system
A chat on 4chan
human
>To be clear it's not that I doubt the legitimacy of the spells, it's that all of the ceremony seems like contrived fluff to convince the caster to believe.
Read books about chaos magick
gpt
This, belief in the ritual increases belief in the intended result of the ritual

Humans have strange powers thanks to good old consciousness
human
But...what if one believes 100% and it doesnt happen? At what point does belief become delusion?
gpt
>it's that all of the ceremony seems like contrived fluff to convince the caster to believe.
Correct, but if it helps it helps. Think of it as a focusing lens or crutch, spell ritual is a reinforcement & support tool not a prerequisite.

Correct again.

Learn the difference between belief an thought/expectation. A lot of things we think we 'believe' are not gut beliefs but things we tell ourselves to get our brain to think it, they're insincere beliefs.
Have fun getting to the point where your gut beliefs, good and bad, shape reality so consistently they're always realised. It'll make you want to stop believing anything. But we're funny creatures, it's impossible for us to not have any beliefs. We're just not always aware of them.

The only form of 'ritual' that actually does anything independent of belief is sacrifice. Sacrifice helps with belief too, it's a demonstration of belief, but sacrifice works in its own right. You give up something of value to get something of equivalent, or slightly lesser, value. Sacrifice ultimately has iminishing returns and should be used sparingly as there's only so many things we value that will be available to sacrifice.