The Magic of Prayer: An Introduction to the Psychology of FaithThis 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. |
Contents
The Psychological Matrix of Prayer and Faith | 27 |
Magic Faith and Prayer | 69 |
The Unchanging Nature of Religious | 137 |
Copyright | |
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The Magic of Prayer: An Introduction to the Psychology of Faith M. D. Faber No preview available - 2002 |