In How to Build a Rosary of Azazel, I gave an example of the possible arrangement of the prayer beads’ blessings in our rosary practice. Perhaps the most peculiar among them was the third decade:
“Different kingdoms of nature, including the elements. (Human kingdom, Animal kingdom, Plant kingdom, Mineral kingdom, the kingdom of Culture, the natural essences of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Astral. To pray for the well-being of these in the outer world accidentally reflects on their well-being in the aspirant’s own constitution.)”
Today I will give a little commentary on these elemental prayers, or prayers for different kingdoms of nature. Since this commentary primarily touches the inner, magical aspects of Work, it will raise the eyebrows of those who have their doubts about the hermetic world view of intimately intersecting minds of micro and macrocosmos. For those readers, I hope entertaining moments occur with this piece of wild imagination. Also, those of our readers who already believe in the fundamental tenets of Hermes, I once again advise: take from this what you see truthful and leave the rest. It is most definitely possible to construct one’s practice of blessings quite differently.
(1) HUMAN KINGDOM
The first one is perhaps self-explanatory. It might be the most universal part of all the prayer practices of the paths of ascension that the aspirant channels his willpower in a way that would benefit all of humankind, not just some little part of it that accidentally belongs to his own family, friends, cult, sect, clan or country. As a side result of this opening of the heart, one’s ability to receive to that heart opens wider. For such an aspirant, the whole being gains more depth and intensity.
(2) ANIMAL KINGDOM
It is a sad fact that our modern culture mostly still considers animals as a resource rather than our spiritual children or younger brothers in the common journey of souls’ evolution. As a side result of one’s active sympathy towards the animal kingdom, one can also become more vividly in contact with one’s kâmic (Red astral) energies, the subtle feelings of emotional connectedness. In a time of strong separatism, such an ability is especially precious.
(3) PLANT KINGDOM
Our modern age definitely has its problems, but as an upside, the collective consciousness has lately become increasingly interested in the environment. The key point of this environmental consciousness is focusing on the biological diversity and well-being also of the plant kingdom. The sad state of quickly vanishing wild forests – which, for example, quite recently filled most of Europe but now fills only the tiniest parts of it here and there – is a subject of worry for more and more people who wish to see nature and life on Earth preserved. Even for a Satanist who does not care about diversity of life per se, the connection to the subconscious side of being, traditionally and symbolically seen and felt in forests, is strengthened in this prayer for the planet’s living flora.
(4) MINERAL KINGDOM
While the first three prayer beads might be intuitive enough, the seven latter may seem weird. Why would a person who is not insanely neurotic pray for the well-being of rocks, one might ask, and with good reason. For indeed, whereas most people nowadays realize that our slightly younger brothers, animals, can feel keenly, even in the great unity that is the path of ascension, minerals are such distant cousins on the arch of emanation, that we feel quite assured that they are able to keep going just fine without our magical help. But there is another reason, for the Rosary of Azazel is not only done for the otherness’ sake. Every object of our prayer in the Rosary is also an inner one; the kingdoms of nature for which we pray are most intimately connected to the elements within. And thus, this wish of well-being for the mineral kingdom, very abstract in its direction outwards, is as vital as the others in its direction inwards. The mineral kingdom we bless is the same Rock foundation or the aspect of Stone in ourselves that is discussed so much in all the occult writings. This is the very core of our being, worthy of such daily meditation, and it roots us into being in also the mental level of abstraction.
(5) KINGDOM OF CULTURE
One might ponder, “is not the ‘kingdom of culture’ the same as the human kingdom?” But even though they are connected, they are not the same: to humanity as a whole actually belong all the first five beads, and these five together form the first human pentagram. The last five form the higher aspect of humanity, reached for by culture: art, philosophy, religion, & cetera – our societies’ higher octaves. They are as much in need of prayer as humanity as a species. This blessing is given equally also to the spirits that help humankind in these fundamentally spiritual needs. It is beneficent both to these spirits and ourselves that we extend to them our hand in blessing and gratitude. We are still very much in the common process of making humankind an actual humanity, instead of just a group of complicated animals.
