Tag Archives: devotion

The Prayer Whispered In The Temple

June 24, 2020 By in creative, hermetica, philosophy, whining Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I have to admit: it’s not the being home and away from friends, family, and colleagues in person for three and a half months that’s getting to me, nor is it the fear of being Kissed by the Lady of Crowns.  It’s not being shut in with the same people whom I love every day, even when the little things add up that frustrate and annoy me, more than ever before given that I’m home all the time and can’t escape it.  It’s not the hypothetical worries of financial solvency in a time when the economy is constantly degrading and when there are threats looming on the horizon of the next bank statement.  It’s not seeing the cracked and corroded political system of my country implode with constant protests the whole nation over for over three weeks, with more and more people being murdered in grotesque ways every day.  It’s not seeing people I’ve heard about or know die, sometimes naturally, sometimes unnaturally, and usually before their time.  It’s not seeing global climate change catch scientists by surprise with trends that are happening a century earlier than expected.  It’s not seeing the constant war, famine, plague, and death sweep the world (when has it ever not?) in ever-encroaching circles.

It’s not any one thing, but it’s…kinda all of this at once.  (Except the working-at-home-indefinitely bit, I sincerely dig that.)  I know I enjoy at least some measure of safety, however temporary, secluded and swaddled in comfort as I am in my home, free to spend my time mostly as I please, but…

I’m a staunch believer in the claim of Ecclesiastes 1:9, that “what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the Sun”.  We, as a species, are pretty much the same as we were 60,000 years and more ago: we still have the same fundamental needs of sleeping, eating, fucking, and wondering, and everything else is just accessorizing and window-dressing.  We still love and hate, we still learn and ignore, we still live and die, as we and every single one of our ancestors always have going back to the beginning of humanity.  It’s this cyclical continuity that, although it might have been dreary to the author of that book, gives me hope and comfort in that, no matter how bad things get or seem, everything can be survived and surpassed, one way or another, just as it always has been before.  But…it’s hard even for me to not realize that, even if the melody is the same, the key of the music can and does change, and although the lyrics may rhyme, it’s never the same thing being said.  And in that, things may never have been good, depending on whom you ask, but on any large scale by pretty much any measure, things are definitely not great right now, and despite what I want to see, it also seems like things are getting less great by the day.

Despite the breadth of my writings, my focus in my various spiritual practices is decidedly on the small-scale.  Sure, I do readings and consultations for clients, and I study and practice rituals in case I need them should the need arise, but I don’t need a lot, seeing how much I already have; in a way, I’m kinda living one of the messages of the Double Sice bone in reading dominoes, where your material life is in a state of fulfillment so now you need to turn your sights higher.  Instead of trying to advance myself worldly, I do what I can to maintain things in a state of peace and satisfaction for myself, my husband, my housemates, my family, and my godfamily—those near to me and dear to me, and those for whom I can do the most at the time being.  It’s not that I’m being greedy with my power, but necessarily rationing it; even with what little I’m doing to maintain my standards of living, I still have high standards of living, and keeping up with it all can sometimes be soul-wearying and heart-tiring.  (How much worse, then, for people who have it worse?  Why can’t I help them more beyond offering mere words or some meager support here and there, especially in the face of Just So Much where any gain feels like a loss?)  And that’s not even bringing up the work and Work that will surely need doing once the current situations pass—or, if they don’t, and some of them won’t, the work and Work that will still need doing even then.  Gotta save some spoons for what comes later.

There’s an undercurrent here of everything I’m doing being all the running I can do just to stay in the same place.  Even with a legion of spirits, ancestors, angels, and gods at my back supporting me and uplifting me, there’s just so much to tackle on even such a small scale as my own personal life, even without broader problems that so many of my friends and online colleagues I see suffer routinely or constantly.  Even with keeping to a quiet, daily routine of the same-old same-old, logging into work every day to earn a paycheck to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, it’s hard to not hear the klaxons growing louder every minute and every mundane, routine thing I do seem increasingly, surreally, laughably absurd in comparison, and operating under this kind of farce is tiring.  It gets harder and harder to chop wood and carry water when the hairs on the back of my neck rise as the insidious question arises in my mind: “what happens when there’s no more wood to chop or water to carry?”, not out of a sense of completion, but out of a sense of running out through faults both mine and not my own.  I’m not saying this to complain (maybe a little?), but…even if nothing else, it’s hard to look forward to the future in general with more than a modicum of hope, and even that feels forced more and more often.  None of this is me just being self-pitying and grieving uselessly, but it’s hard to not feel the pressure of everything bearing down with no end in sight, and it gets to everyone at different rates and in different ways.  And, so, I turn to those same spirits, ancestors, angels, and gods in prayer and contemplation as a way to resolve this pressure.

