The Evolution of Prayer

91:8.1There 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.

91:8.2Prayer is not an evo­lu­tion of magic; they each arose in­de­pen­dently. Magic was an at­tempt to ad­just De­ity to con­di­tions; prayer is the ef­fort to ad­just the per­son­al­ity to the will of De­ity. True prayer is both moral and re­li­gious; magic is nei­ther.

91:8.3Prayer may be­come an es­tab­lished cus­tom; many pray be­cause oth­ers do. Still oth­ers pray be­cause they fear some­thing dire­ful may hap­pen if they do not of­fer their reg­u­lar sup­pli­ca­tions.

91:8.4To 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.

91:8.5Prayer 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.

91:8.6Prayer 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.

91:8.7Prayer 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.

91:8.8Mod­ern 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.

91:8.9But real pray­ing does at­tain re­al­ity. Even when the air cur­rents are as­cend­ing, no bird can soar ex­cept by out­stretched wings. Prayer el­e­vates man be­cause it is a tech­nique of pro­gress­ing by the uti­liza­tion of the as­cend­ing spir­i­tual cur­rents of the uni­verse.

91:8.10Gen­uine prayer adds to spir­i­tual growth, mod­i­fies at­ti­tudes, and yields that sat­is­fac­tion which comes from com­mu­nion with di­vin­ity. It is a spon­ta­neous out­burst of God-con­scious­ness.

91:8.11God 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.

91:8.12Words 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.

91:8.13Prayer is not a tech­nique of es­cape from con­flict but rather a stim­u­lus to growth in the very face of con­flict. Pray only for val­ues, not things; for growth, not for grat­i­fi­ca­tion.