Product Description

Religions from around the world--Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Islam, and many more, including the Pagan earth religions--use prayer beads as useful guides to remembering prayers and principles. Pagan Prayer Beads by John Michael Greer and Clare Vaughn is a unique and practical introduction to the design, creation, and use of Pagan rosaries, teaching the reader to design and make personal prayer beads for use in myriad spiritual practices.

Co-written by a beading expert (Clare Vaughn) and one of the leading lights in modern Paganism (John Michael Greer), this book will garner an eager audience--from beginners to elders--looking for new inspiration in their personal spiritual practice. Beautifully written, instructive, and straightforward, Pagan Prayer Beads is user-friendly and easy to understand. Lovely black-and-white photographs accompany the text to further illustrate the art and craft of Pagan prayer beads. The how-to sections were "tested" by novices to both crafting and "the craft," who found the directions clear and easy to follow. Throughout the book, Greer and Vaughn have included fascinating history and lore as well as crystal properties, Pagan symbology, and deeply meaningful prayers and rituals to use with the rosaries.

* 30 lovely black-and-white photos accompany the beading instructions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161940 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

About the Author
John Michael Greer is the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America and a widely respected writer and teacher. He is the author of numerous articles and ten books, including Learning Ritual Magic and The Druidry Handbook. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Clare Vaughn is a longtime beader who currently makes Pagan rosaries and holds frequent workshops on making and using prayer beads. Clare is an experienced ceremonial magician and a practioner of plant-spirit magic, as well as the co-author of Learning Ritual Magic. She lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Customer Reviews

Learned a lot from this book
I'm an experienced beader, but have never ventured into making rosaries. This book is great for folks who know their way around beads, and probably for beginners too. The authors give practical advice and suggestions, as well as creative ideas for personalizing your rosary. They give detailed information about what materials to use (beads, stringing materials, crimps, etc) and good descriptions of how to make the different designs. My only minor complaint is I wish the pics had been in color (such beautiful designs, and I'm sure they would have looked even better in color), and some pictures of the actual process of making them would have been nice, especially for beginners. But overall a great book that I would definitely recommend!

Pagan Prayer Beads: Magic and Meditation with Pagan Rosaries
Pagan or not, many of us see the benefits of using rosaries, malas, or prayer beads to aid in mediation, contemplation, or prayer. However, Pagan Prayer Beads illustrates that the usages of these items need not be so narrow. Prayer beads can be used in formal and informal spiritual rituals and acts but they can also be used to symbolize special connections to specific deities, to the ancestors, to memorialize loved ones, or as a remembrance of a special occasion. Essentially, your creativity is your only limit when it comes to the usages of prayer beads.

In this book the emphasis is on creating prayer beads that suit your particular personality, spirituality, and needs. Throughout the text, the authors offer plenty of ideas and photographs of bead designs as well as information on animal, deity, and colour symbolism that the reader might find useful while creating his or her own prayer beads. The book also includes a variety of easy to understand step by step designs that those new to beading can follow if they aren't really ready to create their own unique prayer beads.

Beautiful and uplifting
This book is a fantastic resource for anyone who has ever considered designing his or her own prayer beads but had no idea where to start, how to work with beading wire, or which types of beads correspond to the specific purpose and/or intent. Different styles and techniques are shown (symmetrical/asymmetrical, for example) and explained in enough detail to help you through, but not enough that it becomes a substitute for your own ideas. The tone and language are uplifting and encouraging.

The only thing I'd change about the book if I could would be the images. As beautiful as the images are, it would be so much more helpful to someone with little to no understanding of color correspondences to actually see specific colors in use.

Even without the color images this is now one of my new favorite books - I will definitely be going back to it when I'm ready to start working a bit more with the beading wire.