유란시아 책
III 부. 유란시아의 역사
Paper 91
The Evolution of Prayer
The Evolution of Prayer
91:0.1 (994.1)
PRAYER, as an agency of religion, evolved from previous nonreligious monologue and dialogue expressions. With the attainment of self-consciousness by primitive man there occurred the inevitable corollary of other-consciousness, the dual potential of social response and God recognition.
91:0.2 (994.2)
The earliest prayer forms were not addressed to Deity. These expressions were much like what you would say to a friend as you entered upon some important undertaking, “Wish me luck.” Primitive man was enslaved to magic; luck, good and bad, entered into all the affairs of life. At first, these luck petitions were monologues—just a kind of thinking out loud by the magic server. Next, these believers in luck would enlist the support of their friends and families, and presently some form of ceremony would be performed which included the whole clan or tribe.
91:0.3 (994.3)
When the concepts of ghosts and spirits evolved, these petitions became superhuman in address, and with the consciousness of gods, such expressions attained to the levels of genuine prayer. As an illustration of this, among certain Australian tribes primitive religious prayers antedated their belief in spirits and superhuman personalities.
91:0.4 (994.4)
The Toda tribe of India now observes this practice of praying to no one in particular, just as did the early peoples before the times of religious consciousness. Only, among the Todas, this represents a regression of their degenerating religion to this primitive level. The present-day rituals of the dairymen priests of the Todas do not represent a religious ceremony since these impersonal prayers do not contribute anything to the conservation or enhancement of any social, moral, or spiritual values.
91:0.5 (994.5)
Prereligious praying was part of the mana practices of the Melanesians, the oudah beliefs of the African Pygmies, and the manitou superstitions of the North American Indians. The Baganda tribes of Africa have only recently emerged from the mana level of prayer. In this early evolutionary confusion men pray to gods—local and national—to fetishes, amulets, ghosts, rulers, and to ordinary people.
91:1.1 (994.6)
The function of early evolutionary religion is to conserve and augment the essential social, moral, and spiritual values which are slowly taking form. This mission of religion is not consciously observed by mankind, but it is chiefly effected by the function of prayer. The practice of prayer represents the unintended, but nonetheless personal and collective, effort of any group to secure (to actualize) this conservation of higher values. But for the safeguarding of prayer, all holy days would speedily revert to the status of mere holidays.
매개체 중에 으뜸은 기도인데, 종교와 그 매개체들은, 오직 일반적인 사회 인식, 즉 일반적으로 사회에 인식된 그런 가치기준과 연합돼있다. 따라서, 열등한 감정을 만족시키거나 순전히 이기적인 야망을 달성하려고 원시인이 애쓴다면, 그는 종교의 위로와 기도의 도움을 받지 못한다. 개인이 반{反} 사회적인 어떤 것이든지 이루려고 모색한다면, 그는 비종교적 마술의 협력을 추구하고, 요술쟁이에게 의지할 수밖에 없고, 그리하여 기도의 도움을 빼앗기게 된다. 따라서 기도는 아주 옛날부터, 사회적인 진화와 도덕적인 진보 그리고 영적 달성을 강력하게 증진시키는 수단이 됐다.
91:1.2 (995.1)
Religion and its agencies, the chief of which is prayer, are allied only with those values which have general social recognition, group approval. Therefore, when primitive man attempted to gratify his baser emotions or to achieve unmitigated selfish ambitions, he was deprived of the consolation of religion and the assistance of prayer. If the individual sought to accomplish anything antisocial, he was obliged to seek the aid of nonreligious magic, resort to sorcerers, and thus be deprived of the assistance of prayer. Prayer, therefore, very early became a mighty promoter of social evolution, moral progress, and spiritual attainment.
