Spell craft: Alternate uses of Prayer Beads

Anyone who is familiar with the use of prayer beads as a meditative focus recognizes that they are a highly effective tool for assisting the practitioner in entering a mental state conducive to spiritual work. There are countless varieties of prayer beads. Within the Filianic tradition, there is the Rosary (which is patterned in a fashion similar to the 5 decade Catholic Rosary¹) and the chanting Rosary (which is patterned after the 108 bead malas used in Hinduism and Buddhism). Obviously, prayer beads are tools for keeping track of prayers. They can, however, also be used as devices by which one can enter into a trance state or for spell casting.

The repetitive nature of chanting helps the practitioner to ease into a state of trance that can prove fairly deep in surprisingly short order. The trance state helps the person using the beads to relieve stress and anxiety, attain deep relaxation, assist in mental focus, and build greater mind-body connection. This is accomplished by the way the practitioner must maintain awareness of their actions in counting the beads and detachment from the random thoughts that pass through their mind during their session. The use of meditation as a tool for general wellness is well documented and strongly encouraged by many knowledgeable people, including the staff at the Mayo Clinic and researchers at Harvard University.

In one of my earlier posts, I discuss the psychology of why magic works. Through the process of chanting and counting beads, the practitioner enters into a state of mild hypnotic trance. This mental state is one that is most effective for engaging in magical work. The mind is more pliant and open to suggestion. This makes it easier for the practitioner to establish a set of commands within their psyche that orients them towards successful completion of their ritual goals. The mind is also more keenly attuned to the spiritual elements of the world in this state. As such, it is easier for the practitioner to direct and orient the psychic fields around them to create an environment favorable to the results they are seeking.

Through the use of a key phrase (known as a mantra), the practitioner primes their psyche to seek out situations and information that assists them in manifesting what they desire. It also creates a ripple in the psychic fields around them that increases the probability² of success in their manifestation efforts. The most effective mantras are generally very simple. When we consider the use of mantras from the Hindu belief system, we find that a great deal of them are one word or one syllable. Looking at correlating mantras in the folk magic practices of Europe, we find that they are a short phrase consisting of simple words. The easier it is for the practitioner to remember their mantra, the easier it is for them to hold it as a mental focus.

Mental focus equates to psychic focus, in most general cases of magical practice. The more clearly one can envision their goal, their target for their spell casting, the closer the results will be to that result. At the same time, it is good not to make the targets of spell craft too specific. This makes the statistical odds with respect to manifestation steeper. Thus, the occultist who performs a spell to have a red Corvette is going to face greater odds against their manifesting this result than the occultists who performs a spell for reliable transportation.

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1. There are variants to the Christian prayer beads. These sets of beads can be adapted to use within a Filianic context as well, such as the Anglican prayer beads are especially well suited for prayers to the Janyati with their 7 bead 'weeks' corresponding to the 7 Janyati. A future post will be discussing prayers adapted to a prayer bead set laid out in this fashion.

2. Chaos magicians have some very interesting things to say on using magic to increase or otherwise manipulate the probability of an incident occurring. Most of the websites that you can find discussing chaos magic will eventually come down to a discussion of this practice. Some have even worked out mathematical formulas to describe how this works out. I, however, haven't sat down and done calculations to write up a proof on how this works. I only know that on the basis of what I have witnessed and anecdotal evidence from conversations with other occultists over the last twenty years, I have seen that magic can work to influence the probability of an even occurring.