How to Prepare for Sacred Secretion: Keeping the Chrism Fast Gently

How to prepare for sacred secretion is the question that comes once the dates are on your calendar. The honest answer starts where most guides do not. George W. Carey, whose 1920 book the practice comes from, did not ask anyone to fast. What he asked for was harder to measure and easier to begin.

The callout gives the Moon's place on the day this page was published. Your own window is somewhere ahead of it, and nothing on this page needs to be done before then.

This is part three of three. Part one, is sacred secretion real?, traces the teaching of the chrism to its source and answers whether any of it is anatomy. Part two, how the chrism fast window works, explains how the window is timed. The Chrism Fast Calendar gives you the dates.

What the tradition says the window is for

God-Man: The Word Made Flesh (1920) and the 1932 The Zodiac and the Salts of Salvation give the monthly window three aims. Each is reported here in the authors' own terms. None of these is a promise about your body.

Conserving the seed. In God-Man the seed formed each month is either saved or lost, and it is lost when "consumed in sexual expression on the physical plane, or by alcoholic drinks, or gluttony" (p. 90) ☿George W. Carey and Inez Eudora Perry (1920). God-Man: The Word Made Flesh. The Chemistry of Life Co., Los Angeles.Read full source →☿¹. The book's rule of continence is stricter than any modern window: "men must abstain entirely from sexual contact" (p. 138), with an exception only for conceiving children (p. 140). Modern practice narrows that rule to the days of the window.

Clarity. In Carey's map the saved seed rises to the head and ends beside the optic thalamus, which he calls the eye single, borrowing the Gospel's image of an eye that makes the whole body full of light (p. 100). The aim described is illumination, a way of seeing whole.

Devotion. The memorial preface of the 1932 book says what the whole effort means for a person. Becoming a Christian, in its sense, is not a matter of belief but a process of remaking: "to make a new being of one's self" (p. xv) ☉George W. Carey and Inez Eudora Perry (1932). The Zodiac and the Salts of Salvation. 1932 edition, archive.org scan.Read full source →☉². Read this way, each window is a small monthly act of that remaking.

What Carey asked for, and what he refused

He refused fasting, in so many words. Listing the routes that will not lead anywhere, he says that neither "by dieting or fasting or ‘Fletcherizing’", the fashionable chewing regimen of his day, nor by suggestion "will the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone be found" (p. 103) ☿George W. Carey and Inez Eudora Perry (1920). God-Man: The Word Made Flesh. The Chemistry of Life Co., Los Angeles.Read full source →☿¹. The 1932 book repeats the sentence almost word for word (p. 30).

He did not dismiss the fasts of the religious calendar. He read them as code: "the fast days and feast days are founded on great esoteric truths" (p. 108). To Carey a fast day was a symbol to be understood, not a diet to be followed.

What he asked for instead applied to every day of the month, not only to the window: no alcohol, nothing eaten to excess, and continence (pp. 90, 138–140). That is a harder discipline than a few days without food, and a safer one.

The multi-day fast that circulates under his name today is a later layer. As it is usually described, it means water only for the length of the window, or a lighter version with a little fruit and soaked nuts. This page records that as a practice people describe. It is not Carey's instruction and it is not ours.

How do you prepare for sacred secretion?

Begin with what Carey actually asked rather than with a fast: no alcohol, nothing to excess, sexual restraint and attention turned inward, for the days the Moon spends in your Sun sign. Watch one window before changing anything. Add the earlier sign as preparation later, if at all. Changing what you eat is optional and not for everyone.

The point of starting small is that the window comes back every month. There is no prize for intensity in the first one, and a practice that starts as a rule you are failing tends to end there. Start as an observer and let the discipline grow only as far as it stays honest.

Who should not fast at all

A fast of four or five days is a medical matter, not a spiritual detail. Do not restrict food on a spiritual schedule if you are under 18, pregnant or breastfeeding, diabetic, underweight, have any history of disordered eating, or take medication that must be taken with food. If you have any ongoing medical condition, speak to a doctor before changing how you eat. You can still keep every window: the restraint, the quiet and the attention need no change to your meals. The disclaimer sets out the rest.

If the practice ever starts to feel like a rule you are failing, that is the signal to stop and simplify, not to push harder.

When to let a window pass

Some months the window will land on a week you cannot give it: travel, illness, a deadline, a funeral, a celebration. Let it pass. In Carey's scheme every month brings a new seed, and the Moon returns to your Sun's sign about every 27 days, so another window is never more than four weeks away. A missed window is not a broken rule.

If you notice that you skip every window, write that down too, without judging it. It tells you what the practice is competing with, which is useful to know. The discipline the tradition describes is conservation, and forcing a practice into a month that cannot hold it spends more than it saves.

What people report, and what this page will not repeat

People who keep the window describe it in personal terms. Those accounts differ, cannot be checked, and are not repeated here as evidence. The tradition's own promises, regeneration and illumination, belong to the tradition and are reported as its claims in is sacred secretion real?.

What you can check is narrower and more useful: whether a few gathered days each month change the quality of your attention. The physiology of kundalini and of the claustrum oil can stay an open question while you find out. Keep the notebook and you will have your own evidence, which is the only kind this practice produces.

FAQ

How do you preserve the sacred secretion? In Carey's account the seed is preserved by not spending it: no alcohol, no gluttony and sexual restraint, which he asks for on every day of the month, not only in the window (God-Man, pp. 90, 138). That is the tradition's claim about a seed no one has observed. In practice, preserving means keeping attention and appetite gathered for the days you keep.

Do you have to fast during the sacred secretion? No. Carey rejected fasting outright: the Elixir of Life, he wrote, is not found by dieting or fasting (God-Man, p. 103). The multi-day fast is a later addition. You can keep the window without changing what you eat, and anyone under 18, pregnant, diabetic or with a history of disordered eating should not fast at all.

What does sacred secretion feel like? There is no reliable answer. The physiology behind the question is not real, so there is no sensation it reliably produces. People who keep the window describe their own experiences, which differ and cannot be checked. A better question is what a few days of restraint and attention feel like for you, and a short daily note will tell you.

How do you raise the sacred secretion? In the teaching it is not raised by technique. Carey's seed rises by itself when it is not spent, carried up to the head (God-Man, p. 90). Breathing along the spine is a modern addition to the window. Nothing on this page claims that anything rises; the practice is to keep attention gathered and to notice what happens.