The Rite of Ascent is the central ritual of the Herd of God: the disciplined climb up The Cosmic Tree by which The Eight Angels are woken and their intelligence concentrated at The Crown to rouse The Calf. The Herd frames it as a launch and numbers the attempts.
The rite. The ascent opens with a church service and is made by waking the angels at the gates of the tree, learning at each a Movement. The scribes teach that only a mystic able to move fluidly between every form of intelligence could make the climb alone; because none can, the congregation makes it together. Its particulars are not set down here — the Herd holds that the rite is known only in the making of it.