In my various searches through the rich body of Islamic prayers and supplications, I found one that struck a particular chord with me: the Munajāt, or the Whispered Prayer, of Imām `Alı̄ ibn ‘Abī Ṭālib (as) in the Great Mosque of Kūfa.  This supplication attributed to the first Shia imam invoked during the lunar month of Sha`bān is simple, if a bit long (though nowhere near as long as many other such supplications).  The structure of the prayer can be broken down into two movements: the first movement calls upon the blessing of Allāh on the day of the Judgment at the end of time, when all else fails and there is nothing good left in the world, while the second movement calls upon the mercy of Allāh according to his various attributes and epithets, and how the imām relates to Allāh by them (e.g. “you are the Creator and I am the creature…you are the Powerful and I am the weak”).  It’s a touching monologue of a prayer that emphasizes the connection between the divine and the mundane, the immortal and a mortal, the One and a one.  In some ways, it kinda encapsulates a particular kind of mood I often find myself in nowadays.  Not to say that I feel the world is ending, but…when things keep looking like they keep getting worse, when the world looks like it’s all downhill from here, it’s hard to keep the mind from thinking about what it’s like at the bottom of that hill.  Even in the pleasant summer nights that make me pine for a walk on the beach under the stars, wind-rustled dunegrass on my left and moon-soaked seafoam on my right, there’s a poignant and quiet terror laced throughout the humidity that fogs the heart more than it does my glasses.  It’s not the impermanence and dissolution and passing-away of things in a world that constantly changes that I fear, I suppose, but rather the lived process of waiting for it and undergoing it at the slow, painful pace of the day-by-day.

All this reminded me of that infamous part of the famous Hermetic text of the Asclepius, specifically sections 24—26.  In this part of the dialog between Hermēs Trismegistus and his disciples Asclepius, Tat, and Ammon, Hermēs begins by praising Egypt as the image of Heaven, and how Egypt is the temple of the whole world, where the gods themselves reside on Earth and where all good order is maintained, and why it is necessary to revere not just God but also humanity made in the likeness of god and the ensouled statues of gods that we ourselves make from divine nature.  “And yet,” Hermēs continues after such praise, “since it befits the wise to know all things in advance,” Hermēs foretells the future of this temple of the world, a harrowing prophecy and prediction of the ultimate fate of Egypt and the world as a whole, a cataclysm and eventual apocalypse that, although ultimately ending in a renewal of all that is beautiful and good, necessitates the utter destruction of everything that is, both by its own hands and by divine impetus.  In some ways, it’s not unlike the Stoic notion of ekpyrosis, the periodic conflagration and destruction of the cosmos that is renewed through palingenesis, or the recreation of all things to start a new cycle—except, when seen from a personal perspective on the ground instead of an academic theoretical one, it’s…well, terrifying, and makes Asclepius weep on the spot in that point in the dialog.  (In some ways, one might argue that more than a fair chunk of the prophecy has been fulfilled, and that we’re well on our way to the rest, at least on some timescale or another.  Such people who argue thus have a point that I can’t really argue against, except maybe vacuously.)

In this, I saw a bit of an opportunity for inspiration to strike, given my recent introduction to the Munajāt.  I did a bit of prayer writing and rewriting, and adapted the Munajāt through a Hermetic lens, substituting the Islamic cataclysm with the Hermetic one from the Asclepius. Instead of using Islamic epithets and names of Allah, I scoured the Hermetic texts for the various epithets and attributes of God with a Hermetic understanding and approach.  Not living in Egypt myself, I spatially generalized the prophecy a bit to take place more generally, but the effect of the wording is the same for me as it might have been for Hermēs and his students.  Nothing new under the Sun, after all.  It’s not my intention to rip off or appropriate the Imām’s prayer, but to make use of it in a way that better befits my own practice, communicating the same sentiment with the same devotion and reverence to, ultimately, the same One.

In keeping with the structure and theme of the Munajāt, there are two movements in this Hermetic rendition of the Whispered Prayer, the first seeking protection and the second seeking mercy. Although it might be odd to see such an emphasis on protection and mercy in a Hermetic prayer to the divine, both of these things are extant in Hermetic texts, too: in the Prayer of Thanksgiving given at the end of the Asclepius, also extant in PGM III as well as the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, a plea for “one protection: to preserve me in my present life”, and in Book XIII of the Corpus Hermeticum, when Hermēs describes to Tat the method and means of rebirth, he says that it is unobtainable except for those “to whom God has shown mercy”, and that “whoever though mercy has attained this godly birth and has forsaken bodily sensation recognizes himself as constituted of the intelligibles and rejoices”.  In this, the goal of Poimandrēs as given in the First Book—the end of the Way of Hermēs—is fulfilled.

