Rituals Without DOGma?

"Modern western magic is a refusal to accept the position of post-modernism that each culture is unique and owes nothing to other cultures, even when similar ideas, symbols, and rituals are involved.
As a magical operator in the modern world, one has to embrace a kind of neo-universal-ism in which one recognizes the existence of a symbol structure representing an underlying reality behind all observed phenomena.
The magician is thus sensitive to the power and nature of symbols - including symbolic action, symbolic sounds, smells, etc. - and can draw inferences across the diverse cultures and times.
Just as human biology is the same whether one is a native Tibetan or African or European, etc.; and even though there may be many superficial differences and variations in language, food, and so forth; the symbol systems of different cultures may reveal superficial differences as a result of geography, history, and even religion, but the states of consciousness represented by these symbols are identical or nearly so.
There would be no syncretic religions if this were not the case, for each religion was sui generis it would be impossible to incorporate alien gods, rites, and beliefs.
Of course, this is not the case with religious dogma which fundamentally resists attempts at syncretism; but it is the case with religious praxis, which is the only form of religion that interests the magician.
As noted previously, the magician is not a member of the congregation of any religion: the magician is a priest and an independent spiritual specialist whose interest solely resides in effective methods (rituals) and convenient modes of analysis (symbol systems).
Thus the emphasis on cults versus religions, for a cult is a laboratory of ritual and dangerous practice.
It may be a matter of opinion as to whether the ritual came before the dogma or vice versa; but it has been demonstrated in the case of religions as disparate as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Scientology that their origins are to be found in magical - that is to say, occult - ritual.
The dogma came latter."

Quoted from Peter Levenda's book 'The Dark Lord'.
The Dark Lord?

Happy New Year of the Dog ... without all of the dogma;-)
Not that there is a lot of dogma found in Buddhism anyway, compared to other world religions.

UPDATE: 18th February, 2018

I saw the above news story this morning about one of Australia's oldest temples in Bendigo, which is supervised by a guy named Darren Wright.
And with the name Darren he has to be a great guy, right?-)
Well, I like to think so, anyway.

'Magically whatever we have asked for happens'

"Joss House supervisor Darren Wright describes the temple as a Chinese church or chapel.

Unlike a regular church gathering, people attend on a needs basis."

I'm planning a trip to Adelaide this year and had planned to drop into visit Bendigo as part of the trip across and this temple is now on top of my "things to see in Bendigo" list.

It looks like all the signs are telling me to head to Bendigo in autumn anyway, as I was reading the above advert in my autumn 2017 edition of 'Slow' magazine when I was writing this post from the other day -
The Anti/Social Network?
And I do bank with the Bendigo Bank.

Plus, you only live once, so I should do the things I want to do while I can, right?-)
And you can't take it with you, as they say.