Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/psychologyofprayOOstol / I \ * / ®fit Sbtngbon Religious Ctmcation (Eexts ©ahib - ■* \ Since the element of suggestion in petitional prayer is to receive special attention, it is obvious that a detailed study of it is indispensable. A clear understanding of the structure and function of suggestion in general makes possible a worth¬ while study of the mental traits of petitional prayer. V THE ESSENTIALS OF SUGGESTION V A suggestion may be defined as a mental pressure which tends to express itself without conscious effort or control. The essentials of suggestion are: (1) the introduction of an idea into the mind, (2) faith in the realization of the idea, (3) the automatic realization of the idea, (4) relaxation. No suggestion can be effective if any one of these factors is wanting. Each makes its contribu¬ tion to the process as a whole, but is at the same time so intimately related to the others that it is impossible to determine where the activity of the one ends and that of the others' begins. The unity of this process should be borne in mind during the following brief description of its salient aspects. 1 1 The following definitions are more or less serviceable: “I have myself defined suggestion as ‘from the side of consciousness . . . the tendency of a sensory or an ideal state to be followed by a motor state.’ ”—Bald¬ win, J. M.: Mental Development in the Child, and the Race, p. 105. The Mac¬ millan Company. “A suggestion is, we might say at first, an idea which has a power in our mind to suppress the opposite idea.”—Munsterberg, Hugo: Psychotherapy, p. 86. Moffat, Yard & Co. ‘‘By suggestion is meant the intrusion into the mind of an idea; met with more 28 SUGGESTION 29 Holding the suggested idea in mental focus.— The lodging of^n idea in The mind is the basal factor in suggestion. This process may be described in terms of attention; the idea to be realized is a-) mental impression; it is forced v upon the mind. When an idea is held in mental focus critical and> v , / - 1 r* opposing tendencies are withdrawn. When reason and judgment are held im,abeyance the idea glides into the mind without encountering the resistance which a more critical state offers. The emotional and nervously unstable persons are highly suggesti¬ ble; that is, their mental constitution is favorable to suggestion. Of-all persons little children are the most sug¬ gestible. They lack control over their mental impressions, they have no fund of established ideas to serve as a basis for distinguishing fact from fancy. Their critical powers are dormant. Hence suggestions remain uncontradicted and tend to realize themselves subconsciously. A small boy was one day commanded to perform an odious task. It occurred to him that if he were ill he \ would be excused, and at once the wish was enter¬ tained that he might plead some form of ailment, say a pain in one of the limbs. The wish was the father of the sensation, for almost at once a dull pain was experienced in the calf of the leg. It was duly reported, and he was excused. or less opposition by the person; accepted uncritically at last; and realized unre- flectively, almost automatically.”—Sidis, Boris: The Psychology of Suggestion, p. 15. D. Appleton & Company. ‘‘Suggestion is only another name for the power of ideas, so far as they prove efficacious over belief and conduct —James, William: The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 112. Longmans, Green & Co. “Suggestion is a process of communication resulting in the acceptance with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of logically adequate grounds for its acceptance.”—McDougall, W.: Social Psychology, p. 97. John W. Luce & Co. 30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER An elocutionist was reading poems of child life at the request of her niece, a child three years old. In the course of the impromptu entertainment the reader ran her fingers through the locks of the eager little listener, repeating at the same time these words, “The wood-ticks are crawling through your hair.” So effective was this unintentional suggestion that the child at once insisted that wood-ticks were in her hair, and so realistic was her sensation that only after her scalp had been thoroughly washed did she regain her composure. Such examples taken from chifdhood show us what occurs in adult life in a modified form. The efficacy of a suggestion, then, depends, in the first place, upon the impression made upon the mind. The idea must be planted in the mental soil before it can grow and bear its fruit. Self-control, self- analysis, reason, and judgment tend to combat the suggested idea; uncritical attitudes, emotion, imagination, and a restriction of the field of con¬ sciousness increase the state of suggestibility. The degree of opposition met by a suggested idea is in inverse proportion to the suggestibility of the mind for that suggestion. Faith included in suggestion. —Suggestion is more than attention, it embraces a faith state. Belief I that the idea held in mind is about to express itself or has already been realized is absolutely essential to the success of suggestion. At first the suggested idea may meet with more or less opposition, but eventually it must be uncritically accepted by the person. The degree of faith exercised is in direct proportion to the state of suggestibility, i or mot all , suggestions are equally powerful or arresting. Like SUGGESTION 3 i a check presented for payment, the idea must be indorsed before it can be “cashed.” In the case of suggestion, however, the indorsee and the'cashier are one and the same personality. The fact that suggestion transcends mere 1 atten¬ tion may become more obvious when we examine - a concrete case. A small boy, four years old, came running home crying. In response to the ques¬ tions of his father he explained that some apples „ he had eaten were pronounced poisonous by his' playmates. His confidence in the integrity of his playmates resulted in the excruciating pain gen¬ erally associated with the eating of tainted food. Assureds by his father that he had been misled and that the fruit was edible, the youthful sufferer soon rid himself of the pain. have made mere poisoning the material of attention would have occasioned no physical distress, but the belief that he was actually poisoned induced the reaction. Attention fis such is merely selective, faith is the ^ personal acceptance of an idea as activity. T]ie mental prominence / qf an idea does not of itself constitute a suggestion, but only when the person is inclined to act upon it or to be influenced by it ' does the mental impression tend to express itself. The idea of heat becomes a suggestion only when /; a sense of risiqg temperature is induced. Faith may be regarded as an inverted memory image. If is a' much warmer state of mind than an imaginary picture. While memory is conscious knowledge of the past, faith is a firm assurance that a future event is as certain to occur as if it had already happened. It is more than simplel apprehension; it transcends the feeling of mere \ \ 32 - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER reality. It attaches to its object a sense of security tand confirmation. While knowledge and emotion are not foreign to faith, its unmistakable criterion is preparedness to act. Faith without works is dead. Action is its very essence. We have faith in that which, for us, is uncon¬ tradicted. Doubtless the small child is credulous, believing everything and proceeding upon the un¬ tested assumption that whatever is presented to him is the truth. He has no suspicions because he lacks experience and the power of reasoning. As> the mind develops and a fund of experience accumu¬ lates, the demand for proof and confirmation be¬ comes increasingly insistent. Faith tends to become rationalized. It is a belief of mind as well as a trust of the heart. When credulity is shocked by contradictions, the range of ideas in which one can believe is restricted. We are likely to have the greatest faith in the idea which spontaneously holds the attention. One is easily swayed by ideas which are related to one’s bodily appetites, the emotions and passions, or which promise gratifying and immediate results. Ideas concerned with far-off considerations and postponed emergencies are relatively cold. In the face of the - overwhelming surge of instincts and emotions, a distinct effort must be put forth by the average man to hold before the mind the more rational and moral ideas. It requires effort to make such ideas controlling factors in conduct. The part which faith plays in suggestion is para¬ mount. It expresses itself in an expenditure of energy. Its function is to initiate a subconscious process and to give it point and direction. It is a J SUGGESTION 33 strained expectancy which increases the circulation of the blood, the outlay of nervous force, and which centers nutrition for the expression of the sug¬ gested idea. In its initial stages faith is self-asser¬ tion, activity of the will, a striving toward the expression of the suggested idea. Its stimulative feature will be still more clearly brought out when the subconscious element in suggestion is treated. The subconscious mind reacts to faith as such. The outcome of a suggestion is not determined by ^ the nature of the object of faith but by organic activities aroused by expectations. It is significant that mind cures are placed to the credit of divers agencies. It has been abundantly demonstrated that the idea of health tends to realize itself regard¬ less of whether the patient relies upon the efficacy of a sacred relic, a bread-pill, or a magnetic healer. The reliance upon a motley variety of remedial agencies coupled with the added fact that all are effectual in the healing of the same kind of diseases, makes it necessary to draw the conclusion that, it is faith as such, and not necessarily the powers invoked, which cures. The expectation of the reaction is of primary importance, the character of the reputed means is irrelevant. The self-realization of the suggested idea. —The third essential of suggestion is the self-expression of the idea through the automatic processes of the personality. Once securely lodged in the mind and accepted, an idea by virtue of the constitution of man tends to fulfill itself. Any idea held in mind tends to express itself. “In short, mental and motor automatism constitute the prominent 34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER elements of suggestion. ,,2 The procedure is largely subconscious. The range of our mental life is fa£ more extensive than the activities of which weTare pointedly aware; growths and connections within the personal life, of which we have no momentary clear conscious¬ ness, are all the while occurring. A subconscious j / process is any form of mental action which is influ¬ ential but not clearly" recognized and identified by M:he self. Only the ripples of the great stream of life come within the sphere of consciousness. Most of life is submerged beneath the level of awareness. It is the function of the waking consciousness to cope with novel situations. If problems are solved often enough, awareness refers the task to the automatic apparatus. Observe the conscious effort expended by a child when he learns to button his shoes, / and ' the ease and lack of attention with which an adult performs the same operation! Through repetition and practice that which is . at first consciously undertaken tends to become auto¬ matic, subconscious. The mental pathology of daily life affords many striking examples of subconscious activity. On close inspection, such seeming aberrations as lapse of memory, slips of the tongue and pen, misspelled words and oversights suggest the presence of this underlying stratum of mind. Some time ago the writer was requested to inquire about the health of the wife of a friend with whom he was then conversing by telephone, but hung up the receiver without complying. The failure seemed as inex¬ cusable as unaccountable, but later, while reading, * Sidis. Boris: The Psychology of Suggestion, p. 10. jp. Appleton & Co. SUGGESTION 35 it flashed across his mind that that very afternoon he had met the woman upon the street and had most solicitously inquired about her health. Again, when building a fire he passed by a newspaper within easy reach and hunted elsewhere for com¬ bustible material. Later it occurred to him that ' the paper contained an editorial which he had resolved to read at his earliest convenience. Re- y .. v . - v . •, cently he has discovered a pronounced tendency to strike lightly the wrong key when using the x typewriter. Grotesque mistakes in spelling are frequently traced to the intrusion of fresh ideas while writing. Psychologists are convinced that these apparent deviations from the normal are at bottom subconscious correctives or supplements. As intimated above, the subconscious is that vast tract of mental life which is not the material of momentary reflective scrutiny. In the very nature of the case it eludes introspection, and any information of it which we may possess is gained by indirect means. We may reasonably infer that it includes our biases and prejudices, our moods and instincts, our memories and impressions of the past, our habits of appreciation and modes of de¬ cision. Some of its elements we-welcome when they invade the focus of consciousness; others we tend to repress whenever they assert their presence. Many subconscious accumulations have at one time been the object of awareness others have glided into the mind without attractmg attention. Often impressions sink beneath the level of cognizance ohly to reappear in transformed shape. It is said that in the European War certain officers began to \ issue written orders to those subordinates who were 36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER v at a distance, because messages transmitted orally from soldier to soldier until they reached the^ person for whom they were intended were often delivered in garbled or even unrecognizable form. The relation between the subconscious and con¬ scious mental activity is one of absolute unity and complete continuity. There is no gulf fixed be¬ tween them. They are not independent of one another. Each influences the other. The one merges into the other. The subconscious is not split off from the main stream of thought and activity. There is no so-called subjective self with an identity and consciousness of its own. Neither is there an objective self having a distinct and separate existence. The subconscious is not an artificer, self-conscious and subject to moments of exaltation and periods of depression of which dear consciousness is ignorant. Far from acting upon its own initiative and responsibility, it is definitely and organically related to a centrally organizing and unitary self. Such forms of mental behavior as hypnosis and multiple personality are not independent selves, but abnormal variants of the one central self. We are not two or more selves, but one self which may, it is true, experience various alterations. Just what goes on beneath the level of awareness, or just how suggestive ideas are realized, is still largely a matter of speculation. The student \ should beware lest he impute to the subconscious magical powers it does not possess. It can com¬ bine and develop its furnishings only within certain limitations. It is not a factory in which substantial things are made from material elements or forces SUGGESTION 37 having no connection with our ordinary life. Ideas are not substantial and material things. They are a form of mental reaction.' 'Possibly they may be thought of as highly specialized and articulate phases of feeling. • ' . ' * A suggestion is, after all, just what the word implies, namely, a hint, a prompting, a cue whicb'^ tends to express itself in accordance with the laws of our being. It is tolerably certain that every idea held steadily before the mind inspires belief in its worth and exerts a pressure upon the nervous system. Many experiments prove that even ab¬ stract ideas obey the law of motor discharge, reflect¬ ing themselves in changes in heart-beat, breathing, digestion, and secretion. As a normal consequence of the structure of the nervous system, the natq^al outcome of every sensation and idea, of every impulse and mental current, is action. Hints gleajied from various sources indicate that complex suggested ideas, expectantly attended to, occaid/bn a process of subconscious growth in the direction of their realization. Professor Jastrow writes, “There exists in all intellectual endeavor a period of incubation, a process in great part subconscious, a slow, concealed maturing through the absorption of suitable pabulum.” 3 And Professor Starbuck says: “After one exerts an effort, the fruition of it is accomplished by the life-forces which act through the personality. It is a well-known law of the nervous system that it Tends to form itself in accordance with the mode in which it is habitually exercised.’ It is only a slight variation on this law to say that the nervous system grows in the direc- 3 Jastrow, Joseph: The Subconscious , p. 99. Houghton Mifflin Company. 38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER tion of the expenditure of effort.” 4 These supple¬ mentary quotations throw a few grateful rays of light upon the subconscious processes involved in suggestion. Attention as a selective agency deter¬ mines just which idea shall be held in mental focus. Faith as the challenge of expectation encourages subconscious activities. The interaction of the will and the organic vitality creates the subconscious product. The element of time is an important factor in the realization of the suggested idea. The length of the period of subconscious incubation varies directly with the difficulty and complexity of the idea. The time also varies with different indi¬ viduals, for what may be complex and difficult for some may be relatively simple and easy for others. Some suggested ideas realize themselves almost instantly; others require a longer period of time. In response to the suggestion that one is blushing, it is highly probable that the blood will flow to the surface of the face in copious quantities at once. Blushing involves a relatively simple subconscious activity; hence the suggestion is real¬ ized almost instantaneously. On the other hand, considerable time may be consumed and repeated stimulation be necessary in the cure of a nervous disease through suggestion. The time required is, then, a variable quantity, being regulated by both the condition of the person and the complexity of the suggested idea. Effort and relaxation. —Furthermore, it is a com¬ mon experience that after many seemingly fruitless attempts to realize a difficult suggestion have been 4 Star buck, Edwin D.: The Psychology of Religion, p. hi. Charles Scribner’s Sons. SUGGESTION 39 followed by a period of rest, a fresh effort is attended by astonishing success. For instance, "one may make a prolonged and conscientious effort to master the art of typewriting. After a certain degree of skill has been attained one may fail to detect any appreciable progress despite continued effort. If the work is discontinued for a season and then resumed, one may be astonished at the ease with which one now masters the typewriter. During the interval of complete rest two things probably occur. Countless hindering tendencies which are naturally developed through unsuccessful effort dis¬ appear during the rest period. The more firmly established associations involving speed and accu¬ racy, however, tend to become- the more deeply intrenched. The inhibiting activities, being only slightly drilled Jn, tend to atrophy during the time of rest, but the correct impressions being sufficiently ingrained grow through the nutrient changes brought about by the action of the blood. 5 It is quite certain that, in difficult and complex suggestion, an intermission has the same dual effect. On the one hand, it furthers subconscious incubation in the right direction. On the other, it tends to uproot hindering associations built up through misdirected effort. If, in such cases, no temporary release from effort occurs, there is grave danger that the wrong tendencies gain the ascendency over the correct ones, and that the very purpose of the suggestion be defeated. In¬ ability to realize a suggestion beyond a certain point, in spite of repeated stimulation, may be an indication that a respite is needed. 8 See Book, W. F.: Psychology of Skill. University of Montana. 40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER In some casjes' of suggestion the person comes to feel that further striving can avail nothing; and then, when he becomes inactive, the self-realization ’ of the idea is completed. An analogous occurrence is the recollection of a name after one has ceased' all effort to bring it to remembrance. One may try to recall the word “pear” and strain in the direction of the word “peach”; which is the rigjht general direction so far as the first three letters are concerned, but wrong with respect to the last two. Cessation of effort, however, permits thfe process of association to correct and complete the act of memory. • When the suggested idea has been almost realized benpath the threshold of consciousness, cessation of conscious striving and straining seems to open the w&y-for its emergence. Subconscious develop¬ ment and conscious exertion may be working toward the same general end but from slightly different angles. So long as the two lines of action are not parallel, or the opposition of the conscious endeavor is not withdrawn, the subconscious product cannot be completed. Slightly misdirected activities of the will guard the entrance to consciousness but, when they relax, the subconsciously incubated idea t crosses the threshold. Passivity, inactivity, apathy, j indifference, and sometimes even despair, accom- i pany the surrender of the will, but when the sug- • gestion is N expressed they are replaced by satis¬ faction, interest, exhilaration, and exaltation. Self- surrender, or cessation of effort, may be regarded as a form of faith. It is passive faith, as contrasted with the active, stimulative faith already con¬ sidered. SUGGESTION 41 * i / CLASSIFICATION OF SUGGESTION 7 V Suggestion may be' classified from am almost indefinite number of approaches. Thus far, only, normal suggestion has engaged our attention, be-, cause with the abnormal form we shall have but little to do. Abnormal suggestibility characterizes, hypnotism, and this mental state will receive only incidental reference. Our interest centers in the normal, regular, ordinary, and waking mental state in which suggestion is a natural and common occurrence. All normal suggestions may be divided into social and autosuggestions, and these, in turn, may be subdivided into positive and negative, and intentional and unintentional varieties. Fur¬ ther sifting would doubtless disclose additional kinds, but those indicated will serve the present purposes. Social and autosuggestion. —A social suggestion o f has its source indirectly in a volitional pressure > '^exerted by another self. ~ In autosuggestion theA ’idea is self-imposed, the field of consciousness being j / restricted on one’s own initiative. That a social suggestion arises from without and an autosug¬ gestion from within is a distinction that must not, however, be pressed too hard, for in auto¬ suggestion, the prompting may be merely imme¬ diately internal. More remotely, it may have been external. Often the difference is simply one in the degree of mental elaboration which a sug¬ gested idea undergoes before it is realized. When an idea suggested by another person is but slightly elaborated in the mind before it is expressed, we may speak of a social suggestion; but when an idea 42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER is considerably modified before it is expressed, we may. call it an autosuggestion. In a sense, every social suggestion to become effective must become autosuggestion. An idea, introduced into the mind by an external will, may be so modified by the sentiments and instincts, biases and prejudices it encounters, by the associations and emotions it arouses, that it loses its original force and character. Every suggestion becomes more or less tinged with the mental states of the self in which it is efficacious. Hence it is not always possible to determine abso¬ lutely whether one is having to do with a social or an autosuggestion. Positive and negative suggestion. —From the point of view of form, all suggestions may be divided into two classes—the positive and the negative. The object of the positive suggestion is the creation of something new, something which the self is eager to obtain. The negative suggestion is in terms of what one wishes to rid the self of or to avoid. The former is constructive, the latter destructive. If a child, who is afraid of certain unpleasant dreams that have a tendency to recur, at bedtime suggests to himself that he will have delightful dreams, like those of success at play or the bestowal of gifts upon himself, he is making a positive suggestion. But he is engaged in making negative suggestions when he suggests to himself that he will not dream horrible dreams, like those of being attacked by wild beasts. As he passes in mental review the dreaded nocturnal visitations, he heightens the probability of their recurrence. Since whatever is persistently held in mental focus tends to generate belief in its reality, the SUGGESTION 43 positive suggestion is on the wfhole the more efficacious. A negative suggestion is sometimes ineffective be¬ cause the mind is in a state of confusion. The con¬ sciousness of facing a dilemma imperils its effective¬ ness. Who has not been tormented by misspelled or mispronounced words? When there is an occasion to make use of them, there is, at least momentarily, confusion as to their correct spelling or pronuncia¬ tion. Ideas of abnormalities sometimes tend to become embarrassingly prominent in the mind. If one suggest to a maiden that she shall not blush, her face is likely to become crimson. One method of remembering is trying to forget. - Because it expresses repression, denial, refusal, and negation, the adverb, “not” is the most uninteresting and unattractive word in the English language; hence it tends to evaporate from prohibitions. Some minds are so organized that a restraint assumes the form and force of a challenge, of defiance. Nevertheless, one should not be in hot haste to conclude that negative suggestions are invariably futile. The contrary is often true. But when they are effective the outcome may be traceable to the fact that they serve to purge an otherwise whole¬ some personality of unwholesome elements. It is well known that emotional and ideational expression 'tends to liberate certain distressing states of mind. A common method of obtaining mental relief is to get a troublesome element “off the mind,” or “out of the system.” “Confession is good for the soul,” is a psychologically justifiable adage. Unless chan¬ nels are opened for the effectual discharge of fester¬ ing mental conditions, serious disturbances of the 44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER mind are likely to obtain. We shall have occasion to examine the psychological basis of this unique process when we study devotional prayer. Intentional and unintentional suggestion. —With reference to the individual’s knowledge of its pres¬ ence, suggestion may be divided into two addi¬ tional classes—the intentional and the unintentional. An intentional suggestion is deliberately made with the knowledge that the principles of suggestion are being applied with a specific end in view. A case in point would be the conscious and circumspect use of autosuggestion for the purpose of inducing pleasant dreams. But when a child, blissfully ignorant of the theory and first principles of auto¬ suggestion, which he nevertheless applies in seeking undisturbed repose, attributes the result to the influence of an extraneous agency, such as a guardian angel, we have to do with unintentional sugges¬ tion. We are constantly giving and receiving sug¬ gestions unintentionally the effect of which it would be impossible to measure. It is evident that since whatever is unintentionally done is accomplished with great ease and effect, unintentional suggestion is the more efficacious. Note the vast difference between intentional and unintentional imitation! How crude and imperfect the former, how perfect and easily accomplished the latter! In fact, imitation may be defined as a form of social suggestion which reinstates a copy. Professor Jastrow says that he can readily adjust a certain kind of necktie if he does not consciously attempt the adjustment, that if he begins to reason which end goes under and which over and observes his movements in a mirror a hopeless failure is the SUGGESTION 45 probable issue. 6 Professor Baldwin reports that it is impossible for him to induce a state of drowsi¬ ness by imagining himself asleep. The first effort leads to a state of restfulness only to be succeeded by a condition of steady wakefulness, which is intensified by an increasing consciousness of self. 7 Another case in point is the frantic effort of one learning to ride a bicycle to preserve his balance and to avoid obstacles in the way. Overguidance by the conscious powers has a tendency to make the manipulation of the delicate mechanism of suggestion awkward and inefficient. Unintentional suggestion is relatively frictionless, employing the automatic processes which yield maximum returns for the effort expended. A physician relates that one winter night in his hotel room he became unpleasantly aware of the need of ventilation. Raising one window from below and lowering another from above, he soon was conscious of a refreshing circulation. Experiencing a positive sense of exhilaration, he retired for the night in the same room. The following morning he was amazed to find that all the windows of the room were reenforced by storm-windows, which did not admit a breath of air, regardless of the open inside windows. Imagine the difficulty, but not the impossibility, of intentionally obtaining the same result. THE INFLUENCE OF SUGGESTION Suggestion has power to affect every variety of mental activity. It would be difficult to exhaust 6 Jastrow, Joseph: The Subconscious, p. 30. Houghton Mifflin Company. 7 Baldwin, James M.: Mental Development in the Child and the Race, p. 139. The Macmillan Company. 46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER its possibilities, for it influences the whole gamut of personal experience. No person can wholly escape its effects, for all men are more or less sug¬ gestible. The state of normal suggestibility is not a pathological condition, unless the person has lost self-control and is at the mercy of external forces impinging upon the mind. Man is educable largely because he is suggestible. It would be hard to overestimate the value of suggestion as a factor in social progress. 8 The threefold effect of suggestion. —Suggestion modifies the self in three ways—by inhibiting, in¬ ducing, and heightening states. It often inhibits, suppresses, checks mental states. In the hypnotic state, suggestions that the subject is powerless to move an arm or to see an object actually present, and many others of a similar inhibitory character, are frequently realized. Normal suggestion of this type is especially effective in affording relief from pain. The mother kisses and laughs away the aches of her child. The mind healer banishes phys¬ ical torment. From the above description of negative suggestion it will be clear that the most effective method of inhibiting states is to let the mind function in the opposite direction, to eliminate by substitution, to close one set of channels by opening another. The cultivation of objective¬ mindedness will eradicate bashfulness, love will cast out fear. Suggestion has the power to induce an almost endless variety of mental products. Looking at the full moon shining in a clear sky, one may dis- 8 See Noble, E.: “Suggestion as a Factor in Social Progress,” International Journal of Ethics, 1898, p. 214ft. SUGGESTION 47 cern almost anything the notion of which is imposed upon the mind—an illuminated fissure-riven sur¬ face, the front view of a fat man’s smiling face, a woman’s profile half-hidden by her tresses. Mr. Maurice H. Small, making an experimental study of the suggestibility of children, found that many of his subjects in response to suggestion experienced an illusion of perfume, although only water was sprayed from an atomizer; an illusion of the taste of salt, sugar, and quinine, although only pure distilled water was given; an illusion of the move¬ ment of a cast-iron camel which really remained stationary; an illusion of heat, although no hot stimulus was applied; an illusion of itching and tickling, although the skin was not touched. 9 A student was an eyewitness of a case of sug¬ gestion that involved the removal of the isinglass of a stove in a village store by a group of practical jokers, and the substitution of red glazed paper that gave the appearance, to a superficial observer, of a comfortable fire although there was none. Several customers, coming into the store from the cold without, approached the fireless stove with outstretched hands, and gave every sign of absorb¬ ing heat. It is evident that the possibilities of affecting the self by inducing states are legion. Again, mental states already present may be heightened. Such activities as perception, memory, reasoning, and action may be augmented by sug¬ gestion. Memory is strengthened when one makes the self-suggestion that he will recollect the data with which the mind is being charged. An other¬ wise impossible action, such as the lifting of a ® The Suggestibility of Children, Pedagogical Seminary, 1896, p. i76ff. I 48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER heavy weight, may be accomplished as the result of the idea that it can be done. Increase in pulse rate occasioned by the self-consciousness of the patient often frustrates the attempt of a physician to determine the real condition of the heart. Pro¬ fessor Coe refers to a small boy, mildly affected with asthma, who invariably returned home from a visit to his grandmother with his malady per¬ ceptibly aggravated. She would say, “Come here, child, and let me hear you breathe!” The exclama¬ tions and coddling which followed made him worse. 10 These simple illustrations indicate the manifold operations and ramifications of suggestion. The province of suggestion. —In an exuberant appreciation of the possibilities of suggestion, it is well to remember that it is not omnipotent. There are limitations which it cannot transcend. Its direct influence is circumscribed by the im¬ movable boundaries of the mental life. Its limita¬ tions are twofold. In the first place, its direct effect is restricted to personal influence. In the second place, within the sphere of mental activity, it is furthermore limited by the amount of vitality which the human organism possesses. Since sug¬ gestion is not effective outside the scope of per¬ sonal influence, one is certain to be disappointed if one throws a stone into the air with the expecta¬ tion that it be suspended in midair. To be sure, one might be positive that the stone was behaving in that extraordinary manner; but this would be an hallucination, a false subjective experience. No amount of suggestion can bring the mountain to Mohammed. The most that it can do is to 10 Coe, G. A.: The Spiritual Life, p. 160. The Methodist Book Concern. SUGGESTION 49 bring Mohammed to the mountain. Suggestion, it is true, has an indirect influence on inanimate objects by affecting the human agent acting upon them. Its control over what is other than mental is of necessity indirect and through a self. On the other hand, only when there is an ade¬ quate degree of force resident within the organism can the suggested idea be realized. It is possible to overestimate the potency of the organic processes and thereby fail to induce the expected reaction. When disease has lowered the vitality of the human organism below a certain degree, the life forces are too weak to realize the idea of health, be it ever so persistently held in mind and relied upon by the patient. It would be impossible for a man to lift a ton by sheer strength of arm in response to the suggestion that he is equal to the Herculean feat. Life is too short and the organic processes too feeble to realize some suggested ideas. The sub¬ conscious is not an inexhaustible reservoir of super¬ human energy. Suggestion is effective only when it lies within the range of the mental life and when the personality possesses vitality enough to real¬ ize it. Real and imaginary results .—It is clear from the foregoing examples that sometimes the products of suggestion are imaginary and illusory, and some¬ times actual and real. The distinction must not be pressed too hard. The ordinary distinction be¬ tween fact and fancy indicates in a practical manner the line of cleavage. For the purposes of classifi¬ cation one may legitimately refer, on the one hand, as imaginary, to the realization of the idea sug¬ gested to a hypnotized person that he sees a serpent 50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER when there is none present and, on the other, as real, to the elimination of moral evil by the expul¬ sive power of suggestion. It is shortsighted to undervalue the actual results as well as the imaginary effects of suggestion. To regard all achievements of suggestion as equally evanescent and illusory is to entertain a perilous and false notion of the operations of the mind. The real accomplishments of suggestion are as perceptible, as legitimate, and as serviceable as those from any other source. Thinking back over the salient points of this chapter, we conclude that a suggestion uninten¬ tionally made, positive in content, engendering faith in its own worth, and falling within the range of subconscious influence is the suggestion of highest efficiency and value. POINTS OF CONTACT WITH PRAYER It is not hard to discover elements common to suggestion and prayer. Both involve a mental impression. Both are said to depend for success in large measure upon concentration of the mind and faith. Not unlike a social suggestion, a prayer offered by one person may impress itself upon the mind of another, pass through a series of modi¬ fications, and issue in personal petitions. The time spent in subconsciously expressing a sug¬ gested idea and the time required to answer a prayer is in either case a variable quantity. Prayer may be either personal or social, and positive or negative in form. Does petitional prayer appropriate the technic and mechanism of suggestion? Are their spheres SUGGESTION 5i of influence coextensive? Can unanswered peti¬ tions be described as failures of suggestion? How does prayer differ from suggestion? To answer these and similar questions is the purpose of the six following chapters. Accordingly, we shall exam¬ ine the elements which make prayer a mental pressure, the factors which induce faith in its effi¬ cacy, the answer itself, and finally the unanswered petition. To anticipate, suggestion in prayer is a mental process which the religious impulse originates and uses as a means to an end. It is not an entity in itself having self-existence, but in prayer it is dependent upon the creativeness of the religious nature of man. It is an instrument which is pro¬ duced and employed. CHAPTER III ATTENTION IN PRAYER In symbols peculiar to himself Luther once said, “Just as a good, clever barber must have his eyes and mind upon the beard and razor, so as to mark distinctly where he is to shave, so everything, which is to be done well, ought to occupy the whole man, with all his faculties and members. How much more, then, should prayer, if intended to be effective, engage the heart wholly and without distraction.” 