Prayer

Prayer is a name given to the primary means for humans to make contact with the divine. In Western religion, especially, it is the means of contact between God and the individual believer. Prayer generally consists of one or more of the following elements: adoration and praise, thanksgiving, confession of sin, intercession for others, and supplication.

The belief that God intervenes to grant the petitions of fervent prayers, especially in the matter of healing the sick, has long been a central aspect of Christian theology, although in modern times more emphasis has been laid on submission to divine will than on desire for special favors. Such intervention is seen as the cause of most miracles and raises questions of the persistence of supernaturalism. Faith remains an essential component of successful prayer.

Samuel Jackson, in his biographical sketch of Jung-Stilling (J. Heinrich Jung), records that he attained the means for his education by a succession of miracles in answer to fervent prayer. J. K. Lavater's life abounded in similar incidents. Augustus Franke of Halle erected a vast orphanage and yearly fed and educated thousands of children by the power of prayer, he said.

Christopher Blumhardt (1805-1880) of Württemberg, Germany, was not only famous for his prayer cures but also for his philanthropy, the means of which were procured by answer to prayer. Hundreds of persons reported to have been compelled by a power they could not resist to send presents of clothes or food to Blumhardt.

The Curé d'Ars, Jean Baptiste Vianney (1786-1859), furnishes a similar example of an extraordinary life of faith. He built three chapels and established a home for destitute children and another home for friendless women. Constant prayer, he said, was the source of his beneficence. When food, fuel, or money was wanted, he prayed for it and it came.

George Muller of Bristol, as related in his Life of Trust, being a Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Muller (2 vols., 1837-41), depended on prayer for half a century for his own maintenance and that of his charitable institutions. He never asked anyone, or allowed anyone to be asked, directly or indirectly, for a penny. No subscriptions or collections were ever made. Hundreds of times there was no food in his house, yet he never took a loaf or any other article on credit even for a day. During the 30 years covered by his narrative, neither he nor the hundreds of children dependent on him for their daily food were ever without a regular meal. Secret prayer was his only resource, he claimed. The donors always described sudden and uncontrollable impulses to send him a definite sum at a certain date, the exact amount he was in want of.

F. W. H. Myers states in Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (2 vols., 1903) that "the recorded appearances, intimations, and messages of the departing and the departed" prove that "between the spiritual and material worlds an avenue of communication does exist—that which we call the despatch and receipt of telepathic messages, or the utterance and the answer of prayer and supplication."

Traditional prayer in Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) that imply a direct relationship between the believer and a beneficent deity have always been severely challenged by the existence of significant evil. The idea of a loving and omnipotent God acting on behalf of human life was put to its most intense test by the Holocaust of World War II. If there is any simple efficacy to devout and heartfelt prayers to a deity, why did the inconceivably monstrous horrors of the Nazi persecutions and prison camps fail to be averted? Reflection on this question has provided a watershed in theological thinking. It led in the short term to the emergence of the "death of God" movement in theology and only as some distance and reappraisal of the Holocaust has occurred has a theological reconstruction of faith been possible for many.

Less affected by the Holocaust were those who had adopted the alternative perspective on prayer offered by the metaphysical movements of the nineteenth century. Christian Science and New Thought metaphysics jettisoned a personal deity in favor of an underlying divine principle or law undergirding the visible structures of the universe. Prayer is seen much more as atuning oneself with the underlying universal spirit, in which condition anything is believed possible, especially on a personal scale. Numerous reports indicate that prayer with faith and confidence in this metaphysical context has produced the desired results in both a religious and secular setting. One wing of New Thought has retained a religious prayerful context, while a secular wing has simply emphasized the creative powers of the mind in achieving fulfillment of desire.

It seems possible that there are factors in prayer that are applicable to both religious and secular frames of thought, that faith and confidence enhance psychic factors at present not clearly identified. Even such mundane attempts to influence events as the willing of the fall of dice in parapsychological research may hold clues to the mechanisms of prayer.

Again, it is interesting to note that in such ancient religions as Hinduism, the gods are said to be unable to avoid granting requests when the petitioner has practiced intense austerities. This idea suggests that spiritual disciplines may bring about psychophysical changes in the petitioner that influence events. Secondary aspects of traditional prayer that may also have relevance are the ritualistic forms of prayers and the need for constant repetition, which, like autosuggestion, may enhance subconscious powers. The concept of faithful prayer often gradually drifts into various attempts not just to petition the divine but to assist or coerce the deity's action.

Ultimately, however, divine will takes priority over the mundane desires of petitioners, and even in mystical Hinduism the highest wisdom is said to be transcendental awareness, which is beyond desires and fears in the mundane world and which accepts favorable or unfavorable destiny with equanimity, much as the petitioner in the Christian tradition concludes, "Thy will be done."