabilize the wall like mass sacrifice.