1 All writers of devotional literature agree with Luther that a vital element in effectual prayer is the concentration of the mind. We are told that one difference between genuine praying and the mere saying of prayers is attention to, and interest in, the exercise. In other words, the devotional man insists that in order to be efficacious the prayer must be impressed upon the mind. In this particular he does not differ from the psy¬ chologist who recognizes in the introduction of an idea into the mind an essential of suggestion. ACCESSORIES TO ATTENTION A- During the course of the natural history of religion many elements have appeared or have been adopted which tend to direct the stream of the mental life into the channel of prayer. The 1 Morris, J. G.: Quaint Sayings and Doings of Luther, p. 131. The United Lutheran Publishing House. 52 ATTENTION IN PRAYER 53 reference is to such means of attracting and hold¬ ing the attention as the isolation of the individual or the presence of other prayerful persons, the posture of the body, the suspension of vision,, motor automatism, emotional states, prayer repetitions, the activity of the will, praying at night, and mechanical devices. Let us now see how these accessories help to implant the material of prayer in the mind. Privacy in prayer. —The very expression' “private prayer” is suggestive of the isolation of the person. Of the respondents who answered the question contained in the questionnaire on prayer circulated by the writer, “Which do you find the more effec¬ tive: public prayer by either the minister or the congregation, or private prayer?” seventy per cent favored private prayer. John R. Mott says, “In a word, secret prayer is prayer at its best. It is prayer most free from all insincerity. It is the true gauge of our prayer life.” 2 Jesus both taught and practiced privacy in prayer. “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” 3 “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray u and continued all night in prayer to God.” 4 •U. It is a truism that the isolation of the individual guards against distractions. Novel impressions, strange changes in the environment, and inter¬ ruptions by others attract the attention. Alone and free from social restraints, the person is at 2 The Secret Prayer Life, p. 5. Y. M. C. A. 3 Matthew 6: 6. i Luke 6: 12. 54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER liberty to give his undivided attention to the unre¬ served expression of religious needs and desires. In this negative way, privacy is an aid to prayer. Social praying. —It goes without saying that prayer offered either by the minister in the pulpit or by the congregation, except when it induces negative suggestions, exerts a stimulating influence. It is the purpose of the pastoral prayer to express common wants and aspirations of the congregation, to reduce all minds to an attitude of worship, to induce in all a prayerful mood. The ideal pulpit prayer reflects the sensitivity of its maker to the religious life of the people, arrests the attention of the indifferent, finds a lodgment in their minds, and bears the fruit of peace and moral power. The prayer meeting and other social forms of religious exercise manifest the same positive tend¬ ency to induce a prayerful response. These gather¬ ings afford the laity an opportunity to offer their common supplications for the edification of the saints, the conversion of the sinful, and the relief of the distressed. It is self-evident that when such a variety of social interactions occurs, the prayer not only reacts upon its author but also impinges upon other minds. The, following quotation ad¬ mirably expresses, in devotional terminology, the value of the prayer circle, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” 5 Physical posture. —Having found some secluded spot, or being in a church where the custom is observed, the person may reverently kneel in prayer. Many seem to have a native impulse to cast them- 5 Matthew 18: 20. ATTENTION IN PRAYER 55 selves at the feet of God in humble submission, or to assume another bodily attitude which has significance for the prayer life. A respondent to a questionnaire sent out by Dr. F. O. Beck says, “Frequently walking is most effective. Kneeling is probably more habitual in times of relaxing; walk¬ ing, when any intense personal problems are to be worked out. In morning, sitting or walking is perhaps more indulged in; at evening, kneeling.” * 6 The following is a specimen of the various and uncomfortable positions assumed by the members of the Yoga cult of India: “The right foot should be placed on the left thigh, and the left foot on the right thigh; the hands should be crossed, and the two great toes should be firmly held thereby; the chin should be bent down on the chest, and in this posture the eyes should be directed to the tip of the nose.” 7 This position is called Padmasana, lotus-seat, and is highly recommended as a cure for all diseases. The student of hypnotism can readily understand how such a posture combined with restraints of breathing produces such a state of abstraction that the person is rendered indif¬ ferent to pain and pleasure, hunger and thirst, cold and heat. It is an extreme method of self-hyp- notization. Forty per cent of the respondents to our ques¬ tionnaire answered the following question in the affirmative: “Do you find that posture, such as kneeling, etc., has any influence on your state of mind in prayer?” The following statements imply ‘‘‘Prayer: a Study in its History and Psychology,” American Journal of Re¬ ligious Psychology and Education, vol. ii, p. 117. 7 Muller, F. Max: Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, p. 457. Longmans, Green & Co. 56 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER that an appreciation of the incompleteness of the personal life induces such a physical attitude: “It [kneeling] is a sign of humility.” “Whenever I am burdened with the cares of life I feel an almost irresistible desire to fall upon my knees in prayer.” On the other hand, kneeling may be suggestive of a want. Who has not been impressed by the fact that whenever he has had occasion to kneel, be the situation ever so foreign to prayer, he has invariably been reminded of prayer? One writes, “Kneeling makes one more earnest in prayer.” Kneeling and prayer are so closely associated that the one tends to induce the other. Many religious leaders understand the reaction of bodily positions upon the mental states; hence a special evangelistic appeal is frequently followed by an exhortation that all kneel while prayer is being offered. Any bodily posture which has become habitually linked with a particular mental activity, naturally resists any proposed departure from its well-estab¬ lished course. When a position other than the habitual one is assumed, doubts as to its propriety arise. These divert the attention from the act of prayer to the bodily posture. To say that posture is a matter of indifference is to overlook the fact that in order to make its greatest contribution to the prayer life the bodily attitude should be ex¬ pressive of the devotional temper. Suspending the vision.—The extent of the prac¬ tice of closing or covering the eyes in prayer may be inferred from the fact that seventy-five per cent of the answers to the questionnaire confess that vision is suspended during prayer. The following typical reasons for doing so seem commonplace: ATTENTION IN PRAYER 57 “The closing of the eyes shuts out distracting sights.” “To concentrate my thoughts.” It is self-evident that an interesting environment might provide impressions novel enough to tempt the attention. The practice is not peculiar to prayer, for we often see persons with closed eyes engaged in strenuous mental effort. Possibly the down¬ cast eyes are also an outward sign of an inward devotional mood. It is well known that moving stimuli fascinate the attention. During the early stages of evolu¬ tion movement suggested to the mind of primitive man the presence of either benevolent or malev¬ olent beings. Hence the resulting oscillation between fear and desire until the nature of the stimulus could be determined. Perhaps it is a heritage from the remote past that makes us still sensitive to movement occurring even in familiar or monotonous environments. 8 A horse will start suddenly aside at the sight of a flying sheet of paper. Although we fail to notice the usual and familiar distractions of the city street, how quickly we attend to the advertisement consisting of electric lights that come and go. When we wish to attract the atten¬ tion of another at a distance we reenforce our vocal efforts with suggestive motions of the arms. The contribution to the prayer experience of the simple expedient of suspended vision is obvious. Automatic movements. —When the person is en¬ gaged in the act of prayer, a variety of physical activities appear of which he is unconscious or but vaguely conscious. The reference is to such physical accompaniments of prayer as the swaying or twist- 8 See Pillsbury, W. B.: Attention, p. soft- The Macmillan Company. 58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER ing of the body, the clasping or clinching of the hands, the scratching of the head or the pulling of the hair, the closing or rolling of the eyes, the wrinkling of the forehead and the distorting of the face, and the moving of the lips, jaws, tongue, head. Such motor phenomena are often called automatism. They increase in number with the seriousness of the mental activity. Professor E. H. Lindley de¬ tects as many as one hundred and thirty-six distinct automatisms in such varieties of mental effort as serious study, attention, and difficult recollection. Their function is twofold. In the first place, they are “accessory to the mechanism of attention. In order that mental activity may be brought to its maximum, and kept there during a period of work, the circulation of the brain must be rendered ade¬ quate, and the latent energy of the nerve-cells must be aroused. To aid in accomplishing this, many movements have appeared in the race and in the individual. Their sole raison d’etre seems to be that they facilitate the work of the brain.” 8 9 A secondary function of the automatism is to provide an outlet for irrelevant impressions which may be courting the attention. Impressions foreign to the task in hand may be discharged through the channels opened by the automatism. At first the automatisms aid in increasing cerebral excitation, under which favorable condition the state of atten¬ tion waxes in intensity. The nerve paths of the automatism likewise become a way of escape for all currents of an excitatory and intruding nature which are excluded from the brain during attention. 8 Lindley, E. H.: “Motor Phenomena of Mental Effort,” American Journal of Psychology , vol. vii, p. 512. ATTENTION IN PRAYER 59 Evidently, the automatisms accompanying prayer have both a stimulating and a conserving effect. Heightening the circulation of the blood, thus setting free latent nervous energy, they are instru¬ mental in generating vitality for the deepening of the prayer life. Supporting the mechanism of attention, they help to impose the prayer upon the mind. Then they tend to conserve the energy which they have released. Extraneous impressions which solicit the attention, following the line of least resistance, find expression through the functional avenues opened by the automatism. We shall have abundant occasion to make further reference to this unique mental process when we consider the repetition of prayer and the rosary. Emotion. —The devotional state is essentially emotional. Effort of the will fortified by reason may initiate a prayer, but more often it is the emotions that give rise to prayer and determine the activity of the will. The intense prayer expe¬ rience is charged with a high potential of emo¬ tion. Situations or predicaments which evoke such emotions as fear, love, exaltation, guilt, doubt, anxiety, gratitude are pregnant with prayer possi¬ bilities. / y w It is the emotions which tend to sweep one from one’s rational feet and to prostrate the self before a higher power. Religion is the refuge of the emo¬ tion-tossed; devotional literature encourages prayer in critical situations. “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me,” 10 is the invitation of the psalmist speaking in Jehovah’s stead. The value of x the emotional 5 10 Psalm so: 15. 6o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER states for the prayer life is admirably expressed in the following quotation taken from a devotional study: “Devotion should spring up spontaneously from an emotive state. . . . Christians, whose lives, in other respects, are not visibly defective . . . have no deep subsoil of feeling from which prayer would be a natural growth. . . . Our theory of the Chris¬ tian life is that of a clear, erect, inflexible head, not of a great heart in which deep calleth unto deep.” 11 When the emotions control the personality, judg¬ ment and reason are held in abeyance, and the person is in a condition of extreme suggestibility. Emotions tend to narrow the field of consciousness. Corrective elements and wider considerations are ignored when an intense emotion dominates the self. Fear of an unpleasant experience often brings about the dreaded occurrence. Fear of failure has too often paralyzed the efforts of conscientious and capable students in examination. When one is in the grip of fear’s antipode, love, the confidence and assurance which this emotion begets renders the personality amenable to glorified conceptions of the object of affection. It is common for a lover to be so obsessed of his passion that he is rendered indifferent to other matters of importance. It is clear that when the emotion is connected with the religious life the state is auspicious for the introduction of prayer ideas into the mind. The dangers attending an excess of religious emo¬ tion are too well known to require mention here. From this standpoint emotions evoke prayers, but it is equally true that prayers themselves in many cases arouse the emotions. There is, in fact, an 11 Phelps, A.; The StiU Hour, p. 58 . Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. ATTENTION IN PRAYER 61 interaction between the emotive states and the prayer ideas and ideals, the one stimulating the other. In a following discussion the part which prayer plays in inducing the emotions will receive attention. Oral praying. —The vocalization of the prayer is 1 itself a means of attracting and holding the atten¬ tion. Saint Teresa says that the first step in a graduated series of religious exercises ending in ecstasy is the articulation of the prayer. Ribot maintains that the vocalization of the prayer leads “the dispersed consciousness into a single confined channel.” 12 Experience teaches that the habit of reading not merely with the eye, but of actually articulating the words seen deepens the attention to the contents of the printed page. Speech is the ’Si- organ of reason. A spoken dream is likely to be more connected than the one not articulated. It is conceivable that the constitution of some minds is such that failure to clothe the prayer in words as soon as it arises in consciousness nullifies . the devotional attitude. Shifting of attention. —During an act of prayer, the object of interest or of desire must be considered from various points of view. Otherwise, attention will wander elsewhere. There can be no sustained attention to anything unless different aspects and relations are taken into account in rapid succession. Attention can be held strictly to a simple and single thing for less than a second. Doubtless the laws of association determine the angles from which the circumstances giving rise to prayer are viewed, for 12 Ribot, T.: The Psychology of Attention, p. 92. The Open Court Publishing Company. 62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER the consideration of one detail of a subject naturally leads to that of another. As the attention flits from one aspect of prayer to another, the emotions are aroused. “One may get angrier in thinking over one’s insult than at the moment of receiving it.” 13 Viewing the insult from various sides may reveal the offensive character of the affront and arouse a veritable storm of emotion. Likewise, with each consideration of the incomplete self from a fresh standpoint, the prayer experience waxes in emotional intensity. In this way, prayer, begun with but a feeble emotional accompaniment, begets a rich emotional excitation. We have already seen that emotional states as a rule control the attention. Ribot insists that “at the root of atten¬ tion we find only emotional states.” 14 The law of inertia. —Now, when once the mech¬ anism of attention is accommodated to any stimu 1 lus, it offers a certain resistance to an impression calling for a fresh adjustment. Change of occupation means a corresponding adjustment of the physical mechanism to be employed. For this reason a diligent student at work may find himself loath to interrupt his studies. The resistance of the adjusted mechanism to change is known as the law of inertia. Applying this principle to the devo¬ tional life, we can readily see that when the mechanism of attention has been adjusted to the prayer experience, the person, following the line of least resistance, may feel a tendency to repeat the 13 James, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii, p. 443. Henry Holt & Co. To be sure, the contrary is often true: a calm consideration of an insult may con¬ vince one that in view of its inconsequential source it is really beneath one’s dignity. 14 The Psychology of Attention, p. 35. The Open Court Publishing Company. ATTENTION IN PRAYER 63 petition rather than to discontinue it and engage in some other activity. To turn the attention to another thing would, under religious pressure and no special distractions, necessitate a decided effort. The turning of the prayer into a definite channel opened by articulation, the frequent change in the point of view by which attention is held and emo¬ tions aroused, the making of automatic movements generating energy and releasing distractions, the warding-off of foreign impressions by the adjusted psycho-physical mechanism, have a collective and cumulative effect which is positively significant for the reiteration of the prayer and its impression upon the mind. Like the little snowball rolling down the mountainside and gathering volume and force until it becomes the mighty avalanche, the prayer born of a feeble appreciation of incomplete¬ ness and repeating itself may become an experience so intense that all competitors for the attention are driven from the field, and it, alone, dominates the personality. Praying at night. —If a summons of the will be a difficult method of impressing the mind with prayer material, the widespread habit of praying at night just before retiring is perhaps the easiest way in which petitions may be introduced into consciousness. A state of high suggestibility is induced by approaching sleep. When an individual feels inclined to sleep, his mind is unusually sensitive and responsive to suggestion. When one is drowsy and ready to retire, the mind is at least partially freed from the criteria of the material world. The critical and corrective powers are held in abeyance. Any reference to objective standards becomes in- 64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER creasingly difficult. Educators are recommending the giving of suggestions to children at bedtime in order to correct mental and moral defects. During the daytime, especially during the morning when the mind is alert, the waking consciousness acts as censor of the ideas that come to its notice, often rejecting and combating what would have been accepted at night. Apart from the high degree of suggestibility which obtains at bedtime, the privacy of one’s room, and the opportunity to assume the habitual devotional posture and to continue the prayer at will, are elements which conspire to hold the prayer in mental focus. The rosary. —Of all mechanical devices designed to increase the effectiveness of the prayer life none is more unique or important than the rosary. Al¬ though Buddhists and Mohammedans have adopted this devotional mechanism, it is found in its most highly developed form among Roman Catholics. It will therefore suffice to note the history, use, and psychological value of the Catholic rosary. On Roman Catholic authority it is alleged that in the period of religious indifference which obtained in France during the thirteenth century the Virgin appeared in a vision to Saint Dominic, a Spaniard, with a rosary in her hand. She instructed him in the use of this device and enjoined upon him the mission of preaching it as a means of spiritual revival. Arriving at Toulouse for the purpose of proclaiming the new devotion, he found that in response to a mysterious summons the people had already assembled in the church. At first his preachment fell upon unheeding ears, but when a violent storm arose with flashes of lightning and ATTENTION IN PRAYER 65 crashes of thunder, and the statue of the Virgin began to move, even pointing to heaven and to the preacher, the obdurate people were touched, and casting themselves at the feet of Saint Dominic, they announced their acceptance of the rosary. The faithful followers of Saint Dominic carried the rosary into all the countries of Europe, and it was quite generally adopted. It is affirmed that its general adoption was followed by a widespread religious awakening, more than a hundred thousand souls in France alone returning to the fold of the church. This • account of the miraculous origin of the rosary is, of course, purely legendary. Careful students of rites and religious practices, like Tylor, affirm that it is an Asiatic invention, having its special development, if not its origin, among the ancient Buddhists. Among the modern Buddhists, its one hundred and eight balls still measure out the sacred formulas, the reiteration of which con¬ sumes the major part of a pious life. Toward the Middle Ages the rosary found its way into Chris¬ tian and Mohammedan lands where, adapting itself to existing conceptions of prayer, it has flourished ever since . 15 The Roman Catholic Church grants indulgences proportionate to the faithfulness of her adherents in the use of the rosary. The use of the rosary consists of a union of vocal and mental prayers. The entire rosary is composed of fifteen decades of Hail Marys to be orally recited, each decade or group of ten Aves, being preceded by a Pater Noster and followed by a Gloria, and 15 See Tylor, E. B.: Primitive Culture, vol. ii., p. 372. Henry Holt & Co. 66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER accompanied by the meditation of a “mystery.” Five decades constitute a chaplet. During the recitation of each chaplet a group of five “mys¬ teries” from the life of Christ and the Virgin is meditated. Corresponding to the number of chap¬ lets, there are three groups of “mysteries” of five each: the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mys¬ teries, the Glorious Mysteries. The Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth, the Presentation, the Find¬ ing in the Temple, compose the first group and are called the Joyful Mysteries. The Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, the Crowning wdth Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, make up the second group, the Sorrowful Mysteries. The Resurrection, the Ascension, the Coming of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption, the Coronation of the Virgin, comprise the third series known as the Glorious Mysteries. The contemplation of a “mystery” is undertaken in connection with the vocalization of a Pater Noster, ten Hail Marys, and the Gloria. Let us observe a devotee at church. The win¬ dows with their masterpieces of sacred art, the statuary of Jesus, the Virgin and the saints, the soft and restful light of the candles, the chanting and droning of the officiating priests, the odor of incense , 16 the genuflections and responses of the worshiping congregation, all tend to create within him a devotional mood. On bended knee the prayers of the rosary are begun. Let us assume 16 The power of odor to stimulate the associations, the imagination and mem¬ ory is without a peer. When Esther, tne heroine of The Children of the Ghetto (The Macmillan Company, by Zangwill, I.), returns to her old home after an absence of several years, “the unchanging musty smells that clung to the stair¬ case flew to greet her nostrils, and at once a host of sleeping memories started to life, besieging her and pressing upon her on every side.” ATTENTION IN PRAYER 67 that while the automatic oral repetition of the stereotyped prayers occurs, the Scourging at the Pillar is the “mystery” meditated. “The memory presents a large hall full of rude soldiers, who drag in a poor prisoner, pull off his garments, bind Him to a pillar, and there tear off the flesh from His bones until His body is all raw and covered with wounds and His blood streaming over the floor. Next the understanding considers who this prisoner is: the adorable Son of the Most High God, the Lord and Giver of Life. And why does He suffer? For miserable sinners: for us ungrateful men: for those who are scourging Him. Now the will is influenced to make acts of compassion, love, adora¬ tion, thanksgiving, petition, etc .” 17 In the light of the foregoing discussion of the motor accompaniments of mental effort the psy¬ chological value of the rosary is obvious. Like all automatism, the automatic recitation of the rosary arouses mental activity and provides an outlet for distracting impressions. Furthermore, the oral prayers of the rosary are gentle reminders of the religious life. The associations clustered about them are of such an intimate and sacred nature that the suppliant cannot but respond to their subtle influence. The result would by no means be the same if for the Aves, the Pater Nosters, and the Glorias a substitution without religious significance were at¬ tempted—say a group of nonsense syllables, the alphabet and a mother-goose rime. Such a mean¬ ingless procedure would rob the exercise of its appropriate suggestiveness. It would be difficult, if 17 Dominican Father, The Rosary, p. 41. Benziger Bros. 68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER not utterly impossible, to meditate a “mystery” to such an incongruous accompaniment. As it is, the rosary, when properly employed, may be an admirable device for attracting and holding the attention to the prayer life. The contemplation of the “mysteries” gives rise to mental pictures out of which there may be constructed prayers ex¬ pressive of personal needs and devotion to God. Its stimulative value has made the rosary an almost indispensable devotion of the religious recluse whose life is too uneventful to make petitional prayer spontaneous. Its misuse will be considered under the head of “vain repetitions” in a chapter deal¬ ing with unanswered petitions. The will.—According to devotional treatises, it sometimes requires the exercise of the will to bring the faculties to bear upon prayer. This may be true when the course of life is unbroken by crises of religious value, which naturally engender prayer, and the offering of prayer is conscientiously con¬ sidered a duty to be sacredly discharged or a priv¬ ilege not to be lightly esteemed. In such a case attention to prayer is voluntary; an effort is made to concentrate the mind. The voluntary over¬ coming of the capricious wandering of the atten¬ tion seems to impart to the mind such a powerful stimulus that a generous amount of energy is set free for the making of a prayer. Who has not by an act of the will turned his attention away from the distractions incident to travel by rail, and focused it upon his book in the reading of which he was soon absorbed? Concerning wandering thoughts and how to recall them, Brother Lawrence has the following to say: ATTENTION IN PRAYER 69 “Our mind is extremely roving; but, as the will is the mistress of all our faculties, she must recall them, and carry them to God as their last end. When the mind for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to the things of the earth. I believe one remedy for this is to confess our faults and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer, many words and long discourses being often the occasion of wandering. Hold your¬ self in prayer before God like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man’s gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wanders and withdraws itself from him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to recollect it; the will must bring it back in tran¬ quillity .” 18 THE FUNCTION AND NATURE OF ATTENTION In making a comprehensive survey of the facts which conspire to restrict the field of consciousness to the act of prayer only incidental reference has been made to the purpose and character of atten¬ tion. Why not let the attention wander where it may in our devotional life? What is the nature of attention? The answering of these questions will disclose both the importance of lodging the prayer in the mind and an elemental activity of the will. 18 Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of God, p. 35. American Baptist Publishing Society. 70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER The function of attention in prayer. — Since it is impossible consciously to react to all impressions made upon us, we are compelled to make a selec¬ tion. Attention is the selective process which makes some things prominent and neglects others. Atten¬ tion is not creative; it does not call ideas into existence. It merely sifts the ideas already present in the mind. Their presence is determined by the operation of the laws of association, according to which contrasting ideas such as day and night exhibit a readiness to recall one another, as do similar ideas such as water and pond, and ideas connected with the same time or place. Attention is prompted by interest. We select for scrutiny and deliberate expression those ideas which we consider of importance. The consequence of atten¬ tion is interpretation and meaning. Interest arouses attention, attention results in the understanding and appreciation of an idea and indicates lines of activity. Attention to prayer is born of religious interest. The prayer occupies the focal point of conscious¬ ness because it is at the time of more importance to the petitioner than its competitors for recogni¬ tion. Attention does not originate the petition, but, impelled by religious concern, it makes prayer prominent and ignores matters of lesser consequence. As a result, the religious need is defined, clarified, and formulated. The petition becomes vivid and urgent, dominant and preeminent, and generates an emotional tone which intensifies the desire for reli¬ gious satisfaction. Voluntary attention.—The element of self-deter¬ mination may be detected in voluntary attention. ATTENTION IN PRAYER 7 1 Heredity and environment cannot explain away the strain of free will manifested in the effort to restrict or otherwise control the field of conscious¬ ness. Voluntary attention is elemental, it cannot be reduced to other and lower terms. To quote the ever-poignant James, “Effort of attention is thus the essential phenomenon of will .” 19 Another writer has a word to the point: “The will reveals itself most directly in attention. It is often said sweepingly that a m%n’s environment makes him. Not to insist upon the obvious fact that there must be a germ with a certain nature in order that any environment may work its effect, it is particularly important to notice in the case of man that not his entire environment, but only that part of his environment to which he attends really makes him .” 20 * Man has the innate power to attend or not to attend to prayer ideas. Without attention, the laws governing prayer cannot operate. Professor B. P. Bowne has well said: “Human purpose and volition are perpetually playing into the system of law, there¬ by realizing a multitude of effects which the system, left to itself, would never produce, yet in such a way that no law is broken. Natural law of itself would never do any of the things which men are doing by means of it. The work of the world is done by natural forces under human guidance. It is the outcome at once of law and purpose .” 21 Choice involves the presence of two or more ideas in the mind, and the focusing of the attention 19 James, William: Principles of Psychology, vol. ii, p. 562. Henry Holt & Co. 20 King, H. C.: Rational Living, p. 159. The Macmillan Company. 21 Bowne, B. P.: The Essence of Religion, p. 136. Houghton Mifflin Company. 72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER upon one of them. When man by an act of his own volition attends to certain objects of prayer, the realization of which affects himself and others, he is exercising his power of self-determination. The extent of his initiative and creativeness de¬ pends upon the number of associations whichT he possesses. The range of ideas from which a selec¬ tion is possible is the measure of freedom* The highest form of will is revealed in attention to an idea, the acceptance of which fs urged by conscience in the face of an opposing current public opinion. y In view of the fact that an act of the will may apply the principles which underlie prayer, it is puerile to raise the questions: Why must we pray at all? If a divine Intelligence broods over us and knows our every want long before we can formulate it, of what use is prayer? Prayer is not a dumb¬ waiter bringing down from heaven gifts ready¬ made for those who are too indolent to exert them¬ selves. It would be no more irrational to expect to reap a harvest without sowing or to live without eating than it would be to demand that God grant religious enthusiasm and moral poiver to an inactive and passive personality. Man is, then, morally responsible because, on his own initiative, he may make operative the laws which determine his character. SUMMARY Religion makes use of many accessories to and principles of attention in order to give prayer a safe lodgment in the mind. The isolation of the person offers a possibility of uninterrupted and unrestricted self-expression. Social prayer affects and is affected by the devotional attitude of others. ATTENTION IN PRAYER 73 Posture, such as kneeling, is not merely the attitude of a suppliant and the outward , sign of reverence. It has a reflex influence on prayer. The closing or covering of the eyes excludes distractions. The automatic movements accompanying prayer in¬ crease the flow of blood to the brain, which releases energy, and their functional paths form channels of discharge for irrelevant impressions. As a rule, prayer has its genesis in an emotional state, and emotions render the personality highly suggestible. Oral prayer gives consciousness a definite direction. Automatic movements heighten the processes of respiration and circulation. They generate energy. Shifting from part to part, the attention is held to the prayer and emotion is aroused. Prayer tends to continue itself in accordance with the law of inertia. At bedtime when reference to objective criteria is difficult and the mind is thrown upon its own inner resources, the acceptance of prayer ideas is highly probable. Although the emotions generally prompt prayer, it sometimes occurs that voluntary attention restricts the field of consciousness to the act of prayer. The rosary is a mechanical exercise arous¬ ing mental images of religious importance out of which prayers may be constructed. All of these elements, and many more, tend to hold in mental focus the idea for the realization of which prayer is made. A summary suggests their cumulative effect. The purpose of the process of attention in prayer is to select from the resources which experience has placed at our disposal, those ideas the expression of which can best minister to the existing pressure. It also makes these ideas clear and compelling. 74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Voluntary attention displays an elemental effort of will, the range of which is conditioned by the number of available ideas which one has. The voluntaristic strain in attention renders us morally responsible and creative. CHAPTER IV FAITH IN PRAYER Professor Munsterberg has well said that suggestion is more than the mere turning of the attention to one idea and away from another, that it is characterized by faith . 1 Among the author¬ ities on suggestion there is no dissent from the opinion that a fundamental requirement of effective suggestion is a lively conviction that the idea held in mind will be realized. Now prayer also is more than the mere turning of the attention to one idea and away from another. It, too, is characterized by faith. Nothing could be more indisputable than that belief looms up large in the answering of prayer. On the one hand, the psychologist is certain that a suggested idea depends largely upon faith for its realization; on the other hand, the religious self is equally positive that without belief there can be no answer to prayer. In both sugges¬ tion and prayer an ideal cannot be realized unless a preliminary faith in its realization is exercised. In order to appreciate the place of faith in prayer it will be necessary to isolate it, to consider the factors which promote its rise and growth, and to discuss its nature and function. FACTS WHICH INSPIRE FAITH Just as there are various factors which, when understood, tend to make prayer intelligible, so 1 Munsterberg, Hugo: Psychotherapy, p. ioo. Moffat, Yard & Co. 75 y6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER also there are discoverable many elements which suggest the nature of faith. Belief is doubtless affected by such factors as religious environment, devotional literature, positive testimonies of others, memories of answered prayers, favorable interpre¬ tations of unanswered petitions, the ignoring of negative cases, the acceptance of coincident in¬ stances, the repetition of prayer. Before these items are examined a little more closely, it may be well to call attention to the fact that no sharp line of demarkation can be drawn between the elements which influence attention in prayer and those which promote belief. The two sets of influences interact. Faith promotes atten¬ tion, and attention, faith. Isolation, social praying, posture, suspension of vision, motor automatism, emotional states, oral expression, change in object of attention, the law of inertia, repetition, devotions at night, mechanical devices, and volition all tend to engender faith by making the prayer prominent in the mind and excluding unfriendly ideas. On the other hand, we involuntarily attend to that which we believe. Religious environment. —It goes without saying that the religious atmosphere into which one is born and the early impressions which one receives are influential factors in determining the kind and degree of faith exercised in prayer. One may be a firm disbeliever in prayer because one has been reared by skeptical parents. The type of religious education received cannot fail to color faith. If the child is taught conceptions of prayer which stand the test of experience, his religious faith is confirmed and established when he develops an FAITH IN PRAYER 77 analytical attitude through contact with discrim¬ inating minds. Devotional literature. —For many persons devo¬ tional literature is authoritative and consequently a stimulus to the faith state. The teaching of Jesus concerning prayer, as it is recorded in the New Testament, is significantly influential. “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive .” 2 “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them .” 3 Such an emphasis on faith as the condition of answered prayer, coming as it does from the lips of the One to whom we accord supreme religious leadership, cannot fail to increase the faith of millions. Statements like the following, taken from the literature of devotion, tend to confirm the bibli¬ cal promise that faith shall see its reward: “Where there is true faith, it is impossible but the answer must come .” 