How to Keep a Prayer List for Healing

Keeping a prayer list can help you focus your magical and prayerful healing work. Often when you work with magic or prayer in an intense or mystical way people ask you to pray for them, or send them healing vibes. They say things like:

• “Send good vibes”
• “Pray for me”
• “Light a candle”
• “Send energy”

In my priestwork and spiritwork I have at a number of times in my life become overwhelmed with the number of prayer requests, and so I started writing them down. Turns out it was useful in a number of ways, some of which I didn’t expect. Right now we are all struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic and many of us know those who are sick or healing.

A Note:  When I say prayer, you can say magic, it’s the same thing, in this case. The idea is to use focused thought and will to affect reality.  Academics will argue about the similarities and differences between magic and prayer.  I think it’s summed up best in this way:

Magic is sourced in your own energy and power to create change. 

Prayer is sourced in the energy and power of external Beings to create change. 

So no matter how you end up spending time thinking about and hoping for the best with those who are struggling, here are some ideas to keep you organized and effective.

A Prayer List Helps You Remember to Check-In with People

Things have been stressful, and look to keep right on being stressful. That makes it hard for your brain to function. Having a physical list of the people who you’re worried about is a practical way to help you remember to show care even when you’re not at your best.

It Can Help You to Remember to Heal Yourself

When you’re busy praying/magic-ing for others, it often makes one reflect on yourself. This can help you remember to have self-compassion at the same time that you’re having compassion for others.  There’s also a super-secret reality to healing work:  when you’re healing others, you’re healing yourself. When you connect to your own healing magic and when you send out that energy it is flowing for you as well.  To heal is to be healed. It’s nice that way.

A Prayer List Creates Easy Flexibility of Practice

You can say the names out loud, spend time reading them silently, or simply sit with the list as a magical item of focus, much like a sigil. It’s funny how such a little thing can be such a big deal. But the core of religious practice is connection.  When you build a healing list, you’re building connections in a very real way that is there for you to work with even when you’re busy or tired.  A prayer list can also help you develop a devotional practice based on healing.

It Can Function as a Focus Talisman for Healing Energies

You don’t have to read your list for it to function well. There’s a very long tradition of written magical words as talismans.  There are even Scottish practices where you make a tea of a page of the bible and drink it to ingest the sacred quality of the words.  I wouldn’t recommend making a tea from your list, but you can use it as a magical focus. I’ve wrapped it around a rock before, and I have an embroidered silk bag I made for it. Many times I just hold the bag with the list and the rock in my hands, ground into the earth, and send healing energies outward to those who are in need.

If you’re looking for a deeper healing practice, I host a weekly healing circle on the Polytheist Network and for my Patreons.