And, to be frank, both divine protection and divine mercy sound like good things to pray for, both in general and especially now, especially in this admittedly dour mood of mine.  We should pray and work for everything else good, too, to be sure—good health, long life, prosperity, happiness, peace, and all the rest of the things we seek in life—but maybe it’s also appropriate to think about what what we ask for instead when none of that can be found or given.  In this, too, I suppose there is hope; it might be small and distant, but there is still hope, because there is always, and must always be, hope.  Even when all I can eke out is just a whisper of a prayer from my heart, knowing that even the deepest refuge of the strongest sanctuary must one day still fall, that hope that I whisper for is enough and will have to be enough.  So sit satis; let it be enough.

In reciting this prayer, after every supplication, silently recite “Oh God, my God, be merciful, be gracious, be propitious to us all”.  In keeping with the Munajāt, it is preferable to recite this prayer in a low, hushed, or whispered voice.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all devotion will have been in vain.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all worship will have borne no fruit.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the gods will have abandoned the Earth and returned to Heaven.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all reverence will have fallen into neglect.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when the divine teachings will have been mocked as delusion and illusion.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all religion will have been outlawed and all sacred traditions lost.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when the reverent will have been executed for the crime of reverence.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all temples will have become tombs.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when the dead will have outnumbered the living.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when darkness and death will have been preferred to light and life.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when the cosmos will have ceased to be revered and honored.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when the world will have been filled with barbarity.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the people will have turned to cruelty against each other.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the rivers will have filled and burst with blood.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the lands will have crumbled under stress.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the seas will have ceased to be navigable.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the winds will have stalled lifelessly.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all earth will have become sterile, bearing only withered fruit.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the heavens will have gone dark.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the bodies of heaven will have ceased their courses.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when all the voices of divinity will have gone silent.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when you will have ceased to be worshiped and glorified.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when you will dissolve all the world in flood, fire, and pestilence.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when you will restore the world to worthiness of reverence and wonder.

O God, I ask you for your protection,
on the day when you will return all that is good and sacred to the world.

O God, you are the Father and I am the child;
who else can be merciful to the child except the Father?

O God, you are the Creator and I am the created;
who else can be merciful to the created except the Creator?

O God, you are the Unbegotten and I am the begotten;
who else can be merciful to the begotten except the Unbegotten?

O God, you are the Pervasive and I am the blind;
who else can be merciful to the blind except the Pervasive?

O God, you are the Invisible and I am the mistrustful;
who else can be merciful to the mistrustful except the Invisible?

O God, you are the Good and I am the one the one immersed in evil;
who else can be merciful to the evil except the Good?

O God, you are the Pure and I am the one immersed in defilement;
who else can be merciful to the defiled except the Pure?

O God, you are the Complete and I am the one immersed in deficiency;
who else can be merciful to the deficient except the Complete?

O God, you are the Perfect and I am the one immersed in excess;
who else can be merciful to the excessive except the Perfect?

O God, you are the Still and I am the one immersed in motion;
who else can be merciful to the moved except the Still?

O God, you are the Unchanging and I am the one immersed in change;
who else can be merciful to the changed except the Unchanging?

O God, you are the Imperishable and I am the one immersed in decay;
who else can be merciful to the decaying except the Imperishable?

O God, you are the Beautiful and I am the one immersed in crudity;
who else can be merciful to the crude except the Beautiful?

O God, you are the Ineffable and I am the one immersed in babble;
who else can be merciful to the babbler except the Ineffable?

O God, you are the Cause of Liberation and I am the one immersed in torment;
who else can be merciful to the tormented except the Cause of Liberation?

O God, you are the Cause of Temperance and I am the one immersed in recklessness;
who else can be merciful to the reckless except the Cause of Temperance?

O God, you are the Cause of Virtue and I am the one immersed in vice;
who else can be merciful to the vicious except the Cause of Virtue?

O God, you are the Cause of Truth and I am the one immersed in deceit;
who else can be merciful to the deceived except the Cause of Truth?

O God, you are the Cause of Mind and I am the one immersed in ignorance;
who else can be merciful to the ignorant except the Cause of Mind?

O God, you are the Cause of Life and I am the one immersed in death;
who else can be merciful to the dying except the Cause of Life?

O God, you are the Cause of Light and I am the one immersed in darkness;
who else can be merciful to the darkened except the Cause of Light?

O God, you are the Propitious and I am the one given favor;
who else can be merciful to the one given favor except the Propitious?

O God, you are the Gracious and I am the one given grace;
who else can be merciful to the one given grace except the Gracious?

O God, you are the Merciful and I am the one given mercy;
who else can be merciful to the one given mercy except the Merciful?

