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    The power of prayer?

    Up until now, I've found prayer to be useless. Praying to my gods has never done a thing. It's like talking through an unplugged phone. If I want to request something to my Gods, a ritual or a meditation session is required in order to establish direct contact with them. I feel that "to pray" is just a religious version of "to hope", and is overused in that sense. I also find people use prayer as a passive alternative to doing whatsoever in situations adverse to them, that could be solved if they stopped praying and doing something about it.

    If I ask you for help with something, and all you can say is "I will pray for you", thanks for the intention, but you're not being useful at all.

    This is merely my opinion though.

    What is prayer to you? Do you use it as your exclusive method of communication with your God/s?

    What other methods of communication do you use?

    If a prayer is "unheard", how do you explain your God/s' lack of intervention?

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    #2
    Re: The power of prayer?

    I think that it works differently in every pantheon. Some require rituals, some ask for prayer and rituals together or allow separate prayer and rituals....

    For me prayer is a way to connect the Netjer (gods and goddesses), to ask them things and sometimes just talk with them and ask for their advice. Plus, it's also a way for me to thank them for different things like roof on my head, food etc'...
    "Fair means that everybody gets what they need. And the only way to get that is to make it happen yourself."



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      #3
      Re: The power of prayer?

      I love prayer. And I do believe that it is heard. I've had some intense prayer moments, both before and after I was a part of the Christian church. Since leaving it, I've had instances where I could just feel the stress melt away while praying. At one point I was driving my mom into the hospital and praying to Hecate because that was goddess of the day and the fog, which was terrible, just lifted. Middle of the night. It was strange. And then that night once I got home I felt a sudden relief of my nighttime anxieties (I have a very bad fear of the dark, panic attack quality) while praying.

      Generally, I've found prayer very helpful for internal workings. Energy type things, aura cleansing or whatever you call it. Decision making. Settling conflict. Boosting meditation. That sort of thing.

      I think if you want to manifest something externally, that's where ritual come in. Sometimes prayer can work for that if you're lucky and a little desperate. But ritual is the preferred method.

      Also, I believe that prayer works on, "if this is in my best and highest interest." In other words, if it's not going to really help you in the long run, it's probably not going to happen.
      We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

      I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
      It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
      Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
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        #4
        Re: The power of prayer?

        Hmmm. I think prayer is just a way of sending your intention out into the universe. Giving a vibration to your intention in hopes that it will attract your specific desires. But I think it's highly ineffective, it's just an extremely weak form of chaos magic and I don't use even use that really because I still don't find it to be as effective as other forms of magic. Prayer can also be used to communicate with a deity, but again I don't think it's as effective as other ways of communication such as summoning, invocation, telepathy, and astral work.

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          #5
          Re: The power of prayer?

          Prayer = meditation

          I use it to talk to the most effective deity in the room, which would be me.

          When I don't answer myself it's because I don't need to. I already know what I have to say.
          Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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            #6
            Re: The power of prayer?

            Prayer is simply a conversation with Divinity (whatever you think that Divinity happens to be--totally using this as a stand-in for god/gods/goddesses/etc). At its simplest, there are two kinds of prayers--petitioning prayers (which is what you are talking about here) and praise. Petitioning prayers seem to fall into one of two categories--intercession (praying for others) and supplication (praying for one's self). The act of praying is a ritual in and of itself...or can be part of a ritual.

            The difference between petitionary prayer and a spell is mainly one of degree---the two are really on the same spectrum...one one end (prayer) is that which is done by the will of Divinity and the latter (a spell...or other, similar magic) is done by the will of the individual, but realistically most prayers and spells end up somewhere in the middle (for theists of some sort).

            How useful one finds prayer depends on a couple of things--what charachteristics do you think Divinity has? What interest do you think that Divinity has in you (or in people in general)? What are you seeking to gain or accomplish? What power or athourity or skill set do you think that Divinity has? If I think that Divinity is an all-pervasive and available *something* that will recieve and consider my words once they are uttered, then prayer is not just the act of hoping out loud...

            Personally, I pray (out loud) as a method of relating to divinity. It is not the exclusive form of communication with Divinity, but it is the most readily accessible one, and the one I engage in most frequently. Sometimes I pray as a critical piece of a more formal ritual...sometimes not. In addition to prayer, I practice what I call (if I have to give it a name, and wanted to give it one that sounds pretentious) immersive eco-awareness meditation (no idea if this is really a thing, or it has another name, its just what I do...and feel special, because I don't normally advertise it :P)--basically, its something like this guy's technique, with the added factor of inhabiting a particular ecosystem--laying in the ocean, sitting in a snow bank (never done this one and never plan to, its just an example), standing in a prairie, hanging from a tree, etc...and expanding your own be-ing (existence? consciousness?) into that of your surroundings/letting its be-ing into yours...and there, in that place where they meet, having a conversation. (And yeah, this can be done in a purely mental, visualization sort of way...its just not as much fun). I also practice divination...though I consider that more as inner-self communication than anything else.

