“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration…”
This is the Litany Against Fear a prayer from Dune by Frank Herbert. It has been theorized its origin is from the Bene Gesserit. This litany was used to calm and focus the mind in everyday life as well as at times of dire straights.
“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
A little bit of research and the discovery of https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Litany_Against_Fear it seems that Frank Herbert used Shakespeare’s Julius Cease as inspiration for writing the Litany Against Fear.
A coward dies a thousand times before his death,
but the valiant taste of death but once.
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.
I used https://ttsmp3.com/ to record the automated payer, it has some limitations in character limit but allows for many different languages and accents. It is advertised that the speech is very natural and human, I find that the output is not at all natural or human. I’m not sure that I would this for prayer but I do see some creative possibilities for text to speech. I still don’t believe that automated prayer is getting at the core of what prayer is, I think the work involved with the act of praying and the time commitment is fundamentally part of prayer itself.
