The Action of Prayer; Transmission of Thought

9. Prayer is an invocation; by means of prayer we communicate through thought with the being to whom the prayer is addressed. Its purpose may be a request, an acknowledgement or a glorification. One may pray for oneself or for someone else, for the living or for the dead. Prayers addressed to God are heard by spirits in charge of carrying out God’s will; those that are addressed to good spirits are taken to God. When one prays to beings other than God, they act only as intermediaries or intercessors, because nothing can be done without it being God’s will.

10. Spiritism enables us to understand the action of prayer by explaining the mode of transmission of thought, either when the being to whom we have prayed comes in answer to our appeal, or when our thoughts ascend to this being. In order to understand what occurs in this circumstance, one must visualize all beings, both incarnate and discarnate, as immersed in the universal fluid that occupies space, just as we are immersed in the atmosphere of this world. This fluid receives an impulse of the will. It is the vehicle of thought, just as the air is the vehicle of sound, but with the difference that the vibrations in the air are circumscribed, whereas those of the universal fluid extend infinitely. Therefore, when the thought is directed toward some being either on the earth or in space, from incarnate to discarnate, a fluidic current is established from the one to the other to transmit the thought, just as air transmits sound.

The current’s energy depends on the strength of the thought and the will; this is how prayer is heard by spirits wherever they may be, how spirits communicate amongst themselves, how they transmit their inspirations to us, and how communications at a distance are established among incarnates.

This  explanation is  especially for  those  who  do  not understand the worth of purely mystical prayer; its purpose is not to materialize prayer but to render its effect intelligible by showing that it can have a direct and effective action. Prayer is nonetheless still subordinate to the will of God, the supreme judge in all matters, and the only one who can render its action effective.

11.   Through  prayer,  humans  call  to  themselves the concourse of good spirits, who come to uphold them in their good resolutions and inspire them with good thoughts. They thus acquire the moral strength needed to overcome difficulties and to return to the upright path when they have wandered from it; through prayer they can also divert the evils they attract because of their own fault. For example, a man finds that his health has been ruined because of the excesses he has committed, and he leads a life of suffering till the end of his days. Does he have the right to complain if he does not receive healing? No, because he could have found in prayer the strength to resist temptation.

12.  If the ills of life were divided into  two parts, one consisting of what humans cannot avoid and the other consisting of troubles whose primary cause is humans themselves through their carelessness and excesses (see chap. V, no. 4), one would see that the latter is much greater in number than the former. It is thus obvious that humans are the authors of most of their afflictions and that they could save themselves from them if they always acted with wisdom and prudence.

It is no less certain that such troubles are the result of our infractions against God’s laws, and that if we were to observe these laws accurately, we would be perfectly happy. If we did not surpass the limit needed to satisfy our needs, we would not suffer the illnesses that are the consequence of the excesses along with the vicissitudes that such illnesses entail. If we placed a limit on our ambition, we would not fear ruin. If we did not want to ascend higher than we are capable of, we would not fear a downfall. If we were humble, we would not suffer the disappointments of humiliated pride. If we practiced the law of charity, we would not be slanderous, envious or jealous, and we would avoid quarrels and dissentions. If we did not do evil to anyone, we would not fear revenge, etc.

Let us admit the fact that humans can do nothing about other ills, and that all prayers are ineffective to be freed of them; would it not be enough if they could be free of all the ills that stem from their own conduct? In such a case, the action of prayer is easy to conceive because its effect is to evoke the healthy inspiration of good spirits, and to ask them for the strength to resist evil thoughts whose fulfillment could be disastrous for us. In this instance, it is not the evil that good spirits divert  from us, but instead, they divert us from the thought that could cause the evil; they do not in any way contravene the decrees of God,  nor do they suspend the course of the laws of nature; rather, it is we ourselves whom they keep from infringing these laws by guiding  our free will. However, they do so without our being aware of it so as not to infringe on our will. Humans are therefore in the situation of those who ask for good advice and put it into practice; that is, they are always free to follow it or not.

God wills it to be this way so that they will take responsibility for their acts and in order to leave them the merit of choosing between good and evil. This is what humans can always be certain of obtaining if they ask for it with fervor, and it is to what these words are especially applicable: “Ask and you shall receive.”

Would not the effectiveness of prayer, even if reduced to this proportion, have an immense result? It was reserved for Spiritism to prove us its action by revealing the relations between the corporeal and spirit worlds. But its effects are not limited to just this.

Prayer is recommended  by all the Spirits; to renounce prayer is to ignore God’s goodness; it is to refuse for oneself the assistance of God, and for others the good that we can do for them.