Late last night, I received a message from someone asking me a question regarding the Little Way after reading my most recent article on the subject. While I was flipping through my copy of Story of a Soul this morning in order to verify a few facts before sending my reply, I found myself reading Therese’s description of her endeavor to enter Carmel. This got me thinking about boldness and what value this quality may have for aspiring magicians. These days, there are several pastors who advocate using “bold prayers” or “dangerous prayers.” I like this idea. On the one hand, we shouldn’t forget the bit of common wisdom that says to be careful what we wish for, so we should be careful when making bold requests of God. On the other hand, boldness is often necessary to achieve great things, and I’d consider the attainment of adepthood to be a great achievement.
Anyone who knows anything about Saint Therese of Lisieux knows that boldness was a component of her personality. For those who don’t know anything about Therese, she desired to enter the Order of Discalced Carmelites at the age of fifteen, which was below the minimum age, so she went to the pope himself and asked him to make an exception for her. Security guards eventually had to pry her off the pope, but in the end she was able to become a Discalced Carmelite.
I myself am not a bold person. Honestly, most people who know me in real life would describe me as rather timid. During my high school and college years, I would often lose participation points in my classes because I was too shy to raise my hand to answer questions or contribute to discussions. To this day, I usually keep to myself, and I purposefully wear greys and other bland colors when I am out and about because I don’t like to be noticed.
But when I look back at how I became aware of the Bardon system, I realize that it was actually because of a bold prayer. I was watching the news one evening and one story really highlighted the vast amount of suffering in the world. It moved me to talk to God. I won’t say what exactly I asked God for while praying, but I do think my request was a bold one. And God answered my request very quickly. Later that same evening, I felt a strong desire to begin working again on a fantasy novel that I was trying to write but had pretty much abandoned. While I was doing research on elemental magic in hopes of finding inspiration, I found William Mistele’s website, and this is how I first came across the Bardon system. It seems that although I never was a bold person overall, at one point I was bold enough to make one bold prayer, and this has made all the difference.
In several of his writings, by the way, William suggests that God really wishes people would be bolder. For example, William likes the story about the patriarch Jacob wrestling with God for a blessing for his people. He periodically references this story in his writings because he thinks more magicians should be like Jacob. Well, I’d say that wrestling with God is a fairly bold thing to do. William has a high level of respect for the Israelite prophets, saying that they “were bold, courageous, and no king or army could destroy them.” In his essay on the Mercury spirit Achaiah, William suggests that these prophets were great peacemakers. It goes without saying that magicians called to be peacemakers could learn a lot from them. And as anyone who has read the Old Testament knows, these prophets really were bold. They challenged kings. They stood up against armies. They turned the tide of history on multiple occasions.
So to those who want to include an element of boldness in their magical life, I’d like to provide the following fairly simple yet bold prayer for your use.
Lord God Almighty, please help me become an adept so that I may fulfill divine missions like establishing peace on earth. Amen.
What I like about this prayer is that it’s bold but not over-the-top. If you’re intentionally trying to be bold, it’s easy to go over-the-top and maybe even cross over from boldness to arrogance. But this prayer doesn’t do that. If you repeat this prayer 500 times a day for a period of time with sincerity, faith, attentiveness, and humility, using your komboskini to count, then you will see results for sure. This shouldn’t take too long, since the prayer is rather short; but even if you don’t have time for 500 repetitions, even 100 repetitions of the prayer will be of benefit to you.
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The Spirit of Magic by Virgil 
The Covert Side to Initiation by Virgil 
The Elemental Equilibrium by Virgil 
Equipoise by the Franz Bardon Community 
The Gift To Be Simple by Virgil