그러나 원시인의 정신은 논리적이지 않았고 일관성도 없었다. 초기 인류는, 물질적인 것이 기도의 범위에 속하지 않는다는 것을 감지하지 못했다. 단순한 정신을 소유한 자들은, 양식, 주거지, 비, 사냥감, 및 기타 물질 재화가 사회의 복지를 증진시킨다고 생각했으며, 그리하여 이런 물질 축복을 받으려고 기도하기 시작했다. 이것이 기도를 오용하는 요인이 됐으나, 윤리에 맞는 사회 활동으로 이 물질적 목표를 실현시키려는 노력에 용기를 불어넣기도 했다. 기도의 그런 타락은, 한 민족의 영적 가치를 저하시키기도 했지만, 그럼에도 그들의 경제적, 사회적, 및 윤리적 사회관행을 직접 향상시켰다.
91:1.3 (995.2)
But the primitive mind was neither logical nor consistent. Early men did not perceive that material things were not the province of prayer. These simple-minded souls reasoned that food, shelter, rain, game, and other material goods enhanced the social welfare, and therefore they began to pray for these physical blessings. While this constituted a perversion of prayer, it encouraged the effort to realize these material objectives by social and ethical actions. Such a prostitution of prayer, while debasing the spiritual values of a people, nevertheless directly elevated their economic, social, and ethical mores.
가장 원시적인 정신 유형의 경우에는 기도가 혼잣말에 지나지 않다. 그것은 곧 대화형태가 됐고, 집단 경배 수준으로 확장됐다. 기도는, 원시 종교에서 마술 이전에 있었던 주문이 진화하여, 사회적 가치를 증진시키고 도덕적 이상{理想}을 증대시킬 수 있는, 인정 많은 권능 또는 존재의 실체를 인식하는 수준에 인간 정신이 이르렀음을 의미하고, 더 나아가 이런 영향력이 초인적이라는 것과, 자아를-의식하는 인간 및 동료 필사자의 자부심과는 다르다는 것을 의미한다. 그렇기 때문에, 종교가 이바지하는 작용이 개인적이라는 것을 생생하게 마음에 그리기 전에는, 참된 기도가 존재하지 않는다.
91:1.4 (995.3)
Prayer is only monologuous in the most primitive type of mind. It early becomes a dialogue and rapidly expands to the level of group worship. Prayer signifies that the premagical incantations of primitive religion have evolved to that level where the human mind recognizes the reality of beneficent powers or beings who are able to enhance social values and to augment moral ideals, and further, that these influences are superhuman and distinct from the ego of the self-conscious human and his fellow mortals. True prayer does not, therefore, appear until the agency of religious ministry is visualized as personal.
91:1.6 (995.5)
With those mortals who have not been delivered from the primitive bondage of fear, there is a real danger that all prayer may lead to a morbid sense of sin, unjustified convictions of guilt, real or fancied. But in modern times it is not likely that many will spend sufficient time at prayer to lead to this harmful brooding over their unworthiness or sinfulness. The dangers attendant upon the distortion and perversion of prayer consist in ignorance, superstition, crystallization, devitalization, materialism, and fanaticism.
기도와 마술은, 사람이 유란시아 환경에 맞춰서 반응한 결과로 나타났다. 그러나 이런 일반화된 관계 외에는, 공통점이 거의 없다. 기도는 반드시 기도하는 자아의 적극적 행위를 가리켰으며;항상 심령적이고 어떤 경우에는 영적이기도 하다. 마술은 대개, 조종하는 사람 곧 마술을 행하는 사람의 자아에 영향을 주지 않으면서 실체를 조종하려는 시도를 의미했다. 독립적으로 기원됐음에도, 마술과 기도는 후대의 발전 단계에서 종종 서로 관련돼왔다. 마술은 처방으로부터 제례식과 주문을 거쳐서, 참된 기도의 입구에 이르기까지 목표를 높임으로써 발전하는 경우가 허다했다. 때로는 기도가 너무 물질적이었고, 그래서 유란시아의 문제를 해결하는 데 필수인 노력을 기울이지 않고 회피하는 사이비 마술 기법으로 타락했다.