4 “There is no personal duty more positive or more unqualified than the duty of faith .” 5 “How many prayers are hindered by our wretched unbelief! We go to God and ask him for something that is positively promised in his Word, and then we do not more than half expect to get it .” 6 “An astronomer does not turn his telescope to the skies with a more reasonable hope of pen¬ etrating those distant heavens, than I have of reaching the mind of God, by lifting up my heart 2 Matthew 21: 22. 3 Mark 11: 24. 4 Murray, A.: With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 78. Fleming H. Revell Company. 6 Trumbull, H. C.: Prayer, Its Nature and Scope, p. 69. Fleming H. Revell Company. 6 Torrev, R. A.: How to Pray, p. 90. Fleming H. Revell Company. 78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER at the throne of grace .’’ 7 Prayer literature fairly teems with like affirmations of the value of believ¬ ing prayer. Line upon line and precept upon pre¬ cept, here a little and there much, exhort the reader to have a faith which knows no shadow of doubt. In fact, unbelief is the most frequent explanation of unanswered prayer. Testimonies of others.—Closely allied to the influence of religious literature, is the testimony of those who have received direct answers to prayer. Faith is contagious. The definite and positive experiences of others, whose accounts are reliable, cannot fail to encourage one to make similar venture of faith. The more highly suggestible one is, the more likely one is to accept the testimony of an¬ other and to regulate conduct thereby. The com¬ mercial wisdom of the salesman turns to account the testimonial of one who has purchased his wares. The prayer meeting and other devotional services which witness to the efficacy of prayer awaken, confirm and strengthen faith. Memory.—The person waxes bold in his devo¬ tions when he recalls positive personal prayer experiences. The remembrance of the comforting and encouraging presence of God in an hour of depression, of the healing of a disease, of conver¬ sion, of the attainment of personal purity, of tem¬ poral prosperity, of divine leading in perplexing situations, and of countless other things wrought through believing prayer, tends to raise prayer to a high degree of efficiency. The object of memory is suffused with a warmth and an intimacy to which no mere object of conception ever attains. Memory 7 Phelps, A.: The Still Hour, p. 43. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. FAITH IN PRAYER 79 has a tendency to reinstate a past event with much of its original emotional glow. Sentimental and optimistic natures are inclined to place a halo around the pictures of memory, forgetting unpleas¬ ant details. Time, like distance, lends enchantment. A former successful petition to heaven now held in fond recollection is bathed in tender emotion. There are no more effective means of increasing faith than such cherished memories. Serviceable interpretations of unanswered peti¬ tions. —The usual attitude taken toward unanswered prayers is of such a nature as not to weaken the faith state. They are generally either interpreted in terms which cast no reflection on prayer or are entirely ignored or forgotten. Negative cases when taken into consideration at all are readily accounted for by the majority of praying persons as referable to “lack of faith,” “want of definiteness,” “haste,” “improper objects of prayer,” and the like. Some do not distinguish answered from unanswered prayers, stoutly insisting that “no” is as truly an answer as “yes.” They hold that often Providence withholds the insignificant thing asked for in order that an infinitely greater blessing may be bestowed; that Divine Wisdom may overrule our shortsighted¬ ness for our own good. Many affirm that God hears all our prayers, but answers only those which are conducive to our highest welfare. In some such manner the unanswered prayer when accounted for is almost invariably converted into a positive reason for the continuation and increase of faith. Ignoring negative cases. —But most of the un¬ answered petitions are not even accounted for; they are generally forgotten. The writer knows 8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER of no book bearing the title “Unanswered Prayer.” Doubtless an overplus of material would be avail¬ able for such a study if more unanswered prayers were taken seriously enough to be remembered. But such a work would be laughed to scorn by those whose habit it is to disregard negative instances. On the other hand, there is a super¬ abundance of literature recording positive expe¬ riences. It seems to be human to forget our failures and to remember our successes; the former we write in shifting sands, but the latter we chisel in granite. The ancient kings, whose monuments are now being brought to light by the spade of the archaeologist, were inclined to have their military and architectural achievements recorded on durable tablets, but were chary of reference to defeat and failure. Every field of human endeavor reveals the tendency to view success through the small end of the telescope and failure through the large end. The ancient story of the man who was shown a temple hung with the pictures of all persons who had been saved from shipwreck after paying their vows bears repeating in this connection. When pressed as to whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, he said, “Aye, but where are those painted who drowned after paying their vows?” It is only the exceptional mind that raises a question like the following: “In the recent Boxer uprising some of the missionaries escaped, and their escape was spoken of as a signal case of an¬ swer to prayer. But what of those who did not escape?” 8 From the foregoing it would seem rational •Bowne, B. P.: The Essence of Religion, p. 158. Houghton Mifflin Company. FAITH IN PRAYER 81 to infer that when ten prayers are made and only one of them is answered, as a rule the one positive experience is treasured and advertised while the nine failures are- graciously overlooked and kept private. Thus on the whole unanswered prayer does not reduce faith, while the focusing of the attention upon the positive response intensifies it. Coincidence. —Faith is not infrequently so robust as to overlook the element of chance and coin¬ cidence among answers to prayer. A certain caution in attributing results to prayer is often a mark of intelligence. Recently there came to the notice of the writer the case of a certain man who prayed God to give the Americans a bloodless victory over the Spaniards at Manila. When word came that without loss of life on their part the Americans had won the battle of Manila, this person rejoiced and steadfastly maintained that the victory was a direct answer to his prayer. What other persons would unhesitatingly refer to coincidence (prayers for bloodless victories are offered by both sides of opposing forces) he accepted as the particular intervention of God in response to his petition. He seemed to imply that if he had not made that prayer, some Americans might have been killed. In all such cases there is presumption and blind acceptance, but little analysis and discrimination. If a cyclone lays waste a Western village, sparing only a lowly cottage the inmates of which prayed for deliverance, there are still to be considered the equally fervent petitions of the others whose homes are a shapeless mass of debris. The mind tends to interpret fresh experiences in terms of its general point of view, its expectations, and inclin- ✓ t 82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER ations. In an illuminating passage Francis Bacon describes theh disposition to adapt facts to, our preconceived notions: “The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections, whence proceed sciences which may be called ‘sciences as one would.’ For what a man had rather were true he more readily be¬ lieves.” But even the interpretation of certain occurrences as answers to prayer when there is no rational justification for doing so, multiplies faith. Repetition. —Faith may be evoked and increased by reiterating the prayer. At first belief may waver like a reed shaken in the wind, but with each successive repetition it develops strength. Reiteration makes the mental imagery of the object of the petition increasingly vivid and realistic and desirable. Analogies beyond the pale of prayer are not wanting. Who has not seen wares so per¬ sistently advertised that the prospective buyer, although skeptical at first, finally comes to believe in their proclaimed value and makes a purchase? Since it is a law of our being that we grow in the direction of exercise, faith expressed increases • faith. It turns on itself to its own enrichment. In the words of another, “Now there is only one way in which we can learn to trust, and that is by trusting. Therefore the duty of the man who feels inert and incapable of rising to the level of his belief, is to arouse himself, to say to himself again and again until it has become, as it were, his subconscious possession, ‘Trust in God is rational and right, and therefore trust I will.’ ” 9 •Worcester, E.: Religion and Medicine, p. 319. MoSat, Yard & Co. 83 FAITH IN PRAYER I ^ > THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF FAITH Why is answer to prayer dependent upon faith? What is its nature and function? The answers to these queries will bring us close to the heart of prayer. Faith as will. —Faith expresses itself in two modes, activity and passivity. In the incipient stages it manifests itself primarily in effort, later in self-surrender. Moved by active faith, the soul beats its wings against the bars of its prison in an endeavor to break through its limitations and live a larger life. In passages already quoted Jesus makes faith the essential condition of answer to prayer, but in the following quotation he emphasizes activity and striving: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” 10 Now activity and faith are not mutually exclusive, the former being the expres¬ sion of the latter. Jesus’ exhortation to ask, seek and knock is a commentary on faith. Mr. Murray doubtless had this aspect of belief in mind when he wrote, “To believe truly is to will firmly.” * 11 The justification of an aggressive faith is its stimulative function. This leaning out toward deliverance arouses and shapes subconscious activ¬ ities of religious significance. If we take seriously the doctrine of the unity of life, and the cumulative evidence compels our assent, we must admit that in prayer as well as suggestion there is a subcon¬ scious response to faith. Prayer literature, testi¬ monials of others, memory of positive instances, 10 Luke 11:9. 11 Murray, Andrew: With Christ in the School of Prayer , p. 75. Fleming H. Revell Company. 84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER the favorable interpretation or neglect of negative cases, the acceptance of coincident answers, the reiteration of one’s belief, all tend to rise out of and to give rise to longings, hopes, aspirations, strivings, endeavors, expectations, and strainings in the direction of the answer to prayer. James, with his usual penetration, has somewhere said that to know our limitations is in a sense to be already beyond them. The fact that the person who is praying or under the influence of suggestion is wholly ignorant and unconscious of any effort to realize his own prayer or the suggested idea, is no valid reason for assuming that none is being made, for the subconscious stimulation may be imper¬ ceptible to clear consciousness. All desires naturally marshal and turn to account those forces which normally operate toward their gratification. How the subconscious accepts the challenge of active expectation of faith, is neatly described by Professor Starbuck as follows: “The unaccom¬ plished volition is doubtless an indication that new nerve connections are budding, that a new channel of mental activity is being opened; and, in turn, the act of centering force (trying) in the given direction may, through increased circulation and heightened nutrition at that point, itself directly contribute to the formation of those nerve con¬ nections, through which the high potential of energy which corresponds to the new insight expends itself.” 12 Faith as self-surrender. —Strained expectation gives way to receptivity, self-assertion to self- 12 Starbuck, E. D.; The Psychology of Religion, p. hi. Charles Scribner’s Sons. FAITH IN PRAYER 85 surrender, activity to passivity, tension to relaxa¬ tion. Self-surrender is the casting of the self into the abyss. As a gambler who has lost all save a paltry sum which he ventures as his last stake, knowing well that he has but little to lose and everything to win, so the person after many seem¬ ingly fruitless attempts to obtain an answer to his prayer may in utter despair and as his last hope cast himself without reservation upon a higher power. Writers of devotional literature are one in their preachment of self-surrender as an essential of prayer. Mr. Murray, already quoted in regard to the activity of faith, expresses the opinion of the majority of them when he says, “Faith is simply sur¬ render: I yield myself to the impression the tidings I hear make on me. By faith I yield myself to the living God” u The act of surrender is frequently followed by a sudden and dramatic answering of the prayer. Now, surrender is not peculiar to religious expe¬ rience, it is a common occurrence in suggestion. As elsewhere indicated, it is necessary to cease from straining in order that the subconscious may deliver its product. In order that we may recollect a difficult name, we abandon our efforts to recall it. Faith as activity of the will initiates a subconscious process in the right general direction. Since our deeper-lying self is often wiser than our waking self, to attain the desired end the subconscious activity may deviate somewhat from the initial tendency given by the will. A conflict arises when the activity of the will and the corresponding sub¬ conscious growth are not harmonious and parallel. 13 Murray, Andrew: With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 89. Fleming H. Revell Company. _ ■ . 86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Surrender of the self, or the cessation of conscious striving and trying, resolves the conflict and makes possible the complete realization of the suggested idea or religious desire. Under normal conditions the person is induced to assume a passive attitude by a vague, undefined feeling that further activity can avail nothing. The conflict between the slightly misdirected self- assertion and the subconscious creation may result in the repose and calm which generally precede the act of surrender. In extreme cases there is weari¬ ness and despair, which may be the outcome of the v/ exhaustion of the emotional brain centers. But be that all as it may, it seems to be the rule that trust, confidence, passivity, and receptivity must precede the answering of prayer. The independence of faith.—We have seen that psychologists are agreed that a suggestion may be effective regardless of who or what is credited with the result. It is a form of experience, the content of which may be either religious or non-religious. Belief that the suggested idea will be realized is of prime importance, the identity of the supposed agent is a secondary matter so far as the sub¬ conscious response is concerned. It does not in the least affect the subconscious processes tending to realize the idea of health, whether the patient believes in the efficacy of a patent medicine or his physician. The mental attitude is the essential element. It is significant that answer to prayer has been attributed to diverse agencies. Graven images, prayer wheels, Buddha, Confucius, the Virgin, as well as the God of Jesus are appealed to and believed in by millions who witness to the FAITH IN PRAYER 87 efficacy of their prayers. Religious faith as such makes effective the laws of the spiritual life. God moves upon the hearts of all men. He is the governor of not only the Christian fraction of the world but of the whole earth, and feeds the soul-hunger of millions who call, however mistakenly, to what they sincerely believe to be Lord of all. If answer V to prayer depended upon a correct understanding of the metaphysical nature and character of God, religion, if it could have risen, would have died long ago. There is, for instance, the peculiar practice that makes of prayer a charm, a talisman, a fetish. It is characterized by a belief in the mere repetition of prayer rather than by faith in a prayer-answering God. It is a dependence on the mere saying of prayers. A case in point is the following example of the so-called prayer-chain, which has been so widely circulated that it has become a veritable nuisance: “Lord Jesus, I implore thee to bless all mankind. Keep us from evil by thy precious blood and make us to dwell with thee in eternity. This is an exact copy of an ancient prayer. Copy it and see what will happen. It is said in Jerusalem that he who will not copy it, will meet with mis¬ fortune, but he who will write it nine days, begin¬ ning with the day he received it and shall send it each day to some friend, will on the ninth day experience some great joy and will be delivered from all calamities. Make a wish while writing this and do not break the chain.” The incessant and utterly meaningless repetition of the Lord’s Prayer on the part of numberless persons savors of the magician’s incantations. The r 88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER conception of prayer as a magical rite is well illus¬ trated in the boyhood practice of the Rev. F. W. Robertson. He says: “I recollect when I was taken up with nine other boys at school to be un¬ justly punished, I prayed to escape the shame. The master, previously to flogging all the others, said to me, to the great bewilderment of the whole school: ‘Little boy, I excuse you; I have particular reasons for it;’ and, in fact, I was never flogged during the three years I was at that school. The incident settled my mind for a long time; only I doubt whether it did me any good, for prayer be¬ came a charm. I fancied myself the favorite of the Invisible. I knew I carried about a talisman, unknown to others, which would save me from all harm. It did not make me any better, it simply gave me security, as the Jew felt safe in being the descendant of Abraham, or went into battle under the protection of the ark, sinning no less all the time.” 14 A somewhat higher type of this variety is repre¬ sented in the following method: “Times without number, in moments of supreme doubt, disap¬ pointment, discouragement, unhappiness, a certain prayer formula, which by degrees has built itself up in my mind, has been followed, in its utterance, by quick and astonishing relief.” 15 In a letter to a friend Mr. F. W. H. Myers ex¬ presses himself as follows in regard to the inde¬ pendence of prayer: “Plainly we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible,' and we must place our minds in any attitude which 14 Robertson, F. W.: Lije and Letters, p. 52. Harper & Brothers. l * Unbekannt: The Outlook, vol. lxxxiii, p. 858. FAITH IN PRAYER 89 experience shows to be favorable to such indrawal. Prayer is the general name for that attitude of open and earnest expectancy. If we, then, ask to whom to pray, the answer (strangely enough) must be that that does not much matter. The prayer is not, indeed, a purely subjective thing; it means a real increase in intensity of absorption of spiritual power or grace; but we do not know enough of what takes place in the spiritual world to know how the prayer operates —who is cognizant of it, or through what channel the grace is given. Better let children pray to Christ, who at any rate is the highest individual spirit of whom we have any knowledge. But it would be rash to say that Christ himself hears us: while to say that God hears us is merely to restate the first principle—that grace flows in from the infinite spiritual world.” 16 Many lean upon the petitions of others. Their faith seems to be faith in deeply religious persons rather than in God. They request the prayers of others motivated by an undefined assumption that others stand closer to God than they. Such belief and practice seems to be a survival of the ancient confidence in the medicine man or magician to con¬ trol the forces that affect the people. Something of this primitive faith is reflected in the appeal to a system of mediating personalities between God ^and man. God is so majestic and holy that it were a sacrilege to approach him directly; hence the saints are implored to intercede and exert their influence. While many facts sustain the conclusion that 11 Cited in James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 467. Longmans, Green & Co. 90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER it is religious faith, and not necessarily an interpre¬ tation of that which is appealed to and acknowledged as the grantor of the request, which acts upon the forces realizing the prayer, it should not be over¬ looked that the nature of the things petitioned for varies with the character of the power implored. While it is a comfort that a theology cannot affect God, while'it would be the world’s greatest tragedy if the answer to our petitions depended upon an exact metaphysical conception of God, nevertheless, a low conception of God begets prayers of a corre¬ spondingly low type , and a loftier conception lifts prayer to a higher moral plane. Prayer cannot fail to reflect one’s world-view, and, conversely, our philosophy influences our devotions. The prayers of primitive man for a bountiful harvest and vic¬ tory in battle differ radically from those of a Chris¬ tian for the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth. SUMMARY Faith is an indispensable element in both sug¬ gestion and prayer. True prayer is impossible without a lively conviction that there is a Gtod and that he will respond to all who sincerely call upon him. Certain attitudes and practices have arisen which support and establish faith in prayer. The attitude toward unanswered petitions and coincident answers is in most instances of such a character that faith is not only undisturbed but actually increased. What we repeatedly hold before the mind develops a readiness to generate belief in its validity and value. Wise education in morals and religion, the reading of stimulating devotional FAITH IN PRAYER 9i literature, the witness of others rich in prayer experience, the memory of productive cases all conspire to arouse and multiply faith. Faith is a constructive force. In the earlier stages of the answering of the prayer faith awakens and regulates the subconscious powers which realize the expectations of the petitioner. When the answer has matured sufficiently to be ready to be the conscious acquisition of the self, faith assumes the nature of receptivity and passivity. Self¬ surrender withdraws all opposition to the developed product. The doctrine of the divine immanence makes inevitable the conclusion that God mani¬ fests himself creatively in the subconscious response to the appeal of faith. The efficacy of faith as such is not absolutely conditioned by our theological doctrines. In the merciful economy of God men praying upon the various levels of religious insight receive the reward of faith. Nevertheless, the objectives of faith accord with the degree of spiritual culture attained, and in turn are themselves a partial disclosure of our religious conceptions. \ / CHAPTER V THE ANSWER TO PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER What is the nature of the response to petitional prayer in as far as that response lies within the field of psychology? Is it a product of the mental life, religiously influenced, or is it independent of and at variance with what we are pleased to call God’s natural order? Is it describable in terms of subconscious reaction, or is it totally unlike any¬ thing else with which we are acquainted? Does prayer at this point part company with suggestion? What are the criteria, what are the methods that reveal the nature of the individual’s response to petitional prayer? The method of analyzing each typical subjective form of answer to such prayer and of comparing its psychological traits with like subconscious results will be adopted. This procedure is called the method of analogy. If it can be conclusively shown that answers to this type of petitional prayer and kindred subconscious products are related, the inference may be drawn logically that prayer employs the mechanism and technic of suggestion. If such a conclusion be imperative, it does not follow that prayer and suggestion are necessarily identical. As has already been anticipated, the prayer impulse creates the process of suggestion and employs it. The many varieties of prayer response which are 92 PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 93 reported make a classification extremely difficult. Tentatively, petitional prayers may be divided , into~ two classes: prayers answered through the self and prayers answered through another self. Prayers falling under the first division are answered through the spiritual and mental forces of the personality itself; those of the second class depend for their response upon the cooperation of two or more selves. This grouping i$ in harmony with the classification of suggestion into social and auto¬ suggestion. Prayers answered through the peti¬ tioning personality itself include autosuggestion, and those answered through another self involve social suggestion. This chapter concerns itself with answers coming through the praying self, such as regeneration, ethical betterment, the cure of disease, divine guidance. It will be well to bear in mind that the purpose of the chapter is not so much to discover which prayers contain social suggestion and which self-suggestion as it is to inquire into the nature of the answer itself. PRAYER FOR REGENERATION The wonderful experience of regeneration is quite generally attributed to the power of believing prayer. In fact, so much have prayer and regenera¬ tion in common that in order to understand the one it is necessary to have a knowledge of the other. Scattered throughout Professor Starbuck’s exhaus¬ tive inductive study of the psychology of conversion there are many autobiographical accounts of regen¬ eration in terms of prayer. When the process of conversion is characterized by well-definedN crises, there are recognizable the following factors: a 94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER narrowing of the field of consciousness, faith as strained expectation, self-surrender, &nd elation. In most cases it is impossible to determine to a finality whether the prayer has its inception in a social or autosuggestion of religious origin, but under nor¬ mal conditions the results are the same. A sense of incompleteness. —The prayer ex^ presses the disquieting sense of undoneness, and the yearning for the larger self. “There are forces in human life and its surroundings which tend to break the unity and harmony of consciousness; and its unity once destroyed, the contrast between what is and what might be gives birth to ideals and sets the two selves in sharp opposition to each other .” 1 In his poem, “The Buried Life,” Matthew Arnold has described this state of mind: “From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne As from an infinitely distant land, Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey ^ A melancholy into all our day.” So long as this mental distress obtains, the person does not need to force himself to pray; the inner f conflict is so great that it itself drives him to his knees. His emotions are aroused. He fasts or eats sparingly. He prostrates himself. He reiter¬ ates to heaven his petition for salvation. The con¬ version experience of men like Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and Luther witnesses to the intensity of the strain in natures marked by moral sensitive¬ ness and an abundance of emotion. It is needless 1 Starbuck, E. D.: The Psychology of Religion, p. 155. qharles Scribner’s Sons. PERSONAL PETTTIONAL PRAYER 95 to add that, in the circumstances, the idea of deliverance is imposed upon the mind to the exclu¬ sion of other impressions. Effort and result. —The person may for some time continue to be apparently unsuccessful in his effort to bring about the answering of his prayer for conversion , 2 Nature’s method of healing a breach in consciousness is to widen it. The matur¬ ing of the new life is a complex process, requiring considerable time and repeated prayer. Faith as strained expectation is supported by the reading of the Bible and other devotional literature, the encouragement of friends, and other means of grace. What one longs for, leans out toward, strives for, and expects, is a cue for the subcon¬ scious energy. Faith, as effort, and the subconscious interact. In Christendom where Jesus is the acknowledged spiritual leader and Saviour, the subconscious processes of the seeker are naturally influenced by him. To hold in mind the Christlike ideal and to believe firmly in the possibility of attaining it is the first step in its actualization. Parallels of subconscious incubation in response to straining are common in realms other than the religious, if one may make the distinction for the mere sake of clearness. The subconscious element in such mental processes as the solution of mathe¬ matical problems during sleep, the acquisition of skill in piano-plaving, the construction of the plot for a novel, the recollection of difficult data, the contriving of an invention, is too generally known * Since no distinction between conversion and regeneration is necessary in this discussion, none is made. Repentance is a change of mind, conversion act¬ ing on the new insight, regeneration the rebirth itself. 96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER and admitted to make further comment necessary. An account of the steps by which a theologian reached what he calls his racial theory of the atone¬ ment reveals the kinship existing between the conscious effort and the subconscious. For six years he tried to preserve the important qualities of the three great historic theories of the atonement, but the result was so mechanical that he was at last obliged to throw it away. “I had become hopeless, when there suddenly came to me a vision of the full Christian meaning of the human race. This vision not only vitalized, but actually trans¬ formed, my entire theological situation. I saw not merely the atonement, but every doctrine, and the total combination of doctrine, in a new light. From that supreme hour (on one of the hills near Marburg) my one aim has been to get that racial vision into living expression .” 3 Self-surrender. —In his extremity the seeker, feeling that further striving would be useless, ceases to struggle and at once experiences a sense of pardon and deliverance from sin together with a feeling of oneness and unity with God and Christ. We have seen that cessation of conscious striving dis¬ solves any conflict which may have developed in the course of the interaction between the will and the subconscious response. Before the new self can blossom into consciousness all opposition to the subliminal activities must cease. The will is exercised in the direction of the more victorious self until the old foundations of life become so shaken and insecure that the person finally casts •Curtis. O. A.: The Christian Faith, p. 316. The Methodist Book Concern. PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 97 himself without reservation upon the deeper-lying power ready to assert itself. The unification of con¬ sciousness, the healing of the breach created by the opposition between the old and the ideal self, the functioning of a wider and more competent per¬ sonality, relieve the tension and strain and evoke a sense of deep peace. There is now an active sym¬ pathy with the outside world, a living from within of the ideal that was once external, a glorification of the natural world, and often the birth of new intellectual and moral powers. J Analogous cases from the general field of the subconscious illustrating the effect of an atti¬ tude of receptivity opportunely assumed, are so numerous that a selection is embarrassing. The following may suffice: It occurred to Mr. F. H. Wenham, an amateur optician, that the binocular microscope devised by M. Nachet might be im¬ proved by means of a prism of a certain shape. “He thought of this a great deal, without being able to hit upon the form of prism which would do what was required; and as he was going into busi¬ ness as an engineer, he put his microscopic studies entirely aside for more than a fortnight, attending only to his other affairs. One evening, after his day’s work was done and ‘while he was reading a stupid novel,’ thinking nothing whatever of his microscope, the form of the prism that should answer the purpose flashed into his mind. He fetched his mathematical instruments, drew a diagram of it, and worked out the angles which would be required; the next morning he made his prism, and found that it answered perfectly well; and it has been on this plan that all the ‘binoculars’ 98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER hitherto in ordinary use in this country have been t/ since constructed.” 4 Note the element of elation and satisfaction in a mathematical discovery by Sir W. Rowan Ham¬ ilton: “To-morrow will be the fifteenth birthday of the Quaternions. They started into life or light, fullgrown, on the 16th of October, 1843, as I was walking with Lady Hamilton to Dublin, and came up to Brougham Bridge. ... I pulled out, on the spot, a pocketbook, which still exists, and made an entry, on which, at the very moment , I felt that it might be worth my while to expend the labor of at least ten (or it might be fifteen) years to come. But then it is fair to say that this was because I felt a problem to have been at that moment solved —an intellectual want relieved —which had haunted me for at least fifteen years before.’* Is conversion instantaneous? —It may be alleged that in many cases the interval between the making of the prayer for conversion and the coming of the answer is altogether too short to allow for the slow growth of the new life. This argument is advanced by some who still embrace the view that in order to be of divine origin an occurrence must not only be independent of law but also be dramatic and sudden. The experience of Saint Paul is frequently cited by them. Those who are of this opinion fail to take into account that although consenting to Stephen’s death, Paul was too broad¬ minded not to have been profoundly moved by the eloquent apology and heroic spirit of the martyr. Neither should one overlook the probability that 4 Carpenter, W. B.: Mental Physiology, p. 538. D. Appleton & Co. ‘Cited in Carpenter, W. B.; Mental Physiology, p. 537. D. Appleton & Co. PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 99 the moral integrity of the Christians whom Paul persecuted could not have been altogether lost upon one of his passion for righteousness and fidel¬ ity to conviction. Furthermore, it is significant that between his vision before the gates of Da¬ mascus and his baptism, three days of fasting and prayer intervened. Doubts as to the ethical pro¬ priety of his open hostility to the new faith and a growing conviction that he should embrace Chris¬ tianity, developed the crisis in which he turned from the wrong way of serving God to the right way. Itinerant evangelists and superintendents of rescue missions are constantly referring to persons who come to a revival meeting sinful and degraded and without previous religious interest, but leave it having experienced sudden conversion. In reply two things should be affirmed. In the first place, no observer can deny that when the stimulus of an emotional revival has been withdrawn many converts “backslide.’’ The religious instability of some may be due to a lack of preparation and a forced hot-house growth induced by the spell of the revivalist. Then, too, there seem to be in every community persons devoid of strong inner supports, liquid minds in a perpetual state of fluctuation, that yield to the social pressure of the moment only to shift the center of interest when something new is presented. The more permanent rescue mission with its continuity of pastoral super¬ vision doubtless prevents many losses by training its converts in religion and morals, and by enlist¬ ing them in social service, by means of which the new life develops and finally becomes a subcon¬ scious possession. By this method the Christian IOO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER life that is peripheral becomes central, the ideals that are centripetal become centrifugal. In the second place, it is indisputable that many cases of so-called sudden conversion are thorough¬ going. There is every reason to believe that these permanent and stable cases are invariably influ¬ enced by previous religious impressions made, per¬ haps years before, by the home and church. Deep down in the life of the one experiencing a sudden answer to the prayer for conversion there have doubtless been antecedent longings and a reaching out after the better life, which have induced a corresponding growth of the religious life. The very presence in a religious meeting of such a one, if sincere, is an evidence of yearnings for an enriched life. An opportune word from the lips of a revival¬ ist may be the spark which explodes into conscious¬ ness what has been subconsciously maturing for a long time. The Holy Spirit makes contact with the subtle and intangible but none the less lasting and influential contributions of the religious forces which play upon the early years of life. Far be it from us to maintain that conversion without ante¬ cedent stages of development is impossible with God, but we are under obligation to reckon with his habitual method. Subconscious parallels. —It may confirm the contention that the prayer for regeneration induces a subconscious creation, to point out analogous cases. The experiences of Buddha and of the Sioux Indian of the Omaha tribe may be cited. At twenty-nine Buddha, hungering after the higher values, made his great renunciation, leaving his beloved wife, infant son, and palatial home. After PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER ioi seven years of what seemed to be fruitless search¬ ing, “one night, the old traditions narrate, the decisive turning point came, the moment wherein was vouchsafed to the seeker the certainty of dis- covery. Sitting under the tree, since then named the Tree of Knowledge, he went through success¬ ively purer and purer stages of abstraction of consciousness, until the sense of omniscient illumina¬ tion came over him. . . . ‘When I apprehended this,’ he is reported to have said, ‘and when I beheld this, my soul was released from the evil of desire, released from the evil of earthly existence, released from the evil of terror, released from the evil of ignorance. In the released awoke the knowledge of the release: extinct is rebirth, finished the sacred course, duty done, no more shall I return to this world; this I know.’ ” 6 Among the Sioux Indians the adolescent boy is sent forth upon some hill to cry to Wakonda with¬ out asking for anything in particular. “By training his mind and body for days, the Sioux boy expels from his mind concepts discordant with this course of action. He fills his mind with the pictures of heroes; these heroes are the animals; and their deeds are examples of life. . . . Moistened earth is put upon his head and face, a small bow and arrows are given him. He seeks a secluded spot on some high hill; and under the pines he chants the prayer; he lifts to heaven his hands wet with tears and then lays them on the earth; he fasts, until at last after some days he falls into a sleep or trance. If in his dream or trance he hear or see anything, that thing is to become the special mediator through «Oldenberg, H.: Buddha, p. 107. P. Eckler. 