The Inner Way - The Power of Prayer and Belief in Spiritual Practice (IHS Study Guides) Paperback – October 24, 2014

I have recently been suffering a bout of "lung"—the punchy Tibetan word for what, in Ayurveda, would be called a "vayu" or wind disorder. It's not been an especially bad one, but has been disruptive. Unjustified anger, inappropriate irritation, a constant feeling of tension and anxiety, an unwillingness or inability to just sit and relax, a constant need to be "doing something" and to feel productive; all of these psycho-physiological symptoms, on top of actual upper respiratory ones, have been plaguing me for a while, now. It took the insight of a friend of mine, himself a practitioner of Chinese traditional medicine, for me to figure out what was going on; he has also been helping me to develop a course of action, though a lot of that onus must be on me.I bring all of this up because much of this has coincided with my attendance at a seminar by Mark Stavish and reading several of his books (including  Child of the Sun: Psychic & Physical Rejuvenation in Alchemy and Qabala (IHS Study Guides Series) (Volume 3) , which I have previously reviewed), all of which has helped me to revisit my daily spiritual practice in some very constructive ways. My own Guru, Sri Kapilnath, and his Guru before him, Sri Gurudev Mahendranath ("Dadaji"), both emphasize both simplicity and personalization of approach: one's spiritual practice ought to be only complex enough to keep one engaged and to get the job done, but never any more complex than it needs to be. This has been a hard lesson to learn for someone who came up in the Western occult tradition, doing two-hour ceremonies full of colorful tools and robes and long, dramatic incantations. There is still certainly space for such games of ritual magic, but it simply doesn't work as the everyday baseline for most of us.Mark Stavish names the three essential practices of esotericism as: prayer, meditation, and ritual. Ritual need not mean the big, complex ceremonial affairs I mentioned above, but may just be the order in which we light the candles and incense before meditation, or the specific Psalms we pray before turning fully inward to contemplative prayer. In any case, ritual is itself dependent upon both prayer and meditation, with prayer being the core subject of "The Inner Way".While very little in this book was new to me, I have to say that the clarity of communication and the absolute unwillingness of Stavish to fall into obscurantism makes this a book I wish I had as a teenager, when I was just starting out on my spiritual path. I can see this book on the shelf today next to my copies of William G. Gray's classics  Inner Traditions of Magic  and  Magical Ritual Methods —both of which I have had since I was 16—and can with a smile imagine it back in time to the little shelf my dad had screwed into the wall above my bed for the display of my small but (if I do say so myself) elite occult library.The very simplicity of the methods explored—from verbal petitions to use of Psalms to silent inner prayer to ritual theurgy—are their value. Wind disorders are very common among spiritual practitioners, though often we do not have the vocabulary to understand what is really happening when these symptoms arise; we become distracted and discouraged, wondering why our peace has suddenly evaporated, why the anger we thought we had conquered is coming back with such force, why our poise and concentration has been lost after so many years of rigorous effort. Very often, this can all be prevented or treated through the very simplicity of peaceful prayer and stable meditation. Wind may not be calmed by mountains, but the mountains are not moved thereby; the wind simply passes around and through, doing its work as the mountains rest.

A few years ago I started reading Mark Stavish’s books and quickly realized they were not meant simply to be read but to be used as instruction manuals in practicing the hermetic arts and sciences for the generation of the one thing; the universal medicine or elixir of life. In Mark’s books chapters always end with ritual instruction in order to reap the energetic fruit of the wisdom gained in reading the text. From experience I can tell you that as simple as some of the practices may appear with daily practice they are powerful and transformative talismans. The reason some of the instruction seem so simple is that Mark has spent decades learning how to reduce the complicated and arcane instructions of hermetic initiatic illumination practices into their bare bones so that people may develop and deepen their experiences at a sustainable rate. When this book tells you to stop and practice a meditation or ritual which it outlines in perfect detail take the opportunity to perform the work and learn how to change the conditions of your life.His new book The Inner Way deals with the fundamental secrets of how practicing magic, meditation, prayer, and ritual teaches one to harness the powers of creation in order to manifest and create conditions which one seeks in the world. The hard work that is required to become intimate with the nature of the Self, the elementals, the planets, archangels and other powers associated with the traditional hermetic worldview bears fruit when the magician becomes able to change the conditions both within and without in his world as a result of practice. The end result of this work is judged by the ability of the magician to create and maintain an environment which serves his true wishes and as such takes away the ability for the practitioner to blame anyone or anything for any conditions in his life which are causing disharmony. Mark describes this masterful approach to life in this text in which he outlines the ethics required to achieve success in this field gained through prayer, meditation, and ritual.This text is a wonderful companion to Mark’s recent book A Light on the Path, which serves as a syllabus for serious students to participate in a four-year masters level study of the hermetic arts and sciences. This new text The Inner Way deals with the necessary understanding of the approach to making these practices work in the inner and outer world as the wisdom bears fruit and the work matures to allow illumination to change conditions and possibilities for the magician and all beings that suffer. This work is called Great because its true purpose and goal is to serve all those who suffer and heal all those in need. The medicine or elixir generated through the dedicated practice of the hermetic sciences and arts is a universal gift to all who are near its presence. I hope this text will help you join the chain of tradition of individuals who devote their lives to the generation of the force, which accomplishes miracles in the world.

Valuable aid in futher exploring the material in Words of My Teachers and the related audio program. Straight forward approach to developing spiritual practices.

Want a book that covers all the fundamentals in spiritual practice in the material and spiritual work?... The best of the best, is like a health infusion to drink before entering into the adept and more advance work. Totatally worth it! Thank you again Sir Mark Stavish and co.!

Inspiration to get the ball rolling with your spiritual path.

Another good one from Mark Stavish.

There are books that you read, enjoy, perhaps assimilate a little of, and then consign to the dusty shelf of books once read but never retouched. There are other books that you read turning page after page, eager to move on, knowing that to properly assimilated, the book will need to be kept close at hand to be read, reread and dipped into when necessary. These latter types of books are few and far between but, The Inner Way – The Power of Prayer and Belief in Spiritual Practice is certainly one of them.A few years ago, I made a determination that, to all intents and purposes, I was on my own when it came to pursuit of the esoteric and spiritual. To a large degree, I actually tried not to read books on the topic for answers so much as for corroboration and to regenerate my enthusiasm for the search. I simply came to realize that the answers were actually all known to me – the inner me. Other people’s answers may show the way to heaven or to hell but it was their answer not mine. All I had to do (as if this is in any way an easy task – it is not) was to seek the answers there within myself. This book, it seems to me, concurs with that view, reminding me of how to do this, and providing the tools and techniques all at the same time.Fundamentally, the book is about prayer. Yes, prayer. How many books on occult techniques and practices ever really get to grips with prayer? Prayer is a fundamental aspect of spiritual practice and one that seems to me to be remarkably undervalued and mostly overlooked these days. This book gets to grips with prayer – what it is, why it is important and provides guidance on how to prayer. For that fact alone, it is, in my opinion, an essential addition to any library of occult classics.However, the appendices (which form around half of the book) contain a great deal of additional information supplemented with many and varied references that are also invaluable. These appendices are in of themselves a veritable trove of wisdom, reference sources and meditation material. I particularly enjoyed the ideas contained regarding magic in the modern world and in creating reality.Mr. Stavish and his colleagues have produced a classic text here. Highly recommended.