91:2.2 (995.7)
Both prayer and magic arose as a result of man’s adjustive reactions to Urantian environment. But aside from this generalized relationship, they have little in common. Prayer has always indicated positive action by the praying ego; it has been always psychic and sometimes spiritual. Magic has usually signified an attempt to manipulate reality without affecting the ego of the manipulator, the practitioner of magic. Despite their independent origins, magic and prayer often have been interrelated in their later stages of development. Magic has sometimes ascended by goal elevation from formulas through rituals and incantations to the threshold of true prayer. Prayer has sometimes become so materialistic that it has degenerated into a pseudomagical technique of avoiding the expenditure of that effort which is requisite for the solution of Urantian problems.
91:2.5 (996.3)
When religion is divested of a personal God, its prayers translate to the levels of theology and philosophy. When the highest God concept of a religion is that of an impersonal Deity, such as in pantheistic idealism, although affording the basis for certain forms of mystic communion, it proves fatal to the potency of true prayer, which always stands for man’s communion with a personal and superior being.
91:2.6 (996.4)
During the earlier times of racial evolution and even at the present time, in the day-by-day experience of the average mortal, prayer is very much a phenomenon of man’s intercourse with his own subconscious. But there is also a domain of prayer wherein the intellectually alert and spiritually progressing individual attains more or less contact with the superconscious levels of the human mind, the domain of the indwelling Thought Adjuster. In addition, there is a definite spiritual phase of true prayer which concerns its reception and recognition by the spiritual forces of the universe, and which is entirely distinct from all human and intellectual association.
언어 사용법을 처음 배운 아이들은, 자기가 말하는 것을 아무도 듣지 않더라도 생각을 소리치려는 경향, 자신의 생각을 말로 표현하려는 경향이 있다. 창조적 상상력이 생기면서, 그들은 가상{假想}의 동무들과 대화하는 경향을 나타낸다. 이런 식으로 싹트는 자아는, 가상의 또 하나의 자아와 교류하려고 한다. 아이는 이런 기법을 통해서 자신의 독백을 가상의 대화로 바꾸는 방법을 일찍부터 터득하는데, 또 하나의 이 자아가, 말로 표현한 자신의 생각과 소망에 그 대화 속에서 반응한다. 어른의 사색은, 상당한 부분이 대화 형태로 정신 속에서 이뤄진다.
91:3.1 (996.7)
Children, when first learning to make use of language, are prone to think out loud, to express their thoughts in words, even if no one is present to hear them. With the dawn of creative imagination they evince a tendency to converse with imaginary companions. In this way a budding ego seeks to hold communion with a fictitious alter ego. By this technique the child early learns to convert his monologue conversations into pseudo dialogues in which this alter ego makes replies to his verbal thinking and wish expression. Very much of an adult’s thinking is mentally carried on in conversational form.
91:3.2 (996.8)
The early and primitive form of prayer was much like the semimagical recitations of the present-day Toda tribe, prayers that were not addressed to anyone in particular. But such techniques of praying tend to evolve into the dialogue type of communication by the emergence of the idea of an alter ego. In time the alter-ego concept is exalted to a superior status of divine dignity, and prayer as an agency of religion has appeared. Through many phases and during long ages this primitive type of praying is destined to evolve before attaining the level of intelligent and truly ethical prayer.
이어지는 여러 세대의 기도하는 필사자들이 납득하다시피, 또 하나의 자아는, 유령과 주물과 영들을 거쳐서 다신론의 신{神}들로 진화하고, 결국 유일하신 하나님, 즉 기도하는 자아의 가장 높은 이상{理想}과 가장 고귀한 염원을 구현하는 신성한 존재에 이르기까지 진화한다. 그렇게 해서 기도는, 기도하는 자의 가장 고상한 가치와 이상을 보존하는 일에, 가장 강력한 종교 매개체로서 작용한다. 또 하나의 자아를 인식하는 순간부터, 거룩하신 하늘 아버지 개념이 출현할 때까지, 기도는 언제나 사회화시키고 교화{敎化}하고 영화{靈化}시키는 실습이다.
91:3.3 (997.1)
As it is conceived by successive generations of praying mortals, the alter ego evolves up through ghosts, fetishes, and spirits to polytheistic gods, and eventually to the One God, a divine being embodying the highest ideals and the loftiest aspirations of the praying ego. And thus does prayer function as the most potent agency of religion in the conservation of the highest values and ideals of those who pray. From the moment of the conceiving of an alter ego to the appearance of the concept of a divine and heavenly Father, prayer is always a socializing, moralizing, and spiritualizing practice.
