The Latin word ‘draco’ below means ‘dragon’ or ‘serpent’. In the context of this blog, I have categorized it not as ‘dragon’ but as ‘drac’, a reptilian species in popular folklore. This might also have to do with my blog category: Reptilian mind
- PRAYER OF SAINT BENEDICT FOR EXORCISM
- THE SATAN WORLD AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
- THE FIRST THREE LINES OF THE PRAYER OF SAINT BENEDICT, IN SUBCONSCIOUS TERMS
- First Line of the Prayer: Crux sacra sit mihi lux
- Second Line of the Prayer: Non draco sit mihi dux
- Third Line of the Prayer: Vade retro satana
- Alternate Translations of the Third Line of the Prayer
Dear Ones,
Something came up, in the astral realm last night. Several people were dreaming along with me, and then we all woke up, in that half-dreamy state of reverie between sleep and waking. We were working out together what to say for an exorcism.
PRAYER OF SAINT BENEDICT FOR EXORCISM
You all may remember my work on exorcism, and the words that people used to say, which are well rhymed and visually evocative. Here are the words of the Prayer of Saint Benedict for exorcism …
“Crux sacra sit mihi lux / Non draco sit mihi dux
“Vade retro satana / Numquam suade mihi vana
“Sunt mala quae libas / Ipse venena bibas”
The Wikipedia translation is like this …
“Let the Holy Cross be my light / Let not the dragon be my guide
“Step back Satan / Never tempt me with vain things
“What you offer me is evil / You drink the poison yourself.” –from Link: “Vade Retro Satana,” in Wikipedia … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vade_retro_satana … CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License
THE SATAN WORLD AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
The Satan world has a lot to do with the subconscious mind, and the collective subconscious of humankind. Psychologists and psychiatrists might say that the images of the Satan world are repressed, subconscious expressions of thoughts and feelings that cannot meet societal expectations.
If this be true, then in order to deal with the Satan world, we must know about the subconscious mind, and how different it is from the conscious mind.
As the subconscious mind has not the qualities of logic or of abstract thought, its mental process has most fundamentally to do with its interpretation of metaphor as an emotion-packed image of a physical thing … often an image of the human body, or of a house that it interprets to be the human body. In a sense, the message of the subconscious image (or dream image) is the emotion that it carries, and the action that the body or house is taking … quite often, the pickle it is in at the moment. So the dreamtime expression is Image plus Emotion; that is the language of the subconscious mind.
In addition, the subconscious mind loves repetition and rhyme.
Thus it has these three qualities: love of repetition, love of rhyme, and expression of metaphor through visualizations of the human body during our dreamtime.
THE FIRST THREE LINES OF THE PRAYER OF SAINT BENEDICT, IN SUBCONSCIOUS TERMS
First Line of the Prayer: Crux sacra sit mihi lux
Image: “Crux Sacra,” adapted from Image by Imágenes Cristianas y Poderosas from Pixabay, Pixabay Content License
Image: “Crux Sacra,” adapted from Image by Imágenes Cristianas y Poderosas from Pixabay, Pixabay Content License
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As can be seen from the above translation of the Prayer of Saint Benedict, it offers striking visual imagery. In the old days, Christians used to wear or carry a cross with them always. I feel this to be a very good practice for Christians today as well.
If that is done, then the first words of the Prayer … Crux sacra … might be accompanied by our physical gesture of touching the cross round our neck or in our pocket. And that would be a good gesture to engage the subconscious mind’s longing to express thought in terms of our physical body.
When we think about it, the cross is like the human body with arms outstretched. When we touch the cross upon our body, then the subconscious interprets the words crux sacra as meaning that our own body is a sacred place. In other words, this crux sacra is itself. The subconscious, in this way, is lifted up into the realms of Christlike Light and love and joy. It seems to me natural that these first words of the prayer will banish from the subconscious mind the imagery it may conjure of a Satanic being.
Then the words sit mihi lux … which create an image of Light. The subconscious mind then visualizes Light pouring into or emanating from the human body. Light, in Ascension terms, is the great healer of the body of Light, plumping up the axiatonal lines of Light, and erasing Soul wounding.
Soul wounding often is carried in the subconscious mind, we feel. Thus, visualization of the physical body as full of Light, we feel, is a healing image for the subconscious mind.