102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER which he receives aid. Then, the ordeal over, the youth returns for food and rest. No one questions him, but at the end of four days he confides his vision to some old man, and starts to find the ani¬ mal he has seen in his trance. The totem is the symbol of this animal. . . . By it his natural powers are to be reenforced so as to give him success as a hunter, victory as a warrior, and even ability to see into the future.” 7 There are resemblances in all forms of conversion and their parallels. A sense of incompleteness, a narrowing of the field of consciousness, a straining after deliverance, and a realization of the new self are characteristic of all varieties of conversion. The psychological aspects of the answer to the prayer for conversion and their parallel cases betray essen¬ tial likenesses. They are instances of a group of facts already known. The points of contrast between Christian con¬ versions and others. —This does not imply that there is no difference between the solution of a mathematical problem and a conversion, or between the conversion of a Christian and the analogous experience of a Sioux Indian. The difference is of tremendous significance. The contrast is religious and moral. Ethical and religious ideas and ideals determine the value of the experience. Conceptions of God and duty condition the character of a re¬ ligious transformation. Regardless of their moral nature, ideals tend to determine conduct. The ideal of a Buddha was the extinction of desire, the ideal of a Sioux boy is the strength and cunning of an 7 Woods, J. H.: The Practice and Science of Religion, p. 6sff. Longmans, Green & Co. PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 103 animal, the ideal of a Christian is Jesus. To each is given according to the proportion of faith. “What¬ soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Ideals are seeds that grow, and their quality and kind determine the harvest of character. The divine element. —The fact that the same V general psychological principles underlie all types of conversion does not exclude the operations of God. In fact, the process as described may be regarded as a method whereby God is pleased to express himself. Surely, the self-activity of God' may be as readily discerned in events reducible to his laws as in phenomena at variance with the natural order. Furthermore, the test of Christian character is not an experience unrelated to God’s universe of law, but a life that is guided by the spirit of Christ, a life that brings the principles of the Master to bear upon the daily concerns, a life that is spent in the service of humanity. The divine character of a Christian experience is attested by the fact that a life is made divine. In conver¬ sion there is a divine impulse, an effort of the Eternal to express himself in time, and to realize in human life his moral character and purpose. Without this inner divine prompting there would be no straining of the self in the direction of righteous¬ ness, no faith in God, no creation of a new self. The Comforter reproves the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, and without this divine activity there could be no process of regen- eration. ■ The psychology of the prayer of con¬ version describes the mental accompaniments of the invasion of a human life by the divine impulse. Not that the same God is not struggling for recog- 104 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER nition and supremacy in a Sioux or a Buddha. The acceptance of the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of God makes it imperative that we regard any groping after moral light, any impulse toward righteousness, any spiritual aspiration as a response to the movement of one and the same creative and sustaining and vitalizing agency. Nevertheless, we sincerely believe God comes to fullest self-revelation in those who are led to him by Christ. And there are degrees of spiritual com¬ prehension and attainment among individuals as well as among races. Tolstoy’s conversion and world-wide influence may be cited as a demonstration of the uniqueness of the Christian experience. Born the heir to vast estates and to the title of Count, moving in what is called high society, a talented musician, acquit¬ ting himself with honor on the field of battle, achieving literary fame as the author of short stories and novels, Tolstoy, nevertheless, for years had no satisfying portion. But one day while walking in the woods that surrounded his estate and while listening to the spring melody of the world coming to life, there came to him this revela¬ tion: “I can live only when I believe in God; when I do not believe I feel as if I must die. What seek I further? Without him I cannot live. To know God and to live are the same thing. God is life.” The light never failed him. Since that hour of spiritual illumination and uplift, the pilgrims to his home have been legion, some seeking religious inspiration and guidance, others piqued by curios¬ ity. A few adopted his literal interpretation of Jesus’ teaching. Others departed, sorrowful because PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 105 unwilling to pay for the pearl of great price. Many accepted his message in part and returned to their respective lands to share the spirit of Christ. PRAYER FOR ETHICAL BETTERMENT As an example of answer to prayer for moral improvement, the breaking of a bad habit is typical. As a rule, many evil traits are permanently elim¬ inated through conversion, but occasionally a post¬ conversion experience is necessary for the eradica¬ tion of bad habits that are deeply rooted. “He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet.” 8 Regeneration may be regarded as the rebirth of the entire personality, while the elimination of a specific evil touches but a part of the self. A case in point. —A farmer confessed that although he had been soundly converted and had united with the church, he was still subject to violent outbursts of temper. For a long time he prayed for self-control, but without any appreciable result. One day a steer broke through a fence and, going into a corn field, began to destroy the grain standing in shocks. The rest of the cattle were not long in following his example. By the dint of much labor the farmer drove the herd from the field, but the vexation cost him a paroxysm of rage. Ashamed and deeply penitent that he had given way to his besetting sin, he then and there fell upon his knees and renewed his prayer for deliverance from the evil. While in the act of prayer a tender and comforting feeling flooded his being, and he arose from his knees with the assur¬ ance that at last he had been set free. Although 8 John 13: 10. io6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER sorely tried and tempted, from that day he has retained self-mastery. His conversion was doubtless genuine, but as to self-control it was potential rather than actual in its immediate effects. This virtue did not have time to become sufficiently drilled in before the old tendency to fits of temper reasserted itself. The old neural paths had either not been wholly assimilated into the new and higher centers or had not suffered a total atrophy of disuse, and therefore, perhaps after the exhilaration of a dramatic con¬ version had subsided, the former ruling passion began little by little to reorganize the remnants of its functional paths. A conflict between the old channels of discharge and the newly functioning personality ensued. Then followed a persistent effort in the form of prayer to unify consciousness. Attention was directed to the vulnerable spot in the self, faith in the power of prayer was exercised, a corresponding growth of self-discipline obtained. In reply to a question, the farmer stated that com¬ plete surrender characterized the petition that / brought relief. The casting of the self upon the great world-life, when conditions were ripe, opened wide the way through which the energy was shot L"in the new direction. The instantaneous unifica¬ tion of consciousness eliminated all strain and tension and gave rise to a state of exaltation. Parallel instances. —Other means are employed to break bad habits. Analogies outside the field of prayer may be found in the use of hypnotic sug¬ gestion for the correction of moral disorders. Alco¬ holism, lying, cowardice, kleptomania, sexual vices, and other defects of character have been success- PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 107 fully treated by experimenters in hypnotism. 9 A young man addicted to cigarette smoking was hypnotized by Dr. W. E. Harlow. In the hypnotic state the subject was told that if he ever smoked again he would vomit. At the command of the experimenter the subject repeated the suggestion: “If I smoke it will make me very sick. I will vomit.” The next day when he lighted a cigarette he had an attack of nausea which induced vomiting. It is needless to state that the pernicious habit was permanently broken. 10 The value of hypnotism in the cure of dipsomania is seen in the following case treated by Dr. G. B. Cutten: The patient began to drink when ten years old, acquiring the habit in his father’s tavern. For forty-nine years he drank whisky. After the first hypnotic treatment, all desire for drink was gone. After the second, he could enter saloons while about his business without the least craving for intoxicants. When last heard of he was ab¬ stemious. * 11 The religious element. —Although any legitimate method of purging the self of its crasser elements reflects the divine operation, religion is plainly the most efficacious. The teachings of religion create the desire for reformation, without which ethical betterment would be impossible. Religion warns the sinner, emphasizes the consequences of his folly, and urges him to make his own the principles of righteousness. As the creator of high ideals no 9 See Thirty Authors, Hypnotism and Hypnotic Suggestion, p. 227ff. Edited by E. Virgil Neal and Charles S. Clark. New York State Publishing Company. 10 Coombs, J. V.: Religious Delusions, p. 138. The Standard Publishing Com¬ pany. 11 The Psychology of Alcoholism, p. 345. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 108 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER other means of reformation can take its place. Suggestion and hypnotism can do much, but they are no substitute for religion as a creator of a desire for an emancipation from ignorance, from the lower instincts, and from the dominance of all which tends downward. In the second place, religion in its organized form protects the life that has been delivered from its baser impulses. It throws about such a life the safeguards of healthful and power¬ ful associations that make a moral relapse difficult. The church at its best is a fellowship. It imparts information and inspiration, promotes the devo¬ tional attitude, and has a social program. In a word, religion does all that can be done to bring about a moral change for the better and to conserve its results. PRAYER FOR THE CURE OF DISEASE Man’s deep concern for physical efficiency is often expressed in the prayer for the healing of disease. Nothing could be more firmly established than the efficacy of prayer for the cure of certain A fixation of the attention, faith in the power ap¬ pealed to, and a subconscious response are common to all varieties of divine and mental healing. The principles of faith cure. —That cures are wrought through the power of prayer no one who has examined the evidence can doubt. Relief from a depressed physical condition is obtained through prayer by the friends of most of us. Typical cases are common. Mr. Torrey offers his testimony. He states that once when alone in his study he PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 109 seemed to become suddenly and seriously ill. He was in such severe pain that he was unable to arise and summon help. Fearing that he would be left alone and unaided for an entire night unless he secured strength to care for himself, he resorted to prayer, and was shortly greatly relieved. 12 It would be easy to introduce many other similar instances, but all cases are reducible to the same fundamental principles. On close inspection the psychologist is led to believe that all such cures are traceable to the effect of suggestion. The petition for healing holds in mental focus the idea of recovery and restora¬ tion. The field of consciousness is restricted to the thought of health to the exclusion of the contrary ideas of disease. Christian Science not only ex¬ horts us to banish all thought of sickness but goes so far as to declare the nonexistence of disease itself. It is an undisputed fact in mental therapeutics that the expectation of the cure is indispensable to its realization. Dr. H. H. Goddard, who made a special study of the influence of the mind upon the body with special reference to faith cures, discovered that in all forms of mental healing there is the same and constant principle that the — idea of health tends to produce health in propor¬ tion to the strength of the idea. 13 It is the patient’s faith which effects the cure. The power of recovery may be latent. In order to make actual the po¬ tential cure, the quickening touch of faith must be supplied. The outcome of the suggestion does s/ not necessarily depend upon the nature of the 12 Torrey, R. A.: How to Pray, p. 18. Fleming H. Revell Company. 13 American Journal of Psychology, vol. x, p. 43iff. IIO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER healing power believed in, but upon organic activ¬ ities aroused by expectation. To the actual heal¬ ing of their diseases men have believed in the curative virtue of charms, incantations, sacred relics, amulets, the imposition of hands, the royal touch, the toe¬ nails of Saint Peter, fragments of the cross, the tears of the Virgin, the bones of saints long dead, nostrums, blue glass, magnetized objects, and what not. That there is a reciprocal relation between the conditions of the body and the attitudes of the mind has long been recognized as a demonstrable fact. The body tends to adjust itself to mental states. What is induced mentally, can be elim¬ inated mentally. It is safe to say that when a bodily disorder is the direct result of such a state of mind as worry and anxiety, only a complete mental change can afford relief. A bodily condi¬ tion which is anticipated with confidence and certainty is likely to ensue, if it be within the bounds of possibility. This is a law which is equally applic¬ able to the cause or cure of disease by suggestion. However the thought of the cure enters the mind, if it be dominant, the subconscious which controls the bodily functions will respond to the measure of its power to restore to health. Confident expec¬ tation, occupying the whole mind and banishing contrary and competitive ideas, tends to realize itself subconsciously. Illustrations of various effects of suggestion.— The following parallel to the mental element in the answer to the prayer for health is doubly inter¬ esting and instructive, for it shows that suggestion has power not only to cure but also to make ill. PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER in “I was to deliver the annual address before a college graduating class. When I arose in the morning I was too hoarse to speak. What must I do? The students depended upon me. I decided to resort to quinine—went to a drug friend and asked him for twenty-five cents’ worth of two-grain capsules. I went to my room and began to take the capsules. In two hours my cold was breaking; I could talk some, and I was wet with perspiration. I became alarmed and told my attendant to examine the capsules to see if there were two grains in them. On examination the capsules were found to be empty. The druggist thought I wanted to fill the capsules myself. I had taken no quinine, but my cold was cured, and I delivered my address. . . . When I related my experience with the empty cap¬ sules in a lecture at Lorain, Ohio, two sisters were much amused. They came to me and told me this story: The nurse prepared some capsules for the two sisters who were sick; one was cured, and the other was made sick with the nasty bitter quinine. By mistake they had taken the empty capsules.” 14 The scope of faith cure. —It is well to remember ^ that no form of faith cure, functioning through the subconscious, is omnipotent. There are limitations which this form of prayer for healing cannot tran¬ scend, limitations marked by those of suggestion. The subconscious is not an inexhaustible reservoir of vitality. Only when there is an adequate supply of force resident within the personality can the suggested idea be realized. When disease has im¬ paired the human organism below a certain point, 14 Coombs, J. V.: Religious Delusions, p. 141. The Standard Publishing Com¬ pany. 112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER and in the providence of God life has run its course, the prayer for health is unanswered, be it ever so persistently held in mind and relied upon by the patient. It is appointed unto man once to die. A medical practitioner recently remarked that if prayer could always cure us, none of us would ever die. In order to appreciate the scope of prayer in the cure of disease it is necessary to have in mind the practical classification of ailments into organic and functional disorders. Organic diseases are charac¬ terized by a destruction of bodily tissue. Con¬ sumption and cancer are typical organic diseases. A functional ailment is occasioned by a perverted action of the intact organs. This group embraces the many nervous and gastric derangements. It has been demonstrated over and over again that functional diseases are directly curable through suggestion. In surgical cases, as well as in all or¬ ganic disorders, suggestion may, to be sure, create an atmosphere of good cheer which is auxiliary to the cure. Diseases which heal of their own accord, like typhoid and pneumonia, may find in prayer a tonic. To attempt to remove through prayer a bullet embedded in the flesh would be as pre¬ posterous as to throw a stone into the water with the expectation of making it float through the power of suggestion. In their efforts to establish their claims that organic diseases and cases usually referred to the surgeon are curable by faith, the advocates of an extreme form of divine healing have displayed more heat than light. As far as the writer has been able to determine, the alleged proofs for the validity PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 113 of their so-called test-cases have been uniformly exploded when critically investigated. Many cases considered organic have not been diagnosed as such by a competent physician. Other cases pronounced organic by a fallible medical man are later dis¬ covered to be purely functional. Again, some organic disorders heal spontaneously, and all that mental treatment can do, which is really very much, is to act as a tonic for the mind. Further¬ more, some patients under proper treatment for organic diseases become restive because recovery seems retarded, and resort to some form of faith cure in the course of which health is restored. Of course the mental practice receives the credit which rightfully belongs to the regular medical method. As an example of the lack of scientific precision that generally obtains in the collecting of test- cases revealing evidence of the power of prayer to cure organic cases, the following is illuminating: A surgeon bandaged the broken arm of a boy ten years old. The following morning the boy aaid to his father, “Please take off these bandages, my arm is well.” “Oh no, my son, you will have to wear the splints several weeks.” “Papa, do you believe in prayer? Last night I asked Jesus to cure my arm and he did it.” The bandages were removed and the arm was found to be perfectly well. The case was widely circulated as an evi¬ dence of the remarkable power of prayer, but inves¬ tigation proved it to be spurious. The patient is now a physician, and in a signed statement says that the broken arm was only a green-stick fracture, and after having it bandaged for several days the splints were removed to please a spoiled boy. The THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 114 bone would have united of its own accord in a few days. The arm was carried in a sling for several days after the removal of the bandage. This is the miracle which had its inception in the mind of a religious enthusiast. 15 Christian Science is particularly stubborn in its insistence that it is the wonderful exception to the rule of curative limitation. Dr. Richard C. Cabot examined one hundred consecutive reports of the cases cured as published in the Christian Science Journal. 16 His findings disclose that the majority of these cases, according to symptoms reported, are functional. Nervousness, kidney and bladder trouble, stomach and intestinal disorders, drug and tobacco habits, headache and alcoholism are some of the functional ailments reported cured. Seven cases were apparently organic, but some of these were inadequately diagnosed, while others were such as heal of their own accord, like cuts and bruises. Dr. Cabot calls attention to the fact that by a process of natural selection the patients who are attracted by Christian Science are as a rule affected functionally. The functional dis¬ turbance renders the patient susceptible to the methods of the mind curist. Prayer and science. —What is called the Em¬ manuel Movement is a commendable organized at¬ tempt to unite intelligent religion and scientific med¬ ical treatment. 17 Dr. S. McComb, who was associ¬ ated with Dr. Worcester in this movement, calls at¬ tention to three essential features in which this un- 15 Coombs, J. V.: Religious Delusions, pp. 147-148. The Standard Publishing Company. 18 McClure, August, 1908. 17 See Worcester, E.: Religion and Medicine, Moffat, Yard & Co., and The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, Moffat, Yard & Co. PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 115 dertaking differs from Christian Science. In the first place, unlike Christian Science, this movement could not maintain itself for a single day without the cooperation of a staff of physicians. In the second place, whereas Eddyism professes to be a distinct revealed religion with a sacred book and a curative method of its own, the Emmanuel Move¬ ment affects no special revelation, but accepts as its theological basis the New Testament as inter¬ preted by constructive modern scholarship, and adopts the procedures common to all scientific mental treatment, such as suggestion, confession, the rest cure, the work cure, and especially prayer and instruction in religion and morals. In the third place, it differs from Christian Science in accepting for mental methods only functional derangements, looking to medical, physiological, and surgical treatment for the cure of organic diseases. Far from assuming the function of the medical profession, the clergymen at the head of this undertaking tend to restrict their efforts to such cases of functional disorders as require reli¬ gious and moral uplift for their cure. Dr. McComb refers to a nervous sufferer who said, “Prove to me that God loves me, and I will leave this place a well man.” In such intelligent and devout ways the church, must minister to the sick as she alone can, or let her people become the prey of the charlatans always coming to the fore. PRAYER EOR DIVINE GUIDANCE A large group of prayers the burden of which is a cry for deliverance out of a perplexity will now n6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER receive attention. The answers to this type of petition range all the way from a mental poise enabling the person to solve his problem through the ordinary process of reasoning or action, to an inward illumination coming with all the force of a divine revelation. Prayer and poise. —Often the mental repose attained in prayer is the chief condition necessary to a proper readjustment of the person. A re¬ spondent writes, “Many times prayer calms the heart and mind so that the person can think of a way.” To believe in the prayer for divine help inspires the personality with a confidence which banishes all fear and worry and other mental states which obscure a dispassionate view of a difficulty and inhibit any effort to overcome it. The expecta¬ tion of the cooperation of a mighty helper often constructs a personality competent to do what one asks God to accomplish for one in a mysterious and miraculous way. A Methodist bishop said in a public address that he prayed for wisdom and insight into the duties of episcopal administration, and then relied upon his own best judgment in making the annual appointments of preachers to the churches. The Rev. W. A. Sunday says that prayer helped him in his first ball game after his conversion. At a critical point in the game a fly came to him in the field. He says: “It was up to me. I turned and ran with all my might and said, ‘O God! if you ever helped a mortal man in your life, help me get that ball, and you haven’t much time to decide.’ I looked over my shoulder and saw the ball near— I shot out my left hand, and the ball struck and PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER ii 7 stuck.” Perhaps the answer to this prayer was a / release from fear and the creation of confidence, which induced effective muscular control. 18 Of a similar nature is the psychological element of a prayer made by a young girl, Jennie Creek, in a moment fraught with peril for many lives. Discovering a burning railroad bridge, hearing the whistle of* the eastbound Chicago express with its load of passengers from the World’s Fair thunder¬ ing along to certain destruction, and realizing that she must somehow stop the train, she cried out in her agony: “Lord Jesus, help me. Tell me what to do.” She knew that a red flag was the sign of danger. Remembering her underskirt of red flannel, she tore off the petticoat and ran toward the train, waving the garment and shouting. In an instant the signal flashed into the eye of the engineer, and the train was brought to a standstill on the very brink of ruin, but safe. 19 Prayer and unconscious memory.—Other prayers for divine help induce an impulse, rather irrational in nature but strong enough to incite activity, in the direction of the answer. Recently a case in point was reported. A young farmer while plowing in an immense field lost a monkey wrench. When the tool was needed to adjust the plow its loss was discovered. He walked back half a mile in the furrow, but failed to find it. To have returned to the farm house three miles away would have en¬ tailed a great loss of time; hence the predicament was made the subject of prayer. In response to 18 Cited in Pratt, J. B.: American Journal of Religious Psychology and Educa¬ tion, vol. iv, p. 58. 19 Cf. Pope, Howard W.: Why a Girl Should he a Christian, a tract. ii8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER an impulse he stepped across three furrows, kick¬ ing up the wrench. The psychological phase of this experience is reducible to what is known as subconscious perception and its stimulation, a more detailed account of which must be reserved for the following chapter. For the present it will suffice to say that an impulse to act is often excited by factors too delicate to be noted by clear conscious¬ ness. Doubtless the falling of the tool was not clearly heard or seen, but was subconsciously registered. Perhaps the prayer stimulated the sub¬ conscious impressions, which, in turn, gave rise to the impulse to walk to where the wrench was. Doubtless the prompting is frequently created by a dormant memory that cannot quite express itself in the form of definite recollection. Miss A. L. Strong records an interesting illustration. A college woman lost a notebook which she desired to make use of in preparation for an examination. In her concern she made the loss a matter of prayer saying: “If it is your will that I try the examination without this book, as a punishment for my care¬ lessness, very well.” Immediately she felt an unaccountable impulse to visit a certain village store. She yielded to the inner prompting. As she entered the store the salesman approached her with the book in his hand, saying, “You left this here ten days ago, and I could not send it, not knowing your address.” It was not until then that a special visit to the store was recalled. The prayer in this instance was an expression of resignation to the permanent loss of the notebook as a punish¬ ment for carelessness, rather than a pronounced, unwavering petition for its recovery. The case PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 119 is analogous to the recollection of a name by aban¬ doning the effort to recall it. 20 Guidance by voices and visions. —Sometimes the answer to this type of prayer comes in the form of subconscious action exploded into consciousness with the force of an external impression. A woman who resided in the West reported that she received a telegram stating that her mother in the East was critically ill and that recovery was doubtful. Strange to say, the daughter could not decide whether to remain at home or to hasten to her mother’s side. On the one hand, she was pressed by the entertaining of guests, household duties, and lack of funds for an extensive journey. On the other hand, the natural impulse of a daughter to nurse her mother in what might prove to be her last illness was almost irre¬ sistible. Torn asunder by conflicting thoughts, she resorted to prayer, believing that her plea for light would be answered. A few days later while washing u some dishes and occupying her mind with matters far removed from prayer, a vivid flash of insight made it clear to her that it was her duty to remain at home. The problem solved, she regained her mental poise, resting content in the knowledge that rela¬ tives in the East would give her mother the best of care. The case clearly discloses the essentials L of suggestion; a narrowing of the field of conscious¬ ness, faith, a period of subconscious incubation, a sudden report when an attitude of passivity was assumed. The following experience is analogous: “When at school I was fond of trying my hand at geometrical problems. One baffled me. I often returned to it, 20 Strong, A. L.; The Psychology of Prayer, p. 55- The University of Chicago Press. 120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER in fact, I kept by me an elaborate figure. Some years after, and when the problem had not been touched by me for some time, I had been sitting up till the small hours, deciphering a cryptograph for one of my pupils. Exulting in the successful solution, I turned into bed; and suddenly there flashed across my mind the secret of the solution of the problem with which I had so long vainly dealt, this secret being a slight addition to my elaborate figure. The effect on me was strange. I trembled, as if in the presence of another being who had communicated the secret to me.” 21 Another analogy is the experience of Socrates and his daimon. It will be recalled that the great philosopher, throughout his whole life, was con¬ scious, on certain occasions, of a divine sign, a voice, that he called his daimon . It assumed for him the influence of an external higher revelation. Its power was negative and never positive. It did not manifest itself when an apparently proper course of action was about to be or was being pur¬ sued; only when he was about to disregard his deepest moral insight did it exercise its restraining influence. To hold in mental focus an idea of ethical import was characteristic of him; he was known to have been absorbed in contemplation for a whole day at a time. “What distinguished Socrates in his general conduct from his fellow- citizens was his power of inward concentration.” 22 v/ His absolute confidence in the reliability of the daimon was in reality the casting of himself upon his own inward and spiritual powers, in response 21 Cited in Carpenter, W. B.: Mental Physiology, p. 536. D. Appleton & Co. 22 Zeller, E.: Socrates and the Socralic School, p. 97. Longmans, Green & Co. PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 121 to which there rushed up from the subconscious currents an ethical insight in the form of an audi¬ tory experience. Temperament and prayer response. —In this con- ^ nection it is well to note that Professor Coe in an inductive study of the influence of temperament in religion, finds that those who have voices and visions in their religious life are subject to them in other respects. 23 Where there is a predisposition to them in general, the prayer relation is likely to be characterized by mental projections in various forms. This is, however, not the place to attempt an extended description of such mental states, but merely to point out that the sanguine and melancholic temperaments, accompanied as they are by an abundance of emotion and a high degree of suggestibility, are subject to voices and visions of both religious and nonreligious significance. Where favorable temperamental conditions, con¬ centration of the mind upon certain groups of ideas, and expectation obtain, the visible or audible an¬ swer to prayer is usually forthcoming. 24 The form of the exteriorized idea is, perhaps, largely determined by the type or types of mental imagery predominating in the individual. Where the imagination is principally in the form of mental pictures seen by the mind’s eye, the experience is likely to be visual; where the mental imagery is in terms of sounds, the person hears voices. Socrates, since the oracle was audible, must have been largely ear-minded. Where both the visual and the audi¬ tory types are found together in the same person, 13 See Coe, G. A.: The Spiritual Life, p. 1045. The Methodist Book Concern. 24 See Parish, E.: Hallucinations and Illusions. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER - as they almost invariably are, the temperamentally predisposed person is likely to see visions which speak. SUMMARY We are now prepared to appreciate the presence and the importance of the psychological aspects of the personal petitional prayer. We have .ob¬ served that attention in prayer is a basal condi¬ tion. The concentration of the mind is not only selective, narrowing the field of consciousness to the group of prayer ideas, but also, by excluding contrary notions, productive of the faith state. Other elements also arouse and increase faith. At first, consciously or unconsciously, faith strives toward the realization of the prayer, and then becomes passive in order that the answer may come to completion and be the conscious possession of the self. The prayer held in mental focus and believed in constitutes an appeal to the mental and religious powers. The answer to prayer ranges all the way from the calming of an excited and dis¬ tressed mind or the elevation of a depressed spirit to an actual moral and religious rebirth of the self. It should be clear that prayer is infinitely more than the elements of suggestion it includes. Sug¬ gestion is, indeed, prominent in petitions, but \ prayer is assuredly more than a mental impression which discharges itself subconsciously. Prayer is religiously motivated, sanctioned, and controlled. The religious consciousness creates suggestion, suf¬ fuses it with religious emotion, imparts to it a religions < significance, and interprets its results religiously. The petition is addressed directly to PERSONAL PETITIONAL PRAYER 123 God who is rightfully acknowledged _ to be the grantor or withholder of the request. The reaches of religious experience transcend the discoverable and identifiable psychological elements. Suggestion is the means which petitional prayer constructs and employs to further its ends. Prayer is human striving plus x , the value of x being the illuminating and purifying action of the Holy Spirit whom no psychological terminology can define or limit. There is no cogent reason for assuming that ^ a psychological account of prayer includes the experience in its totality. The heart of prayer eludes the categories of Science. To the scientific method of studying religion should be added the outlook and the insight of a sound ' philosophy. Science should not presume to exclude Christian doctrine from the field of religious experience. Christian prayer arises from an appreciation of a personal relation to God ,as our Father. It is the creative energy of God within man which induces and supports the process of suggestion and trans¬ forms it into a spiritual force. CHAPTER VI THE ANSWER TO COOPERATIVE PRAYER As observed elsewhere, the petitional prayers may be divided into two large classes, the one class consisting of those answered through the religious forces of the self, and the other consisting of those answered through the cooperation of another self. We have studied the first class, but now it is our task to examine the second. We shall presently understand that the prayer designed to influence another tends to create a religious-social suggestion. Social suggestion is, then, the prom¬ inent psychological mechanism of all prayers in¬ volving the concurrent activities of two or more selves. The two classes of petitions are closely related. ‘ The prayer coming from the heart of one person may enter the mind of another and there undergo a series of modifications which entirely transmute it. The petition answered through the self may have had its origin only immediately in the mind of the petitioner; more remotely it may have sprung /warm from the life of another. It is evident that any prayer which may be answered through a peti¬ tioning self may also be answered through a co¬ operating self, answers being frequently obtainable to the prayers for the conversion of others, their moral betterment, physical healing, and divine guidance. Since they have already been described, 124 COOPERATIVE PRAYER 125 it will not be necessary to examine in detail the responses to these forms of altruistic and inter¬ cessory petitions. The answers to the cooperative petition may be reduced to two groups, the first consisting of the answers to prayers of which the responding self has definite knowledge, and the second consisting of the answers to petitions of which the contributing self has no conscious knowledge. THE ANSWER TO THE KNOWN COOPERATIVE PRAYER One listens to a prayer for material aid or for an active interest in a good cause and is moved to answer the appeal, or hears a prayer imparting wisdom and encouragement and is cheered and inspired. A religious force plays upon the selfT" inducing a practical reaction to an entreaty for substance or personal devotion, or informing and edifying one. In such cases prayer includes a social suggestion created by the religious impulse of the petitioning self and received by the respond¬ ing self. An impression is created in another which tends to realize itself through the religious forces of the self. The effect of such a prayer is deter¬ mined both by the willingness and by the ability of the cooperating self. KNOWN PRAYERS FOR SUBSTANCE AND ACTION Petitions for things within the gift of others, such as money and energy, may be answered by letting others know of the need and of the dependence upon the prayer for its supply. The measure of the response is conditioned by the gener¬ osity and means, or the intelligence, willingness, and 126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER capabilities, of those who hear the petition or know of it. Prayers for material aid. —Orphanages and other charitable institutions have been successfully con¬ ducted by superintendents relying solely upon prayer to supply the necessary funds. 