The Evolution of Prayer

91:6.1Prayer, 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.

91:6.2Prayer 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.

91:6.3No 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.

91:6.4Prayer, 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.

91:6.5Do not be so sloth­ful as to ask God to solve your dif­fi­cul­ties, but never hes­i­tate to ask him for wis­dom and spir­i­tual strength to guide and sus­tain you while you your­self res­o­lutely and coura­geously at­tack the prob­lems at hand.

91:6.6Prayer 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.

91:6.7But 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.