O God, you are the Glory of the All and I am the one who is in the All;
only you can be merciful to all in the All, for you are the Glory of the All!

O God, be merciful, be gracious, be propitious to me,
and be pleased with me by your mercy, your grace, and your favor,
you who are the source of all mercy, all grace, and all favor!
O God, be merciful, be gracious, be propitious to me and to us all!

A Hymn to Hermēs Sōtēr

March 26, 2020 By in creative, philosophy Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

I know I don’t speak a lot much nowadays about my devotional work with Hermēs, or at least as much as I used to.  Admittedly, my focus and practices have shifted over the years, and as an arrangement I entered into willingly on both my terms and the terms of the god, my devotional work with the Son of Zeus and Maia waxes and wanes over time.  But, through it all, despite it all, and even because of it all, Hermēs has never left me, and I have never left him.  Even with my house more full of more gods than I would ever have anticipated, I still maintain my own practice and service to the god, and lately I’ve been spending more time getting back in touch with him since the last Mercury retrograde period ended.  It’s…well, not gonna lie, it’s pretty nice to do this again, and to remind myself why I got his emblem emblazoned on my flesh all those years ago.

Lately, between a renewed sense of his presence and a concern for the world, I was moved to write a simple hymn for the god.  It’s nothing special, but it’s something I wanted to share and spread, a hymn to Hermēs Sōtēr (the Savior).  Although he’s not usually considered among the usual savior-type gods, I feel like there’s something to be said for the blessings of swiftness, slyness, and quick motion (in the sense of both speed and life) that we could call on from the god in our time of need.  So, in this day of Jupiter and in this hour of Mercury, I dedicate these words to the god of my heart who accompanies on my ways.  May these words ring out in the air around me and throughout the entire world as a small token of my honor to the god, that all people of all cultures and all habits and all tongues may come to honor, sing, praise, and exalt the god who guides all men, spirits, souls, heroes, and gods!

Hail, Hermēs, o bright and swift savior through the paths of all the worlds!
O you who loves to be a close friend to mankind,
o you who cuts to the heart, knowing all that is within,
o you who stands keen watch at every cross and every fork,
o you who cannot be denied by any god or any man!

Son of Maia and scion of Atlas who knows the secrets of all the stars,
messenger of Zeus and all the gods who delivers words hither and thither!
Giving to all minds the wit to discern the gods and all their many works,
giving to all hands the skill to join in the very work of the very gods,
great are you who established the heavenly rites of offering and worship!

Ram-bearer, wand-bearer, leader of robbers and thieves!
You care for the well-being of all flocks of all kinds, kind Hermēs!
You lead them away amid motley heart-broken cries, sly Hermēs!
You defend them from those who would devour them, fierce Hermēs!
Driver of herds, shepherd of the living, o guide of all the dead!

Be kind to us, lord of the world, for all our travels and travails in it!
Lead us to the right place at the right time in the right way on the right day;
keep our hands as clean as they can, yet no dirtier than we need them to be.
By your guidance, keep us safe on our roads from all the awful nosoi;
by your wiles, o Hermēs, lead them afar by a different road entirely!

Be gracious, lord of the world, who collect the goods of gods and men!
Lead us all to sweet safety, to calm harbors, to a place to call our own,
to a shelter unafflicted by blight or the waste of terrible, hateful decay!
Let your lyre soothe the raging hearts of the bright children of Mother Lētō;
stay their fatal arrows, o lord, but when let fly, take us out from their flight!

Come, lord savior Hermēs, and hear this my heartfelt prayer;
be kind and be propitious to all those who seek your care.

Most people who are familiar with the god will understand most of the references, but I admit the one to the nosoi is probably a weird one.  These were a class of daimones in ancient Greek belief, the spirits of plague and sickness; for the Romans, these would be considered the Morbi, like Morbus (Disease), Pestis and Lues (Pestilence), Macies (Wasting), and Tabes (Corruption).  In Homeric literature, plague and disease was typically seen as being the arrows sent forth in wrath from the bows of Apollōn and Artemis, the two children of Lētō, but I also felt that the nosoi are a useful thing to ward against on their own right.  After all, there are two approaches to health, sanitization and inoculation, and in the absence of one, we must resort to the other; in the absence of vaccines or other defenses against the attacks of heavenly arrows or hellish claws, we must evade them entirely, and who better among the theoi to help lead us on the route to escape than Hermēs himself?  Who else but Hermēs to help us, the one among all the gods closest to the cries of all humanity, most familiar of all tongues, who guides us both in our world and in the next?  After all, although there aren’t all that many connections between Hermēs and plague, as Kriophoros (“Ram-bearer”), Hermēs is one who has helped before to save people from pestilence and plague, and with later connections of Kriophoros and Christ, lends a definite savior link to the noble son of Zeus and Maia.