1 It is reported that the Open Door Mission in Chicago feeds and lodges six hundred to seven hundred men, without soliciting human aid. The China Inland Mission receives applications from suitable persons, such as ministers, physicians, nurses, and teachers, without any restrictions of sex or number, who, having com¬ mended themselves to the Mission, are sent to China as speedily as prayers for the necessary funds are answered. This organization is maintained entirely by the voluntary contributions of its friends, no funds being directly solicited. The sole reliance is upon prayer. The nature of such benevolent causes and the fact that it is generally known that they are dependent upon the liberality of the public for their support, make their own irresistible appeal. It would be difficult to imagine circumstances more conducive to the arousing of the social sympathies. Sometimes the social prayer is made for the purpose of inducing immediate action, as when a minister prays that the congregation contribute liberally toward some benevolence for which sub¬ scriptions are about to be taken. A minister relates that when about to dedicate a newly erected church he requested the help of a pastor who was noted for his ability to collect money and take subscrip¬ tions. On the eve of dedication the pastor called the officiary of the church together for consultation 1 See Muller, George: The Life of Trust. T. Y. Crowell & Co. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 127 and financial support. The officials turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of both the pastor and the quasi-professional money-getter for substantial pledges. As a last resort the assisting pastor led the group in prayer, beseeching God to enlighten them as to the importance of the church and to inspire them with the spirit of sacrifice. They were moved to tears, and after the prayer so generously responded that the church could be dedicated with¬ out debt the following day. It is unpsychological to arouse benevolent im¬ pulses only to deny them outward expression. Repeated stimulation without action leads to the pernicious habit of allowing good intentions to evaporate. It weakens the will. The wise clergy¬ man, for instance, offers prayer before the collec¬ tion is taken, thus not only quickening the generosity of the people, but also affording them an immediate opportunity to give it a concrete manifestation. To pray save as an expression of thanksgiving, after the offering has been taken, is to make a subtle appeal without permitting a practical response. Prayers for the control of action. —The prayer for the active participation of others in the work of the church or any other uplifting cause is the most effective appeal which could be made. The petition is an indirect solicitation, an appeal in the name of religious and humanitarian concerns, which arouses the noblest in man. That faith in this form of religious control is times without number rewarded by positive results should occasion no surprise. There is marvelous wisdom revealed in the injunction of Jesus, “The harvest truly is plenteous, 128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” 2 This saying was taken seriously by the superintendent of a Junior League who peti¬ tioned God to send her teachers to assist in the religious instruction of the children under her supervision. She arose from her knees under the conviction that if she went into the street, her prayer would be answered. She obeyed the impulse, but failed to enlist anyone in the street. She then felt moved to enter a home where a young woman resided with whom she was acquainted. When informed that her friend was not at home, the religious worker requested the mother to interest the absent daughter in the Junior League. The mother reluctantly consented, maintaining that her daughter was occupied by too many other things to assume added responsibility. Entering a second home, the superintendent met with another disappointment. The young woman solicited re¬ fused her services on the grounds of pressing social engagements. The petitioner returned home in a confused state of mind, for she had confidently expected a more hearty response to her appeal in answer to her prayer. She was, however, agreeably surprised when after a few weeks both young women reported for duty as volunteer teachers. When others were approached with the request the petition assumed the form of a religious-social suggestion. It is of interest to notice that in the first home entered the request was lodged in the mind of the young woman through the medium of the mother, .thus bringing into cooperation two * Matthew 9: 37-38. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 129 other selves. In the other home the appeal was directly made. The indirect and the direct appeal developed within both minds a practical response. Within a few weeks antagonistic inclinations gave way to the call to high service. A Methodist layman in a letter to his son pre¬ paring himself for the Christian ministry, says: “You are our first-born, and in a tender moment we dedicated you to the ministry in the church in which your mother was reared and at whose altars I was converted. . . . Your mother and I, before you were an hour old, prayed that God would choose you to be one of his ministers. You know that we have not forced you to enter the ministry, or even urged you.” 3 The prayer of dedication, fol¬ lowed, as it doubtless was, by numberless inter¬ cessions, wove itself into the texture of the son’s character and was influential in turning him toward the ministry as a calling. KNOWN INSTRUCTIONAL AND HORTATORY PRAYER Many social prayers seem to have a didactic or inspirational purpose. They are formally ad¬ dressed to God, but they also instruct and admon¬ ish men. Springing from an altruistic motive, they are not designed to secure the substance of others but to widen the vision, comfort and encourage those who hear them. In the name of religion they move men for their own good. Pulpit prayer. —Truly edifying and uplifting is the pulpit prayer which wells up spontaneously from the deeps of a sincere and intelligent heart, 3 Allen, Robert: Letters of an Old Methodist to His Son in the Ministry, p. 15. Fleming H. Revell Company. 130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER and voices the common supplications and aspira¬ tions of the worshiping congregation. It is refreshing and life-giving. The gift of public prayer is perhaps rarer than that of preaching. If it were intended to influence God only, and not also man, the minister might be content to pray for the congregation in the privacy of his study. As it is —and it is as it should be—the pulpit prayer as a warm appreciation of religious values moves through the pulses of the people, quickening every spir¬ itual perception and deepening every holy resolve. Note the union of devotional and ethical elements in the following felicitously expressed paragraph from one of the many deeply spiritual pulpit prayers of Alexander Maclaren: “We pray thee to forgive all the shortcomings ^ and the failures to hold fast that which we have, and to live by that which we know. We pray thee to cleanse our hearts from all their waywardness, and all their wanderings, and to fix them upon thyself. We beseech thee that more and more it may to us be Christ to live, that his name may ever be dearest to us, and shrined in the very depths of our heart’s love; that his commandments may be our supreme law, and to please him our highest • > yd aim. Great as Henry Ward Beecher was as a preacher, he was even greater as a man of public prayer. So profoundly did his pulpit prayers move the hearts and minds of the congregation that the sermon which followed, eloquent as it was, often seemed superfluous. They were replete with the simplicity of genuineness, a sympathy that em- 4 Maclaren, Alexander: Pulpit Prayers, p. 94. George H. Doran Company. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 131 braced all the varied conditions of men, and a keen sense of justice and equity. The following Sabbath invocation is typical of his style and sentiment: “We thank thee that we have come together again this morning, after the labor of the week and its weariness. Grant that we may have a settled peace—that peace of God that passeth all understanding. May we yield ourselves up to him implicitly. May we rejoice that his will is better than ours. And amidst thwartings and castings down, and disappointments, let us not feel that our life is lost, or that we are losing it. May we be able to say, in all events, ‘The will of the Lord be done.’ If we are weakened by excess of sorrow, or if our eyes are dim that we cannot see, or if we have lost the way and know not how to find it, O Lord God of our salvation, be merciful to us and look upon our weakness, and in thine infinite com¬ passion revive us again, and put us upon our feet, and let us hear the voice, though it be in darkness, saying, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’ ” 5 Other public prayers. —The sectarian element is reduced to a minimum and the ethical aspect of religion magnified in the prayers of the chaplains of fraternal, military, governmental, and other non- ecclesiastical organizations. The fundamental reli¬ gious conceptions common to the great body of spiritually minded people are introduced as the ground and motive of right social relationships. By way of illustration one may quote a few para¬ graphs from a prayer offered by Chaplain Henry N. Couden at the opening of the second session of s Handford, Thomas W.: Henry Ward Beecher, p. 263. Belford, Clark & Co. 132 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER the House of Representatives of the sixty-second Congress of the United States: “Impress us, we beseech thee, with the vast responsibility resting upon us as a people, that we may prove ourselves worthy of the confidence reposed in us, and distinguish clearly between liberty and justice, freedom and license, purity and impurity in the things which make for good citizen¬ ship, that we may work together with thee toward the higher and better forms of life in the spirit of the world’s great Exemplar. “Imbue the minds and hearts of these thy serv¬ ants, now convened in Congress, with the highest ideals, that they may walk worthy of the vocation whereunto they are called. Impart unto those who sit at the bar of justice clearness of vision, that they may judge wisely and impartially the intricate problems which confront them.” 6 Although many are composing and publishing prayers expressive of the life peculiar to various classes and conditions of society, no one has been more inspirational or uplifting than Professor Walter Rauschenbusch. His purest gem is, perhaps, a prayer for all mothers. One cannot read it with¬ out a new appreciation of the sacredness and sacri¬ fice of motherhood. The following paragraph will suggest its social value: “O God, we offer thee praise and benediction for the sweet ministries of motherhood in human life. We bless thee for our own dear mothers who built up our life by theirs; who bore us in travail and loved us the more for the pain we gave; who 6 Conden, Henry N.: Prayers, p. 41. The Crowell Publishing Company. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 133 nourished us at their breast and hushed us to sleep in the warm security of their arms. We thank thee for their tireless love, for their voiceless prayers, for the agony with which they followed us through our sins and won us back, for the Christly power of sacrifice and redemption in mother-love. We pray thee to forgive us if in thoughtless selfishness we have taken their love as our due without giving the tenderness which they craved as their sole reward, and if the great treasure of a mother’s life is still spared to us, may we do for her feeble¬ ness what she did for ours.” 7 Prayer in the home and inner circle. —Quite as effective are prayers in behalf of restricted groups or of individuals. A man of particular religious insight offered prayer for a group of seekers kneel¬ ing at the altar in a revival meeting. The prayer was instructional and inspirational in character, giving an excellent interpretation of conversion and accenting the social and ethical aspect of the Christian life. Prayer at the family altar is like¬ wise hortatory and preceptive. The plastic soul of the child receives lasting impressions from the family prayer. The family priest dedicates the child to God, implores divine help in his behalf, prays that he may be kept from the stain of sin, and that he may always choose the right. A young man says that the memory of the family prayer which his father made the morning he left the paternal roof to enter college, has strengthened him in many a critical hour, kept him from yielding to seductive and subtle temptations, and inspired him to live a life of usefulness and service. 1 The American Magaiine, December, 1910. 134 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER The preceptive element is prominent in the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus, recorded in John 17. It was offered in the presence of his disciples and evidently for their special benefit. It is both his valedictory and last will and testament. “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” “And now I come to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in them¬ selves.” He expresses a burning desire that his followers who are of divergent attitude may now be fused together in the higher purpose of his mis¬ sion. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” How impressive these words, how they must have searched the apostles, how they must have lingered in memory! It may be profitable to refer to a specific instance which supports the statement that the devotional relation creates a religious attitude in others, and shows that the supplications of a few, under zealous leadership, may, when the circumstances are au¬ spicious, induce a spiritual revival spreading over a whole country. Following the collapse of Wall Street and the consequent business disturbances throughout our country in 1857, Jeremiah C. Lanphier, a lay missionary employed by a Dutch Reformed church in New York city, became im¬ pressed with the thought that an hour of prayer at noon would benefit depressed business men. Although he had advertised it somewhat, Lanphier COOPERATIVE PRAYER 135 sat out the first half hour of the meeting alone. Six were present at the close of the hour. Lanphier kept a record of the increase in attendance. Twenty were present at the second meeting, forty at the third, one hundred at the fourth, after which the press was so great that the people could not be seated in one room. Overflow meetings were con¬ ducted in many churches, but lack of room made it impossible to accommodate the great crowds. Churches were thronged before the hour of prayer began, and hundreds stood in the streets while the meetings were being conducted. Soon the revival of religious concern spread to Jersey City, Hoboken, Paterson, Philadelphia, Boston, Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Rochester, Buffalo, Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, Vicksburg, Memphis, Saint Louis, Cin¬ cinnati, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other cities. 8 The prayer life of a single man was in its social consequences like a match kindled in a vast forest when the grass is dry and the leaves are dead. Even the tender social prayer for those who mourn the death of friends or relatives is quite dependent for its consolation upon its power to touch men. The bereaved are reminded of the existence of a benevolent God, the immortality of the soul, the eternal bliss of the righteous dead, the uncertainty of this life, and are urged to seek divine comfort and so to live that they may be reunited with the departed in the spirit world. To the point are prayers in rituals for the burial of the dead. The God of all comfort extends his 8 Davenport, F. M.: Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, p. 6. The Macmillan Company. 136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER consolation to the bereaved through the sympathy of his children for one another. Men are his mes¬ sengers of solace. The exceedingly delicate min¬ istry to the sorrowing is best accomplished in the fellowship of suffering expressed in prayer. Prayers for the dead.—Prayers for the dead are regarded by many as a legitimate form of inter¬ cession. They are expressly commanded by Saint Augustine in his treatise On the Care of the Dead. Although he considered them without scriptural foundation, Luther hesitated to forbid them. He says, “Since the Scripture mentions nothing con¬ cerning them, I do not consider it a sin to pray thus, or the like: ( 0 God, if thou hast such relation¬ ship with souls that thou canst help them, be gra¬ cious to them/ and if this occurs once or twice, let that be enough.” One writer of devotional literature makes the following plea for them: “And the blessed dead! Those happy souls who have departed thence in the Lord! They too come within the limitless range of intercessory prayer. May we pray for them? Three words will help us to answer the question: law, love and liberty. Law allows it; love commands it; liberty embraces it.” 9 The largest Protestant denominations in our country do not teach the duty and efficacy of prayers for the dead, being rather skeptical as to their value. It would, however, be rash to declare that they are without any effect. Their result, so far as can be determined, is purely reflexive. Such prayers tend to comfort those who mourn, to deepen the altruistic sentiments and to quicken belief in 9 Holmes, E. E.: Prayer and Action, p. si. Longmans, Green & Co. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 137 personal immortality. So far as we know the product is largely subconscious and personal. THE ANSWER TO THE UNKNOWN COOPERATIVE PRAYER It may be urged, and rightly so, that whereas in the above discussion of cooperative prayer the persons whose cooperation was solicited received information of the petition through the ordinary channels of communication, countless prayers are answered by persons wholly unaware of them. What is the interpretation of the social petition of which the answering self has no conscious knowl¬ edge? We may have recourse to telepathy, or normal but unrecognized mental processes, or a direct informational impression made by God. Some are disposed to distribute the transference of the unknown petitions among these three, assign¬ ing some to the immediate action of God, others to telepathy, and still others to reactions of the sub¬ conscious too slight to be perceived. MENTAL TELEPATHY Some believe telepathy to be the determining factor in the answering of the unknown intercession. The supporters of the theory of telepathy main¬ tain that the mind may function apart from the nervous system and by virtue of that fact it is pos¬ sible to read the thoughts of another at a distance and control them, perceive physical phenomena occurring no matter how far removed, and, say some enthusiastic advocates, see into the future, communicate with the dead, and do many other wonderful things. The evidence for telepathic marvels is scien- 138 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER tifically untenable. The most competent students of borderland psychology reduce the so-called telepathic occurrences to a hopeless jumble of suggestion, unconscious perception, chance and coincidence, hallucinations and illusions, defective observation, exaggeration, imagination, muscle-read¬ ing, deliberate or unintentional fraud. They insist that an unbroken chain of sensations intermediates every perception. Thought is not a vibration of the ether set up by sensitized brain-cells, but an im¬ material condition, a state of mind. This is not the place to give an extended account of the alleged marvels of telepathy. A psychological explanation of some typical cases, however, may be suggested. Hallucinations and telepathy. —Some telepathic instances characterized by what is regarded as an external influence in the form of voices, visions, apparitions and kindred phenomena, are traceable to hallucinations and illusions. Seeming to have objective existence, the outward projection of inward states is especially treacherous. Professor Miinsterberg describes an illuminating case of this kind. There came to him one night a stranger resolved to commit suicide if Professor Miinster- berg could not help him. He related that he was a physician, but had ceased to practice because his brother across the ocean hated him and had him under telepathic influence, troubling him with mocking voices and impulses to foolish actions. For several days he had neither slept nor eaten; the only chance for life that he could see was that hypnotic power might overcome the mystical influ¬ ence. On examination Professor Miinsterberg dis¬ covered that the hallucination of voices was the COOPERATIVE PRAYER 139 chief sympton of cocainism. In treating himself for a wound, the physician had misused cocaine. The vaporings of a diseased mentality became asso¬ ciated with his brother in Europe, until the telepathic notion grew to be an obsession. The Harvard professor hypnotized him, giving the posthypnotic suggestion that the patient take food, sleep, and a smaller dose of cocaine. For six weeks the unfor¬ tunate man was hypnotized daily. After ten days the cocaine habit was broken, after three weeks the voices were silent, and after that the remaining symptoms gradually disappeared. It was not until the end of the treatment that the theory of telepathy was rejected. After six weeks when he was normal again, the patient could hold his former telepathic absurdities in derision, but assured his benefactor that so vividly had he felt the distant influences that should they ever be experienced again he would be unable to resist the occult interpretation. 10 Suggestion and telepathy. —That the element of suggestion accounts for many so-called cases of telepathy is, perhaps, most clearly demonstrated in the field of mental healing. Attention has already been directed to the fact that it is the faith state of the patient that is effective and not the effort of the healer to exert his curative influence at a distance. The actual giving of absent treatment is of no value as a remedial agency, the cure is wholly determined by the attitude of the patient. The effect of faith as such is revealed in cases of absent treatment which are successful even when the healer makes no effort to send forth his virtue to the sick who have confidence in his power. 10 Munsterberg, Hugo: Psychology and Life, p. 242ft. Houghton Mifflin Company. 140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Mr. J. V. Coombs reports the case of a woman in South Chicago who requested her husband to consult a Christian Science healer in her behalf, as her physicians had pronounced her heart trouble incurable . 11 The healer proposed absent treatment, instructing the husband that at a time selected by the patient herself and reported to him, he would perform the miracle at a distance while she, dressed loosely, calmly concentrated her mind on being healed. JThe patient chose eight o’clock the follow¬ ing evening. The husband, a traveling man, left his home the next morning, fully intending to in¬ form the healer of the hour selected by his wife, but found it impossible to deliver the message and take a certain train leaving the city. He did- not instruct the healer. Believing that Christian Sci¬ ence absent treatment was being given, she medi¬ tated as directed at the time fixed by herself. A few days later she wrote her husband, who had not yet returned home, that she was well and had become a convert to Christian Science. When he returned he could contain himself no longer, and injudiciously disabused her mind of the error that the curist had given treatment at the time set by herself. The revelation was more than she could bear; she suffered a relapse and expired within ten hours. The unfortunate ending of this case speaks for itself. Coincidence and chance. —The identity in time of two or more events seems to be an element in the answering of other unknown social prayers. A study of the inwardness of coincidence discloses conspiracies of circumstances which make the con- 11 Religious Delusions, p. 142. The Standard Publishing Company. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 141 currence of certain events possible and even inevi¬ table. When two men invent the same mechanical device at about the same time, the coincidence may be traced to a need common enough to arouse the activity of a number of minds to meet it. In¬ ventions do not outrun our wants. The dominant interests of the age, the necessities of the hour, the spirit of the times, all give birth to similar and simultaneous efforts. Coincidences are, therefore, inevitable. Nor should the part of chance pure and simple be slighted. The concurrence of events innocent of causal relation is not only a possibility but an actual fact. Many telepathic marvels are reducible to the element of chance. In confirmation of this statement one may refer to recent findings of an experimenter in telepathy, Dr. J. E. Coover. His experimental study demonstrates anew that a person can have an absolutely groundless belief that another is staring at his back. This belief may be accounted for by a nervousness arising from natural anxiety as to the appearance of one’s back, inhibition by the dictates of good breeding of the impulse to turn around to see if anyone is staring, the actual detection of another in the act of staring whose attention was attracted by signs of nervousness, and the tendency to attribute objective validity to subjective states in the form of sensations, imagery and impulses. Ten college students made one hundred guesses each, as to whether they were being stared at during a fifteen-second interval. Each student, with eyes closed and shaded by the hand, sat with the back toward the experimenter. Whenever the latter 1-42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER stared, he did so with conscious intensity, “willing’’ that the reagent “feel” it. A box containing a die was shaken, and when an odd number of spots was cast the reagent was stared at; when an even number was cast, the experimenter did not stare. Of the one thousand guesses 50.2 per cent were correct—an approximation to the probability figure when events are controlled by chance that warrants the conclusion that aside from hazard no cause need be assigned the right cases. 12 The percentage of probability is, of course, a variable quantity, and in the realm of prayer, as elsewhere, it is not always high. But even when it is low the chance occurrences should not be mis¬ interpreted. It is well to remember tha!t the external world is so prodigal in the nature and variety of events productive of prayer that chance corre¬ spondences are bound to occur. SUBCONSCIOUS SENSITIVITY AND UNRECOGNIZED PETITIONS Although one may be unaware of receiving any message through sense-perception, the subconscious may take into account impressions imperceptible to clear consciousness. The range of our mental life is far more extensive than the psychic experiences of which we are aware and which are communicable. ^ It has been repeatedly demonstrated that we are influenced by a multitude of subconscious regis¬ trations of which we are ignorant. It may be well to refer to a number of experiments which reveal their presence and power. n American Journal of Psychology. vol. xxiv, p. 570 ff. COOPERATIVE PRAYER M3 Experimental evidence for subconscious registra¬ tion. —Experimentation in hypnotism frequently discloses large tracts of the mental life of which the subject is unaware. In the hypnotic condition he may recall dreams and other experiences beyond recollection in the normal state. Max Dessoir writes that on one occasion when several friends were in his room, a Mr. W. was reading to himself while the others were conversing. Some one men¬ tioned the name of Mr. X. in whom Mr. W. was very much interested. Mr. W. at once raised his head to ask, “What was that about Mr. X.?” He had heard a familiar name, without having any knowl¬ edge of the previous conversation, as often happens. He consented to be hypnotized by Dessoir, and when deeply entranced repeated the substance of the entire conversation carried on while he was reading to himself and of which he professed absolute ignor¬ ance in the normal state. 13 Experimental investigation in involuntary whis¬ pering has brought to light the fact that whenever we think, there is an initial and incipient movement of the vocal mechanism appropriate to the utterance of the thought, which although inaudible to the clear consciousness of another, may be subcon¬ sciously perceived. Two experimenters in telepathy, F. C. Hansen and A. Lehmann, were seated back to back. Tags marked with numbers from 19 to 99 were taken out of a bag haphazardly and held in mind by one of the men. The part of the other was to state which number was in the mind. It was soon discovered that when a number was 11 See Sidis, Boris: The Psychology of Suggestion, p. 152. D. Appleton & Co. 144 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER thought of for some time there was a decided ten¬ dency on the part of the vocal muscles to inervate. Caution was exercised to keep the mouth closed and make no sound. A bystander could detect no vocalization. An examination of the results proved that mere chance did not account for the pro¬ portion of correct responses. Doubtless the trans¬ ference of the ideas of number occurred through the sense of hearing, the involuntary whispering being subconsciously noted by observer. 14 Sub¬ sequent experiments confirm this conclusion. Mr. H. S. Curtis conducted experiments which recorded the automatic movements of the larynx when the Lord’s Prayer was mentally recited. 15 That thought is accompanied by a jiggling of the larynx, indicating incipient oral expression which may be subcon¬ sciously recorded by another, seems well established. Other experiments reveal the fact that our judg¬ ments are influenced by unrecognizable stimuli. Relying upon our unreasoned attitudes our con¬ clusions are often more tenable than others reached by formal logic. The swift and dependable intu¬ itions of the female mind excite universal wonder and admiration. Professor H. H. Donaldson records an experimental example of the effect of imper¬ ceptible factors. Two surfaces differing by a slight but measurable amount in the intensity of illumi¬ nation, were compared, the observers being required to state which surface was the brighter. The dif¬ ference was too slight to be recognized; hence the observers were compelled to guess. The unrecog- 14 See Wundt, W.: Philosophische Studien, vol. xi, part 4. The Macmillan Company. 15 American Journal of Psychology, vol. xi, p. 2. COOPERATIVE PRAYER 145 nizable difference was an effective element in determining the choice, for the brighter was cor¬ rectly designated with much greater frequency. 16 The same principle operates in experiments in pitch discrimination. Two tuning forks differing slightly in the number of vibrations per second are struck in rapid succession and held before a resonator in the order determined by lot. The observer states whether the second sound is higher or lower than the first. A considerable number of trials are made. If the observer insists that he is unable to dis¬ criminate, he is encouraged to judge in accordance with any vague inner prompting he may feel. The percentage of correct responses when no difference is recognized and the observer relies upon his unreasoned attitude is so great that it is clear that imperceptible factors influence judgment. Space does not permit the description of organic reactions of which we are ignorant, such as the afflux of blood to the brain during mental effort, or of the automatic movements of the body, head and hands in the direction of attention. 17 Enough has been said to sustain the contention that our feelings, thoughts, and actions are modified by our responses to stimuli too weak to be consciously noted. The fact that the range of the sensibility of the mental life is far more extensive than that of mere clear consciousness accounts for many telepathic instances. There is a subtle temptation to ascribe a response to unknown but subconsciously noted hints to a direct impression from another at a distance. 16 Donaldson, H. H.: The Growth of the Brain, p. 292. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 17 See Jastrow, J.: Fact and Fable in Psychology, p. 307. Houghton Mifflin Company. 146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Subconscious registrations of prayer. —It is clear that a social prayer may make impressions too faint or indistinct to attract the attention of another, and yet be subconsciously gleaned and elaborated. Neither the self praying nor the one answering may be aware of the delicate process of hyper¬ esthesia, as it is called, and therefore neither is able to interpret the occurrence in terms of an orderly sequence. The unintended signals of the prayer are legion; spoken or written words are not the only sources of information' at the disposal of the mind. A clasp of the hand, a touch upon the shoulder, a gesture, a facial expression, the tone of the voice may indicate interest in the religious life of another. Doubtless some are more sensitive to weak stimuli than are others, and some are constantly giving more outward signs of inward states than are others. When friends are good transmitters and receivers of delicate impressions, silent conver¬ sations may occur; they may spend an entire evening together without speaking a word and part with the consciousness of having had a sociable visit. A lad frequently roamed over hill and dale with his boy chum, neither uttering a sentence for hours and still each found the society of the other con¬ genial. When husband and wife are thus sym¬ pathetically related, few words are necessary for mutual understanding and appreciation. A teacher recalls a former student of his with more than ordinary interest, for this mind was an exceedingly sensitive receiver and interpreter of the attitudes of his preceptors. His method of reciting a lesson was akin to that of a professional COOPERATIVE PRAYER 147 medium giving information to a sitter. In reply to the question asked by the instructor it was his custom to parry and temporize by asking a counter and leading question: did the teacher refer to this or that? If the instructor answered, matters were materially expedited for the student. If an answer was denied, he began to skirmish, moving cautiously in the form of generalities equally applic¬ able to a multitude of things and having his eyes riveted upon the face of the teacher to detect the shadow of a trace of approval or disapproval. Thus guiding and guarding himself, he retreated whenever he felt himself upon treacherous ground, and ad¬ vanced boldly whenever he felt sure of his position, uniformly succeeding in making a tolerable recita¬ tion, although the instructor was exercising precaution to be noncommittal, and the student himself had come with the vaguest conception of the lesson material. This sensitive soul possessed the almost uncanny power of compelling the pre¬ ceptor to recite for him. It does not seem unreasonable to conclude that transmitters of prayer, especially those who unin¬ tentionally radiate the signs and symbols of the secret devotional life, are frequently rewarded by others who have no conscious knowledge of having absorbed the petition. In fact, a highly impression¬ able and socialized person may respond to a sub¬ consciously noted and assimilated petition more generously and graciously than to the one of which he is pointedly aware. The hint dropped unawares and subconsciously taken is likely to be more effec¬ tive than the consciously recognized petition. Persons of the combative disposition exhibit a 148 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER readiness to set their wills against the direct and the known appeal, but a sensitiveness and a respon¬ siveness to what they assume to be original impulses. The pathway which a petition made in the closet may take may be labyrinthian, and it is seldom if ever possible to predict or detect how or when it will travel, what its destination will be, and what it will accomplish. When we add to subconscious activity the many other means of imparting and receiving information, the possibilities of disseminating the social prayer seem beyond computation. Such things as the locomotive and steamship, the telephone and tele¬ graph, the mail service and newspaper, the public school and market place have all brought men into close relations and multiplied the channels of intercommunication. The secret whispered in the chamber is proclaimed from the housetops. DIRECT IMPRESSIONS BY GOD It is affirmed that when an intercession touches the heart of God he sometimes influences the person whom the prayer is designed to move, without any reference to the ordinary human means of communication. Since God is the author and sustainer of the universe, it does not become us to deny him such method. It is not for us to impose our limitations upon him. There should be no disposition to question the power of God to impress the mind of man immediately. In fact, the doctrine of the immanence of God, which underlies this entire study of prayer, implying as it does that he is constantly prompting man from within, is COOPERATIVE PRAYER 149 wholly compatible with the mystical account of the transmission of the unknown petition from one self to another. It is, of course, impossible to determine to a finality whether a response is directly inspired by God, or indirectly by other subconsciously acquired intimations. Not that such an immediate impression can be dis- w sected and labeled by scientific processes. It lies out¬ side the domain for which psychology is responsible. A transcendental impulse is not material for the psychologist but for the theologian and the philos¬ opher. It belongs to the realm of relations not reducible to other and more basic terms by the technic of science. A mystical impression is an interior illumination and urge, a matter of religious consciousness and intuition, which is not subject to the methods and classifications of psychology. After science has abstracted all that it can from the prayer experience an irreducible residuum remains, a relation of God and man too deep and intimate to be analyzed and defined. The Christian religion is the organization of life in its totality in accordance with the Fatherhood of God. It teaches that a personal and direct rela¬ tion between God as Father and men as sons is not only possible but imperative. This would be an orphaned world indeed if God could not and did not sensitize the conscience of man. If the human personality were in every instance thrown upon its own resources, how pitifully inadequate the entire scheme of things would be! Man’s own ideas and unaided efforts cannot carry him far. To yield to the impression of God within is to give the course of life a, point and a direction which 150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER man, relying upon his own reason and volition, can¬ not achieve. The prayer relation draws upon mystic sources of wisdom which, although defying scientific investigation and description, attest their validity in the moral and social progress of hu¬ manity. \ SUMMARY Springing from religious motives, the prayers of solicitation for things and personal effort enlist those whose strength and willingness can accom¬ plish what the petitioner himself is unable alone and unaided to bring to pass. Such prayers tend to form partnerships of personalities for the further¬ ance of enterprises of social significance. They have a socializing influence. They discover and impress the persons who can contribute to social betterment. Prayer action and prayer reaction fuse in fellowship and common achievement. Other prayers studied in this chapter culminate in an altered personality rather than in material contributions or other forms of benevolence. They are not made to win active support for a cause, but to instruct and recreate others. They are com¬ forting and cheering, didactic and invigorating. The process of conversion, the elimination of evil, the cure of a disease, divine guidance, in short whatever may be achieved by the individual him¬ self, may, in auspicious circumstances, be induced in the lives of others. The petitioner has his reward in the reconstruction of the personality of con¬ cern to him. It would be hard to imagine more disinterested motives than those which prompt this form of cooperative prayer. It is evident that COOPERATIVE PRAYER I5i such petitions beget in another prayers for a more victorious and morally competent self. Prayers made within the hearing of others or directly carried to others by the ordinary avenues of intercommunication are their own appeal. That such impacts are reenforced by the energy of God in man is defensible and inevitable in the light of the doctrine of the immanence of God. The P unrecognized petition may be conveyed to its destination in one of two ways: it may be subcon¬ sciously garnered and elaborated, or it may be directly impressed upon the mind of man by God himself. In either case clairvoyant traits of the human personality are for the present excluded as not yet scientifically demonstrated. Prayers of cooperation, as motivated and employed by the religious consciousness, assume the nature of religious-social suggestions. A petition transferred as a divine impulse or in any other way, does not ride roughshod over the will of another. Indeed, the contrary will of another may defeat the purpose for which the prayer was made. The creativeness of the social petition, no matter how transmitted, is determined by the cooperation and resources of the self it touches. Prayer is not a means of canceling the moral respon¬ sibilities of others. The statement, “Behold I stand at the door and knock,” expresses all that God will and all that man can do. Prayer solicits and invites, encourages and urges, enlightens and admonishes, but so long as the self resists the im¬ pact and appeal of it, it remains answerless. Not even when he impinges upon the spirit of man without sensory mediation does God presume to 152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER coerce the personality endowed with initiative and self-direction to obey him. The obligation to respond to the full measure of his ability to that which accords with the mandates of conscience rests squarely upon man himself. CHAPTER VII OBJECTIVE ANSWERS Although the number of persons who expect direct responses to prayers, which involve the sus¬ pension of natural law, is rapidly diminishing, yet, for the sake of stressing the sphere within which prayer actually moves, we turn at this point to so-called objective answers. Is prayer efficacious outside the range of personal and social influence? Does prayer infringe upon and suspend the laws of nature? Does the sweep of prayer include the physical as well as the moral and religious world? Some assure us that, impelled by the prayer of faith, God halts, if he does not actually disturb, the usual orderly processes of nature. Human tendencies. —It must be confessed that here, as in other matters in which man is vitally concerned, lapse of memory, unintentional exagger¬ ation, the accommodation of a petition to an event which partially resembles the answer desired, and coincidence, are some of the human elements which may be taken into consideration. The following instance taken from a popular novel, warms the heart without deceiving the head: “Alessandro’s grandfather had journeyed with Father Crespi as his servant, and many a miracle he had with his own eyes seen Father Crespi perform. There was a cup out of which the Father always took his chocolate for breakfast, a beautiful cup, which was i53 154 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER carried in a box, the only luxury the Father had; and one morning it was broken, and everybody was in terror and despair. