[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?!

[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.

[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.

[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.