91:3.4 (997.2)
The simple prayer of faith evidences a mighty evolution in human experience whereby the ancient conversations with the fictitious symbol of the alter ego of primitive religion have become exalted to the level of communion with the spirit of the Infinite and to that of a bona fide consciousness of the reality of the eternal God and Paradise Father of all intelligent creation.
91:3.5 (997.3)
Aside from all that is superself in the experience of praying, it should be remembered that ethical prayer is a splendid way to elevate one’s ego and reinforce the self for better living and higher attainment. Prayer induces the human ego to look both ways for help: for material aid to the subconscious reservoir of mortal experience, for inspiration and guidance to the superconscious borders of the contact of the material with the spiritual, with the Mystery Monitor.
영적 통찰력을 얻은 기도는, 밖에 계신 인격있는 하나님뿐 아니라, 안에 계시고 비인격인 신성 곧 내주하는 섭리사를 반드시 인식해야한다. 사람이 기도할 때, 낙원에 계신 우주 아버지 개념을 파악하려고 애쓰는 것이 마땅하지만;가장 실용적인 목적을 위하여 더 효과적인 기법은, 원시 정신이 습관적으로 그랬듯이, 가까이 있는 또 하나의 자아 개념으로 돌아가고, 그다음에는 이런 또 하나의 자아 개념이 단순한 허구로부터 진화하여, 섭리사라는 실제 현존으로 하나님이 필사적 사람에게 내주하신다는 진리에 이르게 됐음을 인식하는 것이며, 그래서 사람은, 자신에게 내주하고 살아계시는 하나님 곧 우주 아버지의 바로 그 현존이자 본질인 실제적이고 참되고 신성한 또 하나의 자아와, 말하자면, 얼굴을 마주 대하듯이 이야기할 수 있다.
91:3.7 (997.5)
Enlightened prayer must recognize not only an external and personal God but also an internal and impersonal Divinity, the indwelling Adjuster. It is altogether fitting that man, when he prays, should strive to grasp the concept of the Universal Father on Paradise; but the more effective technique for most practical purposes will be to revert to the concept of a near-by alter ego, just as the primitive mind was wont to do, and then to recognize that the idea of this alter ego has evolved from a mere fiction to the truth of God’s indwelling mortal man in the factual presence of the Adjuster so that man can talk face to face, as it were, with a real and genuine and divine alter ego that indwells him and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the Universal Father.
91:4.1 (997.6)
No prayer can be ethical when the petitioner seeks for selfish advantage over his fellows. Selfish and materialistic praying is incompatible with the ethical religions which are predicated on unselfish and divine love. All such unethical praying reverts to the primitive levels of pseudo magic and is unworthy of advancing civilizations and enlightened religions. Selfish praying transgresses the spirit of all ethics founded on loving justice.
너희가 어떤 기도를 드리든지 공평하라;하나님께서 편애하심으로, 다른 자녀들, 친구들과 이웃, 그리고 심지어 적들보다 너를 더 사랑하시기를 기대하지 말라. 그러나 자연 종교 곧 진화 종교의 기도는, 계시된 후대 종교의 기도와는 달리, 처음에는 윤리적이지 않다. 모든 기도는, 개별로 하든지 집단으로 하든지, 자기본위적이거나 이타적일 수 있다. 다시 말해서, 기도는 자기중심으로 또는 타인중심으로 할 수 있다. 기도하는 사람의 기도가, 그 자신은 물론 동료를 위하여 아무 것도 구하지 않으면, 그 혼의 그런 태도는 참된 경배 수준에 도달한다. 자기본위적 기도는 고백과 청원을 포함하며, 물질적 은혜를 요청하는 것으로 이뤄지는 경우가 종종 있다. 용서를 다루고 자아-통제를 증진시키려고 지혜를 추구할 때, 기도는 얼마큼 더 윤리적이다.