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ said the Father; ‘I will make it whole;’ and taking the two pieces in his hands, he held them tight together, and prayed over them, and they became one solid piece again, and it was used through the journey, just as before.” 1 The interested and expectant person, in his prayer life as in other affairs that engage his atten¬ tion, perceives and interprets the coincidental expe¬ rience that altogether escapes the notice of one absorbed by other phases of life. “It is only neces¬ sary to become deeply interested in coincidences, to look about with eyes open and eager to detect them, in order to discover them on all sides; resolve to record all that come to hand, and they seem to multiply until you can regard yourself and your friends as providentially favored in this direction.” 2 Mr. H. C. Trumbull relates that when he was superintendent of a mission school he and his teachers planned to take a sleigh-ride on Christmas morning to the State prison where they proposed to conduct a religious service and visit a former pupil incar¬ cerated for arson. When the necessary arrange¬ ments were being made a teacher suggested that if there should be no snowfall on or before Christmas night their plans would come to naught, as the ground was bare. Their leader, Mr. Trumbull, ventured to reply that since they were in God’s special service and had renewedly prayed for guidance in their plans, they might with the utmost Jackson, Helen Hunt: Ramona, p. 187. Little, Brown & Co. 2 Jastrow, Joseph: Fact and Fable in Psychology, p. 90. Houghton Mifflin Company. OBJECTIVE ANSWERS 155 confidence trust God to do his part. Returning home from the meeting, he realized the delicacy of the position he had taken and fell upon his knees to implore divine aid. On Christmas Eve he met his teachers to complete all details and, although the sky was starlit and there was no indication that snow would cover the ground, they separated for the night, agreeing to meet the following morn¬ ing. On Christmas morning four inches of snow covered the earth, providing an excellent basis for sleighing. The proposed sleigh-ride was now possi¬ ble, and all plans were carried out to the letter. The teachers were convinced that God had sent the snow in answer to prayer. 3 It may seem ungracious, but it is certainly legiti¬ mate, to raise questions like the following: Was the snowfall contingent upon the trust in God, or would it have come even if no one had peti¬ tioned for it? Was there in reality no sign of the coming snow in the sky and air, or might a meteorologist have detected atmospheric conditions presaging it? Was the incident an objective answer or a happy coincidence? Once men prayed for rain in a season of pro¬ tracted drought. They were right in their assump¬ tion that God is interested in the daily bread for which Jesus taught them to pray. Although God is by no means indifferent to the physical wants of men, and prayer for rain is often followed soon by a downpour, we cannot be absolutely sure that rain would not have fallen without special prayer for it. There is no known test by which we can * Illustrative Answers to Prayer, p. 1 iff. Fleming H. Revell Company. 156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER determine. God lets the rain fall upon the unjust as well as upon the just. For this reason the prayer for rain is confusing. Undiscovered connections. —On the other hand, it is sheer scientific bigotry to assert that answer to prayer outside the scope of personal influence is impossible. There may be higher laws of which we as yet know nothing which determine the answer now regarded as objective. Many events of nature once supposed to be direct departures from the usual and orderly scheme of the world have dis¬ closed their normal connections and been linked with other like uniform sequences. The possi¬ bility of an incandescent electric light was once scoffed at, but it has long ago become an accom¬ plished fact. The range of the unknown is vaster than that of the explored regions; hence modesty becomes us. While defying our present methods of analysis and classification certain objective answers to prayer may some day be referred to laws of which at present we are wholly ignorant. What now appears to be a conflict with natural law may in the end reveal itself to students of deeper insight and more varied experience, as the outcome of a higher order. God and nature. —It is the Christian’s belief that since God made the world as it is, he is able to depart from any customary method of express¬ ing himself. What he can make he can break. While there can hardly be a question as to God’s power to suspend or interfere with his customary activities, there has been decided objection to such intervention. One writer feels so strongly that he makes the statement that a God who creates OBJECTIVE ANSWERS 157 a universe according to a plan which he must change or temporarily abandon in order to accomplish his purposes would be limited in wisdom and resources. A deviation from the law-abiding order of nature he regards as a makeshift, a way out of a difficulty, a desperate measure, something which supplies a want in the scheme of things. The world has not been so fashioned that by it all the divine ends are achieved. “God encounters an obstacle within his own order of nature. It is as if there were two Gods—one who is active during the ordinary course of things, and another who, in particular cases, corrects the work of the former.” 4 On the other hand, others, far from sensing any limitation in an occurrence which conflicts with what we know about natural law, are disposed to glory in a God who refuses to be held in check by his ordinary way of governing the universe. Far from displaying a weakness in God, events not reducible to what we call law reveal his sovereignty. They believe that when a situation is serious enough to warrant it, God does actually exercise his power to halt or disturb the usual processes of nature. They do not discriminate against petitions answers to which might entail a break in the natural order. Although conscious of their own lack of wisdom, they pray that not their will but God’s, be done. The higher ministry of prayer. —The atmosphere is cleared when we raise the question, Are the ends of life physical, or moral and religious? If it be granted that the ends of the race are spiritual, it becomes clear that prayer in furthering the 4 Hoffding, H.: The Philosophy of Religion, p. 29. The Macmillan Company. 158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER fundamental purpose does not directly involve the material world. Prayer as a means of spiritual culture has no responsibility in the physical uni¬ verse. To say the least, it is not the highest function of prayer to invade the material universe and to work havoc and confusion simply to gratify an unsophisticated and unspiritual petitioner. To confine prayer to moral issues is to forestall perplexity. Many a sensitive but misguided person has been unable to unlearn what he has been taught about the willingness of God to abrogate the laws of the physical world, without an unfortunate and a needless loss of confidence in religion itself. An author of a devotional study records the case of a woman whose spiritual life suffered permanent injury because her petition for the recovery of her daughter, incurably ill, was ungranted. She had been taught that faith invariably moves God to change or reverse the operations of nature. 5 One of Dr. F. 0 . Beck’s correspondents reports a girl¬ hood experience which further illustrates the con¬ fusion arising from misleading teaching. “One evening, just when leaving school, I tore a page in a new geography of which I thought a great deal. I placed it in the desk greatly worried, and leaving the room sadly, I recalled that the teacher had taught that God could do anything, so I just prayed that he would mend my torn book. Many times that evening and the next morning I asked him in prayer to mend the page. I hastened to school early and went at once to my desk to find to my sorrow that the leaf was still torn.” 6 ‘ McCormick, C. W.: The Heart of Prayer, p. i. The Methodist Book Concern. • American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, vol. ii, p. 118. OBJECTIVE ANSWERS 159 Many men feel that it is more religious and in harmony with the divine will to adjust themselves to the laws of nature than it is to try to set them aside by the power of prayer. Instead of praying for rain they irrigate the arid regions, plant trees to modify the atmospheric conditions, and discover and apply the principles of dry farming. Instead of trying to deliver themselves from a plague of grass-hoppers by means of prayer, intelligent men are plowing under the larva and preventing the propagation of the noxious insects. Instead of relying solely upon prayer to arrest the ravages of an epidemic of typhoid fever, they submit their drinking water and milk to a scientist that they may combat the malignant scourge at its source. They appropriate the skill of the surgeon to set a broken bone or to extract a bullet embedded in the flesh. They consider the employment of natural means to attain material ends an obligation which should not be shifted to where it does not properly belong. It is God himself who is creatively active in natural processes, and it is therefore positively sinful to be unwilling to conform to his established order. The devout mind is disposed to draw lessons of spiritual import from material disaster. In its scale of values the eternal is highest and the tem¬ poral, lowest. Bishop William A. Quayle finds in the economic pressure of a drought not so much an occasion for a petition for rain as an opportunity to bring home to men the barrenness and unfruit¬ fulness of their own lives. He expresses this senti¬ ment: “We pray for bounteous harvests on the plowed lands of the soul, where we have had scant 160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER crops so long, so long, so pitifully long. We have been barren fields, or nigh that. Dew have we had and rain and sunlight passing fair and sweet, and God hath been with us, but we heeded not. We have grown shrubs where we should have grown trees, and scrawny harvests where we could, aye, and should have been burdened with a yield of an hundredfold. . . . Give to us great soul-crops of love and peace and joy, and a sound mind and an equanimity which never sours with discontent, we pray in Christ, our Master.” 7 SUMMARY Prayer helps man to help himself. It inspires him to meet material obstacles with insight and courage. It sifts the facts of life and arranges them in their proper order. It is a factor in sub¬ duing and subordinating the forces of nature to religious purposes. To be sure, prayer does not relieve us of some burdens, but it does infinitely more when it helps us to bear them. It con¬ structs a personality that rises above vicissitudes of time and sense. Paul prays three times that a physical handicap, a thorn in the flesh, which is an impediment in his missionary labors, be re¬ moved. Although his actual petition is ungranted he is given courage and patience to bear his trial, and becomes the greater man for the discipline. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” 8 7 Quayle, William A.: The Climb to God, p. 162. The Methodist Book Concern. 8 2 Corinthians 12:9. CHAPTER VIII UNGRANTED PETITIONS A popular writer of devotional studies makes no secret of the futility of many prayers, saying: “Probably it is accurate to say that thousands of prayers go up and bring nothing down. This is certainly true. Let us say it just as bluntly and as plainly as it can be said.” 1 Not all are as ready and frank to admit the failures of the prayer rela¬ tion. Some assert that God hears all prayers, but answers only those which are in accord with his will and for the spiritual welfare of the petitioner. They affirm that “no” is as real an answer as “yes.” Nevertheless, it must be confessed that myriads of prayers are unanswered in the sense that the object of the petition is never forthcoming. Many and varied are the explanations made for the ungranted petition. We have had occasion elsewhere to refer to the fact that many attribute unanswered prayers to want of faith, indefiniteness, lack of perseverance, and improper objects of prayer. It is also maintained that many prayers are indirectly answered in that the insignificant favor asked for is ungranted in order that a higher good may be bestowed. Often the form of the petition is denied, but the substance is granted. A passage in Saint Augustine’s Confessions describes 1 Gordon, S. D.: Quiet Talks on Prayer, p. 67. Fleming H. Revell Company. l6l THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 162 his mother, Monica, praying all one night in a chapel in Africa that God would not let her son sail for Italy. She wanted Augustine to become a Christian. She did not want him to escape her direct influence. If under her care he resisted the appeal of Christianity, what would he be in Italy, the land of licentiousness and alluring temptation? But he sailed for Italy and there he was converted under the labors of Ambrose. The intent of the mother’s prayer was realized in the country from which her petition would have kept him. But since prayer is in part a human enterprise it is not surprising that it often fails to accomplish the immediate purpose of its maker. Prayer is a human and a divine process, an act in which God and man cooperate. Now, God is the constant and dependable partner in the transaction, always prompting man from within to achieve the whole¬ ness and the fullness of life, and ever expressing himself in those uniformities which we call his laws. It is man who is the variable factor, his infirmities and self-will often interfering with the 1/ answering of his prayers. The unanswered prayer is not the failure of God to keep faith with man, , but it is the failure of man to adjust himself to the r requirements of God. UNGRANTED PERSONAL PETITIONS Prayers for things outside the range of personal and social influence have already been considered in a chapter devoted to objective answers; 2 it will, therefore, not be necessary to discuss them here. ' Chapter VII. UNGRANTED PETITIONS 163 In accordance with the psychological classification of prayer adopted in the preceding chapters atten¬ tion will first be called to typical reasons for un¬ granted personal petitions. An uneasy conscience. —Now, since all true prayer is essentially reverent and serious, and the expression of the soul’s deepest religious desires, it is normally impossible to maintain the devotional attitude against the consciousness of moral defects. With rare penetration into the heart of the matter, Mr. Phelps writes: “It does not require what the world pronounces a great sin to break up the seren¬ ity of the soul in its devotional hours. The expe¬ rience of prayer has delicate complications. A little thing, secreted there, may dislocate its mechan¬ ism and arrest its movement.” 3 The sacred writer senses the effect of iniquity and describes it in his own unique way: “The Lord is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.” 4 “When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.” 5 To be sure, when the eradica¬ tion of evil is itself the burden of the petition, the delicate mechanism of the devotional life is un¬ hampered. In actual practice the moral standard is not inflexible and fixed for all time. Moral require¬ ments necessarily reflect the current conceptions of right and wrong. Social judgment to a large extent determines the content of personal conscience. What was regarded as right yesterday may be found wrong to-day. There is in both the race and in the individual a progressive moral revelation. 3 Phelps, A.: The Still Hour, p. 32. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company. 4 Proverbs 15: 29. * Isaiah 1:15. 164 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER A case in point is the changed attitude of thousands toward the use of spirituous liquors. Where once the moderate use of alcoholic beverages was not only tolerated, but ardently defended, there may be to-day an unwavering stand for total abstinence. It follows that what would be an unethical petition for one would not necessarily be so for another, and what would leave the prayer relation of one undisturbed could create a breach in the devo¬ tional life of another. The seriousness with which ethical and religious hindrances to prayer are regarded varies with their power over the individual. Whatever has become a moral or religious obligation, be it ever so trivial or important, must be sacredly respected, lest the inner harmony of the prayer life be disturbed. The prayer must be in accord with the religious beliefs of the petitioner. Miss Strong cites the experience of a young man converted under the labors of Finney, the great evangelist. When Finney’s preaching was reaching many it became the custom for seekers to retire to the woods to pray. As a rule, they returned rejoicing. Although this young man spent a whole night on his knees in prayer, and actually knelt in a mud-puddle, to persuade himself that it was not false pride that restrained him, the unwillingness to go into the woods became such a point of tension as utterly to distract him. After weeks of struggle, he yielded, retired to the woods and quickly resolved the con¬ flict through prayer. Be it said to the credit of Finney that he regarded the matter of praying in the woods as of no consequence, and that in this particular he differed radically from many other UNGRANTED PETITIONS 165 revivalists who make compliance with certain forms and methods a prerequisite to salvation. 6 Theological struggles. —In our Christian civiliza¬ tion the attitude toward the fundamental doctrines as set forth by the various religious denominations profoundly affects the prayer experience. To reject a cardinal belief, while subconsciously con¬ vinced of its truth, is to bring about a spiritual chaos which endures until the fullest assent is accorded the disturbing article of faith. There are many cases recorded which demonstrate that peti¬ tioners for the conversion experience have prayed without success until the deity of Christ has been acknowledged. Bishop Robert McIntyre’s conversion is illumi¬ nating. He writes: “Lying prone at an altar in a sanctuary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Saint Louis, I was convicted after days of inward conflict, completely humbled in spirit. I feared, struggled, agonized. My will was broken, my heart riven, my flesh cold, my breath choked. I could barely live on the border-line of conscious¬ ness. I had denied the deity of Christ, and still blinded by mental and moral perversity, I shrank from the one great final leap to the cross. As I brokenly moaned the Deist’s invocation, ‘0 God, save me,’ a silver-haired saint ceased singing in the band near by, kneeled beside the chancel rail, listened to my piteous cry, saw the knot that was strangling my spiritual life, and swiftly loosed it with the words, ‘Ask God to save you for Jesus’ sake.’ In desperation I flung all my infidelity from « Strong, A. L.: The Psychology of Prayer, p. 106. University of Chicago Press. For a description of growth in prayer discrimination, see page soflf. 166 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER me, hung all my hope on his holy name, called him by faith my Lord forever, and said the sentence which was my soul’s solemn and eternal committal to the Most High in his appointed way. I took the omnipotent words from her, dipped them deep in my heart’s blood, and slowly as one who faces doom and has no other plea, sobbed out, ‘O God, for Jesus’ sake, save me.’ While yet the Name was on my lips a light sweetened all my being, the pressure of a mountain of guilt lifted, a stream of mercy flowed around me, smiles broke through my tears, and stammeringly, wonderingly with holy awe upon me I tried to tell it, as I have done ever since.” Temperamental disqualifications. —Many persons are temperamentally disqualified from receiving the dramatic and striking answers to prayer which they so earnestly covet and so firmly expect. Professor Coe, as indicated elsewhere, has shown the vital relation of temperament to religious experiences. His statistics demonstrate that when religious expe¬ riences in terms of voices and visions occur, the element of sensibility predominates and the per- sons are either of the sanguine or melancholic ^ temperament. Those who are highly emotional and imaginative in general are the ones most likely to receive startling answers to prayer in the form of outward projections of inward states. The writer has studied with absorbing interest a young man whose religious life is characterized by emo¬ tional excitement and dramatic occurrences. It is noticeable that his whole life is significantly influ¬ enced by these temperamental characteristics. One day, after an arduous but fruitless pursuit of game, UNGRANTED PETITIONS 167 he finally succeeded in bringing down a small animal. His joy knew no bounds, and was expressed by wild leaps into the air and the firing of his gun, to the imminent peril of his fellow hunters. On the other hand, many who expect striking and emotional religious transformations in response to prayer are disappointed because their prominent mental trait is the intellect, and the choleric tem¬ perament obtains. It is a matter of regret that the experiences of the highly emotional and sug¬ gestible have been adopted as standards by some of the religious denominations. The efforts of many genuinely religious persons to conform their religious experiences to the type in favor with their respective churches, despite temperamental disqualifications, are truly pathetic and often lead to a tragic revolt against religion itself. Professor Coe quotes a person who expected, but for temper¬ amental reasons failed to obtain, a striking conver¬ sion. The disappointed person says, “Often I arose from my knees almost mad at myself for praying after having prayed so often without results.” 7 It is well to bear in mind that the peculiar constitution of the mind determines the form of the effect of the petition. Lack of perseverance. —Doubtless, many unan¬ swered prayers are due to a lack of perseverance until one feels prompted from within to cease con¬ scious striving and to surrender to the religious forces. In the language of prayer, one should “pray through.” The expression is suggestive. Many writers of devotional literature emphasize it. One author says: “Too many fail to pray 7 Coe, G. A.: The Spiritual Life, p. 149. The Methodist Book Concern. 168 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER through. If the request is not granted at the first or second asking, they cease praying and say, ‘Perhaps it isn’t God’s will,’ and this they call sub¬ mission. Dr. Torrey calls it ‘spiritual laziness.’ ” 8 Another writes: “The strong man of prayer, when he starts to pray for a thing, keeps on praying until he prays it through, and obtains what he seeks.” 9 The regular procedure is to continue the prayer until one feels ripe for self-surrender. Sometimes there is a temptation to yield the self in response to pressure from without before one intuitively feels prepared. Premature self-surrender under such a social pressure as an exciting revival is doubt¬ less responsible for many subsequent relapses. Before the new life has fully matured and is of its own accord seeking control, self-surrender is worse than useless. When the product of prayer is ready to report itself it may be trusted to do so without external pressure. The teaching of Jesus as set forth in his parables of the importunate widow, 10 and the midnight visitor, 11 is a remarkable plea for perseverance in prayer until the answer comes. From the point of view of psychology, it is not difficult to appreciate the necessity of a faith which knows no respite until it has served its purpose. Negative suggestion.—What we have called neg¬ ative suggestion is another prolific source of prayer failure. In the discussion of suggestion it was pointed out that, in order to be most effective, the suggested idea should be positive in form. Since 8 Biederwolf, W. G.: How Can God Answer Prayer / p. 2x6. Fleming H. Revell Company. 9 Torrey, R. A.: How to Pray, p. 66. Fleming H. Revell Company. 10 Luke 18: 1-8. 11 Luke 11 : s-13. UNGRANTED PETITIONS 169 whatever is in the mind tends to express itself, only what one desires to attain should engage the attention. To hold in mind vices which it is the purpose of prayer to expel is to imperil the success of prayer. Too much stress cannot be placed upon the central fact of suggestion. An idea, attended to, generates belief in itself and, unless inhibited, expresses itself. The fundamental principle of sug¬ gestion rests back upon the doctrine that all con¬ sciousness is motor. Doubtless, too many prayers are worse than useless because the mind is not filled with the ideas and ideals of positive virtues. Since the mental imagery of the undesirable has a tendency to intrench it the more firmly, let the liar pray for the spirit of truthfulness, the thief for the inner principle of honesty, the sick for health. Let the growth of positive virtues eliminate evil. On the other hand, it must not be inferred that no prayer clothed in negative terms is effectual. It is conceivable that in some cases a negative prayer may act as a means whereby the personality is purged of unwholesome elements. A case in point is the prayer of confession which will be studied in the next chapter. We shall see that mental states which are at variance with the moral standards and which are not released through prayer or some other form of confession create a subconscious disturbance which may bring on hysteria. The spiritual mind may be intrusted with the delicate task of determining for itself when prayer should be employed as a channel of dis¬ charge for morbid inner states. Such a mind will likewise follow, even in its prayers, the advice of 170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Saint Paul to think on “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are of good report.” Vain repetitions.—Many prayers are ineffectual because they are vain reiterations, repetitions that lack the vital breath of desire. Hypocrisy, mental indo¬ lence, lack of initiative, habit, and the perfunctory observance of the externals of religion, are some of their sources. Mr. Phelps says, “Perhaps even so slight a thing as the pain of resistance to the mo¬ mentum of a habit will be found to be the most distinct reason we can honestly give for having prayed yesterday or to-day.” 12 Although the Lord’s Prayer was given to counteract the tendency to use vain repetitions, it itself has frequently become upon the lips of thousands a meaningless form. When the act of prayer becomes purely auto¬ matic, it may generate vitality and drain off through its open functional channels any distracting im¬ pressions which tend to interrupt its reiteration; the vain repetitions as automatism set energy free which may be expended in attending to something wholly foreign to the spirit of devotion. Instead of stimulating the subconscious in the direction of the answer to the prayer framed by the lips, the insincere or thoughtless petition may arouse activ¬ ities positively inimicable to the higher life. As an example one may refer to the misuse of the rosary. While praying under the guidance of this mechanical device, the petitioner may automatically reiterate the series of Pater Nosters, Ave Marias, and Glorias, and be all the time meditating some¬ thing at the farthest remove from the “mysteries.” 11 Phelps, A.: The Still Hour, p. 13. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company. UNGRANTED PETITIONS 171 It will be seen that the vain repetition turns on itself and may become instrumental in subverting the moral life. Periods of spiritual dryness. —Many prayers made during periods of spiritual dryness are unan¬ swered. The course of life may for some time continue to be so even and uneventful that prayer, if offered at all, has its rise in a sense of religious obligation and not in an emergency. An unbroken and uneventful course of living offers too little occa¬ sion for prayer; hence the praying which does occur is either almost automatic or a painful effort to hold in mental focus an idea inherently too tame readily to attract and grip the attention. Times of spiritual dryness occasion much dejection and depression among earnest religious souls who ascribe them to hardness and unbelief of heart. The very anguish and torture of mind which such persons suffer in consequence of their inability to maintain a keen interest in the prayer life against periods of religious drought is in itself proof that what they lack is not belief but fresh experiences. It is only natural that the crises rather than the uneventful periods of life give rise to most of the effectual prayers. Therefore devout souls should not despair when times of spiritual dearth come. The tendency of effective prayer is to vary directly with the vicissitudes of life. From this point of view it is perfectly intelligible why the rosary is considered so essential to devotion by those who lead the secluded and monotonous existence of the cloister. Lack of rest periods. —If the prayer made in¬ volves a complex subconscious process and hence a long series of repetitions, occasional periods of rest 172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER should be observed. The answer comes more quickly in some cases than in others. One is warranted in anticipating that under normal conditions the time consumed in answering the petition varies v- directly with the complexity of the object. The petition for the calming of the excited personality may be answered instantaneously, but the prayer of a sin-sick soul for regeneration requires frequent reiteration and a much longer period of time. It requires less time to induce a momentary state of confidence than it does to construct a new self. It is clear that rest periods are out of the question in prayers which are answered almost immediately, but they should occur during the growth of a com¬ plex answer. While an active faith is straining in the general direction of an intricate prayer response, innumer¬ able hindering tendencies are at the same time being built up. If no rest is taken, the inhibiting processes are likely to become so developed as to undo the work in the right direction. During a period of rest the less firmly intrenched misdirected activities tend to atrophy, while the more deeply ingrained correct impressions mature. The time required for the subconscious growth of many objects of prayer doubtless accounts for some cases of so-called delayed answers. Many seekers for peace through conversion respond to the appeals of two or more revivals with intervening periods of rest during the summer, before the self is actually reborn. One such person states that she was uncon¬ verted in a certain revival because she was not yet ripe for the experience. Want of faith. —As has been repeatedly stated, UNGRANTED PETITIONS 173 the most frequent reason given for unanswered prayer is want of faith. The apostle says: “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” 14 Lack of faith is unquestionably a primary cause of failure. In order to be kept burning, the flame of faith must be constantly fed. The judicious reading of prayer literature, the testimony of others whose prayer life is inspirational, the recollection of positive past experiences all nourish the faith state. It will v hardly be necessary to repeat that without faith, both active and receptive, effective prayer is out of the question. UNGRANTED SOCIAL PETITIONS Prayers the answering of which includes the cooperation of one or more other selves, tend to construct and employ a process of social suggestion. Representative psychological features which under¬ mine the effect of such prayers should receive the careful attention they merit by all to whom the religious life is fundamental. Ignorance of the bounds which a wise ruler of all has set for the social petition is the occasion of much religious confusion and skepticism. Lack of information. —It will be recalled that the success of prayers for the cooperation of an¬ other involves social suggestion. In all such prayers two extremes invite failure—entire ignorance of them on the part of the person to be influenced and too direct intimation of them. Where there 14 James 1:6, 7. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER is no hint received there can be no social suggestion. Although the avenues through which we receive in¬ formation are countless, it is safe to say that many social prayers are unanswered because the proper persons have no knowledge of them. There is much to be said for the small boy who prayed for Christmas presents in a voice perfectly audible to his rather deaf grandmother who was hearing his evening prayer. Although he was addressing the heavenly throne, he was conscious that it was of the utmost importance that his grandmother knew just what he wanted for Christmas. Of course the mere fact that an unbroken chain of communication exists between the petitioner and the self upon which the answer depends is not a pledge of reciprocity. The suggestibility of the receiver of the prayer determines his willingness to answer it. Since women are more suggestible than men, one would expect them to respond to social prayers more readily than men do. 15 In men the intellect is more prominent, the emotions are focused on definite objects and at specific times, their resistance to influences from without is greater. In women sensibility is more pronounced, the emo¬ tions are more constant, docile, and diffused; they yield more readily to external influences. In view of these differences in mental structure, the opinion is volunteered that women are more likely to respond to the appeal of social prayers than men. Direct suggestions. —On the other hand, too much and too direct information is prone to result in counter suggestion. This is especially true of the 16 See Ellis, Havelock: Man and Woman, Chap. XII. Charles Scribner’s Sons. UNGRANTED PETITIONS 175 male sex with its marked tendency to resist ordinary external pressure. Indirect social suggestion in the form of mere hints and intimations is likely to induce the highest state of suggestibility. Dr. Sidis formulates what he calls the law of normal or waking suggestion as follows: “Normal suggesti¬ bility varies as indirect suggestion, and inversely as direct suggestion.” 16 In other words, “In the normal state a suggestion is more effective the more indirect it is, and in proportion as it becomes direct, it loses its efficacy.” 17 Among his examples of indirect suggestion, the following may be quoted: “My friend Mr. A. is absent-minded; he sits near the table, thinking of some abstruse mathematical problem that baffles all his efforts to solve it. Ab¬ sorbed in the solution of that intractable problem, he is blind and deaf to what is going on around him. His eyes are directed on the table, but he appears not to see any of the objects there. I put two glasses of water on the table, and at short intervals make passes in the direction of the glasses —passes which he seems not to perceive; then I resolutely stretch out my hand, take one of the glasses, and begin to drink. My friend follows suit—dreamily he raises his hand, takes the glass and begins to sip, awakening fully to consciousness when a good part of the tumbler is emptied.” 18 To tell the person openly and plainly what is ex¬ pected of him is to invite the failure of the sug¬ gestion: hence, some object is produced or some appropriate gesture or movement is made, and these in their own subtle way tell him what to do. 15 Sidis, Boris: The Psychology of Suggestion, p. 55. D. Appleton & Co. 17 Ibid., p. 52. is Ibid., p. 6. 