Tags: Fac bonum, a spiritual aid for warding off evil forces; Henri Durville; the letter tau; Enchiridion Leonis Papae; secrecy to preserve effectiveness; do good; seals versus sigils

Fac bonum, a sigil (most probably misattributed to Pope Leo III) for the years ahead?


As 2020 brought fear, misery and death to billions with regard to the first two and to at least several hundred thousand people for the last, it is absolutely crucial to understand that this was because some very evil forces were particularly active this year. Unless a massive shift in awareness occurs in the minds of the many inhabitants of this planet over the next few weeks and months, I believe that evil is likely to gain in strength and thus continue to have the upper hand, with, in such a case, more anguish, pain and tears logically being the lot for most humans.

Among the weapons at our disposal to combat such evil forces, I would include knowledge, prayer and non-violent but nevertheless unwavering non-compliance with the technological enslavement that is being put in place for the whole of humanity – even though I must admit that not complying with what has been implemented (and is still brewing) for us is much easier said than done.

A little more than a year ago, I came across a ‘mystical seal’, ‘fac bonum’ (‘do good’), which might come to our succour if it indeed has the properties which a French esotericist, magnetist and paranormal researcher attributed to it. In his book ‘Prières et secrets – Les secours spirituels’, Prayers and secrets – spiritual aids), Henri Durville (1887–1963: https://data.bnf.fr/fr/search?term=Durville%2C+Henri) discusses this ‘seal’ (which, to me, is a sigil, not a seal*) over roughly a dozen pages for all of its constituents.



[Based on Durville, pp.341-342] from left to right, clockwise:

Cross of Saint Benedict
Tau, the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet (source: Ancient Crete?); in Christian symbolism, it is usually associated with redemption and salvation and thus immortality.
Fac – do.
Bonum – good.

The sigil makes use of the cross of Saint Benedict because, as Durville explains, this saint’s injunction was ‘Deverto a malo et fac bonum.’ (‘Shun evil and do good.’). Among the several paragraphs Durville devotes to Saint Benedict, I shall only cite the following (on page 339 of his book, Prayers and secrets – spiritual aids): ‘What does this rule command? It requires that the religious members of the Benedictine Order follow Christ in renunciation, quash their bad thoughts. It manifests itself in a characteristic combination of strength and softness, of will and feeling.’ [Please note that the French word ‘sentiment’ means in English ‘feeling’ as well as ‘sentiment’ – the latter being a concept a little more difficult to grasp...]

Durville describes the sigil (which he calls a seal) as a ‘secret conferring the power to drive out evil through the possession of higher knowledge’ [my emphasis], a ‘power, designed to counter the dangers posed by evil forces’, which he says was used in the French region of Saintonge, even though the source he gives for ‘fac bonum’ is Enchiridion Leonis Papae (The Enchiridion of Pope Leo III), which on page 84 of the 1633 edition comes with the following caption: ‘Per Signum [the cross of Saint Benedict] Domine Tau, libera me.’

Among the ‘ingredients’ Henri Durville mentions in order to ‘activate’ the sigil, there are black ink, a piece of parchment, white silk and, surprise, surprise, pronouncing part of Psalm 118 (17-18), which for the sake of effectiveness I shall give in Latin (because for those raised in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, Hebrew and Latin are the two sacred languages): ‘Retribue servo tuo, vivifica me. Revela oculos meos et considerabo mirabilia de lege tua.’

Enough information for anybody interested in ‘operative’ magic to find out whether the above works – even though Durville claims (in a rather abstruse concluding paragraph on page 342) that to reveal the ‘secret’ destroys its power as much as the daylight would destroy (traditional, i.e. analogical or silver-based) photo processing/printing (which, as everybody knows, was carried out in a dark room).

Even if one is not interested in putting the sigil to the test (I have not), Saint Benedict’s injunction to shun evil and do good instead (‘deverto a malo et fac bonum’) is one which we can certainly live by!

*
Seal
‘A design, crest, motto, etc., impressed on a piece of wax or other plastic material adhering or attached to a document as evidence of authenticity or attestation; a piece of wax etc. bearing such an impression’ [Source: Shorter Oxford English Dictionary]

Sigil
A magical incantation boiled down to the initial letters of the formula, then assembled into some shape which can be inscribed, engraved or, who knows, maybe even produced with a 3D printer... [My definition]

Lausanne, 30th December 2020