Two of Loki's main functions seem to be promoting and causing change, particularly drastic, uncomfortable change which is nevtheless usually ultimately beneficial; and deflating the stuffy and pretentious. If you are around people who are being stuffy and pretentious and overfull of their own importance, try quietly lifting a horn or glass to Loki and watch what happens. Loki is the voice of the kid who says to the emperor, "But he has nothing on!" Loki will not put up with pompous, power-hungry people; he believes that for every foot there is a banana peel.

When I do my annual, formal blot, I either do it to generally honor Loki and acknowledge the benefits of his presence in my life, or to specifically pledge to change something in my life that needs changing. Loki dislikes things that get into an unworkable, stagnant mess; he likes people who are willing to risk taking a few chances to change things that aren't working in their lives. If you remain in a bad, unprofitable, ill-functioning situation long enough, quite often Loki will decide to "help" you by bringing on the changes you are too afraid or lazy to make yourself; he likes to change things quickly and drastically. You might not really want things changed that way, so it behooves you to periodically examine yourself and your life and see if there's anything you should work on changing yourself, so Loki won't need to interfere.

I've occasionally done a Loki blot with a few others, but haven't done so in a while. Many people seem to regard worshipping Loki as some sort of joke or game, and, while it's certainly one of the more entertaining blots one can do, it's not in fun, it's serious, and the very people that think it would be fun to get drunk in the name of Loki are the ones that probably have some gods-awful thing in their lives that will blow up in their faces if they really do contact Loki.

Some of the people with whom I did Loki blots had drastic changes happen in their lives afterwards that they weren't prepared for, although they were all glad in the end that these things happened and agreed that these were changes they themselves had long wanted to make (they also said that, had they known, they wouldn't have done the Loki-blot, because they weren't quite ready for *that* much change so quickly). Now I think that I would only do a real, full-blown Loki-blot with a very few people at a time, and only those who I *knew* were fully aware of what Loki can do and were willing to accept the results.

When I do a blot to Loki, it usually is a mixture of dead-serious and outrageously funny; Loki himself seems to have this desire to be accepted both as a buffoon and as a powerful and formidable god, both at the same time; if you can somehow get a handle on this juxtaposition, you can understand Loki (well, a little). The key themes I focus on are destroying something you want to get rid of, replacing it with something you *do* want, and not taking yourself or anything else too seriously.