Second Line of the Prayer: Non draco sit mihi dux
Image: “Draco,” adapted Image by Curious Hunter from Pixabay, Pixabay Content License
The second line of the prayer … Non draco sit mihi dux … is also visually evocative. We might imagine that the subconscious creates an image of a dragon bossing it around. And that image applies, in terms of the brain, to the reptilian brain, the ancient instincts of humankind which often run counter to societal expectations.
Thus the second line of the prayer helps the subconscious mind toss out ‘acting out’ of the feral drive. And it presents this dictate in terms that the subconscious mind can understand … as visual imagery that carries and a message replete with a particular emotion.
In the case of subconsciously evoking the image of Satan, and of the conscious mind wanting to be rid of it, the second line of the Prayer is a command, spoken in subconscious lingo, to the subconscious mind. Just as the first line of the Prayer evokes, for the sake of the subconscious mind. what to do, the second line of the Prayer evokes, for the sake of the subconscious mind, what not to do.
Third Line of the Prayer: Vade retro satana
Image: “Step Back, Satan!” adapted Image by Karen .t from Pixabay, Pixabay Content License
Image: “Step Back, Satan!” adapted Image by Karen .t from Pixabay, Pixabay Content License
. . . . .
With the third line of the prayer … Vade retro satana … we come up with a bit of a problem. And this is the problem that several people were discussing in the reverie state last night. The difficulty is this: Sometimes Christians use this translation of the line: Get thee behind me, Satan!
Now there is trouble here, from a martial arts point of view: No one wants Satan sneaking round behind them! Who knows what he might be up to, after he gets there?
Not only that, but there is apparently a metaphoric mixup going on with regard to the phrase Get thee behind me, Satan! and the act of rectal intercourse. Apparently, the collective subconscious of Christians globally has been associating the righteous phrase to this alternative mode of sexual expression.
I ran into an instance recently, on the astral plane, of someone ‘acting out’ this metaphor in real life, by performing the act of donor rectal sex while wearing a devil mask. I will say, this vision had me baffled; but now I understand. It is simply a mistake made by the subconscious mind in the misinterpretation of the phrase Vade retro satana as if it meant, in English: Get thee behind me, Satan!
Unusual as it may be, this dream world ‘acting out’ is an excellent example of the way the subconscious mind interprets visual images through the emotions attached to them, and translates them into physical terms, especially with regard to the dreamer’s own physical body.
I can only imagine the subconscious feeling emotions of courage and victory, while it saw the image of Satan going round behind the person. Well … the subconscious must have thought … It must be a very good thing for Satan to go round behind someone. This person gets a courageous, victorious feeling when Satan does that.
Now many Christians feel that Satan is an evil dude. And they also feel that rectal intercourse is an evil act, and can result in a person being possessed by the devil. I guess this all amounts to that very misinterpretation of Vade retro satana as meaning: Get thee behind me, Satan!
What is the subconscious mind to do? If it goes with the emotions of courage and a feeling of victoriousness, and opts, in real life, for the act of insertive rectal intercourse, then it will afterwards reap the emotions of damnation and social opprobrium because of Christian disapproval of this act.
What a conundrum! And not one that the subconscious mind … lacking, as it does, the faculty of logic … is capable of figuring out. Better … far better … would be to propose a different English translation for the phrase Vade retro satana …
Alternate Translations of the Third Line of the Prayer. The translation I quote at the beginning of this blog … Step back, Satan … is better, I feel. And last night we came up with some alternate translations: Go back, Satan! … and a young person contributed, with peals of laughter … Back off, Satan! I feel these are also quite good; I especially enjoyed the laughter of the young person. There is nothing quite like laughter to evaporate visions of Satan and the demon realm. Well done, young person! Well done!
The imagery in each of these last three translations is of Satan approaching, and then the subconscious mind commands that he back off. And then, in subconscious imagery, he backs off … which, I feel to be just the right kind of image for a prayer of exorcism.
In love, light and joy
This is Alice B. Clagett.
I Am of the Stars … and so are you!
Written and published on 22 March 2019; revised on 15 November 2023; revised on 25 June 2024
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). Attribution: By Alice B. Clagett.
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repressed emotions, societal expectations, Satan, demonic realm, subconscious mind, collective subconscious, symbolism, subconscious symbolism, body of light, axiatonal lines of light, exorcism, Prayer of Saint Benedict, laughter, Christianity, one-upmanship, rectal intercourse, dracs, prayers, blessings, 2u3d, acting out,