91:4.3 (998.1)
In all your praying be fair; do not expect God to show partiality, to love you more than his other children, your friends, neighbors, even enemies. But the prayer of the natural or evolved religions is not at first ethical, as it is in the later revealed religions. All praying, whether individual or communal, may be either egoistic or altruistic. That is, the prayer may be centered upon the self or upon others. When the prayer seeks nothing for the one who prays nor anything for his fellows, then such attitudes of the soul tend to the levels of true worship. Egoistic prayers involve confessions and petitions and often consist in requests for material favors. Prayer is somewhat more ethical when it deals with forgiveness and seeks wisdom for enhanced self-control.
이기적이 아닌 유형의 기도는 힘을 주고 위안을 주지만, 법칙과 질서 속에서 운행되는 물리적 우주에 사람이 살고 있음을 진보하는 과학이 발견하여 보여줌에 따라서, 물질적 기도는 실망과 환멸감을 주게 돼있다. 한 개인이나 종족이 어린 시기에는, 유치하고 이기적이고 물질적인 기도를 드리는 특징이 있다. 그리고 어느 정도까지 그런 모든 청원은, 그런 기도에 대한 응답을 성취하는 데 기여하는 수고와 노력을 하도록, 어김없이 인도한다는 점에서 효력이 있다. 신앙으로 드리는 참된 기도는, 비록 그런 청원이 영적 보답을 받을 만한 가치가 없더라도, 삶의 기법을 증대시키도록 반드시 기여한다. 그러나 영적으로 진보된 인간은, 원시적이거나 미숙한 정신을 소유한 자가 그렇게 기도하지 못하도록 단념시키려고 시도할 때 아주 조심해야한다.
91:4.4 (998.2)
While the nonselfish type of prayer is strengthening and comforting, materialistic praying is destined to bring disappointment and disillusionment as advancing scientific discoveries demonstrate that man lives in a physical universe of law and order. The childhood of an individual or a race is characterized by primitive, selfish, and materialistic praying. And, to a certain extent, all such petitions are efficacious in that they unvaryingly lead to those efforts and exertions which are contributory to achieving the answers to such prayers. The real prayer of faith always contributes to the augmentation of the technique of living, even if such petitions are not worthy of spiritual recognition. But the spiritually advanced person should exercise great caution in attempting to discourage the primitive or immature mind regarding such prayers.
91:4.5 (998.3)
Remember, even if prayer does not change God, it very often effects great and lasting changes in the one who prays in faith and confident expectation. Prayer has been the ancestor of much peace of mind, cheerfulness, calmness, courage, self-mastery, and fair-mindedness in the men and women of the evolving races.
91:5.1 (998.4)
In ancestor worship, prayer leads to the cultivation of ancestral ideals. But prayer, as a feature of Deity worship, transcends all other such practices since it leads to the cultivation of divine ideals. As the concept of the alter ego of prayer becomes supreme and divine, so are man’s ideals accordingly elevated from mere human toward supernal and divine levels, and the result of all such praying is the enhancement of human character and the profound unification of human personality.
그러나 기도를 반드시 개인적으로 드려야 할 필요는 없다. 집단 기도 또는 회중 기도는 매우 효과적인데, 그 속에서 그에 대한 반응으로 심오한 사회화가 이뤄진다. 한 집단이 도덕 증진과 영적 향상을 위하여 공동체 기도에 참여할 때, 그런 헌신은 그 집단을 구성하는 개인들에게 반응을 일으키며;참여했기 때문에 그들은 모두 더 낫게 변화된다. 심지어 한 도시 전체 또는 나라 전체가, 그렇게 기도하는 헌신으로 도움 받을 수 있다. 고백과 회개와 기도는, 개혁하려는 위대한 수고와 과감한 성취를 향해서 용기 있게 행동하도록, 개인과 도시와 국가 그리고 전체 종족을 이끌어왔다.
91:5.2 (998.5)
But prayer need not always be individual. Group or congregational praying is very effective in that it is highly socializing in its repercussions. When a group engages in community prayer for moral enhancement and spiritual uplift, such devotions are reactive upon the individuals composing the group; they are all made better because of participation. Even a whole city or an entire nation can be helped by such prayer devotions. Confession, repentance, and prayer have led individuals, cities, nations, and whole races to mighty efforts of reform and courageous deeds of valorous achievement.
