[Book] Thoughts on How to Pray the Rosary and Get Results

[jprussell]

After having it on my stack for a good long time, at last I got to reading How to Pray the Rosary and Get Results, recommended to me by open_space back when I first started poking at the Heathen Rosary undertaking.

Short take: some good, hands-on tips for bringing magical techniques into your prayer, but a bit short on some of the warnings I think ought to come with any use of magical techniques.

Comments

My Latin is terrible...

[k_a_nitz]

Armatus Divino Auxilio = armed with divine help

Armatus = armed (masc sing perfect passive participle of armo) or armor (noun of 4th) or armed (adjective - nom sing)
Divino = to divine/prophesy (verb of 1st) or divine (adjective - dat/abl sing declension of divinus)
Auxilio = to assist/heal (a transitive verb of 1st) or help (noun - dat/abl sing declension of auxilium)

So could maybe also read as the armed man divines with help, or the armed man heals the divine?!

Re: My Latin is terrible...

[jprussell]

Argh, I wish my Latin weren't so terribly rusty so I could join in your speculation better! It seems very likely to me that the intended translation is something like "Armed/Armored with/by Divine Help," with the instrumental dative, but provided the alternatives are viable (or perhaps even if they're not), that's both funny and interesting.

Cheers,
Jeff

[boccaderlupo]

I'm not familiar with this writer, but, to play the devil's advocate (ha), I'll offer the square, conventional take from the Church (which, after 7+ years in the occult, seems to me more and more probable with each passing day): the difference between (Christian) religion* and magic is the difference between "Thy will be done" and "my will be done," between Augustine's celestial city, which puts God before self, and the terrestrial, which puts self before God.

This sounds extremely binary, and it is, but I don't find there's much wiggle room there. It's been my experience, and the Church seems to concur, that any dabbling in magic is less about the processes involved and more about putting up a big sign saying, "Hey demons, this person is open to infestation." (In general, it's thought that only demons have any interest in explicit congress with humans.) One may (by the grace of God) avoid that fate, I reckon, although it seems pretty reliable results ensue. This is, I suspect, why some of the Desert Fathers were so vocal about not employing visualization techniques during prayer—it's thought that this is essentially an open door through which the demonic can enter the nous via the imaginative faculty (Evagrius, On Prayer 67). Again, per Evagrius: "In your prayer seek only righteousness and the kingdom of God, that is, virtue and spiritual knowledge; and everything else 'will be given to you' (Matt. 6:33)."

* Most everything we know of "religion" here in the West generally has been filtered through the lens of Christianity, so to what extent we can even know "religion" in general is, to me, an open question.

[jprussell]

Thanks very much for this, it's a position that I can understand, and is likely a safe option, but obviously is one that Brother ADA and I both don't wholly agree with, doubtless for different reasons. My current take is fairly close to JMG's (surprise) as outlined in his response to Paul Kingsnorth a while back: magic, when done properly, is not about bossing the cosmos or anything in it around, rather it is about recognizing our own agency within the wider framework, and exercising it, ideally in alignment with higher, wiser powers (the Gods). As for Brother ADA, he has a whole book explaining his position on the matter, but I haven't read it myself.

Specifically, the existence of folks, like JMG and some others I've encountered, who have done a lot of magic and don't seem beset by demons in the least, suggests to me that at a minimum, it's possible to do magic without it leading to those terrible places, which leaves open whether it's an overall good idea or not. Obviously, the Church might disagree - he worships nature and not the Holy Trinity, after all!

I wouldn't be surprised at all if, as I learn more and keep practicing, "magic" becomes less and less of a priority, and prayer and meditation more so (heck, that already seems to be happening), in part because I think the general thrust - that a good spiritual life involves lining up your will more and more with the divine, and less and less with what seems to be its interests here and now in this world, is likely largely right.

Anyhow, all of that is to say that even though right now I don't agree with the Church's position, I appreciate your sharing it, and I think the concerns it addresses are quite valid.