176 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Applying the law of normal suggestion to the prayer relation, which has for its purpose the con¬ trol of others, it is evident that when a mere inkling is sown into a receptive mind, the harvest is likely to be much more abundant than when much infor¬ mation is directly given and received. Religious interest may be expressed in a look or attitude of concern, a warm handshake, or between the lines of a letter. We have observed how the personality responds to the immediate stimuli too delicate to be consciously noted. To pray at a person is, then, to subject the social petition to needless opposition. The most auspicious circumstances for the influence of the social prayer obtain when the petitioner himself and the self to be reached associate under normal conditions and no conscious and direct effort is made. The sensibility of the subconscious may be relied upon to interpret the hints of the prayer and the delicate manifestations of the reli¬ gious interest of the petitioner. The outcome of the social prayer is relatively dependent upon the ability of the transmitter of religious influence to give subtle indications of his inward states, and upon the receiver’s capacity to interpret the delicate impressions and his suggesti¬ bility to them. Some persons are notoriously inefficient transmitters; a stolid exterior hides their inner lives. Others are all the time exhibiting the tell-tale signs of what is moving them; their out¬ ward manifestations of inward and invisible activ¬ ities are unmistakable. The difference in receivers is fully as marked. Some are unusually receptive and place great reliance upon their impressions and intuitions. Others belong to the unfortunate class UNGRANTED PETITIONS *77 of persons who seemingly cannot take a hint. When a social prayer proceeds from an expressive trans¬ mitter and reaches an impressionable and responsive receiver the conditions for a positive result are favorable. CHAPTER IX PRAYERS OF CONFESSION AND PRAISE Prayer is infinitely more than a petition for special favors. Much of it is devotional rather than petitional. Prayer implies a reverential atti¬ tude, a mode of self-expression, meditation on life’s deepest problems, a deepening of right pur¬ pose, and a communion with the Invisible. It may be an end in itself rather than a means to an end. This type of prayer relation we call devo¬ tional, as distinguished from the petitional. It embraces the prayers of confession, adoration, worship, thanksgiving, consecration, submission, communion, and aspiration. The first four men¬ tioned are structurally related. Petitional prayer contributes something of value to the self, while confession, adoration, worship, and thanksgiving relieve the self of urges and impulses. One type of prayer constructs a more unified and morally com¬ petent personality by a process of addition; the other, by a process of subtraction. The key to the psychological description of the latter is psycho¬ analysis. PSYCHOANALYSIS It is exceedingly difficult to give a concise and precise definition of the word “psychoanalysis.” The term does not denote a specific manifestation of the mind like memory or emotion, or a mental structure like suggestion. As the word itself indi- 178 CONFESSION AND PRAISE 179 cates, psychoanalysis involves an analysis or a dissection of the mental life. It is a method of discovering and terminating morbid states of mind, a treatment employed in the cure of certain nervous disorders. In its wider application, however, psy¬ choanalysis is a mode of procedure for delving down into the depths of human nature and bringing to light the motives and the past experiences which underlie them and which determine present atti¬ tudes and actions. Originally psychoanalysis was restricted to the cure of certain diseases, but now it is extended to such phenomena as wit, dreams, the artistic temperament, fairy tales, folklore, mythology. In its essential features it is mental surgery laying bare unfulfilled wishes and desires, which though unexpressed and for the most part unknown by the subject, definitely influence and modify conduct. , * For countless ages man has sought and found relief and satisfaction through self-expression. The racial experience is expressed in the phrase, “ Con¬ fession is good for the soul.” The inelegant state¬ ment that it is a relief to get certain things “ou/ by the devotional mood. Worship is the response of the self to the consciousness of the presence of v God. Prayer is the natural outlet for the con¬ sciousness of the sovereignty and glory of God. The public worship of God should create an atmos¬ phere in which it is easy to pray. The architectural appeal, the subtle influence of music, the suggestive ritual all tend to reduce the minds of the congre¬ gation to the mood of worship and its expression in \/ devotional prayer. Denied its normal mode of discharge, the urge to worship and adore God ejects at least a temporary internal dislocation. Thanksgiving .—The prayer of thanksgiving is the expression of a grateful heart. It is a favorite form of devotion. Saint Paul says, “With thanks¬ giving let your requests be made known unto God .” 15 In Minna von Barnhelm , Lessing says, “A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most per¬ fect prayer.” “The mighty men of prayer in the Bible, and the mighty men of prayer throughout the ages of the church’s history have been men who were much given to thanksgiving and praise. David was a mighty man of prayer, and how his Psalms abound with thanksgiving and praise. The apostles were mighty men of prayer; of them we read that They were continually in the temple, 14 Handford, T. W.: Henry Ward Beecher, p. 264. Belford, Clark & Co. 15 Philippians 4: 6. CONFESSION AND PRAISE 199 praising and blessing God.’ Paul was a mighty man of prayer, and how often in his epistles he bursts out in definite thanksgiving to God for definite blessings and definite answers to prayers. Jesus is our model in prayer as in everything else. We find in the study of his life that his manner of returning thanks at the simplest meal was so notice¬ able that two of his disciples recognized him by this after his resurrection .” 16 The following is a spontaneous outburst of grat¬ itude in prayer form: “Gracious Lord, I thank thee for all softening influences in our land. I thank thee for the presence of little children. I thank thee for winsome old age. I thank thee for all gracious men. I thank thee for strong men who impress by their gentleness.” 1 ' When thanks are returned for blessings enjoyed, the faith state is intensified and a holy boldness and full assurance support the prayer life. When the person meditates upon and acknowledges the benevolence of God, he feels encouraged to make petitions and inter¬ cessions. Prayer springs spontaneously from the heart overflowing with gratitude toward the universe. It is a matter of inestimable value to say grace and give thanks at the table for the provided food. The constantly recurring acknowledgment of the bounty of God tempers the sensuous process of eating and makes it a sacrament. The omission of the expression of homage and gratitude is insuffer¬ able to those with whom the table prayer has be¬ come an habitual religious propriety. Doubtless, the custom develops the rare grace of equanimity 18 Torrey, R. A.: How to Pray, p. 76. Fleming H. Revell Company. 17 Jowett, J. H.: Yet Another Day, Twentieth Day of July. Fleming H. Revell Company. 200 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER and thankfulness. The crust of poverty is the sweeter for the religious flavor imparted by grat¬ itude. The following specimen is taken from a volume of table prayers: “0 Saviour, as we come again to thy table and the food thou hast so lov¬ ingly provided, we pray for those less fortunate, those whom ailment and misfortune have visited, and those in sin. Provide, O merciful Saviour, for them as thou hast provided for us. Teach us that we should show unto our fellow men mercy and justice and never let pass by an opportunity when we may do good to them and thus serve thee.” 18 Praise and psychoanalysis .—What occurs in a more advanced and complicated form in the prayer of confession doubtless takes place in the prayer of praise. The desire to adore, worship and thank God may be a disquieting influence when partially repressed. When the impulse is discharged, the equilibrium of the mind is restored. The mere freeing of the impulse through prayer alone may, it should be added, not satisfy those whose religion is socialized. Such persons have no peace until the prayer of praise has expressed itself manward. This type of prayer should not be regarded as a mere liberator of devotional promptings. Its effects upon a socialized self from which it springs are significant for the religious life. It intensifies the conviction that the character of God is morally perfect, that his works are wonderful, and that his purpose for the race is benevolent. It gives life a religious purpose and meaning. The devotional mind tends to reflect in conduct the sentiments released in the form of adoration and worship. 18 Nyce, A. W., and Bunyea, H.: Grace Before Meals . John C. Winston Company. CONFESSION AND PRAISE 201 How confession and praise differ. —While the process of psychoanalysis is discernible in both the prayer of confession and of praise, there is a differ¬ ence between these forms of devotion which should not escape attention. Confession concerns itself ^ with impulses and acts which are reprehensible. The prayer of confession liberates from repression a questionable desire or deed for final disposition by conscience. The material and purpose of the prayers of praise are different. Praise liberates an impulse fully sanctioned and approved by conscience. The inner movement released is not an unholy thing and as such to be purged out of the self, but an ennobling urge which can, accomplish its mission only when set free. Afforded expression, praise turns upon itself and enriches the fountain from which it flows. Psychoanalysis is a means to an end. The reli¬ gious consciousness employs it for the purpose of achieving a union of joy and power with God. When man is conscious of his shortcomings and confesses them, God is merciful and forgives. Broken relations between man and God are restored, and the peace that passeth understanding floods the soul. When the occasion for praise arouses an appropriate response, not only is alienation from God averted but the consciousness of his sanction and worth is intensified. Far from dethroning God, the prayer involving the psychoanalytic procedure enthrones him afresh in the hearts of men and makes him the central creative enthusiasm. This method mediates God to the praying soul. It is one of God’s ways of making dynamic contact with man. */ CHAPTER X s OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS We have seen that the prayers of confession and praise give expression to unassimilated unethical experiences as well as to wholesome promptings of the soul life. Questionable impulses are afforded an outlet and devotional cravings are released in the form of the devotional prayer already considered. We turn now to a group of devotional prayers, the psychological trait of which seems to be a reorgan¬ ization of the self in terms of its deepest moral and religious insight. This unifying process has been pointed out and experimentally used by Dr. George D. Bivin and by him called psychosynthesis. PSYCHOSYNTHESIS Psychosynthesis and psychoanalysis are contrast¬ ing processes. Psychoanalysis is a thoroughgoing dissection of a distressing and repulsed situation, a separation of a disquieting whole into its com¬ ponent parts, the liberation of a disturbance. The emotional escape of the haunting memory or dis¬ tasteful desire averts a split in the personality. Peace and poise are recovered by ridding the self of an unwelcome intrusion. Psychosynthesis, on the other hand, entails the adoption of an idea more or less opposed but consistent with the reli¬ gious idealism of the person. It brings into life a fresh element which creates a higher unity. By 202 OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 203 it a new union of spiritual powers is attained. It is assimilative, a program is brought from the circumference of the self into its very center. It strikes harmony between the personality and duty, misfortune, nr God. By the process of psychosyn¬ thesis the new insight becomes the central and regnant factor of the self, grouping all else about itself in subordinate relations. Psychoanalysis is expulsive, psychosynthesis receptive. Illustrations of the synthetic process. —The human understanding combines related data into a unified system. The process of putting together parts or elements so as to compose a complex whole is clearly recognizable in various departments of thought and science. The act of learning as described by edu¬ cators exhibits the synthetic tendency of the mind. When new lesson material is presented to the pupil, it is comprehended and assimilated in terms of previous knowledge and experience. The present is synthetized with the past and thus acquires meaning and value; the union of the new and old constitutes a fresh whole. At first the new is under¬ stood by the young child as something which he already knows about, but later he assigns it an existence and a meaning of its own. One small boy called snow, sugar; an electric meter, a clock; a circus rider in uniform, a king; the core of a pear, a crust; dust particles seen in a ray of light, flies; but in the course of time and with the expansion of life he began properly to classify and rate these novelties. The mind appears to resist the intrusion of fresh ideas, for the reception of the new makes a rearrangement of the old furnishings imperative. In the natural sciences synthesis denotes the 204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER formation of a compound by a combination of its elements. Physics makes liberal use of the term and variously applies its principle. White is pro¬ duced by the physicist by synthetizing its con¬ stituent colors. Physics teaches that a complex musical sound is a compound of component simple tones. The violin string, for example, has a fine proportion of partial tones, the lowest audible of which is called the fundamental tone, and the others overtones. The whole may be analyzed into the partial tones which the mind may be able to abstract. It is, however, the habitual readiness of the mind to grasp and appreciate the sound as a whole. The mind synthetizes the partial tones. The full compound tone, heard as a unit, affords us more aesthetic gratification than does a separa¬ tion of it into its constituents. The synthetic activity in religion. —In an anal¬ ogous manner the religious consciousness makes a continuous effort to keep life harmonious through the adoption and practice of recognized obligations. The spiritual sensibilities demand that the self be dominated by a progressive comprehension of things which matter most. When the self falls short of what it feels it should be, conscience creates a disturbance which endures until the level of con¬ duct has been raised. The spiritual nature of man manifests a pronounced synthetic activity by which a new combination of moral forces is achieved. At first the imposing religious obligation is resisted and repulsed but finally it is accepted and placed in control of the self. Once in the seat of power the fresh insight brings into harmony with itself all other interests. The tension between a duty OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 205 and the self, for instance, is not eliminated by renouncing the duty but by accepting its challenge and by adjusting all other things to the discharge of it. Although once an external pressure, duty, when owned, becomes an internal compulsion. A situation, once contested but at last made central and supreme, reorganizes the self, synthetizes the elements of life. The psychosynthetic prayer grips v and divides the self, purges and sifts its elements, and in accordance with a new sense of obligation recombines them. PSYCHOSYNTHETIC PRAYERS Miss Strong in her book, The Psychology of Prayer , would interpret all prayer forms, petitional as well as devotional, as a social relation between a consciously inferior self and an ideal, superior self, having for their purpose the construction of a more victorious, a more competent, a more endur¬ ing personality. This conception appears to be akin to that of psychosynthesis. Interpreted broadly and liberally, this unifying activity underlies every type of prayer relation. In all prayer, petitional as well as devotional, there is a subtle analytic and syn¬ thetic process by means of which the person hopes to ease inner tension, release spiritual unrest, and construct a more victorious self. This generous interpretation seems to touch the ends rather than the processes of petitional and of some devotional prayers. It seems best to describe prayer in terms of the process itself which furthers an adjustment to the spiritual universe. Since petitional prayer tends to realize an ideal self through religious suggestion, it seems well to regard the 206 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER process of suggestion as the chief psychological aspect. Since the prayers of confession and praise save the self from a rupture by discharging impulses to praise or by reinstating distressing experiences, it would appear best to interpret them psycho¬ logically as forms of a religious katharsis. The type of devotional prayer to the psychological exposition of which this chapter is devoted, doubtless reveals to a greater extent than any other a fusion of life in terms of a higher purpose through the prayerful attitude itself. The specialized forms of this type are the prayers of aspiration, consecration, sub¬ mission, and communion. The prayer of aspiration. —Many persons live in an atmosphere of sacred desire and holy ambition. In devotional mood they constantly ejaculate their aspirations to be righteous, benevolent, and in har¬ mony with the purpose of God. This prayer atti¬ tude tends to fix the program of purpose and action, to steady the vagrant impulses, to summon the spiritual powers. It gives life a constant impetus and momentum toward unity and self-consistency. Through constant and meaningful repetition of sacred ambition one keeps before the self the vision of the ideal. J Unitary effort .—Many confess that to them prayer consists in a summoning of scattering moral forces into a synthesis of personal powers for greater efficiency. When there is a more effective forma¬ tion of the moral attributes a realization of the ideals occurs with a consequent growth of still higher ideals. The coalition of higher activities and qualities of mind and character presents a solid front to the elements which attack the moral integ- OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 207 rity of the self. One who is predisposed to mel¬ ancholy may heroically and prayerfully cultivate the cheerful outlook, the contagious smile, and the creative act; or one who is quick-tempered and hypersensitive may practice long-suffering and meek- ness. A successful high-school teacher says that to her prayer is an urgent appeal to her own power of self-control when there is occasion for impatience and annoyance. The aroused will joins together in a unitary impression ideal and conduct. Illustrations .—Biographical literature is replete with an extensive variety of aspirational prayers. Socrates at the conclusion of his dialogue with Phaedrus under the palm tree prays, “Beloved Pan and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and the inward man be at one. ,,1 Interesting aspirational prayers have been dis¬ covered among the Assyrian and Babylonian in¬ scriptions. Neriglissar, king of Babylon from 559 to 556 B. C., left behind an oft-repeated and un¬ granted prayer for a long reign: “O Marduk, great lord, lord of the gods, glorious light of the gods, I pray thee; may I, according to thy exalted, un¬ changeable command, enjoy the glory of the house which I have built, may I attain unto old age in it.” 1 2 Nabonidus, a later king of Babylon, was a man of unusuaj piety. His energies were absorbed by the building and restoration of temples, by supervising the work of scholars engaged in re¬ searches concerning the remote past, and by prayers and devotion to the gods. In the following prayer 1 Phcedrus, Jowett’s translation, p. 279. Clarendon Press. * Cambridge Cylinder, col. 11, lines 31-34. 208 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER of his, special blessings are invoked upon his son: “From sin against thy exalted godhead guard me, and grant me, as a gift, life for many days, and in the heart of Belshazzar, my first-born son, the offspring of my body, establish reverence for thy great godhead. May he not incline to sin, but enjoy the fullness of life.” 3 Beautiful for sentiment and expression are the prayers of the Rev. J. H. Jowett, as published in a little volume entitled Yet Another Day. It will suffice to quote two or three. “Father, enlarge my sympathies; give me a roomier heart. May my life be like a great hos¬ pitable tree, and may many weary wanderers find in me a rest!” “My Father, I would have the mind of Christ. Take away all my petty and self-centered thoughts, and give me the large and sympathetic thoughts of Christ. Give me a roomy heart in which my brethren may find hospitality.” “Holy Spirit, quicken the secret springs of my life. May I abound in spiritual willingness! May I rise daily into newness of life! Take all reluctance out of my discipleship. May thy law be my de¬ light!” The prayer of consecration. —The sensitive per¬ sonality cannot rest until it has abandoned itself to what it conceives to be its life purpose. Many a conflict between the self and its richer outlook, its paramount duty, its acknowledged mission, is resolved in prayer. A natural desire to cling to the past, a tendency to drift with the current, 3 Cited in Rogers, R. W.: History of Babylonia and Assyria, vol. ii, p. 362. The Methodist Book Concern. OTHER' DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 209 ethical and religious inertia, all yield to the prayer of consecration, fusing the elements of the person¬ ality in a higher combination. It closes, as it were, the old channels of discharge by opening new ones. A vision of what one should be or do arouses internal dissatisfaction; often a struggle follows in which idealism triumphs. In the making of a deci¬ sion for the right, poise is recovered. The psychosynthetic process in the baptism of Jesus .— The life of Christ discloses instances of this type of devotion. We may be sure that as a youth he reacted against the current conceptions of religion, against a dead orthodoxy and hollow formalism. He became conscious that religion is spiritual and moral, and not the perfunctory performance of ceremony and obedience to a code of laws devoid of moral content. There came to him as he medi¬ tated in the night watches the overpowering con¬ viction that it was his real mission to become a public teacher, servant, and Saviour of men. He doubtless heard of the message of John and felt himself in accord with the substance of it. We can understand why he approached the great evangelist and requested to be baptized by him in token of his own submission to the principles of righteousness so fearlessly proclaimed. We read that a sacred and dramatic experience was his when he was being baptized, that the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form as a dove, and that a voice pro¬ claimed him the beloved Son, in whom the Father was well pleased. Luke, who has flashes of pene¬ tration into some of the most intense experiences of Christ, records the significant fact that these unique 210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER manifestations came to him while he was praying. 4 In baptism Christ unquestionably committed him¬ self definitely and unreservedly to the glorious task of preaching and teaching the cardinal principles of the kingdom of God. In the act of prayer he con¬ solidated his convictions. The attitude was accom¬ panied by a vivid sense of the divine sanction and a release of religious energy for his mission. In the act of consecration the consciousness of Sonship was crystallized. The subordination of the physical to the spiritual by Jesus .—The consecration in the Jordan was not his last and only self-dedication. The record of his experiences the first Sabbath spent in Capernaum after his dedication to the public ministry is evidence to the contrary. In the morning, in the synagogue he healed a demoniac, probably a moral degenerate. The healing marked a crisis in the life of Christ, for it was doubtless the first case of disease cured by him. Through this his powers as a healer of men’s physical defects were revealed. In the afternoon of the same day he touched the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law, and the fever left her and she arose and served her Benefactor and his friends. Not many hours elapsed before the news had spread throughout the city that a wonder-worker was within its gates, and at sundown a vast company of the sick ap¬ pealed to him. Although he was exhausted by the labors of the day, no sleep visited him that night. A long time before daybreak he threaded his way through the crooked streets and “departed into a desert place and there prayed.” 4 Luke 3: 21. OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 211 He was experiencing the embarrassment of a success that threatened his real mission. The occurrences of the day made it clear to him that his work as a healer might overshadow his mission as a teacher. It was a matter of relativity, of deciding which to subordinate, that led him into the solitary place to meditate and pray. Should he figure as a physician to the body rather than as a physician to the soul? That he consecrated him¬ self anew to his kingdom mission and decided to make the healing of the body subsidiary is clearly demonstrated by the fact that he left the city at once, and returned only after his fame as a healer had had time to abate. He said to his disciples, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also; for therefore came I forth.” 5 Jesus and self-consistency through prayer .—Yet another crisis came into the life of Christ which was successfully met in the prayer of consecration. The time came when the opposition against him sought his life. While in Galilee he was convinced that his life was in danger if he remained there or journeyed to Jerusalem. The Herodians of Galilee, as politi¬ cal plotters, considered his influence over the masses inimical to their own dark purposes. To remain longer in that territory was to court death at the hands of unscrupulous politicians. The gravity of the situation was augmented by the fact that Jeru¬ salem offered no safe refuge. To leave Galilee and go to Jerusalem was to escape the animosity of the Herodians only to fall into the eager clutches of the Pharisees and priests. One other course lay open— 8 Mark i: 38. 212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER to leave Palestine altogether, to teach and spend the rest of his life in a foreign land. Christ left Galilee, retiring to the region of Tyre and Sidon, not because he feared the hate-filled religious leaders or the agents of Herod but for the purpose of coming to a decision as to the course he should pursue. In a condition of disturbed mental equilibrium he wandered to and fro. Finally, he ascended a hill in the company of three intimate disciples. Luke, with characteristic psychological insight, furnishes a hint which precipitates a rea¬ sonable interpretation of the ensuing occurrence, called the Transfiguration. He says, “And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.” 6 Doubtless in the act of prayer Christ caught up into their accustomed higher unity the elements of his personality. He consecrated himself anew to the only course consistent with his life purpose. Only by yielding to his sense of religious obligation and privilege could a fracture of the self be avoided. The decision made, all tension was released and his face glowed with inner light and peace. He came out of the experience to proceed by deliberate, yet unwavering, stages to Jerusalem, and there, during the Passover, he made his last appeal and laid down his life for his cause. The prayer of submission. —It is no small matter to become reconciled to the inevitable. Tribulations and disasters will come, and we cannot escape some attitude toward them. By nature we shrink from the abyss that threatens to engulf us; we do our ut¬ most to avoid impending doom. The cosmic processes B Luke 9: 29. OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 213 of pain and death are relentless and impartial. Nov/, religion, in its best form, teaches a wise submission to the unavoidable, a firm trust in the ultimate triumph of justice, and an unwavering faith in the persistence of the moral element of the world. It sees in the calamities and misfortunes of men an overruling Providence, with a disciplinary and edu¬ cational and, in some cases, a redemptive purpose in view. It traces the rainbow in the rain. The prayers of resignation as limitless .—The great prayer of Christ, wrung from his lips when he faced arrest and ignominious and immediate death, “Thy will be done,” has taught thousands to be reconciled to fate or the painful consequence of iron duty. It has probably done more to bring submission to the distressed than any other utterance from Christ. When the petitional prayer, in the nature of things, cannot be answered, the prayer of sub¬ mission may still be made with telling effect. Petitional prayer is limited, the prayer of sub¬ mission is limitless. There is no disaster over which it cannot triumph. Submission calms an excited mind, effects reconciliation to, and even cheerful acceptance of, the catastrophe, and pre¬ serves the integrity of the personality. It keeps life free from the paralysis of pessimism. The dis¬ position wrought by submission averts the peril and blight of a disrupted, despairing and fractured mind. A young clergyman recently remarked that if his child were sick unto death, he would still pray, not to save the infant’s life, but to find comfort and resignation in the hour of trial. The submissive soul assimilates, to the conservation of its faith and peace, a naturally grim event. The calamity 214 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER is incorporated into life’s program, spiritualized and interpreted as a form of discipline. The martyr spirit .—The spirit of resignation is often glorified in martyrdom. A study in the psychology of the martyr-mind would doubtless bring to light a disposition that glories in making a sacrifice for the sake of principle. While the suffering of martyrs who have been tortured to death in times past excite our commiseration, we may rest assured that many a genuine martyr' would have been secretly and deeply disappointed if he had not been condemned to seal his convic¬ tions with his life. Far more than life itself, accord¬ ing to the martyr-constitution, is the privilege of suffering for one’s ideals. Christian submission is not the bending of the back of a slave to the lash of a taskmaster, but the breaking of the chains of misfortune. It is not a ladder lying upon the ground, but a ladder set up by which to climb. Beaten with rods, stoned, destitute, hungry, cold, betrayed by his own coun¬ trymen, and forsaken by his friends, Paul regards his manifold trials and tribulations endured for the sake of the gospel as signal honors and marks of distinction. Submission to misfortune was not mere pious resignation, it was the glorification of tribulation and the construction of a victorious self. The spirit of submission was active rather than passive. Dramatic responses .—Occasionally the prayer of submission, like other types of devotional prayer, is accompanied by voices and visions which bring comfort and consolation. It has been repeatedly stated in these pages that mental structure and OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 215 character determine the forms of religious expe¬ rience. Where favorable temperamental conditions obtain, this type of prayer relation may induce the outward projection of the ideas associated with submission. A friend relates that his young child was so ill that he was pronounced incurable by the attending physicians. In deep distress, the father prayed for grace to yield to the inevitable. One can imagine the depression and anguish of the parent. One morning while shoveling coal into the furnace in the basement of the house, he heard a voice saying, “Fear not,” which comforted him immeasurably. The attitude of resignation had become audible. The prayer of communion. —Many souls cannot rest until they have .unified life through man’s highest and most sacred privilege—communion with God. They are torn asunder whenever con¬ vinced that something has disturbed their fellow¬ ship with the Most High. Psychology is not called upon to answer the question as to the ultimate nature of the experience known as the presence of God. This task belongs to philosophy. Never¬ theless, psychology may describe the experience as a process . 7 The social nature of man and fellowship with God .— The deeply rooted social nature of man may account for the burning desire which we have to hold communion with God. The impulse is 7 For a well-poised discussion of mysticism in both its milder and more extreme forms see Pratt, J. B.: The Religious Consciousness, Chapters XVI-XX. The Macmillan Company. For an illuminating historical survey of mysticism see Jones, Rufus M.: Studies in Mystical Religion. The Macmillan Company. For a popular treatise of present-day types of mystical experiences see Buck- ham, J. W.: Mysticism and Modern Life. The Abingdon Press. 2l6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER akin to man’s instinct to fellowship with man. If man may have fellowship with man, why not with God as friend with friend? Christianity preaches that God is a Father vitally interested in the welfare of each individual, and that all men are brothers. The logical inference is that a son may commune with his father as well as with his brothers. The Christian religion, furthermore, teaches that when all others forsake us, God remains our constant Friend; that when we stand friendless here below, we have a Friend eternal in the heavens. This form of religion is social, and as such leans toward conscious relationship with God. Ethical communion with God .—Among many men of the predominantly active and intellectual type contact with God is believed to be made when the best of which they are capable is expressed in moral living. They affirm that they touch the Highest when thought and purpose are in harmony with the moral and social requirements of the religious spirit of the times. They regard moral sensitivity and the consciousness of duty as the presence and will of God. They tell us that God is not to be comprehended in a complex of emotions but to be apprehended in moral action. While the mystical temperament regards the justice and mercy required by the Lord as the normal outcome of union and communion with God, others insist that the practice of these funda¬ mental virtues constitutes the humble walk with Jehovah. They maintain that it is not emotional rapture or prophetic ecstasy but moral uprightness that effects union with God. The closeness of our walk with him varies directly with our moral atti- OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 217 tudes. Father and son may live under the same roof, eat at the same table and work side by side, and incompatibility may keep them leagues apart. He who holds ethical communion with God calls attention to the fact that, according to the Beati¬ tudes, it is necessary to be pure in heart before we can see God and to be peacemakers before we can be called the children of God. Not in dazzling vision or rare moment of exaltation but in the application of his principles to ourselves and social conditions do we see Christ. In the words of the recently discovered saying of Jesus, “Raise the stone, and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I.” Metaphysical communion with God .—But the warmer type craves a mystical fellowship with God, not only as a source of moral inspiration, but for the sake of communion itself. The man of mystical v disposition achieves the consciousness of God within him through the prayer of communion, through meditation and a responsive attitude to divine promptings. When he is still, he knows that God is a reality. Consciousness is unified by the y/' central controlling idea of God, the prevailing emotional tone being that of adoration, wonder, admiration, awe, reverence. Statements like the following, selected from the replies to questions concerning communion with God, reveal the in¬ timacy and warmth of the experience: “I have attained a distinct feeling of the presence of God verging on the mystical sense.’’ “Sometimes he has seemed inexpressively near—all-enveloping, etc.” “Yes, some brooding spirit out of which my soul has sprung, and in the heart of which it must be held 2l8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER if my soul is satisfied.” Brother Lawrence writes: “I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of God. For my part, I keep myself retired with him in the fund or center of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with him I fear nothing, but the least turning from him is insupportable. . . . Let us live and die with God. Suffering will be sweet and pleasant to us while we are with him; and the greatest pleasures will be, without him, a cruel punishment to us .” 8 Attention in prayers of fellowship .—The prayer of communion exhibits not only the process of psy¬ chosynthesis, but also the trait of attention so prominent in petitional prayer. The following accounts given by trustworthy persons are charac¬ teristic: “I make the effort to feel the presence of God.” “If I allow the cares of life to enter in and distract my thoughts, then this is not so.” “The presence of God is felt in varying degrees according to the concentration of attention.” The function of communion .—In a passage of rare beauty Dionysius, the Areopagite, shows how “pure prayer” unites the soul with God. Prayer draws the soul toward the divine union, “as if a luminous chain were suspended from the celestial heights, and we, by ever clutching this, first with one hand and then with the other, seem to draw it down, but in reality we are ourselves carried up¬ ward to the high splendors of the luminous rays. Or as if, after we have embarked on a ship and are holding on to the cable reaching to some rock, 8 Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of Cod, pp. 32-34. American Baptist Publishing Society. OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 219 we do not draw the rock to us, but draw, in fact, ourselves and the ship to the rock .” 9 It is not one function of the prayer of communion to change the mind of God, but to bring the pur¬ poses of man into harmony with the will of God. Communion does not pull God down to our level of insight and action but lifts us up to God’s level. Prayer is not a pious attempt to persuade God to do what is contrary to his wisdom and goodness. The account of Jacob struggling with Jehovah for a blessing should not be misconstrued as an effort to overpower God and to wrest from him by sheer force a reluctant favor. Jacob contended with his lower inclinations and in an intensely dramatic prayer experience achieved the victory over himself. Prayer did not bring Jehovah down to the moral level of Jacob, but it did lift Jacob up to a higher plane . 10 Saint Augustine writes: “I have gone astray like a Sheep that was lost, seeking thee with great anxiety without, when yet thou art within, and dwellest in my Soul, if it desire thy presence. I wandered about the Villages and Streets of the City of this world, inquiring for thee everywhere and found thee not; because I expected to meet that abroad, which all the while I had at home. . . . For thou hast not the form of a Body, nor the whiteness of Light, nor the sparkling of Precious Stones, nor the Harmony of Music, nor the fra- grancy of Flowers, or Ointments, or Spices, nor the delicious taste of Honey, nor the charms of those things that are pleasant to the Touch, nor any • Divine Names, III, i. Also cited in Jones, Rufus M.: Studies in Mystical Religion, p. no. The Macmillan Company. 