Ritual

Rituals are highly complicated spells. They are done when a wizard can't summon the required focus needed for a spell (magic).

Basics
Wizards use rituals because they are unable to focus on all the parts of a needed spell. It makes the spell easier to do. Rituals can be as basic as making a magic circle to a Sanctum Invocation. High level rituals are extremely complicated and difficult to get right. The variables in a ritual could include the direction a certain candle is pointing, materials that have certain meaning to the wizard, ties to certain spiritual concepts like the four elements or the mind body and spirit, any other magic tied to the wizard.

Materials
Some examples of materials that could be used include: a crystal (representing earth), pictures of loved ones (representing heart), hair/blood/etc... (for when directing a spell towards a specific person or group of people), etc..

Harry's Props for the Elements:

 * 1) Water : silver cup filled with wine


 * 1) Earth : large geode with iternal crystals


 * 1) Fire : faerie-made candle of beewax and unicorn hair


 * 1) Air : hawk-wing feathers made from gold by swartalves


 * 1) Spirit : his mother's amulet

Harry's Props for the Senses:

 * 1) Scent: Inscense
 * 2) Taste: grapes
 * 3) Tactile: double-sided 3-inch square—velvet on one side, sandpaper on the other
 * 4) Sight: large opal set in silver that reflects every color of the rainbow
 * 5) Sound: tuning fork


 * 1) Mind: K-bar military knife as his athame
 * 2) Body: fresh droplets of blood on clean white cloth
 * 3) Heart: photos of those dear to him on silver-white silk: Mother, Father, Susan, Murphy, Thomas, Mouse, Mister, Michael and his family.

Uses of a Ritual
Rituals have a variety of purposes, the most common being tracking people down, summoning, and trapping individuals.

General Description
Harry uses the metaphor of a cosmic vending machine: an outside power offers to give you something if you fulfill a certain sequence of events. Another metaphor he uses is: you have to load the gun, aim it and pull the trigger.

How Harry feels about Ritual Magic
It's not Harry's favorite form of magic. He feel sort of silly and self-consious bathing, dressing in a white robe with a hood, lighting candles and inscense, chanting, and "mucking around with a small arsenal of candles, wands, rods, liquids, and other props" normoally used in Ritual magic. He also sees an advantage that the props and process hold for him by freeing up his mind from having to imagine the little details when it come to heavy duty magic. Normally it's second nature and fine for short term magic. For longer spells he needs a far greater level of concentration.

In the series
In Storm Front, the primary antagonist, the Shadowman (Victor Sells), uses a ritual to make his victims hearts explode. The ritual itself is a dark and powerful form of Thaumaturgy, using lust generated by a man and women having sex and channeling the power of a thunderstorm to power it out. The Shadowman would then take a rabbit with a piece of his target tied to its back and remove its heart with the edge of a sharpened spoon.

In Blood Rites, the three ex-wives of Arturo Genosa use ritual magic using an Entropy Curse to kill off the future Mrs. Genosa by targeting all the women around Arturo, one by one. Lord Raith is behind it all, pulling their strings. Raith also attempted at the end to sacrifice Thomas to kill Harry with an Entropy Ritual spell in order to end Margaret LeFay's Death Curse on him, which weakens him, by killing both of her sons to undo it.

In Proven Guilty, Harry performs an elaborate preparation taking several hours for a ritual prior to his first usage of Little Chicago—and then the phone rings.

In Turn Coat, one of the most notable rituals in the series was the Sanctum Invocation used by Harry Dresden to bind the spirit of Demonreach to him.

External References

 * http://www.witchcraft-spells.com/magicrituals.html