Thanks much,
Jeff

[boccaderlupo]

For what it's worth, I had been practicing sympathetic/planetary magic in the tradition of Ficino and the Picatrix, which has Christian/monotheist underpinnings despite a heavily Hellenic bent. I can't really say, then, what the impacts would be for other people. As with all things, though, I suspect "you will know them by their fruit."

There were attempts by some in the Renaissance to really distinguish between "natural" magic (simple alignment of correspondences that produced results) and "spiritual" magic (which involve spirits). This distinction was undertaken likely so as to allow magic to "pass," as it were, in Christian settings, and is less about controlling spirits (a la Goetia) than about the action of magic itself: when you're aligning those correspondences, who are the meditators of the action? After all this time, philosophically I have to say that they are (in my estimation) spirits (daimones), and therefore the disinction is spurious.

I wish you nothing but the best in all your endeavors, and Axé,
Fra' Lupo

[jprussell]

1) As with all things, though, I suspect "you will know them by their fruit."
- fully agreed there, as that's been my main lifeline in the crazy, mixed-up world of alternative spirituality.

2) Interesting, and I agree that the distinction is likely, in the end, not all that helpful - of course, I supposed whether that's a problem or not comes down to whether you think all daimones are demons (or, even if not, not a good idea to interact with for spiritual reasons), or if they're a class that includes divine and helpful spiritual beings.

Thanks very much for your well wishes, and likewise!
Jeff

[borealbear]

Thanks for this summary. For me personally, the crux is probably this bit: "To my mind, prayer is first and foremost about deepening your bond with the Gods that you worship." That is, I never saw this as an operative magic tool to change things in the world, but more as a way to give more focus and structure to my worship. I already have the Heathen GD curriculum with a whole toolbox of rituals for the practical side. No, what this "recovering atheist" needs is more a way to connect with the Gods with some of the same structured framework, if that makes any sense. Still, rather than praying for specific outcomes in the physical world, I could see the value in using some of these methods to "focus" the prayers more.

And thanks for going into more detail on the Mysteries. That's another aspect I find really intriguing about the original Rosary, and I was hoping you'd discuss them more. To me this feels like another situation where having a polytheist approach is a big strength, since we can draw on many more myths and Gods than just the life of Jesus. IIRC the Catholic Mysteries are linked to days of the week, so I was toying with the idea of doing the same and taking advantage of the fact that the English (and Norwegian) days of the week are literally named after Heathen Gods. Unfortunately it might be hard to find enough material for a full set of mysteries of all of them, like Tyr. (On a side note, I'd be in favor of keeping the term "Mysteries" rather than "Riddles". There's something very evocative to it, and it lines up nicely with how JMG talks about the Golden Dawn/Merlin's Wheel, Dolmen Arch etc as being "mysteries" or "mystery schools".)

I've also been working on translating the Bedes. On a note that will surprise absolutely no one, translating poetry is hard! Especially when you're not a poet. I settled on some halfway workable wordings, but I'm not fully satisfied. As a supplement, I tried going back to the official Norwegian versions of the Catholic prayers and starting from first principles. I ended up with a "Hail Frigg" I kind of like that way, but we'll see. After some consideration, I think it might make more sense for me personally to invoke Frigg rather than Idun, but in the spirit of JMG's "do the practice as set out by the creator before you tinker" I'll start with the Idun Bedes. While we're on the subject, I like your poetic and evocative Bedes much more than the Catholic ones. To use a charming Norwegian term, they struck me as kind of "blood-poor" in comparison, ie. bland, non-descript, lacking in flair.

One last point, re. names for this thing: the Catholic Rosary is called "the rose wreath" in Norwegian, and after some thinking, it struck me that "the Apple-Wreath" could work if you want to keep the botanical theme, at least for your Idun-centered version.

Apologies for the length of this comment, but I do find this project really interesting as a potentially valuable supplement to the Heathen GD, and I have no one to talk about this kind of stuff with in real life since everyone I know are strict materialists, haha.