            I think that Divinity (as I experience it, which is mostly pantheistic/soft-polytheist...and which is different than what I *think* Divinity is...or is not) hears everything--sound is energy, thought is electricity...energy on a physical level might have wee effects further out, which ripple had have other effects...sort of like a butterfly flapping its wings across the globe or a rock dropped in a pond. Sometimes, those effects are drowned out/overwhelmed by the relative size and scope of things--a pebble in a pond vs a boulder...or the same boulder in an ocean...but that same pebble might spark a chain reaction of events...maybe it bonks a crocodile, which thrashes its tail, which...blah, blah, blah...(I call this the "If you give a mouse a cookie" effect, after the kids book). Divinity though, doesn't always have the capacity, inclination, or scope to act...its like asking your best friend (an only child that hates people and loves computers) to babysit while you go to her favorite band's concert with the other friend that she hates.

            I have found that when I ask (though most of my prayer is praise as opposed to petition) for small things, they tend to happen...with medium things, I need to put some effort in as well. And with big things...not so much. And things for others, its hit or miss...depending on how much they want and are willing to work for it...and what it is.
            Last edited by thalassa; 16 Jul 2014, 07:40.
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              #7
              Re: The power of prayer?

              Prayer to me is aligning personal with divine will. Communicating with the divine is simply a matter of living consciously. Since I don't conceive of prayer as supplication, the last question makes no sense.

              "No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical." -- Niels Bohr

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                #8
                Re: The power of prayer?

                Originally posted by nbdy View Post
                Prayer to me is aligning personal with divine will. Communicating with the divine is simply a matter of living consciously. Since I don't conceive of prayer as supplication, the last question makes no sense.
                ^^
                That is exactly how it is for me. Prayer is about aligning myself with the divine, not about getting the divine to align with me.

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                  #9
                  Re: The power of prayer?

                  Originally posted by SeanRave View Post
                  Up until now, I've found prayer to be useless. Praying to my gods has never done a thing. It's like talking through an unplugged phone. If I want to request something to my Gods, a ritual or a meditation session is required in order to establish direct contact with them. I feel that "to pray" is just a religious version of "to hope", and is overused in that sense. I also find people use prayer as a passive alternative to doing whatsoever in situations adverse to them, that could be solved if they stopped praying and doing something about it.

                  If I ask you for help with something, and all you can say is "I will pray for you", thanks for the intention, but you're not being useful at all.

                  This is merely my opinion though.

                  What is prayer to you? Do you use it as your exclusive method of communication with your God/s?

                  What other methods of communication do you use?

                  If a prayer is "unheard", how do you explain your God/s' lack of intervention?
                  Speaking solely from a Kemetic standpoint, prayer is of HIGH importance to the AE's (Ancient Egyptians). However, if you look at modern prayers, they take on a different form then prayers historians have been able to translate from say, temple walls, or the pyramids. Egyptians used a form of magic known as Heka, and that is literally using the breath and the power of one's Ka to create their version of 'spells' which you find in the Pyramid texts, all over the walls. To write something was to make it definite and permanent, so writing down a prayer was to bring it into existence more so then speaking it. Writing was permanent, speaking was considered more temporary.To speak a prayer was to use affirmative action in the form of words. Prayer can be the equivalent of Heka, based on how the prayer is worded or how it is spoken.

                  Now, if you look at the method of prayer, often times you will see prayers from the Pyramid Texts that use the names of the gods in reference to oneself, and that ways prayer used to imbue oneself with the essence of the gods. Sort of like calling on them for help, but using their energy to overcome a task.

                  As an example, taken from Temple of the Cosmos by Jeremy Naydler:

                  "My hair is Nun;
                  My face is Ra;
                  My eyes are Hathor;
                  My ears are Upuat;
                  My lips are Anubus;
                  My molars are Selkit;
                  My incisors are Isis the goddess;..."

                  The spell of prayer goes on at a length that would be too much to put down in one post, soo I cut it off at a good point so the point I'm attempting to make is more understood. This was most prayers that worked magic, but not all prayers were said in this way. For AE's, you have to look a lot at the way they viewed the divine, in order to really understand the high importance of prayer. The Divine was not viewed as a separate place from the world around us, everything lived and breathed as one. The only separately viewed place was the Duat, which was the spirit realm that one traveled through, using the spells in the pyramid texts, to reach the place where one's heart is weighed against the Feather of Ma'at. It was considered okay to threaten the gods with no offerings should they not intervene, which has much more emphasis when one understands that they viewed offerings as giving life to the gods, and refreshing their Ka. The gods lived of off of the offerings given. (that doesn't necessarily mean that no offerings kills the gods, though, because they also live off of Ma'at, and so long as the world exists, there is Ma'at.)

                  When I pray, it's when I direly need it, and I nearly always see some work of the divine in the situation, even if I'm not looking at direct deity intervention. I know, that the gods work with me just as much as I work with them.

                  ... I feel like I gave a mini history lesson, but I'm just trying to explain the high importance of prayer in relation to my religion! XD I'm actually oversimplifying it, tbh.
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