91:5.3 (998.6)
If you truly desire to overcome the habit of criticizing some friend, the quickest and surest way of achieving such a change of attitude is to establish the habit of praying for that person every day of your life. But the social repercussions of such prayers are dependent largely on two conditions:
91:5.7 (999.3)
But the minds of greater spiritual illumination should be patient with, and tolerant of, those less endowed intellects that crave symbolism for the mobilization of their feeble spiritual insight. The strong must not look with disdain upon the weak. Those who are God-conscious without symbolism must not deny the grace-ministry of the symbol to those who find it difficult to worship Deity and to revere truth, beauty, and goodness without form and ritual. In prayerful worship, most mortals envision some symbol of the object-goal of their devotions.
91:6.1 (999.4)
Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions of the personal spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct effect upon one’s physical environment. While there is a very definite limit to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply to the faith of those who pray.
91:6.2 (999.5)
Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic diseases, but it has contributed enormously to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the cure of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous ailments. And even in actual bacterial disease, prayer has many times added to the efficacy of other remedial procedures. Prayer has turned many an irritable and complaining invalid into a paragon of patience and made him an inspiration to all other human sufferers.
91:6.3 (999.6)
No matter how difficult it may be to reconcile the scientific doubtings regarding the efficacy of prayer with the ever-present urge to seek help and guidance from divine sources, never forget that the sincere prayer of faith is a mighty force for the promotion of personal happiness, individual self-control, social harmony, moral progress, and spiritual attainment.
91:6.4 (999.7)
Prayer, even as a purely human practice, a dialogue with one’s alter ego, constitutes a technique of the most efficient approach to the realization of those reserve powers of human nature which are stored and conserved in the unconscious realms of the human mind. Prayer is a sound psychologic practice, aside from its religious implications and its spiritual significance. It is a fact of human experience that most persons, if sufficiently hard pressed, will pray in some way to some source of help.
91:6.6 (999.9)
Prayer has been an indispensable factor in the progress and preservation of religious civilization, and it still has mighty contributions to make to the further enhancement and spiritualization of society if those who pray will only do so in the light of scientific facts, philosophic wisdom, intellectual sincerity, and spiritual faith. Pray as Jesus taught his disciples—honestly, unselfishly, with fairness, and without doubting.
91:6.7 (1000.1)
But the efficacy of prayer in the personal spiritual experience of the one who prays is in no way dependent on such a worshiper’s intellectual understanding, philosophic acumen, social level, cultural status, or other mortal acquirements. The psychic and spiritual concomitants of the prayer of faith are immediate, personal, and experiential. There is no other technique whereby every man, regardless of all other mortal accomplishments, can so effectively and immediately approach the threshold of that realm wherein he can communicate with his Maker, where the creature contacts with the reality of the Creator, with the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
91:7.1 (1000.2)
Mysticism, as the technique of the cultivation of the consciousness of the presence of God, is altogether praiseworthy, but when such practices lead to social isolation and culminate in religious fanaticism, they are all but reprehensible. Altogether too frequently that which the overwrought mystic evaluates as divine inspiration is the uprisings of his own deep mind. The contact of the mortal mind with its indwelling Adjuster, while often favored by devoted meditation, is more frequently facilitated by wholehearted and loving service in unselfish ministry to one’s fellow creatures.
91:7.2 (1000.3)
The great religious teachers and the prophets of past ages were not extreme mystics. They were God-knowing men and women who best served their God by unselfish ministry to their fellow mortals. Jesus often took his apostles away by themselves for short periods to engage in meditation and prayer, but for the most part he kept them in service-contact with the multitudes. The soul of man requires spiritual exercise as well as spiritual nourishment.