[jprussell]

1) Fair enough, and for what it's worth, I'm finding myself in a similar boat. The "practical" side of magic hasn't really done much to grab me, perhaps because I went through a rabid "self-help" phase and and have a) learned most of what I need to be more effective in the world, and b) seen that "getting what you want" is, at best, a minor piece of spiritual satisfaction. Still, I also suspect that for some folks, "striving for what you want" is an important part of spiritual growth, for others "let go of material wants and focus wholly on the spiritual" is, and for still others "find a way to bring together what you want or need spiritually and materially in a subtle, nuanced fashion" might be. So, explorations like this help me work out where my own path might lay, and I hope they might shed some light for others as well.

2) You're correct on the Catholic mysteries and the days of the week. Traditionally, from Monday through Saturday, you pray "Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious," and on Sunday, you alternate which mysteries you meditate on depending on the time of year: Joyful from Advent to Lent, Sorrowful from Lent to Easter, and Glorious from Easter to Advent. Typing this out, I notice that you spend most of the year with an extra "Glorious Mysteries," which is interesting, but not all that surprising on reflection. If you include the Luminous Mysteries, the recommended order, starting on Monday, is Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious, Luminous, Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious year-round.

For the Heathen Rosary, I've given a bit of thought to what to do for days of the week/times of the year, but not much so far. Linking the mystery of each day to the God for whom it is named is an interesting possibility, and one that might broaden the scope of the Heathen Rosary beyond the handful of Gods prayed to directly. One idea I'm considering to "stretch" the myths to fit the needed number of mysteries is to pull out scenes, rather than using a "whole" myth as a mystery. So, for example, if you wanted to get four mysteries out of Tyr's role in the binding of Fenris, you might have one of Him raising Fenris, one of the Gods trying different fetters that fail, one of Tyr pledging and losing His hand, and one of the aftermath (this is off the top of my head!). I don't know if each of these would be "meaty" enough for ongoing meditation through the years, but perhaps.

On the terminological issue, this is mostly coming from my attempt to shoehorn everything into Germanic-derived words for aesthetic reasons. "Mystery" is, indeed, a great word for what these things are and are doing, with all of the connotations you speak of. Unfortunately, it's Greek. "Rune" would likely be the most direct translation, and, in fact, that's how it was used in the Old Saxon Heliand - where the Bible talks about various "mysteries" that Jesus knows and teaches, the Heliand calls them "Runes." Unluckily, that would get very confusing with the prominence of the ancient Germanic system of writing, the symbols of which are each meant to be their own "mystery," and hence called "Runes." What I like about "riddle" is that it posits the idea that there's something to be puzzled through and that hides an answer. It's also a bit playful, which is nice, and riddles were culturally important to at least the Anglo-Saxons, but likely other Germanic cultures as well (Odin's wisdom contest with Vafthrudhnir could be seen as a "riddle contest" a la Bilbo and Gollum, just with a narrower range of acceptable topics). All that said, I'm not set on it just yet, because I share some of your hesitation.

3) Very nice on the translation work! I'm sure that it must be very tough - it's hard enough to do from scratch. I suspect that you might be on the right track by "working from first principles" rather than going for a direct translation, especially since these prayers can't have much of their own egregore yet, since it's basically just me praying them, and that not for all that long. As for which Goddess to pray to, as I said before, my goal is to present both a "do this as is" set of prayers and a framework for building a set of bead-assisted prayers and meditations that works for you, and Frigg seems like an obvious choice - intellectually, certainly more obvious than Idun. So, whatever you end up doing, I wish you luck and would love to hear how it goes.

And thank you for the kind words! Christian and Catholic imagery have pretty much always left me somewhat cold, even when I can appreciate the values or concepts behind them. I will say, I envy the metrical power behind these. I don't know how much of that is just the rhythm of them has sunk in through all kinds of means (I grew up hearing and saying the "Our Father," but not the "Hail Mary," but I was doubtless exposed to enough media including it that it just "sounds like a prayer"), and how much is intrinsic to how they're written, but that's one area where I felt the constraints of the meters I'm using have left me unable to get to the same level.