May God and all the gods be charitable and propitious unto us all, and grant us all all life, all prosperity, and all health.

A New Version of the Chaplet of St. Barachiel the Archangel

September 27, 2019 By in creative, occult, philosophy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Back in 2014, I undertook a project where I came up with new chaplets for some of the lesser-known archangels.  Chaplets, as many of you are aware, are types of prayers made using prayer beads in the Western Christian, especially Catholic, traditions; the famous rosary is a specific type of chaplet, and many chaplets exist for any number of holy images, events, entities, and saints in Christianity.  I find them useful to pray in devotion and meditation, myself, and as one of my devotion practices is to the Seven Archangels, I find it fitting to use chaplets as a way to connect and offer veneration to them.  Thing is, however, that while there are definitely seven major archangels venerated throughout Christianity and many Abrahamic traditions, they’re not always the same set of seven.  For me in my practice, I use the Orthodox set: Michael (whose name means Who is Like God?), Gabriel (the Strength of God), Raphael (the Healing of God), Uriel (or Auriel, but either way, the Light of God), Sealtiel (sometimes spelled Selaphiel, but either way, the Prayer of God), Jehudiel (the Praise of God), and Barachiel (the Blessing of God).  Everyone knows who the first three are, as they’re the only archangels named in the Bible (which is why the Roman Catholic Church only officially permits devotions to these three); Uriel is not as well-known, but he’s still pretty popular, especially in magical circles that use Auriel as the angel ruling over the element of Earth.  The latter three, however, are next to unknown in Western contexts.  It’s one of the reasons why I wrote my De Archangelis ebook, to collect and arrange what prayers could be used for them for a Western practitioner.

When it comes to chaplets and the archangels, there are already well-known chaplets for Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and even Uriel (that last which I initially mistook for a simple rewriting of the Raphael chaplet, but which is sufficiently different enough to be its own thing).  However,  no chaplets seemed to exist for Sealtiel, Jehudiel, and Barachiel, so I wrote one for each of them.  I’ve since had a set of seven chaplets for the seven archangels I work with, and I’ve been pretty satisfied with the practice.  However, of the three that I wrote, I’m very pleased with the ones for Sealtiel (which is a very thorough prayer that calls on the archangel as well as each of the nine choirs of angels to help you pray better—Gordon White of Rune Soup finds this approach fascinating and almost so helpful as to be unfair) and Jehudiel (which is based on praising God through Psalm 151), but I’ve never been as pleased or comfortable with the one for Barachiel.  It never seemed to flow right, I kept getting caught up on how it ran, and I can never seem to get it to work.  I like the base idea of it—using the Eight Beatitudes from Matthew 5 as a base for the chaplet combined with the Priestly Blessing from Numbers 6—but it never seemed to work.

Well, last year, when I was struggling to use this chaplet, I finally got fed up with how it ran (or, rather, how it didn’t), so I decided to rewrite it with the gracious help of the angel Barachiel emself, and I’ve been using it ever since.  I wanted to keep the same bead structure from before and keep the same idea, but change how the prayers ran so that it made more sense and flowed easier and nicer, and I took some further pointers from Agrippa’s Scale of Eight (book II, chapter 11), since the chaplet is based on the Eight Beatitudes.  In accordance with the wishes of the archangel emself, I’ve decided to wait some time before publishing this, on the Friday (the weekday associated with Barachiel) leading up to the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel and All the Bodiless Powers of Heaven (September 29); this is an excellent day to use this chaplet if you never have before!

As before, the chaplet beads themselves are constructed of three lead beads with a medal of Saint Barachiel (good luck finding one of those!), a crucifix, cross charm, or other angelic charm at the end, attached to a large bead on a ring of eight sets of four beads.

The initial parts of the chaplet are the same as before.  We start the chaplet on the medal, reciting:

Saint Barachiel the Archangel, blessing of God, pray for us, now and forever, awake and asleep, in prosperity and in hardship, in joy and in sorrow, in solitude and in communion, when guided or when astray.  Amen.

On each of the three lead beads, pray the Hail Mary in honor of Mary, Queen of Heaven and of Angels.

On the large bead, if desired, silently pray the Our Father, Glory Be, or another personal invocation to Saint Barachiel.

Each of the eight sets of four beads has a particular recitation to go along with it: one of the Eight Beatitudes, an invocation of one of the blessings of God through Saint Barachiel the Arachangel, a variation of the Priestly Blessing made into a request, and then finally the Glory Be.