종교적 황홀경은 정신이 온전한 상태에서 생기는 경우에는 괜찮지만, 그런 체험은 깊은 영적 성품이 나타난 것이라기보다, 순전히 감정적인 영향에서 생긴 부산물일 경우가 훨씬 많다. 종교적인 사람은, 명확한 심리적 예감과 강렬하게 감동한 체험 전부가 일종의 신성한 계시 또는 영적 교통이라고 여겨서는 결코 안 된다. 참된 영적 황홀경은 대개 심오한 외적{外的} 평온함 및 거의 완전한 감정 통제와 관련이 있다. 그러나 참된 선지적{先知的} 환상은 심리 기능을 초월하는 예감이다. 그런 은총은 허위적 환각이 아니고, 또한 신들린 것 같은 황홀경도 아니다.
91:7.3 (1000.4)
Religious ecstasy is permissible when resulting from sane antecedents, but such experiences are more often the outgrowth of purely emotional influences than a manifestation of deep spiritual character. Religious persons must not regard every vivid psychologic presentiment and every intense emotional experience as a divine revelation or a spiritual communication. Genuine spiritual ecstasy is usually associated with great outward calmness and almost perfect emotional control. But true prophetic vision is a superpsychologic presentiment. Such visitations are not pseudo hallucinations, neither are they trancelike ecstasies.
91:7.4 (1000.5)
The human mind may perform in response to so-called inspiration when it is sensitive either to the uprisings of the subconscious or to the stimulus of the superconscious. In either case it appears to the individual that such augmentations of the content of consciousness are more or less foreign. Unrestrained mystical enthusiasm and rampant religious ecstasy are not the credentials of inspiration, supposedly divine credentials.
91:7.13 (1001.4)
But prayer has no real association with these exceptional religious experiences. When prayer becomes overmuch aesthetic, when it consists almost exclusively in beautiful and blissful contemplation of paradisiacal divinity, it loses much of its socializing influence and tends toward mysticism and the isolation of its devotees. There is a certain danger associated with overmuch private praying which is corrected and prevented by group praying, community devotions.
91:8.1 (1001.5)
There is a truly spontaneous aspect to prayer, for primitive man found himself praying long before he had any clear concept of a God. Early man was wont to pray in two diverse situations: When in dire need, he experienced the impulse to reach out for help; and when jubilant, he indulged the impulsive expression of joy.
91:8.4 (1001.8)
To some individuals prayer is the calm expression of gratitude; to others, a group expression of praise, social devotions; sometimes it is the imitation of another’s religion, while in true praying it is the sincere and trusting communication of the spiritual nature of the creature with the anywhere presence of the spirit of the Creator.
91:8.5 (1001.9)
Prayer may be a spontaneous expression of God-consciousness or a meaningless recitation of theologic formulas. It may be the ecstatic praise of a God-knowing soul or the slavish obeisance of a fear-ridden mortal. It is sometimes the pathetic expression of spiritual craving and sometimes the blatant shouting of pious phrases. Prayer may be joyous praise or a humble plea for forgiveness.
91:8.6 (1001.10)
Prayer may be the childlike plea for the impossible or the mature entreaty for moral growth and spiritual power. A petition may be for daily bread or may embody a wholehearted yearning to find God and to do his will. It may be a wholly selfish request or a true and magnificent gesture toward the realization of unselfish brotherhood.
91:8.7 (1001.11)
Prayer may be an angry cry for vengeance or a merciful intercession for one’s enemies. It may be the expression of a hope of changing God or the powerful technique of changing one’s self. It may be the cringing plea of a lost sinner before a supposedly stern Judge or the joyful expression of a liberated son of the living and merciful heavenly Father.
91:8.8 (1001.12)
Modern man is perplexed by the thought of talking things over with God in a purely personal way. Many have abandoned regular praying; they only pray when under unusual pressure—in emergencies. Man should be unafraid to talk to God, but only a spiritual child would undertake to persuade, or presume to change, God.
91:8.11 (1002.3)
God answers man’s prayer by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness. Prayer is a subjective gesture, but it contacts with mighty objective realities on the spiritual levels of human experience; it is a meaningful reach by the human for superhuman values. It is the most potent spiritual-growth stimulus.
91:8.12 (1002.4)
Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul’s attitude, not the words.