10 Genesis 32: 22-32. 220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER other qualities by which our Senses are entertained. . . . Thanks to that light, which discovered itself to Me, and Me to myself. For in finding and in know¬ ing myself, I find and know Thee .” 11 Grant the existence of God, and it is prayer, and especially the prayer of communion, that makes him real and intensifies the consciousness of him. But many men to-day are too perplexed to pray to God with sufficient initial confidence. They are confused and wistful rather than doubt¬ ful and skeptical about the reality of approaching God. They would like to pray with the assurance of reaching the mind of God, but they have become distracted and disturbed by modern science. Be¬ fore such persons can call upon God with the belief that they will be heard they must adopt a spiritual interpretation of the natural world, and appreciate the intelligence of God and the worth of man. They must see the whole world of nature in God. With the grasping of the fact that the world we inhabit is law-abiding, man has been compelled to abandon his crude notion of prayer as a process which takes no account of the stability and uni¬ formity of natural events. But no man can pray into a machine in which he feels himself but a cog in a wheel within wheels and expect it to respond to a personal appeal. Until one thoroughly appre¬ ciates that the laws of nature are the laws of God, that the natural world is but the outward expres¬ sion of the creative energy of God, that without the constant and consistent activity of God the world could not exist for a single moment, he can¬ not pray to God with a sense of reality and a con- 11 Mediations of St. Augustine, made English by Stanhope, George, pp. 224-227. OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 221 viction that he will be heard. The mind should, as it were, hold a saturated solution of the doctrine of the immanence of God. The dignity of man and prayer .—In view of the enormity and complexity of the universe, one may feel too insignificant to come within the range of the personal attention of God. One may feel lost in the vastness of the worlds, and find it hard to believe that one’s cry will pierce the heart of the Eternal. Feeling like a mote in the summer air one may cry in the words of the psalmist: “What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?” Only when man grasps something of the value of himself as pointed out in the answer of the same psalmist, “For thou hast made him a little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honor ,” 12 can he come unto Him who responds to prayer. When we realize that we are immortal and morally respon¬ sible beings, created in the image and likeness of God, we take courage. The intelligence of God and fellowship .—To a richer conception of man must be added a deeper valuation of God. One may freely concede that man is an exalted being and still ask how it is possi¬ ble for God to individualize humanity, to pay attention to each one of the many millions of men. How can God number the hairs of the heads of so many, how can he note the fall of so many spar¬ rows? A conception of God’s individual care is essential to earnest prayer. Communion with God is out of the question so long as one is perplexed by the conception that God’s knowledge of a u Psalm 8: 5. 222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER system of worlds is diffuse and his interest in it general. Now, the more we know about anything the more detailed our information. Knowledge breaks up masses into their constituent elements. It sepa¬ rates a combination into its several parts. Ignorance sees a thing as a vague whole, but knowledge reduces a whole to its units and understands each one of them. The more a shepherd knows about his flock, the less he sees it as a whole and the more he knows about each sheep. The more intelligent the carpenter, the more he knows about the par¬ ticulars of the house he constructs. If the world is the product of a continuous creative activity of God, we may be sure that he understands it to the last and minutest detail. If God conducts a com¬ plex system of worlds, it follows that his intelligence is equal to his responsibilities. His knowledge and care must be intensive as well as extensive, indi¬ vidual as well as comprehensive. “Consider, then, the meaning of God’s knowledge of men. When a stranger thinks of China, he imagines a vague multitude, with faces that look all alike. When a missionary thinks of China, the vague multitude is shaken loose in one spot, and individuals there stand out, separately known and loved. When God thinks of China, he knows every one of the Chinese by name. He does for humanity what a librarian does for his books, or an engineer for his turbines. We stand, everyone, separate in his thought. He lifts us up from the obscurity of our littleness; he picks us out from the multitude of our fellows; he gives to our lives the dignity of his individual care. The Eternal God calls us OTHER DEVOTIONAL PRAYERS 223 everyone by name. He is not the God of man¬ kind in the mass; he is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob !” 13 * SUMMARY The devotional prayers, exhibiting as they do the technic and mechanism of psychosynthesis, assimilate an ideal or a crisis and recombine the elements of life. A higher fusion is created in terms of the fresh spiritual insight. The prayer of aspiration is a moral dynamic, the prayer of con¬ secration socializes the personality, the prayer of submission incorporates the inevitable pain and sorrow in life’s program, the prayer of communion links the soul in living relation to Reality. Devo¬ tional attitudes clarify the ideals, deepen the moral convictions, give life direction and purpose, pre¬ serve the peace and poise of the mind, and satisfy the craving of the soul for fellowship with the Highest. Situations that were once external pres¬ sures become internal possessions. Ideals which were peripheral become inward and central. The greatest achievement of prayer is God-conscious¬ ness. It rests the soul and gives the whole world a divine significance. The consciousness of God as an inner presence and influence is the soul of prayer. is Fosdick, H. E.: The Meaning >f Prayer, pp. so, 51. Association Press. CHAPTER XI PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE Professor James in a passage which cannot be quoted too often remarks that although many reasons are given why we should or should not pray but little is said of the reason why we do actually pray. Concerning the neglected item he writes, “The reason why we do pray is simply that we cannot help praying.” This is one way of saying that prayer is instinctive. The act of prayer is an elemental function of human nature; it is as natural as breathing, as normal as love. Religion and prayer are inseparable. In prayer the lines of religion converge. Prayer is at once the outgrowth and the soul of religion. Prayer is religion functioning. The religious nature of man is sustained by prayer and kept alive by wor¬ ship. When prayer ceases religion dies. The his¬ tory of the one is the history of the other. To understand the one is to understand the other. If the one is instinctive, the other is instinctive also. RELIGION AND PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE — - Religion is man’s response to the supernatural. In lower forms of religion, the response is crude and often morally undeveloped; in the higher types it is essentially ethical and social. The Christian religion is the guidance of life as a whole by the consciousness of God as he is revealed by Christ. 224 PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE 225 The basis of all forms of religion, however much they may vary one from the other, is instinctive. Comprehensively defined, an instinct is an inherited and unpremeditated tendency to act. It is an inborn readiness to act without being taught, an innate preparedness to meet particular situations for the first time. The purpose of the instinctive response is unforeseen by animals, but in the case of all normal human beings, with the exception of infants, ideas and reason throw light upon it. The ends which love, for instance, subserves are not wholly unknown to intelligent lovers. Now, reli¬ gion and the human instincts bear the same essential traits. There is a universal inborn readiness to respond religiously to our total environment. Impulses are common to the species. All normal human beings possess the capacity for fear, fighting, anger, sex, sociability, shyness, sympathy, affec¬ tion, altruism, modesty, secretiveness, rivalry, jeal¬ ousy, envy, play, curiosity, destruction, construction, acquisitiveness, love of approbation, appreciation of the beautiful. That religion is universal should be stated but need not be enlarged upon in this con¬ nection. The individual or tribe without the im¬ pulse and capacity to worship is as abnormal as the one devoid of the instinct of fear or curiosity. Prayer is practically universal. A few systems of religion, like Shinto and Buddhism, originally tried to dispense with prayer, but failed fully to repress the unconquerable disposition. According to the strict letter of the tenets of Shinto, the prayers of the Mikado of Japan suffice for all its devotees, but thousands visit the shrines of this cult, deposit a gift of money and offer prayers. Buddhism also 226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER has made concessions to prayer. Buddhism, in its original purity, seeks to rid the self of all desire, which logically precludes prayers that are rooted in a sense of need. But Buddha has been deified and is being worshiped by millions. Where Bud¬ dhism has been extensively embraced, the prayer- wheel and the rosary flourish. Confucius, the Chinese moralist, advised his disciples to have but little to do with the gods, but to-day he himself is worshiped as a god by millions. On the contrary, Christianity has always consistently preached that the prayer life is fundamental, that it should be assiduously cultivated, that its atrophy is a calam¬ ity. The fact that prayer is so prevalent, even among the adherents of faiths logically opposed to it, is one indication of its instinctive nature. The variableness of the form of instinct and of religion. —The innate impulses are indefinite and modifiable. They are active attitudes and primitive capacities which derive their form and final character from environment and experience. The instinct to play is inborn, but just what particular games the child shall play is largely determined by the sur¬ roundings into which the child is thrust. Imitation of adult activities, as a rule, gives the play impulse its mode of expression. In the make-believe world of the child of to-day a chair becomes an airplane, in the play of a former generation the chair may have been a spinning-wheel. The religious impulse is likewise modifiable and indefinite. It impels us to worship a higher power and to regulate life by what we conceive to be the will of God, but just what in particular our con¬ ception of God shall be and what obligations we PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE 227 shall feel toward him is largely conditioned by experience. We are not ushered into the world with a complete and definite set of beliefs and practices, but with a capacity and tendency to acquire them as we live. Religious attitudes and possibilities are inborn traits and instinctive but their form and content is largely determined by instruction and training. The most accurate reason most of us can give for belonging to this or that religious denomination is that we were brought up in it. The prayer attitude which is inbred is wide and general, and in the course of experience receives its specific and particular point and direction. The primacy of instinct and religion. —Further¬ more, instinct is more fundamental and controlling than reason. Ideas are personally acquired, instincts are a racial inheritance. When the two clash, instinct is in the end victorious. The religious impulse is more elemental and influential than antagonistic opinion. The one is innate, the other acquired. The skepticism which for a season ridi¬ cules prayer and casts it aside goes down before the rush and surge of the religious impulse loosed by overwhelming needs or crushing burdens. No matter how cogently a person may have reasoned himself out of conscious dependence upon a personal and creative God, peril, grief, responsibility, anything that shakes the soul to its foundations, consumes his disbelief and induces him to pray. Prayer as a primal tendency is underground and latent in even the most skeptical. Unless human nature changes in unpredictable ways, men, being instinc¬ tively impelled, will always pray. Prayer elemental. —Religion as instinctive, far 228 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER from being a disconnected and detachable interest, is an elemental constituent of human nature. It is not the product of mere reason, an after-thought, an intellectual amendment to life, but a normal and constitutional factor of the self. Without the religious impulse man would be as fractional and fractured as a self without fear, as maimed and truncated as a body without a head. It is as essen¬ tial to the wholesomeness and fullness of life as memory or sociability. Its purpose is to adjust life to the plan and will of God. Through prayer the religious nature of man coordinates and cor¬ relates, regulates and dominates his social and moral relations. The prayer tendency is not something superimposed, or thrust upon us from without, but an inner racial urge, a primal drive. A life absolutely devoid of the prayer impulse would be as abnormal as a self without affection. The impulse to worship is not an acquired taste, but an inheritance, an inward compulsion. Is there a special religious instinct? —Among those who contend that religion is instinctive there is divergence of opinion as to whether there is a distinct and distinguishable religious instinct. Some, opposed to the theory that there is a special religious instinct, believe that the religious response con¬ sists in the organization and direction of the various instinctive capacities for social living. The religious impulse is involved in all primitive urges, and when all instincts are functioning normally, harmoniously and especially socially the person is truly religious. 1 Others maintain that there is a religious impulse 1 For further discussion of this theory see Coe, G. A.: The Psychology of Re¬ ligion, Chapters IV and XIX. The University of Chicago Press. 'V Ns PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE 229 as definite and describable as anger or curiosity. Religion is a regulative impulse. Its purpose is to make harmony among the propulsions within the self, and between the individual and the world of nature and persons. The religious instinct regu¬ lates life, just as nesting among birds ministers to brooding and hatching, or modesty furthers the love relation. If a part of the cerebellum of the brain be removed, a lack of coordination in move¬ ment results, and one staggers like a drunken man. What the cerebellum is to the bodily organism religion is to the moral and social life. The religious impulse, properly cultivated, adjusts and controls all the instinctive capacities, refining some, com¬ pounding and fusing others, arresting the growth of still others, and sometimes substituting the one for the other. As such its characteristics are as marked as those of any other impulse. 2 SCIENCE AND PRAYER Manifestly, science can be no substitute for such a constitutional and instinctive activity as prayer. For things elemental there are no alternatives. Science and religion differ so radically in nature, method, and function that neither can take the place of the other. Difference in purpose. —Their spheres of responsi^ bility are far from identical and interchangeable. It is the function of science to examine, to describe, and to classify the facts of the natural world. It attempts to reduce the events of nature to the constant and consistent modes of behavior we call laws. Applied science bends the laws of nature 2 This vidw is most convincingly set forth by Starbuck. 230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER to the practical purposes of man; hence we have, for example, the psychology of education, of public speaking, of salesmanship, of advertising. Religion, on the other hand, concerns itself with the origin of the world which science investigates, with its meaning, its destiny. It occupies itself with God as the supreme energizing Being, with the moral self-determination of man, with life after death, with what man should strive for and pursue as the highest good. Difference in approach. —The uniqueness of each is further revealed by their difference in method. The method of science is induction, the observation of a sufficient number of particular instances and the extension of the truth common to them, to all cases of the same class. The method of religion is deduction. It relies upon faith, intuition, life. It tests its propositions by the heart and by their social influence. Religious truth cannot be dis¬ covered in a laboratory exercise. It cannot be proved by the rules of formal logic. It is quite as impossible to prove the existence of God to one who disbelieves in him as it is to disprove his existence to one who believes in him. The recent emphasis upon intuition, faith, and moral action as sources of truth is a wholesome corrective for an almost exclusive dependence upon the method of science for the discovery of values. Nevertheless, the proposal has been made that we let applied science displace religion. Why not disengage the discernible psychological mechan¬ ism in prayer from religion and use it to further the moral life? Why not make use of suggestion alone and as such? When a memory has turned PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE 231 inward and is lacerating the soul, why not find relief in psychoanalysis apart from prayer? Why not keep life unified and whole through a process of mere psychosynthesis? An inadequate under¬ standing of the meaning and value of both religion and science is the father of such notions. Religion as creative. —All progress in moral and social relations is contingent upon an inner craving for the richer, fuller, freer life. Without ante¬ cedent desires and aspiration there is no moral advancement. There must be an ideal and a sense of obligation. But whence comes the consciousness of incompleteness and the yearning for more life? The mental structures such as suggestion, psycho¬ analysis, and psychosynthesis which we have dis¬ covered in prayer are not of themselves creative; they do not build ideals and arouse a sense of duty. Before these processes are constructed and em¬ ployed by the prayer impulse there is a hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Religion supplies the incentive for moral improve¬ ment. The religious nature of man instinctively creates a standard of conduct interpreted as the will of God. Whatever is accepted as a divine obligation is binding upon both the conscience and the will of man. To keep life unified and whole man resorts to the appeal of God. Prayer which is a religious impulse, becomes active, grips and divides the self in order that it may recombine the purged and transformed elements. It is at once conscience-stirring and soul-satisfying. Religion, especially Christianity, is at once a moral revela¬ tion and a moral dynamic. Religiously motivated, man achieves spiritual ends by creating mental 232 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER means which themselves are morally and religiously neutral. The emotional value of the religious impulse is significant. Emotion is the conscious accompani¬ ment of instinct, being either pleasant or unpleasant in quality. So rich in emotion are some instincts, like fear and love, that they are called emotions rather than instincts by those who are not con¬ versant with the psychological classification. Man is swayed by primal emotions as by almost irre¬ sistible forces. Emotions are impulsive; they tend toward action. The religious nature of man pos¬ sesses a high potentiality of emotion which, except in unbalanced persons, discharges itself in worship and moral action. Out of the heart there surge forth moral and religious longings and desires which the prayer attitude and act strive to gratify. Emo¬ tions having religious value profoundly affect the will. Conduct has an emotional incentive which mere science as ail intellectual pursuit cannot supply. Religion as conservation. —Religion not only holds before us the vision of the ideal and urges us to be guided by it, but it also conserves and fortifies our responses to it. It does not rescue a man from the sea only to throw him back into the hungry waves. It is essentially social. In its organized and institu¬ tionalized forms, religion exerts a definite and con¬ tinuous social pressure. The church as a form of organized religion is an unfailing source of strength to all who are pledged to the spiritual life it seeks to foster. It creates an environment of religious literature, music, art, worship, service. It brings kindred souls together for teaching, inspiration, and worship. Science has nothing to offer which can PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE' 233 take the place of the church despite its admitted imperfections. Material things do not satisfy man; they never have and never will. Their insufficiency is abundantly demonstrated. True satisfaction is religious. The church is the only great organiza¬ tion which has the opportunity and the facilities to construct the motives of love, sympathy, and cooperation, in which satisfaction is rooted. THE PRAYER INSTINCT AND THE NEW WORLD The conviction is sweeping through the peoples of the earth that the present competitive world order is doomed. They are looking for a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The world has broken down under the pressure of the present collective life of man, and has fallen under the condemnation of the teeming and groaning mil¬ lions. Everywhere there is a lively consciousness of the futility of the system upon which the world is now rocking. Things once reckoned the very foundations of civilization have collapsed. Misplaced faith. —Commerce has not kept the peace of the world. Our reliance upon barter and trade, the bank and the market, to weld the na¬ tions together, has proved to be a delusion. Inter¬ national commercial relations, far from promoting world-peace or tranquillity as was fondly imagined, have become the prolific breeding ground of war. The struggle for foreign markets and the sources of raw materials has divided and embittered men and nations. Business on a large as well as on a small scale, as hitherto conducted, has made men rivals and not brothers. Neither can industrial and economic adventures, 234 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER apart from spiritual influences, redeem their pledges. Granted that the social and industrial sores of the nation should be healed, an economic program, however promising, divorced from morals and religion, cannot be applied and realized. The most commendable scheme is of no avail when the leader¬ ship to which it is committed is unscrupulous and the people themselves are without ethical motives. Nor has science held the world together. When the scientific brain of a nation is obsessed by an unholy ambition the whole earth is imperiled. To be sure, applied science, despite the peculiar indus¬ trial conditions it has produced, has made the world more comfortable, at least in peace times. It has not made us any better. All practical scientific accomplishments are but blind and impersonal instruments which may be used as effectively for evil as for good. The submarine is a scientific attainment, but when it is in the hands of men animated by bad philosophy, the lives of the inno¬ cent and defenseless are menaced. The wireless is a startling gift of science, but it transmits the message of deceit and hate as swiftly and accurately as the word of hope and love. Inventions are tools, and in themselves possess no redemptive power. Prayer as a builder of a new world order. —Only when the men who are behind the commercial, economic, and scientific interests and movements are impelled by justice and mercy can there be social progress. The equality of men at the polls, in the courts of law, the councils of the state, and the places of industry can be made actual and effective only by a democratic religion like Chris- PRAYER AS INSTINCTIVE 235 tianity. More religion is needed everywhere; in the mines, in the fields, the forests, the schools, the factories, the halls of legislation. Religion is the only force the world has ever known that can draw all the fine capacities of men into the service of a better social order. In the spiritual culture of humanity prayer will ever be paramount. As both self-assertion and self¬ surrender, prayer can build the men who can build a new world. Not as a substitute for science or economics or government, but as a purifier of the springs of conduct and as a normal source of poise and power, prayer can hasten the coming of the kingdom of God which is the desire of all nations. V APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE ON PRAYER The following questions mean to throw light on the subject of prayer, its nature and scope. This is not an attempt to establish any doctrine, but to find the principles which underlie prayer. 1. Are you conscious of the presence of God when you pray? 2. In your prayers do you make constant use of the promises of the Bible? 3. Do you really believe that God will answer your prayers? 4. Has your prayer life been hindered by any of the following things: haste, irregularity, want of faith, lack of definiteness, etc.? 5. Are your prayers sometimes answered in unex¬ pected ways? Give instances. 6. (0) What things do you make objects of prayer? ( b ) What things, if any, do you regard as im¬ proper objects of prayer? 7. State what success you have had through prayer in the following cases: cure of disease, change of heart, temporal blessing, purity of life, elimina¬ tion of evil, etc. 8. How do you account for unanswered prayers, if there be such? 9. Which do you find the more effective: public prayer by either the minister or the congregation, or private prayer? 237 238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 10. Give an account of any extraordinary answers to prayer you may have had. 11. Were you accustomed to pray as a child? 12. Were there any family prayers in your home? 13. Please give (a) Name, ( b ) Age, ( c ) Sex, ( d ) Church affiliation, if any. A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY /" Ames, E. S.: The Psychology of Religious Expe¬ rience, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1910. ^Beck, F. O.: Prayer: A Study in its History and Psychology , American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, ii, 1906. Biederwolf, W. G.: How Can God Answer Prayer? Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1906. Bowne, B. P.: The Essence of Religion , Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1910. Brill, A. A.: Psychoanalysis , W. B. Saunders, Phila¬ delphia, 1922. Buckham, J. W.: Mysticism and Modern Life , The Abingdon Press, 1915. Coe, G. A.: The Spiritual Life , The Methodist Book Concern, New York, 1900. The Religion of a Mature Mind , The Methodist Book Concern, New York, 1902. / The Psychology of Religion , University of Chi¬ cago Press, Chicago, 1917. /^Cutten, G. B.: The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity , Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1908. Davenport, F. M.: Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1905. Dominican Father: The Rosary , Benziger Bros., Chicago, 1900. Fosdick, H. E.: The Meaning of Prayer , Associa¬ tion Press, New York, 1916. 239 240 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Freud, Sigmund: A General Introduction to Psy¬ choanalysis, Boni & Liveright, New York, 1920. The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, American Journal of Psychology, xxi, 1910. Gordon, S. D.: Quiet Talks on Prayer, Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1904. Herman, E.: Creative Prayer, The Pilgrim Press, 1921. , Hocking, W. E.: The Meaning of God in Human Experience, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1912. Hoff ding, H.: The Philosophy of Religion, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1906. Holmes, E. E.: Prayer and Action , Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1911. Holt, E. B.: The Freudian Wish, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1915. James, Wm.: The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1902. Jastrow, Joseph: Fact and Fable in Psychology, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1900. The Subconscious, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1900. Jones, R. M.: Studies in Mystical Religion , The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909. Spiritual Energies in Daily Life, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1922. Jowett, J. H.: Yet Another Day, Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1906. Jung, C. G. : The Psychology of the Unconscious , Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1916. King, Irving: The Development of Religion , The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 241 Lawrence, Brother: The Practice of the Presence of God , American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1908. /-"Leuba, J. H.: A Psychological Study of Religion , The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912. Maclaren, Alexander: Pulpit Prayers , W. J. Doran, Philadelphia, 1911. Mott, J. R.: The Secret Prayer Life , Y. M. C. A., New York. ps Murray, A.: With Christ in the School of Prayer , Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1885. Nyce, A. W. and Bunyea, H.: Grace Before Meals , John C. Winston, Philadelphia, 1911. Paterson, W. P.: The Power of Prayer, The Mac¬ millan Company, New York, 1920. Phelps, A.: Still Hour , Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Boston, 1859. Pratt, J. B.: The Psychology of Religious Belief, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1907. The Religious Consciousness , The Macmillan Com¬ pany, New York, 1920. An Empirical Study of Prayer , American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, iv, 1910. Ransom, W. S.: Studies in the Psychology of Prayer, American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, i, 1904. Segond, J.: La Priere , Alcan, Paris, 1911. Sidis, Boris: The Psychology of Suggestion, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1889. Starbuck, E. D.: The Psychology of Religion, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1901. Stratton, G. M.: The Psychology of the Religious Life , The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912. 242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER Streeter, B. H.: Concerning Prayer, The Macmillan Company, London, 1916. Strong, A. L.: The Psychology of Prayer , Univer¬ sity of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1909. Torrey, R. A.: How To Pray , Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1900. Trumbull, H.: Prayer: Its Nature and Scope, Flem¬ ing H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1896. Illustrative Answers to Prayer, Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago, 1900. Woods, J. H.: The Practice and Science of Religion, Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1906. » Worcester, E.: Religion and Medicine, Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1908. W r undt, W. M.: Vdlkerpsychologie, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. INDEX OF TOPICS Attention Accessories to, 52 Function of, 70 Importance of in prayers of fellowship, 218 Place of in prayer, 52 Place of in suggestion, 31 Automatism Nature of, 57 Religious effect of, 59 Buddhism, 225 Christian Psychology, 26 Christian Science Absent treatment of, 140 Compared with Emmanuel Movement, 115 Theory of, 114 Coincidence In answers to prayer, 154 Observation of, 154 Relation of to faith, 81 Relation of to telepathy, 140 Commerce, 233 Complex Discovery of, 188 Disposition of, 191 Nature of, 182 Conscience Troubled state of, 163 Effect of in psychoanalysis, 191 Conversion Contrasted types of, 102 Delayed, 172 Determined by childhood trends, 185 Divine element in, 103 Parallel cases of, 100 Prayer for, 93 Saint Paul’s, 98 Subconscious element in, 95 Time factor in, 98 Tolstoy’s, 104 Cooperative Prayer Classification of, 124 Identified forms of, 125 Unrecognized forms of, 137 Description, 22 Devotional Prayer Nature of, 19 Psychology of, 177, 201 Divine Forgiveness, 196 Education in Prayer, 76 Emmanuel Movement Methods of, 115 Purpose of, 114 Emotions Aroused in conversion, 94 Influence of, 59 Relation of to temperament, 121 Stimulus of in revivals, 99 Value of in religion, 232 Explanation, 22 Faith As surrender, 40, 84 As will, 83 Contrasted with memory, 31 Factors inducing it, 76 Included in suggestion, 30 Independence of, 33, 86 Lack of, 77 Misplaced, 233 Nature of, 31 Stimulative effect of, 32, 83, 95 Want of, 173 Fear, 60 God Direct impressions of, 148 Ethical fellowship with, 216 Forgiveness of, 196 Immanence of, 23-26, 220 In subconscious response, 91 243 244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER God Intelligence of, 221 Mystical communion with,2i7 Relation of conception of to prayer, 90 Relation of to nature, 156 Hypnotism Power of to stimulate memory, J 43 Relation of posture to, 55 Use of in cure of cocainism, 138 Use of in cure of moral de¬ fects, 106 Use of in psychoanalysis, 190 Hysteria, 182 Imitation Definition of, 44 Kinds of, 44 Instincts Content of, 226 Definition of, 225 Indefiniteness of, 226 Partial list of, 225 Primacy of, 227 Kneeling Effect of, 56 Practice of, 19, 55 Martyr Spirit, 214 Memory Definition of, 31 Effect of on faith, 78, 79 Intensified by suggestion, 47 Intimacy of, 79 Results of suppression of, 184 Unconscious form of, 117 Mental Imagery, 12 i Mental Pathology of Daily Life, 34 Method of Analogy, 92 Natural Law Adjustment to, 159 Place of prayer in, 24 Prayers for suspension of, 153 Relation of God to, 24, 156 Religious conflict with, 156 Oral Praying, 61 Petitional Prayer Answer to, 92 Classification of, 93 Function of, 157 Nature of, 19 Philosophy, 22 Prayer Classification of, 19 Definition of, 18 Psychological phases of, 20 Prayer Chain, 87 r RAYER FOR THE CURE OF DIS¬ EASE Illustrations of, no Psychology of, 108 Range of, in Prayer for Divine Guidance Memory aroused by, 117* Poise achieved by, 116 Voices and visions induced b] 119 Prayer for Ethical Better¬ ment Example of, 105 Religious factor in, 107 Prayer of Aspiration Illustrations of, 207 L Psychology of, 206 Prayer of Communion Difficulties of, 220 Effects of, 218 Nature of, 215 Prayer of Confession Psychology of, 193 Value of, 43, 169, 195 Prayer of Consecration Illustrations of, 209 Prayer of, 208 Prayer of Praise, 196 Prayer of Submission Prayer of, 212 Range of, 213 Prayer of Thanksgiving, 198 Prayers for the Dead, i, 36 w VI Prayer for Substance and Action, 125 INDEX OF TOPICS 245 Private Prayer Value of, 53 Psychoanalysis Effect of, 43, 169 Freud’s theory and practice of, 182 Jung’s conception of, 187 Method of, 188 Pathological elements of, 184, 188 Presence of in prayer, 21 Process of, 179 Psychosynthesis Activity of in religion, 204 Contrasted with psychoanaly¬ sis, 202 Illustrations of, 203 Prayers of, 205 Public Prayer Examples of, 129 Value of, 54 4** Questionnaire Form of, 237 Value of, 17 Relaxation Lack of in prayer, 117, 171 Place of in suggestion, 38, 40 Religion Definition of, 149, 224 Instinctive nature of, 224, 228 Primacy of, 227 Source of content of, 226 Universal character of, 225 Rosary Catholic use of, 65 Natural history of, 65 Roman Catholic history of, 64 Value of, 67, 170 Science As proposed substitute for prayer, 229 Limitations of, 234 Method of, 230 Purpose of, 229 Scope of, 22, 26 Sex, 186 Suggestion Definition of, 28 Elements of, 28 Examples of, 29, 31, 45, 46, 47, 48 Forms of, 41 Law of, 175 Limitations of, 48, in Negative form of, 168 Present in prayer, 21 Use of in cure of disease, no Subconscious Content of, 35 Definition of, 34 Evidences of, 34 Relation of to consciousness, 36 Results of, 95, 97, 98, 119 Sensitivity of, 142, 143, 146 Telepathy Definition of, 137 Relation of chance to, 141 Relation of hallucination to, 138 Relation of subconscious regis¬ tration to, 143 Relation of suggestion to, 139 Temperament Relation of to religious expe¬ rience, 121, 214 Relation of to unanswered prayer, 166 Unanswered Prayer Effect of on faith, 79 Sources of, 161 Will Act of in prayer, 68 As revealed in attention, 70 Effort of, 39, 53 Presence of in prayer, 68 Surrender of, 96 Worship Definition of, 198 Prayer of, 197 Yoga Cult, 55 INDEX OF NAMES Allen, Robert, 129 Aristotle, 181 Arnold, Matthew, 94 Bacon, Francis, 82 Baldwin, J. N., 28, 45 Beck, F. O., 55, 158 Beecher, Henry Ward, 130, 131, 193, 197 Biederwolf, W. G., 168 Biven, George D., 202 Book, W. F., 39 Bowne, B. T., 71, 80 Breuer, Joseph, 182 Brill, A. A., 189 Brother Lawrence, 69, 193, 218 Buckham, J. W., 215 Buddha, 86, 100, 101, 102, 103, 226 Bunyea, H., 200 Bushnell, Horace, 186 Butcher, S. H., 181 Cabot, Richard C., 114 Carpenter, W. B., 97, 98, 119 Christ, 24, 26, 53, 77, 83, 89, 95, 103, 127, 134, 168, 209-212, 217 Clark, Charles S., 107 Coe, G. A., 48, 121, 166, 167, 228 Confucius, 86 Coombs, J. V., 107, hi, 114, 140 Coover, J. E., 141 Couden, Henry N., 131, 132 Creek, Jennie, 117 Curtis, H. S., 144 Curtis, O. A., 96 Cutten, G. B., 107 Davenport, F. M., 135 Dessoir, Max, 143 Dionysius, 218 Dominican Father, 67 Donaldson, H. H., 144 Ellis, Havelock, 174 Finney, C. G., 164 Fosdick, H. E., 222 Freud, Sigmund, 182, 183, 185, 188 Goddard, H. H., 109 Gordon, S. D., 161 Hamilton, Sir W. Rowan, 97 Handford, Thomas W., 131, 193, 198 Harlow, W. E., 107 Hensen, F. C., 143 Hoff ding, H., 157 Holmes, E. E., 136, 196 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 153 James, Wm., 29, 62, 71, 84, 224 Jastrow, Joseph, 37, 44, 145, 154 Jesus. See Christ Jones, Rufus M., 215 Jowett, J. H., 199, 208 Jung, Carl G., 182, 187 King, H. C., 71 Lanphier, J. C., 134 Lehmann, A., 143 Lessing, 198 Lindley, E. H., 58 Luther, Martin, 52, 94, 136 Maclaren, Alexander, 130 McComb, S., 114, 115 McCormick, C. W., 158 McDougall, W., 29 McIntyre, Robert, 165 Mohammed, 48 Morris, J. G., 52 Mott, John R., 53 Muller, F. Max, 55 Muller, George, 126 Mtinsterberg, Hugo, 28, 75, 138 Murray, A., 77, 83, 85 Myers, F. W. H., 88 INDEX OF NAMES 247 Nabonidus, 207 Nachet, M., 97 Neal, E. Virgil, 107 Neriglissar, 207 Noble, E., 46 Nyce, A. W., 200 Oldenberg, H., 101 Parish, E., 121 Phelps, A., 60, 77, 163, 170 Pillsbury, W. B., 57 Pope, Howard W., 117 Pratt, J. B., 17, 117, 215 Quayle, W. A., 159 Rauschenbusch, Walter, 132 Ribot, T., 61, 62 Robertson, P. W., 88 Rogers, R. W., 208 Saint Augustine, 94, 136, 161, 219 Saint Dominic, 64, 65 Saint Paul, 94, 98, 99, 160, 170, 198 Saint Peter, no Saint Teresa, 61 Shakespeare, Wm., 180 Sidis, Boris, 29, 33, 175 Small, M. H., 47 Socrates, 120, 121, 207 Starbuck, E. D., 37, 84, 93, 94, 229 Stephen, 98 Strong, A. L., 108, 164, 205 Sunday, W. A., 116 Tennyson, Alfred, 180 Tolstoy, 104 Torrey, R. A., 77, 108, 168, 198 Tridon, Andre, 180 Trumbull, H. C., 77, 154 Tylor, E. B., 65 Unbekannt, 88 Wenham, F. H., 97 Woods, J. H., 101, 102 Worcester, E., 82, 114 Wordsworth, W., 180 Wundt, W., 144 Zangwill, I., 66 Zeller, E., 120 * V t k ■ Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 01 025 2767 DATE DUE