The Eight Beatitudes (first bead of each set of four beads):

  1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
  2. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
  3. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
  4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fulfilled.
  5. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
  6. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
  7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
  8. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

The eight invocations of Saint Barachiel (second bead of each set):

  1. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with the keys to the kingdom of my own life, that I might rule over all my affairs with justice and righteousness in all that I do.
  2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with joy, that always I might enjoy all of the fruits of God’s blessing and help bring comfort to others that they too might rejoice in all that God gives.
  3. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with power, directed for the work of God for the benefit of all, to accomplish all that I hope for.
  4. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with incorruptibility, that I might be perfected through wisdom and lead others to purity of heart and righteousness in soul.
  5. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with grace, that I might love God and be loved by God, and all of His creatures that He created.
  6. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with the vision of God, that I might always know true divinity, never losing sight of His radiant Throne.
  7. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with the inheritance of God, as a human made in His divine image, worthy of all of the promises of Christ.
  8. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with victory over all my difficulties in this life, that no one and nothing might stand against me, restrain me, or chase after me in this world.

The Request of the Priestly Blessing (third bead of each set):

May the Lord bless me and keep me.
May the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me.
May the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.

Since that’s still really disconnected, let’s put it all together and pray together now:

  1. First Set
    1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with the keys to the kingdom of my own life, that I might rule over all my affairs with justice and righteousness in all that I do.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  2. Second Set
    1. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with joy, that always I might enjoy all of the fruits of God’s blessing and help bring comfort to others that they too might rejoice in all that God gives.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  3. Third Set
    1. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with power, directed for the work of God for the benefit of all, to accomplish all that I hope for.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  4. Fourth Set
    1. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be fulfilled.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with incorruptibility, that I might be perfected through wisdom and lead others to purity of heart and righteousness in soul.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  5. Fifth Set
    1. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with grace, that I might love God and be loved by God, and all of His creatures that He created.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  6. Sixth Set
    1. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with the vision of God, that I might always know true divinity, never losing sight of His radiant Throne.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  7. Seventh Set
    1. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with the inheritance of God, as a human made in His divine image, worthy of all of the promises of Christ.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.
  8. Eighth Set
    1. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
    2. By the intercession of Saint Barachiel, may I be blessed with victory over all my difficulties in this life, that no one and nothing might stand against me, restrain me, or chase after me in this world.
    3. May the Lord bless me and keep me; may the Lord make his face shine upon me, and be gracious unto me; may the Lord lift his countenance upon me, and give me peace.
    4. Glory Be, &c.

At the end, recite the concluding prayer:

O powerful Archangel, Saint Barachiel, filled with heaven’s glory and splendor, you are rightly called God’s benediction.  We are God’s children placed under your protection and care.  By the grace and power granted to you by God, please aid us in our lives and grant us blessings throughout our travels in this our exile.  Let us know the blessing of God in our physical existence as well in our spiritual growth that we may lack for nothing and have all we need to proceed upon and progress in our paths.  Grant that through your loving intercession, we may reach our heavenly home one day.  Sustain us and protect us from all harm that we may posses for all eternity the peace and happiness that Jesus has prepared for us in heaven.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

This chaplet flows a lot nicer and doesn’t feel as blocky, discontinuous, or otherwise uncomfortable; it’s still one of the more involved chaplets and isn’t simply a repetition of prayers, so in many ways, it’s kind of more in line with what might (content-wise) be considered a litany.  Still, though, it’s much nicer than before.  I’ve updated the main page with the chaplet on my website, but I’ll leave the original 2014 post up for kicks at this point; also, the original chaplet will still be found in my De Archangelis ebook (both on my Etsy and on the Books page).

On Prayer Beads, Devotions to Gabriel, and a New Way of Doing Just That

January 28, 2019 By in creative, link, philosophy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

I think that, as of this moment…god, how many sets of prayer beads do I have in my temple room? Seven chaplets for the archangels I made myself, one rosary each for Mary the Theotokos and for Saint Cyprian of Antioch and for my ancestor shrine, a chaplet of Saint Cyprian of Antioch I designed myself, an Orthodox Christian prayer rope, a set of tiger’s eye prayer beads I made for solar work (specifically for a variant of my Consecration of the Twelve Faces of Hēlios), a set of labradorite prayer beads I made for my Holy Guardian Angel, a chaplet for Hermēs based on the work of the good Dr. Jeffrey S. Kupperman (yes, that one, the one with the book! he put out a wonderful novena rule and chaplet for Hermēs not too long ago) (EDIT 2022-10-10: he appears to no longer be selling it on his Etsy, link is now removed), and a set of Islamic prayer beads (misbaḥa) for my ancestor shrine for one of my spirit guides. All told, that makes 16 different sets of prayer beads scattered throughout my temple, though admittedly I don’t use all of them; sometimes they’re there more for the shrine’s sake or the use of the spirits rather than my own. I used to have a rosewood mala for my old Buddhist stuff, but I’ve since gifted that away to a friend who can put it to better use since there’s nothing more for me to do along those lines or practices.

