The Power of Prayer

Regardless of religion and deity, my husband and I were discussing the power of prayer. This is a strange topic for me because I don't believe in any god. But, in extreme desperate times, I have found myself looking to the sky beseeching a higher power for some kind of intervention. I expressed to my husband that I thought myself a complete hypocrite by doing so and that by using the word 'god' I was going against all I believe to be true.

It came down to the thought that the power of prayer does not comes from some outside divine source, but the will of the person praying. In effect, I was praying to myself. I wasn't using a belief in a higher power, but speaking aloud, almost like a chant or a mantra. It spiraled in on itself until the prayer was a focus. From there it was a deep breath and a slow blink, and I felt better. Without going into detail, the situation in which I did speak this prayer was not your run of the mill problematic situation, but something that effected me so profoundly, I didn't know if I had the will to go on. I was alone, forced to contine working because I had to pay the bills, and had something vital to my existance taken away. I was on a smoke break in Hackensack New Jersey, and I thought I was going to die.

Back to the point though.

I don't have a deity I call my own (or vice versa) and yet I needed something bigger than myself to pour my energy into. Now, this was quite some time ago and I have grown into my own conclusions. Those conclusions being that I feel a prayer is nothing more than a calling to one's own will. I feel that can be infinately strong. Look at group prayer. So many people pulling energy from themselves or their faith for a common cause. I think this is powerful, religion aside. I think that one does not necessarily have to invoke the name of a deity, but having that faith is a definate focus unto itself. God becomes a center, the point of the spiral. So either way, with or without a religious faith, I think there is something to be said of the power of prayer.

What do you guys think?

Con mucho amor,
Tai-tai

The placebo effect is based on "wanting" it to work.
Prayer is a bit like ritual magic in a sense.

Combine the two, and there you go...

Exactly! Combine those two, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Do you think that you'd have to be ignorant of the process for it to work? Like if you take a placebo KNOWING its a placebo, its not going to work because you know its not the miracle drug. Or does the ritual give power to the act itself?

Tai

I do believe that ones attitude to the pill one takes has a greater effect than what one knows. If you know it's a placebo, but believe fiercely in the placebo effect, then you might have a greater effect than if you thought it was "just a normal painkiller" or whatever.
I think the ritual, and the attitude towards the ritual, is a channel to focus the power and put the power into the act that which then produces the result.
Believe, want, Know that the result will come, and it will. Or something along those lines.

Freetha Wrote:Believe, want, Know that the result will come, and it will. Or something along those lines.

So I've been getting the results of praying to myself?

*thinks about it some more* But what if you actually direct your will towards said deitic figure and that works? I've always thought of that kind of thing as a sacrifice of sorts. Like: "I'll give you this piece of me for this section of time in exchange for your efforts". Would that all be me, too?

Personally, i tend to veiw prayer to an unknown diety a waste of time and energy. i mean, a person would spend a not inconsiderable amount of energy, essentially asking a diety - in the case of most religions, one not proven to exist - to do whatever for them. this energy, i feel, would be better spent actually DOING what one wants done - be it in the physical or metaphysical realm.

Just my oppinionated lil oppinion tho.

Deros Wrote:

Freetha Wrote:Believe, want, Know that the result will come, and it will. Or something along those lines.

So I've been getting the results of praying to myself?

*thinks about it some more* But what if you actually direct your will towards said deitic figure and that works? I've always thought of that kind of thing as a sacrifice of sorts. Like: "I'll give you this piece of me for this section of time in exchange for your efforts". Would that all be me, too?

Never said that the diety wasn't involved, just that it didn't have to be.

"Rak'Shakti Unterra Aktin." Translated from the language of my people, "I do not fear my bloody path."

It's is the chant I use when focusing on a technique. I don't really 'pray' to my goddess since such an act would be fruitless. She states that we make our own miracles and she just opens the path.

If you look at it a certain way... "Please" and "Thank You" are probrably the simplest prayers of all.

Words *do* have power... as much power as we put into them.

mehtare Wrote:If you look at it a certain way... "Please" and "Thank You" are probrably the simplest prayers of all.

Words *do* have power... as much power as we put into them.

^ Case in point. <!-- s:shock: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" title="Shocked" /><!-- s:shock: -->