THOUGHTS ON PRAYER - 1

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Children, when first learning to make use

of language, are prone to think out loud,

to express their thoughts in words,

even if no one is present to hear them.

With the dawn of creative imagination

they evince a tendency to converse

with imaginary companions. In this way

a budding ego seeks to hold communion

with a fictitious alter ego.

By this technique the child early learns

to convert his monologue conversations

into pseudo dialogues in which this

alter ego makes replies to his verbal

thinking and wish expression.

Very much of an adult's thinking

is mentally carried on in

conversational form.

.

.

The early and primitive form of prayer was

much like the semimagical recitations of the

present-day Toda tribe [of India], prayers

that were not addressed to anyone in

particular. But such techniques of praying

tend to evolve into the dialogue type of

communication by the emergence of the

idea of an alter ego. In time the alter-ego

concept is exalted to a superior status of

divine dignity, and prayer as an agency of

religion has appeared. Through many

phases and during long ages this

primitive type of praying is destined

to evolve before attaining the level

of intelligent and truly ethical prayer.

.

.

.
The simple prayer of faith evidences
a mighty evolution in human experience
whereby the ancient conversations
with the fictitious symbol of the
alter ego in primitive religion have
become exalted to the level of
communion with the spirit of the
Infinite and to that of a bona fide
consciousness of the reality of
the eternal God and Paradise Father
of all intelligent creation.
*

The Urantia Book

Part III, 91, 3