[Opinion] Read from the book or recite from memory?

[Morell]

I'm thinking about how I read here about reading the Psalms daily. Interesting food for the thought. There are many spells in the books that are to be used for praying alone or in the ritual and some are quite long. Especially when it comes to stuff like evocations, it feels to me to start being... difficult to perform properly.

I think that if you pray for the reason of praying and focus on what you read or say, reading it from the book is quite fine and well. But when it comes to stuff where you need to focus your attention on something else than the text, then I think the memory needs to be used so that your focus doesn't go two ways.

So far I always took the pain of remembering the spell, as well as the prayers. These too long to remember I do not use... at least not right now.

How do you solve this issue in your practice?

 

[StarOfSitra]

I don’t pray to anyone; I draw support from the deities so that my achievements become their victories. I cast spells and evocations—I don’t memorize them for two reasons:

If you read them too many times to memorize them, you strip them of their emotional power. Repetition makes them monotonous and dull—just look at the prayers in a Catholic mass or a Rosary.

I prefer to focus all my energy on the ritual itself and on channeling my will, rather than wasting some of that energy and attention on remembering something by he
art.

 

[Amadeus]

The psalm method, doing the long readings, you can't really memorize all of them. There were some monks who actually did that. In a book about Porphyrios. He memorized all 150 in Greek, which is absolutely crazy achievement. Memorizing 100 pages sounds like totally mad. Then again he was a maniac who spent most of the time on it. A fast reader can read the psalms in less than 2 hours anyway, no point to memorize.

When I'm doing long mantra or prayer readings and the prayer is important then I memorize it. They are not so long let's say... psalm 91, less than a page. It is better to memorize it than read because after very long sessions you will get eye strain, possibly a headache.

The question always is: what are you doing, what is the goal?

Yes for certain, for some rituals you better memorize whatever than read it off the book. Especially those rituals where you are supposed to read something for X number of times for X days, very long sessions.

Then you have another problem, pronunciation. When doing the Sufi methods; you have the "west vs east" where some keep saying it is important to say zzzzzz and others say "dh". Saudi Arabia vs... (insert something here). One set of practitioners feel more connected when they use one way of pronounciation and the others prefer another. Is it about unlocking...? It might change after you read the whatever for x number of times. Some people I know feel a huge difference.

It is the same with the Hindu mantras. India vs Nepal & Tibet. There's a difference between how they are said out.

In conclusion I think it is a good idea to memorize something when it's important part of your active ritual work.
Speaking of memorization. I thought I was going mad when I memorized Quranic verses, some stuff in Latin and Old Church Slavonic, the ayatul kursi and other chapters. They all sound like "bla bla bla bla bla". This felt like a lobotomy

 

[glaive]

I think memorizing can be really powerful! In a practical sense, no, I don't memorize as much as I'd like, but spiritually, I think my relationship with a text is elevated when it's inscribed into my mind. I learn more from it the more that I visit it, and it's easier to focus on the "stuff" behind the text when you already KNOW the text and aren't tripped up by an unexpected/forgotten word or phrase.

My experience is more for prayers and contemplation though. I have a few rituals I would eventually like to have memorized. I'm reading Yates' The Art of Memory right now so it is an area I am planning to focus on in the near future...

 

[neilwilkes]

I'm thinking about how I read here about reading the Psalms daily. Interesting food for the thought. There are many spells in the books that are to be used for praying alone or in the ritual and some are quite long. Especially when it comes to stuff like evocations, it feels to me to start being... difficult to perform properly.

I think that if you pray for the reason of praying and focus on what you read or say, reading it from the book is quite fine and well. But when it comes to stuff where you need to focus your attention on something else than the text, then I think the memory needs to be used so that your focus doesn't go two ways.

So far I always took the pain of remembering the spell, as well as the prayers. These too long to remember I do not use... at least not right now.

How do you solve this issue in your practice?

Read from the book until you have what you want to say by heart.
Simples.

 

[Fr.TzQ]

For me it's both, albeit with a couple of caveats. These days I'm mostly working with the Verum spirits, and as such go through a minimum of three days of purification and prayer before most operations. You're told to study the book during this time, and even though the names and words can be quite difficult- approaching barbarous in places- it's still possible to memorise them in that period. Ditto the Penitential Psalms- just keep plugging away at them. I keep a book of Psalms and one of Common Prayer handy, even though I've been doing this for years.

I heard an interesting point in a podcast recently (might have been Icy Sedgwick guesting somewhere?), that those of us working from a particular manual effectively speak a shared language. In the case of GV, if you're running Jake's version, then the Astrachios prayer is an example of this. It took me a while for it to click, but since then it's become almost mantric, with the six repetitions before bed often continuing into and during sleep. Just reading the prayer from a page doesn't, and didn't for me, have the same effect.

That said, there's the practical, belt and braces element. Shit happens, and sometimes people forget things! A hardcopy that's available for reference is definitely a good idea IMO. That said, I work outdoors a lot; and while I try to be "abroad, under clear skies", living in Britain means the weather can and does turn very quickly. So- buy a laminator! Having key sections written (my preference) or printed in relatively large, clear script, and then waterproofed can be a big help.

This is mostly from the point of view of working solo, or as a couple. I've been in my group rituals, albeit not for about 20 years now, where every officer had a ring binder with the ritual and their part marked with highlighter or whatever. It's all a bit am-dram! We'd get some results, but I found it quite difficult to enter the "other" headspace doing it that way, and wouldn't recommend it.

I firmly believe that you only get out as much as you put in with this stuff, and that nothing is "free"- even if the only payment on the operator's part is the effort of making the tools and learning the ritual. And maybe being a bit hungry for a few days!

 

[julio]

In the specific case of what’s being asked here in this thread, a prayer, reading from memory will allow you to put a little more devotion into it.

Now a book that works as a tool of conjuration, and for it to be that it has to be ritualistically turned into one, then even when one knows the text, reading from it is essential.