Nature and significance
Prayer is a significant and universal aspect of religion, whether of primitive peoples or of modern mystics, that expresses the broad range of religious feelings and attitudes that command human relations with the sacred or holy. Described by some scholars as religion’s primary mode of expression, prayer is said to be to religion what rational thought is to philosophy; it is the very expression of living religion. Prayer distinguishes the phenomenon of religion from those phenomena that approach it or resemble it, such as religious and aesthetic feelings.
Historians of religions, theologians, and believers of all faiths agree in recognizing the central position that prayer occupies in religion. According to the American philosopher William James, without prayer there can be no question of religion. An Islamic proverb states that to pray and to be Muslim are synonymous, and Sadhu Sundar Singh, a modern Christian mystic of India, stated that praying is as important as breathing.
Of the various forms of religious literature, prayer is considered by many to be the purest in expressing the essential elements of a religion. The Islamic Qurʾān is regarded as a book of prayers, and the book of Psalms of the Bible is viewed as a meditation on biblical history turned into prayer. The Confessions of the great Christian thinker St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) are, in the final analysis, a long prayer with the Creator. Thus, because religion is culturally and historically ubiquitous, if prayer were removed from the literary heritage of a culture, that culture would be deprived of a particularly rich and uplifting aspect.
From its primitive to its mystical expression, prayer expresses a human desire to enter into contact with the sacred or holy. As a part of that desire, prayer is linked to a feeling of presence (of the sacred or holy), which is neither an abstract conviction nor an instinctive intuition but rather a volitional movement conscious of realizing its higher end. Thus, prayer is described not only as meditation about God but as a step, a “going out of one’s self,” a pilgrimage of the spirit “in the presence of God.” It has, therefore, a personal and experiential character that goes beyond critical analysis.
Prayer is also linked to sacrifice, which seems to support prayer as a cultic—as well as a personal—act and as a supplement to the bare word in human attempts to relate to the sacred or holy. In any case, the sacrificial act generally precedes the verbal act of prayer. Thus, the presentation of an offering often prolongs prayer and is viewed as a recognition of the sovereignty and beneficence of the deity or supernatural powers. The word of a human being (in prayer), however, apart from a concomitant sacrificial act, is itself viewed as the embodiment of sacred action and power.
When prayer becomes dominating and manipulative in its intent, it becomes magic. With words and songs, humans thus believe that they can ask, conjure, and threaten the sacred or supernatural powers. Imprecation and incantation become, in effect, “oral talismans” (charms). The effectiveness of such magical prayer is believed to depend on the recitation of a precise formula, or rhythm, or on the saying and repeating of the divine name. Manipulation by magic, however, is neither the explanation nor the essence of prayer but rather its deviation and exploitation, a tendency that is to be noticed whenever prayer departs from its basic and essential meaning—i.e., the expression of a desire to enter into contact with the sacred or holy.