(6) ELEMENT OF FIRE
I am not referring to the chemical reaction seen in the processes of burning, for that is an automation that does not need our prayers. Instead, the inner, unseen fire is meant. It is sometimes called the first aether, the first aspect of the White astral. This fire is our inner being, out of which is – with intense meditation (like this Rosary working) – made the serpentine form of ascension. This element permeates the living beings everywhere, and as true occultists know, there is nothing in the cosmos that is not alive in its own way. Basically, blessing the element of fire is blessing the Work as a whole, and most of all, its most important dynamic aspect of change and development.
(7) ELEMENT OF AIR
Surficially, the prayer is made for the well-being of climate, to help the elemental spirits of the air who work weather and winds – that actually means magnetic charge –, but the esoterical influence reaches our inward climate as well. Almost all meditation practices begin with breathing exercises, affecting the so-called vital winds within a human being, and which are in the focus of attention of pranayama yoga. Yet, these bodily “winds” are only vestments for their inner energetical counterpart of aetheric winds, the most important vehicles for building and distributing elemental fire within the body.
(8) ELEMENT OF WATER
The outward prayer goes for the element of water and its coordinating habitant spirits and turns our attention to the well-being of the oceans, rivers and other sources of water and hence life. But beyond this apparent and profane concern, the prayer also benefits our own aetheric water, which is the third of the White astral element. This inner water is one’s individual astral mirror, a critical agent in distributing energetical impulses beyond space and time: it is the one that collects, reflects and focuses the subtle movements of karma in and onto physical bodies.
(9) ELEMENT OF EARTH
The element that is most heavily physical in dense matter is the most abstract one in aetheric substance. This astral element of earth is both the aspirant’s connection to the deeper spiritual realms and his apex of bodily being. It is the ultimate unique physical matter, independent from our apparent physical body since it is trained from the inside rather than outside. This “sacred stone” is the one that finally forms one’s physical form after the final adeptic attainment known as transubstantiation or bodily resurrection. Between individual reincarnations, it temporarily collapses into several bodies that go through transmigration, or being born into animal forms. So everything is really connected more intimately than our profane culture can yet think about, and within suffering animal beings, also suffer the physical souls of humanity between their individual reincarnations – or so I claim. Naturally, the reader is wise to make one’s own investigations of this matter to one’s best ability rather than simply believing or disbelieving any occult teachings, no matter how fascinating or repulsive they may appear at first glance.
(10) THE ASTRAL
The third decade ends with the well-wishes of the deeper astral realms beyond the aetheric elements of the White astral. Beyond the curtain of physical dimensions lives a myriad of beings and their substances that lack physicality even in their subtle aetheric form. The Red astral of dreams and visions consist of energies made of tension; the even deeper Black astral is a form of reality that exists even beyond the boundaries of dreams, and its substance is the substance of archetypal impressions. Not that these lofty states of being would themselves need our blessings, but their applications, their bringing into human lives indeed do. For even though all astral life will persist no matter what our humankind does, it will do so in a way that connects beneficently to our own. Or it can become a Satan that threatens our misplaced ideals that remain unbalanced and disharmonious. By offering our hand and prayers to those deeper, ideal powers, that Satan, we help them to remove the threatening mask from their face and once again become the illuminating deities for the coming humanity; one more loving than the crawling beings we still mostly choose to be by choosing lazy selfishness.
As one can see, the simple Rosary meditations hold an in-depth content with which we work, whether we are conscious or unconscious of what all is done. The aspirant needs not worry because the depth of any occult working almost always escapes one’s conscious processes at first. The beauty of the practices on the path of ascension, the path of spiralling initiations, is that the same practices can be used in many different ways when the heart is made pure. For our waking consciousness is only a small part of the whole with which the Master within operates. When the heart is ignited, one can become the star that gradually starts to shine all through the seven and tenfold systems. But this needs constant, daily effort. When lapses happen, one rarely needs penalties, but instead, immediate and dynamic return to the neglected aspiration. “Try!”
Salome 