Magic as Prayer

Ouch. Hitting below the belt with the Rosary meditation, a longstanding favorite of mine. Nevertheless:

As the conservative, I can't blame you for playing conservatively, but I still think you're off a bit. The driving force behind the Rosary isn't just divinity, it's effort. "Pure" intercession is about as effective as The Secret, and with a much better pedigree of not working.

Like anything else, what drives the work is Gnosis. Pure magical will. Whether it's Paul exhorting Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing" or Crowley telling all young seekers everywhere to "inflame yourself with prayer," it's the effort of the thing that drives the wheel.

The visions and miracles generated by the rosary are gifts, to be sure, but they're given in measure that they've been earned. Go around once and pray 6 Our Father's, 6 Glory Be's, and 53 Hail Mary's. All 3 traditional mysteries? Make that 16, 16, and 153. Adding the Luminous Mysteries? That'll be 21, 21, and 203, please drive up. Officially the longest ritual prayer I've taken part in.

And, if you happen to work in a tradition that features 4 additional on top of that, you could conceivably in a single working pray 41 Our Father's, 41 Glory Be's, and 403 Hail Mary's in a single formal prayer.

And let's not start on the Novena, the traditional 9 days of formal prayer.

All these add up to one point: even the users of the Rosary recognize that results come from effort, and effort is a result of training. If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go pump some beads now.

Prayer as magic

Sometimes, the most effective magical working is also the simplest. Prayer is one of the simplest forms of magic within the context of religious magic. Prayer is quite simply an act of devotion in which we enter into a dialogue with the Gods, asking for guidance, offering praise, confessing or making reperations for mistakes, asking for assistance, etc. Through prayer, we seek to alter our reality by entering into relationship with the divine to effect change.

Certain types of prayer are also forms of ritual magic. Let's take a look at a specific ritual;

You sit, stand, or lay down, whatever is most comfortable. Next you take up a physical focus, in this case beads. You then use that physical focus to go through a systematic set of meditations, words spoken repeatedly, and specific mysteries to contemplate. Woven throughout the meditation is praise to the gods that you worship, and requests for daily needs.

Through this set ritualized meditation, you are able to enter into an altered state of consciousness that can be used for a variety of magical tasks. You also enter into rapport with the Gods who can also assist you. Now, take a look at the ritual that I outlined, and take a look at the Rosary. The Rosary is a perfect example of ritualized prayer as magic. The rosary is a great starting point to build your own ritualized prayers.

Now, prayer does not have to be ritualized to be an effective form of magic. All that's really required is your own desire, faith in the Divine that you are calling on, and a willingness to pray in the first place. As with any other form of magic, your own will and intention is important. All prayers made with faith and will are acts of magic. As I said, magic at it's simplest.

Hi, I'm Tanwyn and I'm here to speak for the more religious side of magic. My magical practice and my religious practice are tied so closely together as to be virtually indistinquishable. I am a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin, a modern neopagan Druid fellowship. I've also practiced fairly extensively with a number of other neopagan groups, and am currently seeking membership with a gnostic group.

My background is about as varied as my counterpart; Christian - Presbyterian and Anglican, to be specific, Mystic, Shaman, Neo-Druid, Celtic Reconstructionist, and various flavors of Neo-Pagan. I've progressed through and passed on initiation within an oathbound order, I've performed rites of passage and in a strange parallel to my counter-part, funeral rites for my grandmother. I can't claim to have ever personally earned money for any particular part of my religious or magical practice, although I did work on a volunteer basis for the local neo-pagan store for quite awhile.

I'm here to provide a look at the religious side of magic, magic that appeals to the Gods for power. I'm also here to provide a look at the more "traditional" side of magic, magic as you would see it in a lot of ecletic neo-pagan circles, and the potential uses - and abuses - of this kind of magic. Like my counterpart, a lot of my personal practice and personality are going to be reflected here.

I am Frater Treinta, and I'm here to represent the Wild side of magic. Although I'm an initiated Gnostic by baptism, there's not really an "initiate only" set of anything, so I'm not counting it. Other than that, I'm pretty well a self-styled Mage.

I'm here to represent Chaos Magic, bootleg QBL, "cheap, petty Sorcery," and all that is wild, untamed, exploring, pedal to the metal with nothing but a notebook Constantine magic.

And my background reflects it. Kabbalist now and forever (but preferring the bootleg Hermetic version,) Shaman, Golden Dawn, Southern Baptist, Pentecostal, Mystical Christian, "Gnostic Agnostic," Gnostic, Mathemagician, and just enough Taoist to own the book. I've done funeral rights for my great-grandmother, read Tarot cards for beer money, explored the Astral in an imaginary spaceship, adapted RPGs into working magical systems, and programmed magical effects into Python programs. A disturbing amount of my Astral work is based on the DC Comics universe.

My purpose here is to present the more random, primal, undocumented, experimental, edge-pushing styles of magic that are immune to the abuses to authority by not having any authorities to start with through a trickster/adversary persona. I will be emphasizing certain parts of my practice and personality here to make my job easier, as well as my counterpart's.

And now, the representative from Chaos yields the floor.