The Magic of Prayer: An Introduction to the Psychology of Faith

(Hardback)

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This comprehensive, psychological, and naturalistic analysis of prayer offers an alternative to William James's model of prayer, represented in his work The Varieties of Religious Experience, which links supplication to the divine or supernatural realm. Through his examination of prayer, and its connection to faith, Faber also analyzes religious faith psychologically and anthropologically, concluding that subjective prayer is finally an instance of homeopathic "magical" conduct. It ritualistically conjures up, according to the author, a version of the first, primal, biological situation, in which the dependent "little" one cries out to a parental "big" one for physical and emotional nourishment. Eventually, religion...and its expression of faith through prayer, provides us with a magical protective presence that is natural in its return to the primal, rather than supernatural, as James argues, in its presence and existence. The very instructional details of individual prayer, Faber argues, are unconsciously designed to recreate the magical alliance through which our existence on the planet commences and goes forward. Over and over again, dozens of times each day, thousands of times each year, the "little" one asks and the "big" one sees to it that the "little" one receives. Such asking and receiving is the central feature of a child's existence. As we internalize this reality and seek to re-create it in our adult lives, religious conviction and faith--as it comes through prayer--helps us to achieve a sense of security and a psychic return to the parental alliance. Faber's compelling arguments will challenge readers to consider prayer and faith as a magical circle of religious belief and to examine afresh the underlying nature of supplication.

Reviews

"M. D. Faber's The Magic of Prayer covers an immense expanse of literature and conceptual issues, and it does so with profound intellectual acumen, grace, and wit. This work will have to be studied and reckoned with for many years to come by anyone who seeks to analyze the deeper motivations that drive people to prayer and to religion. This is on the individual level, as well as on the societal or cultural level. At the same time, Faber's carefully crafted argument helps us to understand, if not forgive, the forms of madness that religious faith and practice have taken throughout history and until today, including the conflicts in the Balkans and in the endless wars between Israelis and Palentinians. I hope this fine book will gain the recognition that it deserves in undermining the hold of forces of illusion in favor of the progress of the span of reason." Kenneth L. Brown Professor of Emeritus of Anthropology University of Manchester Editor-in-Chief

Author Bio

M. D. FABER is Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and a psychoanalytic commentator on religion, philosophy, literature, and art. He has recently published a trilogy on modern religion including the titles Modern Witchcraft and Psychoanalysis (1993), New Age Thinking: A Psychoanalytic Critique (1996), and Synchronicity: C. G. Jung, Psychoanalysis, and Religion (Praeger, 1998).