Prayer for others is something many of us who pray spend a great deal of time doing. And, if we don’t pray, and are members of say Law of Attraction (LOA) groups, all of our thoughts being prayers, what if we think or wish things for others?
Can these prayers have any affect on others?
Many sources on LOA, and other modalities, like Real Love ( www.reallove.com ) state that we cannot control the behavior of any particular other person.
Neal Diamond Walsch, in Conversations with God, Book 3, posits that nothing ever happens to anyone without that person to whom it happens consent. He takes this to the level of embryos being aborted, and so on. There are no victims for Mr. Walsch.
In conversations with Rev. Michelle Medrano of New Visions Center on this topic, it seemed ( http://www.newvisionaz.org/ ) she feels that prayer for others could work, could never harm; however, only if the prayer was requested by the person being prayed for. This asking could be direct or indirect (on deeper levels of consciousness or spirit).
On interviewing a very helpful Christian Science Practitioner ( found thru http://www.spirituality.com/ ) on this and other topics I learned that this practioner feels it a breach of personal ethics to pray for those who have not asked. That prayer for others is felt to be at best a form of “Mesmerism” (named after Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th century Physician whose work on treating hypochondria with various spiritual seeming seramonies led Scottish surgeon James Braid to develop hypnosis in 1842) and that such prayer for others is in any event ineffective.
Christian Scientists believe in a personal relationship with God without gate keepers or intersession by others. In fact, it is my understanding that Christian Science Practitioners work largely to help one see for ones’ self the truth of connection with source and to thus heal ones self. I hope to clarify these points further in the future.
Then there are the Christians, with whom many of us in the West are familiar, always praying for everybody… for all manner of things to come into the lives of others.
If we have ever seen a movie on Voodoo, this seems to work on others. Though, some believe you have to believe it (so you create it for yourself) and others believe it works on believers and non believers alike.
Then there is the whole dynamic of the conscious cocreation of society as a whole. How does ones actions or prayers affect the life of someone else? And, how do these add up into a whole of REALITY, what ever reality is?
I have more questions than answers and look forward to inputs and clarifications.
My personal beliefs are that we create fully our own reality. And, somehow, these all sum together to form “The World.” And, that others call us into their lives as we call them into ours. That there are no accidents.
What do you question? What do you believe?
Peacefully yours,
Yucel