Holding in the Light—Ritual magic and an empty form?
January 6, 2025 § 2 Comments
In the largely post-Christian liberal Quaker milieu that is my religious home, the most common form of “prayer” is “holding someone in the light.” In this practice, we are not asking God or Christ or some other spirit to do something. We are projecting a grace-conferring energy.
Does it confer any blessing on the recipient—does it work? And does it even confer any blessing on those who do the holding?
Until recently, I have felt that this practice is a form without any real power, because it is rote. It is a ritualistic formula that almost always lacks enough focus to carry even the meager energy that ritual magic pretends to. For we are using it like ritual magic.
Honest ritual magic, like the Catholic mass, needs lots of elements to be effective. It should engage all the senses: incense, the taste of the host, the genuflections, the singing and ritual language in communication, the light of stained glass windows and the shape of magical symbols. And it needs a focus, a place to put the attention. And it needs an ideology, a theology that gives meaning, shapes the focus, and holds all the elements together in ritually semantic coherence.
And even then, ritual magic almost never delivers. How can we expect any more from just asking the meeting to hold someone in the light?
Well, at the very least, it brings the meeting into some form of communion. It binds the meeting to the petitioner and it binds us all together, if only for the moment, and if only rather weakly.
A while ago, some vocal ministry about this came to me in worship, and I posted it in this blog. I have since converted that message into a poem:
There is within us each a Light,
a Light that comforts us and heals.
It can drive away the shadows and
illuminate our way.
When we hold someone in that Light,
we act from the Light within us
and we give answer to their cries:
we stand beside them
in solidarity with their suffering;
we say, “You are not alone.
The Holy Spirit is here with you,
and so in Spirit are we.
With our spirits we offer hope and faith;
with tender hearts we offer love;
with our words we render audible
prayers that fly to their home.”
Through the Flaming Sword 
Though this isn’t formally a prayer, that feels to me like what we intend when we’re asked to do it. Do Friends generally believe they personally have the power to heal each other? I’d say not. But we center down and set out hearts, however briefly, to participating in what I think is a leading to participate in God’s good will for the person, whether or not most of the group is thinking on those lines.
Years ago I remember my dad grumbling about the concept of “holding someone in the Light.” He always said why don’t they just say we will pray for them. In truth, neither I nor you have the power to “hold” someone in the Light. That said, we know what it means and your poem conveys the good intention of the phrase.
In fact, we are all forever held in the Light and it seems we might better serve those in need or suffering by acknowledging that Truth. No proactive statement of our “holding” does anything except perhaps making the holder feel better and letting the one in need know that people care. I prefer something like, “let them know that we care, and may they be comforted and healed by the Divine Love and Light that ever holds them.”