Ritual · “Repetition Rewires”
The Three-Self Huna Prayer
To formulate a desire as a clear, detailed mental picture (‘seed’), charge it with mana, and consciously hand it to the High Self (one’s superconscious) to build into one’s future.
The Huna prayer in 6 lines: Choose one clear aim; clear guilt/fear first. Relax and build a surcharge of mana with deep breathing (fountain filling to overflow). Build a vivid, present-tense picture of the wish fulfilled. Send it up to your High Self with the mana — “here is my prayer and the power to build it; I hand it over.” Close: “amama, ua noa” — said and set free. Repeat daily before sleep, then trust and act.
What it is
Long’s central practice. In his “Huna” model a person is three selves: the low self (unihipili, subconscious, holds memory and makes mana), the middle self (uhane, the conscious “I”), and the High Self (Aumakua, a wise superconscious “older, parental” spirit).
Prayer, in the Atlas, is not begging a distant God — it is the conscious self deciding clearly what it wants, building it as a vivid thought-form “seed,” charging it with mana, and instructing the low self to carry that seed up the “aka cord” to the High Self, who uses it as the blueprint from which it “weaves the future.” It closes with the kahuna release-words “amama, ua noa.” It is a structured intention-and-handover ritual.
The Method
A faithful reconstruction from The Secret Science Behind Miracles and the Huna lessons:
- Decide with care what to pray for. Long insists on this first. Choose one clear, definite aim. Make sure it harms no one and that you actually want it — the prayer is a “seed of the future,” so plant deliberately.
- Clear the blocks first. Long warns that guilt, fear, fixations, or “complexes” in the low self can sever the path to the High Self. Address these gently beforehand (he used forgiveness, restitution where owed, and reassurance to the low self) so the prayer can “get through.”
- Relax body and both lower selves. Sit quietly and relax fully — body, low self, and conscious mind.
- Accumulate a surcharge of mana. Using deep breathing, build a surplus of vital force, holding the image of the body filling with mana like a fountain until full and overflowing (see the Ha Rite). This is the fuel the prayer will carry.
- Build the thought-form “seed” — a vivid present-tense picture. Construct a clear, detailed mental image of the desired condition as already real and good — see it, feel it, make it concrete. Long calls these the “seeds” of the future; the more vivid and definite, the better.
- Contact the High Self and send the seed up with mana. Turn attention upward and instruct the low self to make contact: “We are now reaching out and making contact with our loving, utterly trustworthy parental spirit.” Then send the picture “telepathically, along the aka thread to the High Self, on a carrying and empowering flow of mana.” In effect you say: “Here are the thought-forms of my prayer, and the mana to build them. I now hand the prayer over to you.” 7. Close with the release. End with the traditional kahuna words “amama, ua noa” — taken to mean roughly “the prayer is said, let it now fly free; the cord is cut.” You let go of the outcome rather than gripping it.
- Repeat daily, then release. Long taught sending the thought-forms afresh, with additional mana, daily to strengthen and feed the growing “seed,” while between sessions trusting the High Self and not anxiously checking. Doing it just before sleep uses the receptive drowsy state and the natural low-self–High-self contact Long associated with sleep. (Sourcing note: three selves, the “seed”/thought-form, mana surcharge, sending along the aka cord to the High Self, daily repetition, and “amama, ua noa” are Long’s documented teaching. Affirmation wordings are faithful paraphrase of the standard presentations; the translation of “amama ua noa” follows Long and Hawaiian-dictionary usage — “the tabu is lifted, it is free.”)
Source & Lineage
Max Freedom Long (1890–1971) built “Huna” over decades and founded Huna Research; the prayer rite is the heart of The Secret Science Behind Miracles (1948) and The Secret Science at Work (1953).
His three-self model and “send your clear picture to the superconscious” method strongly parallel — and partly draw from — New Thought prayer and Theosophy. Caveat: Hawaiian-culture scholars hold that Long’s “Huna,” its three-self scheme, and his Hawaiian-word etymologies are a 20th-century Western reconstruction, not authentic traditional kahuna doctrine.
The structure (clarify → vivify → hand to a higher mind → release) recurs across many manifesting and prayer traditions.
The Traditions' versions
New Thought “scientific prayer” / treatment — clarify the good, affirm it as real, release it to “Infinite Mind.” Nearly identical structure.
- Neville’s SATS — vivid present-tense scene impressed before sleep; the pre-sleep timing matches Long’s.
- Prayer of release / “let go and let God” — the “amama, ua noa” handover is the same surrender move.
- Intention-setting rituals / vision work — definite aim + vivid image + symbolic release.
- Christian petitionary prayer ending in “Amen” — Long even speculated “Amen” descended from “amama.”
Common refinements
Vague prayers. A fuzzy aim makes a weak “seed.” Be specific and concrete.
- Gripping the outcome. Skipping the release (“amama, ua noa”) and anxiously checking keeps you in striving/doubt. Hand it over and let go.
- Praying past unaddressed guilt/fear. Long says these blocks cut the line; deal with them first, gently.
- No mana / no feeling. Rushing without the relaxed surcharge and without genuine felt emotion gives a flat, lifeless picture.
- Inconsistency. Long prescribed daily feeding of the seed, then trust — not one anxious attempt.
- Replacing action with ritual. The prayer is meant to align and energize you; it is not a substitute for doing the real-world work.