4) "Apple Wreath" is very nice! I don't know why, but in all my reading about "necklaces of roses" and "rose trees" and "rose gardens" as images for the Rosary (from the French for "rose garden"), I don't think I ever encountered "rose wreath," which is a lovely Germanic word with very deep roots (Tom Shippey's discussion of what Tolkien was up to naming the "wraiths" and how it's etymologically linked to "wreath" and "wrath" and "wrought" in, I think, Tolkien: Author of the Century, has branded the word into my mind). So I'll have to give that some serious consideration!

5) No worries, I think my response is even longer, so obviously that doesn't bother me :) And I know the feeling all too well! I have one friend that I don't get to see all that often who has gotten into this stuff, but not as deeply, but otherwise, all of my in-person friends are either materialists or casual protestants or "spiritual but not religious," so I'm also eager to discuss such things when I get the chance!

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts,
Jeff

[borealbear]

1) Makes a lot of sense, and "find a way to bring together what you want or need spiritually and materially in a subtle, nuanced fashion" is a good way to sum up my feelings on it. To be clear, I do have an interest in the practical side. Without boring you with a lot of personal stuff, I'm broadly unsatisfied with many aspects of my life, and I'd be happy if ceremonial magic could help bring me more balance and happiness. I'm also fascinated by ceremonial magic as an art in and of itself. That said, I also instinctively agree with JMG that the most important application is changing yourself for the better and letting the material aspects follow as they will, and I feel I still have some work to do there. For the Rosary in particular, though, I see it more as a religious tool than a practical/ceremonial magic one, but maybe there's no reason it can't be both.

3) Thank you, appreciate the well-wishes! Will definitely let you know how it goes. I've ordered the supplies I need, so now I just need to wait for it all to arrive and put it together. Another thing that appeals to me with invoking Frigg is related to a comment I saw from the Pope, who talks about how the invocation of Jesus at the center of the Hail Mary acts as a sort of "spiritual fulcrum", for lack of a better term. Even if Heathenry obviously doesn't share the same hyper-focus on the Bright Son, I'd still like to experiment with the same Frigg/Balder duality in a Heathen context, especially since it also goes well with the HGD ALU Ritual that primarily calls on Balder to heal and bless.

4) Glad to hear you found it an interesting suggestion :) And I had no idea about that etymology, that's fascinating too.

[jprussell]

1) Fair enough on all counts. As for whether the Heathen Rosary can or ought to be turned to practical ends, I suspect that will be a matter both for experimentation and individual variation.

3) Yeah, that makes good sense. The Catholic Rosary draws on the Father-Mother-Son triad, through the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary" for prayers, and then meditation that focuses mostly on Jesus. Despite the epithet of "All-Father," the prayers as I've put them together focus a bit more on Man-Woman-???, with father and mother kinda-implied, but I'm not sure how much focus they'll get in the mysteries/riddles, or in the bede to Ask and Embla. I can well see a Frigg, Woden, Balder focused set of prayers and meditations hitting the core familial triad as well, but obviously with a different focus and implications than Christianity's approach, so it sounds like it ought to be fruitful to explore.

One further thing that's come up as I've read about the Rosary, but I haven't talked about much, as it's a touch awkward, is that the Rosary seems to really get at the heart of the mixed up feelings men have about women as both mother-figures and objects of romantic interest, and how those kinds of love can be related/blended/whatever. Mary seems to represent one seemingly-impossible reconciliation of these things (among other things, of course), being a mother to all, and a suitable target for romantic (but distant and not-physically-consummated) love, by being both a virgin and the mother of the embodiment of divine love. A lot of the symbolism (rose gardens, roses themselves) had overtly sexual or romantic connotations in the cultural milieu it developed in (15th century Germany/France), and a lot of the writings about it were very similar to writings on courtly love. All of which is incredibly interesting, and possibly quite spiritually significant, but not really what I've been going for with this set of prayers. Just something I thought I'd mention, in case it's interesting or useful.

Cheers,
Jeff