What? I like the convenience, customizability, and attractiveness of prayer beads. They’re useful, they’re tangible, they let the body focus on one thing and allow the mind to focus on another in a semi-autonomous way.

Well, lately, as part of my burgeoning geomantic devotional practice, I’ve been getting more interested in Islamic prayer methods. Credit where it’s due: Islamic devotional practice, prayers, and supplication frameworks are amazing. There’s a massive body of beautiful, poetic, and wonderfully specific literature-cum-prayer rules of endless supplication after supplication after supplication, and it’s at once dazzling and daunting. Now, I’m not a Muslim, nor have I intention to convert given…all the other obligations I have and some theological differences, but I cannot deny the beauty and profundity of how they approach divinity through prayer. As you might have guessed, there’s also a method of prayer with Islam’s own kind of prayer beads: the misbaḥa, also known as tasbīḥ. The word has its origins in the word subḥa, meaning “glory”, as in the phrase Subḥāna-llāh, “Glory be to God” (the recitation of which is also called Tasbīḥ, just as the recitation of the phrase Allāhu ‘akbar, “God is Great”, is called Takbīr).

Misbaḥa are easy to understand: they’re made of 99 beads, with two separators that stand out in some way to break the counting beads up into three sets of 33 beads each. The “head” or “tail” (depending on how you look at it) typically has a long, cylindrical bead, plus some other number of beads for keeping track of iterations of going through the entire thing. Other misbaḥa are made with other numbers, some as few as 11 beads or sometimes 33 broken into three sets of 11, but others used in some religious orders can have as many as a thousand beads. Some misbaḥa have a slidable marker to further mark off particular sets of beads, such as for holding one’s place or when reaching a particular count desired (e.g. 40 is a common number found in Islamic devotional repetitions).

Probably the most popular way, or at least one of the most popular and acclaimed ways, of using misbaḥa is through the method known as the Tasbīḥ Fāṭimah, the method ascribed to Fāṭimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muḥammad. The method is simple:

  1. On each of the first set of 33 beads, recite the Tasbīḥ: Subḥāna-llah (“Glory be to God”).
  2. On each of the second set of 33 beads, recite the Taḥmīd: Alḥamdu li-llāh (“Praise be to God”).
  3. On each of the third set of 33 beads, recite the Takbīr: Allāhu ‘akbar (“God is Great”).

Unlike rosaries or chaplets in the Christian tradition, note how the separators don’t have associated prayers or anything said on them; they’re just used solely as markers to switch up prayers. There are variations of this method, too, of course; some say to recite the Takbīr first followed by the Taḥmīd and the Tasbīḥ in that order, some say to recite the Takbīr 34 times instead of 33 times, some say to conclude by reciting the first part of the Shahāda (Lā ‘ilāha ‘illā-llāh, “there is no god but God”), but the general method is fundamentally the same. It is recommended for the observant to perform this devotion immediately after every compulsory prayer, but the original story behind the Prophet giving it to his daughter also recommends saying it before one retires for sleep.

Discussing this with one of my Muslim colleagues online, this is just one method of using misbaḥa; there are countless ways to use them, such as for reciting individual attributes or names of God (of which there are, of course, a conventional set of 99 in Islam), reciting particular verses of the Qur’ān over and over, and the like. The possibilities are endless, apparently.

So, of course, this got me thinking: while I, too, can use the Tasbīḥ Fāṭimah devotion, is there a way I could use this venerable tool in a way specifically geared for my own needs? Of course there is. The Tasbīḥ Fāṭimah practice is wonderful on its own, and doesn’t require one to be a Muslim to use it; after all, the supplications involved in it are pretty basic and can work for anyone with an Abrahamic, Hermetic, or just plain deist bent, and it’s a clean and straightforward practice that doesn’t involve a lot of preliminary setup, education, or training. It’s effective, I’ll absolutely grant it that. But if there are other ways to use misbaḥa, why not also try something else as well for a more specific purpose than just worship, hesychasm, and henosis?

There being three sets of 33 beads reminded me of the Chaplet of Saint Gabriel the Archangel from Catholic devotions, which is constructed with a lead chain of three beads linked to a ring of 33 beads broken into three sets of 11 beads with one separator bead between each set.

  1. Lead bead 1: “Heavenly Father, through the salutation of the Archangel Gabriel, may we honor the incarnation of your divine Son.”
  2. Lead bead 2: “Mother of our Savior, may we strive always to imitate your holy virtues and respond to our Father, ‘be it done unto me according to thy Word’.”
  3. Lead bead 3: “Archangel Gabriel, please praise our Father for the gift of his Son praying, one day, by his grace, we may all be one.”
  4. On each of the beads in each set of 11: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”
  5. On each of the two separator beads: “Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.”

