The Agnostic Prayer of Forgiveness

I cannot take credit for the following. Instead, it is a product of that departed talent Roger Zelazny, he who crafted Lord of Light and The Chronicles of Amber. It is his idea of what a priest of agnostics might deliver as a rite of forgiveness before death:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.

Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit.

I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

This quote is taken from the third chapter of Zelazny's 1969 book, Creatures of Light and Darkness. It conceals in itself many interesting ideas about our relationship with the supernatural.

Rite Of Examination (Preparatory, Part 2)

In the previous epistle I did write upon the matter of arising. In this second part, I write herein on the matter of arousal and the enlightenment of the internal workings.

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Part II – The Arousal and Enlightenment

It is now the hour that you must gird your loins and stir forth. Should you have an examination before noon, you must be of good cheer. Eat not of the heaviness of starch, but of the lightness of fruit and grain. Prepare the essence of the bean, lovingly and with water that comes not to boil, but yet gives off steam and brings the aroma of the essence to your nostrils.

Yet each of these things should be done a halved hour before you must depart for the trial of your perspicacity. This time is needed, for a third of an hour will pass and you shall feel intolerable stirrings from within your belly, for this is the way of liquid, that it finds its lowest level and attempts to flow out therefrom. Release the fluid of your internal strivings, and whatever other debris may obtain thereof, and retain none of it, that your heart (and bowels) be enlightened and your gait springy as you approach the trial.

For these are the secrets of the well-prepared supplicant at the Great Rite of Examination:

• circulatory prowess, that the sanguinity of the body fuel the earnest intent of the mind
• caffeinatory prowess, that the choleric impulse of the body fuel the nimble celerity of the intellect
• post-colonial prowess, that the melancholic excess of the body be divested promptly as a burden to the thought

for indeed the trial of examination is the trial of the phlegmatic essence, which permeates the tissues of the brain, giving life to every axonic electrification.

World without end, yes, but every trial is ended at its own time.

Rite Of Examination (Preparatory, Part 1)

It was said unto me by a son of the wyvern in the day just passed, as he looked upon the fallen arches of my foot and mourned the fracture of my distal phalange, that I had omitted the most basic rite of the examination cycle. (For they who have not seen, or who have not heard of the rites of examination, there are four parts of the rite – Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.)

And so, here and now do I present to you, my brothers and sisters in the College, the first part of the Preparatory Rite which all students should consider before the start of each examination day.

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Part I – The Awakening

Arise, O child of dust, and wake into the cool and grey penumbra of the passing of Night! It is the morning, but you know it not, and it is the beginning of Creation, but you feel it not.

Upon your bed of sorrow and of the toil of evening past, lift up your limbs singly and in slowness of mind, that you might receive assurance of your wholeness and the continuing existence of your material self.

Learn as if anew that you have arms, a left and a right, and each arm has distally a hand, cramped though they might be with the agony of the writer and the tension of the age. Upon each hand, find fingers, which for most of those who live are five in number, of which one is a thumb, stumpy but not to be despised.

Clench your fists, all fingers five and crowning the four others with your thumb. Thus you might defy the urgings of Dream and Sleep. Newly unsleeping, unclench and clench again, till your blood roars with vehement chastisements in the muscles of your arms.

If you have laid weights of metal or of stone beside your bed, lift one in each hand, while lying supine. Let these not exceed five masses of the French Revolutionary standard. Perform the ritual of lifting five times each, and five times five again.

Strangely, you will then discover your legs, sturdy appendages for the movement of the body, and their supporting feet. (One scruples at that most oxymoronic term, the 'metric foot', which young Trivandrum should emplace upon his web-log.) Raise your legs above your head, aiding the heart as it sends the sanguine ichor towards the seat of your mentality and away from the mentality of your seat.

Lower them, and with the momentum of this movement, plant your feet upon the ground beside your bed. In a while, you will be ready to stand up. But not yet, for otherwise, the sudden elevation of your head might cause a dizzying of the intellect, as has occurred with fatal result in many who are older and wiser.

Thus ends the first part.

The Alexandrian Key

It is said that the Great Library at Alexandria...

• was the largest collection of learning of its time or any time before it


• was one of many libraries all established in cities called Alexandria


• was indexed by complex cryptography because it was so large


• was razed by a truly literate conqueror


• was a threat to world peace


• was a necessary evil


• was

Egypt is a mysterious land. God works in mysterious ways.

Celebrant: Open the gates of your heart. This is the morning. The blood of the sun is within us and the light of the dawn covers the land with its heat.

Congregation: This is the eye of the day.

Celebrant: Open the gates of your breast. This is the morning. The breath of the sun is upon us and the light of the dawn brings life.

Congregation: Behold the eye of the day.

Celebrant: Open the gates of your mouth. This is the morning. The word of the sun is upon us and the light of the dawn calls us to praise the Ancient of Days.

Congregation: Praise the Ancient of Days!

All: For the sun has He set as a light from dawn to dusk and as an arbiter of season and sign, of promise and of hope.