Intercessory Prayer and the Definition of Magic

In the previous post, I mentioned that there are many "diamonds" scattered throughout William Mistele's writings. One of these diamonds is his definition of magic – "Magic is a study of how to make the best choices in life." This diamond actually appears in several of his essays; see the screenshots below.  

Alright, now that I've mentioned this, let's abruptly change topics...

As anyone familiar with Christianity knows, intercessory prayer (praying for others) is an enormous component of Christian spiritual practice. In fact, as Christians, we are told not just to pray for our friends and family, or for those who are suffering, but even for those who harm us (Matt. 5:44). Therefore, intercessory prayer is an essential part of my daily practice routine, and something I enjoy writing about. Although I have discussed it in several of my previous writings, there is always more to be said on this extremely important subject, so I thought it would be worth writing another post on it. 

Intercessory prayer should be something that comes naturally to anyone who loves, and this is especially the case if those whom one loves are in the midst of suffering. In these instances, we often pray to God to help our loved ones deal with whatever specific issues are causing them to suffer. For example, if you have a friend who is suffering from cancer, you may pray to God to help him with his cancer. If you have a friend who is homeless, you may pray to God to help him get back on his feet. If you have a friend who is going through a divorce, you may pray to God to give him strength during this difficult time. But what if you want to pray for someone you love who isn't going through some specific issue at the moment? What if you want to pray for someone from your past whom you haven't seen or thought about in over a decade? What if you want to pray for a random internet stranger you know very little about? Is there a generic prayer you can use for such people?

Yes, there is. In fact, there are a lot of them. As someone who walks a magical path, I know how difficult it can be to make the best choices in life, but I also know how making the best choices in life can lead to joy, fulfillment, peace, and contentment. So, here's a simple generic prayer you can use when praying for others.

Lord God Almighty, please help Tammy make the best choices in life. Amen.

Obviously, you should replace "Tammy" with the name of whomever you are praying for. This prayer should be repeated over and over again using a komboskini or similar tool (e.g. a mala or misbaha). Every Bardonist should have something of this nature in order to count the number of breaths taken while practicing the energy accumulation exercises of IIH. My komboskini has 100 knots that are divided into four sections of 25 knots each. There are eight people I pray for every day. I say the aforementioned prayer 25 times for each person, which takes me around the rope twice. If it is a weekend or a holiday, I may continue to pray for other people in this manner after praying for my usual eight. Sometimes, I will spend an entire afternoon praying in this manner for random people I went to school with in the past, or random coworkers from my current or previous jobs, or random internet strangers. If someone I know is really making a lot of bad choices (e.g. I know they are a drug addict or get arrested periodically), then I may say the aforementioned prayer 50 times or even 100 times for them instead of 25 times. Note that I do this purely out of love and not out of some desire to control them and force them to change for the better. The number of times I say the prayer for any particular person is always a multiple of 25, since that is just the way my komboskini is organized. Someone using a misbaha may pray using multiples of 33, and someone using an Anglican chaplet may find themselves using multiples of 28. It really doesn't matter whether you use multiples of 25, 33, 28, or any other number. The love and fervency with which you repeat the prayer is much more important than the exact number of times you repeat it for a particular person. 

Praying in this manner for others is always a beautiful activity and a good use of time, but I think there is something uniquely beautiful about praying in this manner for aspiring magicians. Since aspiring magicians have dedicated their lives to a study of how to make the best choices in life, you are really helping them with their spiritual path and magical advancement if you pray that God helps them make the best choices in life. If you are a Facebook user who belongs to any of the Bardon-themed groups on that website, one thing you can do is pray in this manner for the other members of these groups. Please don't try to pray for every single member individually though. As of the time of this writing, the Facebook group "Students of Franz Bardon" has 1,778 members. You obviously cannot say the aforementioned prayer 25 times for each of these 1,778 members in one day. But you can still pray for some of them, and that is good enough.