Simple and straightforward. It wouldn’t be a stretch to simply expand the repetitions from three sets of 11 for a total of 33 to three sets of 33 for a total of 99 (33 being a sacred number for Christians, being the number of years Jesus was alive when he was crucified). I could definitely use misbaḥa for Gabriel-based devotions, which is good given the importance of Gabriel being the angel of revelation to the prophet Daniel as well as to Elizabeth, Mary, Muḥammad, Enoch, and so many others, and given the fact that Gabriel is the angel who taught the founders of geomancy their art. However, I didn’t feel like the Catholic approach here—although totally workable—felt appropriate for either my own devotional needs or for use with the misbaḥa.

So, I scoured some verses of Scripture in which Gabriel was either directly present by name or directly being referenced from the Tanakh, the Bible, and the Qur’ān, and in the end, I developed a new method of repetition-based devotions to God through his archangel, a method I’m tentatively calling the “Crown of Gabriel”, to be used on a standard misbaḥa of 99 beads:

  1. At the beginning, recite once: “In the name of God who created me.”
  2. On of the first set of 33 beads, recite: “May God fill me with his grace.”
  3. On the first separator, recite: “God willing, teach me, o Gabriel, mighty in power, revelations to be revealed.”
  4. On each of the second set of 33 beads, recite: “May God be with me.”
  5. On the second separator, recite: “God willing, come forth, o Gabriel, to give me understanding and insight.”
  6. On each of the third set of 33 beads, recite: “Do unto me according to his word.”
  7. At the end, recite once: “My Lord is the Most Generous.”

The specific supplications come from four verses of Abrahamic scripture, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and two from the Qur’ān, all of which are associated with Gabriel in one way or another:

  • Daniel 9:22 (the clarification of the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks):

    And he [Gabriel] informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.

  • Luke 1:28—38 (the Annunciation):

    And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured [full of grace], the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

  • Qur’ān, Sūrah An-Najm, 53:1—10 (which describes the appearance of Gabriel to the prophet, with connections to the star Sirius):

    By the star when it descends, your companion [Muhammad] has not strayed, nor has he erred, nor does he speak from [his own] inclination. It is not but a revelation revealed, taught to him by one intense in strength, one of soundness. And he rose to [his] true form while he was in the higher [part of the] horizon. Then he approached and descended and was at a distance of two bow lengths or nearer. And he revealed to His Servant what he revealed.

  • Qur’ān, Sūrah Al-`Alaq, 96:1—5 (the very first revelation to the Prophet by Gabriel):

    Recite in the name of your Lord who created, created man from a clinging substance. Recite, and your Lord is the most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught man that which he knew not.

For my own needs, I didn’t keep the exact wording from scripture as the Chaplet of Saint Gabriel does; rather, I tweaked them to be more specific to me, that God might teach, fill, and guide me through his angel in a personal way appropriate to me and me alone. Unlike the usual method of Tasbīḥ Fāṭimah and like the Chaplet of Saint Gabriel, I did include prayers for use on the separator beads; originally, I had those supplications for the separator beads and the supplications done at the first and last swapped (so that you’d start with “God willing, teach me…” and end with “God willing, come forth…”), but I felt like swapping them was better so that the whole thing could start off with an invocation of God of sorts—not the proper and usual Basmala (bi-smi-llāhi ar-raḥmāni ar-raḥīm, “in the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful”), but something that works as well and follows the same structure.

Also, what’s nice is that, even though the Crown of Gabriel is designed for a misbaḥa, it can still be used on a regular Chaplet of Saint Gabriel, reducing the number of repetitions of the main supplications from 33 to 11. As for what to recite on the three lead beads, one might add in generic prayers (the Sanctus, the Trisagion, etc.) for all three to be followed with the initial supplication of the Crown of Gabriel, or one could break out the initial supplication into three by incorporating the Basmala as well:

  1. “In the name of God, the Most Compassionate!”
  2. “In the name of God, the Most Merciful!”
  3. “In the name of God, who created me!”

And, on the joint of the chaplet and lead beads, recite the Our Father, just to keep things moving.

Up till now, my angelic devotions largely focused (and will still focus!) on the archangel Michael and my own holy guardian angel. However, I cannot deny the huge role Gabriel necessarily plays in the religions that recognize the archangels at all, as well as in the mythological origins and continued practices of geomancy. Granted that all the archangels work together in a synaxis (basically, where you call on one, you’re basically getting the whole set together no matter what), it’s clear I need to amp up my own devotional practices to Gabriel. I think the Crown of Gabriel method should suffice nicely for that, while also being a way to increase my own intuitive abilities as a diviner in the process. God willing, of course.