The Alchemy of Prayer: How It Began and Why It Is the Medium of Miracles

By Loretta M. Siani Ph.D.

The Alchemy of Prayer offers an eminently readable, step-by-step spiritual guide that puts the complex metaphysics of prayer taught in A Course in Miracles into everyday terms. If youre skeptical about the power of prayer or have little faith in the traditional Christian approach to prayer, this book is for you.

Its central thesis is that prayer is not an act of communication that begins with us and ends with God, but rather that it is an act of communication that begins with God and ends with us; were it not for this fact, wed be oblivious to prayer. Indeed, The Alchemy of Prayer proposes that we were actually created out of prayer. The power surge that emanated out of Gods first prayer not only sparked us into existence; it forever established our minds as natural channels for receiving and sending His same kind of prayer. This explains why today, eons after creation, were still wired for prayer. Moreover, it also explains why prayers not modeled after Gods primal prayer seemingly go unanswered.

All of this begs the question: how is it that weve forgotten how to pray the way God wired us to pray? How is it that the apple has fallen so far from the tree?

This intellectually engaging book seeks to answer these questions for you and aims to provoke a sea change in your fundamental thinking about the kind of God in which you believe, as well as what true prayer really is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462003181

Loretta M. Siani Ph.D.

Loretta M. Siani, PhD, is a spiritual counselor and clinical hypnotherapist. She is the author of two previous books, The Magic of Excellence and Everyday Miracles, as well as the creator of three-guided visualization CDs. Dr. Siani holds a master of arts degree in communications from Pepperdine University and a doctoral degree from American Pacific University. She lives and practices in Long Beach, California.

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Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Prayer As Communication

Chapter 2

Prayer and Your Beliefs

Chapter 3

Jesus as the Son of God

Chapter 4

Prayer and Forgiveness

Chapter 5

God’s Mediator, the Holy Spirit

Chapter 6

The Nature of Prayer

Chapter 7

The Ladder of Prayer

Chapter 8

The Power of Prayer

Chapter 9

Miracles

Chapter 10

How to Pray

Final Thoughts

Notes

About the Author

For Ray and Gina

Forever,

Shom

Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give.

I come in silence.

In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind,

I wait and listen for Your Voice.

My Father, speak to me today.

I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love,

sure You will hear my call and answer me.

A Course in Miracles

Introduction

Background

I was studying psychology as a road to my own inner healing when in the late ’90s I had my first brush with A Course in Miracles. It was then that I found Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love, whose principles were based on the Course. I was struck by Williamson’s notion that no matter what we’re suffering, it is a reflection of the deeper suffering caused by our on-again, off-again relationship with God. This placement of our rocky relationship with God as the source of suffering rang so true to me that I decided to check out the Course. I bought it on tape and began listening to it in my car, expecting to find a gold mine of answers. My hope was high, but it snapped off like a tender twig. The Course was gibberish to me. I couldn’t understand one word of it. Disillusioned, I forgot about it and kept up my study of psychology.

Coincidently, I kept stumbling into authors who were followers of the Course. I read Healing the Cause by Michael Dawson, The Little Book of Letting Go by Hugh Prather, Teach Only Love by Dr. Gerald Jampolsky, and Healing the Addictive Mind (one of my favorites to this day) by Dr. Lee Jampolsky. Somewhere along the way, I discovered Kenneth Wapnick and The Foundation for a Course in Miracles. I started taking classes from Professor Wapnick and reading his books: A Vast Illusion, All Are Called, Absence from Felicity, Christian Psychology in "A Course in Miracles," Few Choose to Listen, Obstacles to Peace, and Ending Our Resistance to Love. Meanwhile, I started reading the Course instead of listening to it. Finally, its meaning began to penetrate the fog in me, and when it did, I found its message so psychologically correct, its writing so beautiful and poetic, its arguments on God and the human condition so compelling, that I couldn’t get enough of it.

I was still studying neurolinguistic psychology and clinical hypnotherapy but what I was learning from the Course began to dwarf everything I was learning in school. It kicked up my thinking several notches and forced me to be ruthlessly honest with myself about the power I had over my own life. Its complete transformation of my entrenched way of thinking about myself, God and prayer created such a spiritual revival in me that I adopted it as my spiritual path and made it the cornerstone of my life and private practice as a clinical hypnotherapist and spiritual counselor.

Purpose

It’s not my purpose to persuade you to accept A Course in Miracles as your spiritual path. As I stated in my last book, Everyday Miracles, it is impossible for me to convince you of anything you don’t already want to believe. That would be a losing battle for me. But it is my purpose to use the spiritual psychology of the Course to help you to think twice about why you believe what you believe about yourself, God and prayer. Most of us adopt our beliefs about these matters early in life. In later years we’re hardly able to articulate why we believe what we believe. If The Alchemy of Prayer stimulates your thinking enough to make you able to articulate a more clearly thought out argument for why you believe what you believe, then I count myself as having accomplished my purpose.

Central Ideas

Section I titled Principles, challenges you to think twice, not only about what you believe about God, yourself and prayer but why you believe it. It proposes that the kind of God in which you believe is a reflection of your beliefs about yourself and greatly influences the way in which you pray. Before you try to attempt to communicate with God, it asserts that it’s best to learn to speak His language and understand His thinking on certain fundamental principles such as free will, love and forgiveness. Honoring the way He thinks and communicates creates a welcoming place in our hearts that enables us to hear Him instead of just make demands of Him. Seeking to understand Him before demanding to be understood by Him requires letting go of any preconceived ideas we have about Him. For the thinking Christian, it also means being willing to put forth the entire energy of our minds to learn about Him, and be able to articulate what we have learned, not just about Him, but about Christ, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and the function they fulfill in prayer. Part I of The Alchemy of Prayer turns its attention to these matters and the perspective given on them in A Course in Miracles. This lays the foundation for the new model of prayer presented in Part II.

Part II titled Practices, turns upside down the traditional belief that prayer is something that begins with us and ends with God. It asserts quite the opposite. Had prayer not first begun with God, we’d be completely oblivious to it. Coming from the perspective that the primal prayer was God’s prayer, gives us insight into the true nature and power in prayer. It also lets us in on why we are all wired for prayer and why praying like God instead of to God makes all the difference. Prayer is the very means by which God created us. Through the act of communicating His love, God regenerated Himself and brought us into being. When His love poured forth and created His son, Christ, Christ instantly returned the favor. They became totally immersed in this reciprocal communion of love. This divine lovemaking was a mutual outpouring of love and thanksgiving for one another. It wasn’t about asking for anything. It was about giving and receiving gratitude. This primordial prayer of gratitude is the model for true prayer. When we pray in this same way we connect our thoughts to the thought of God. Thus, we connect ourselves with the power of His Love and the miracles that flow through our minds radiates out to other minds and benefits the world.

Requirements

As Francis Bacon said, Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. I suggest to you that the latter is true for this one. I recommend you take it in slowly and in small bites. Make an effort to absorb it chapter by chapter as the case it makes for its new view of prayer is laid out in sequence. By the time you get to the last chapter I’m confident you’ll have a more strongly held, more clearly thought-out position regarding prayer, how it originated and why it is often referred to as the medium of miracles. Knowing that this is a possibility for you means to me that I have not written this book in vain.

In peace and love,

Loretta Siani

Acknowledgments

For the record, I am not the author of any of the principles presented in this book. I am merely one of the many interpreters of the principles presented in the modern-day revelation of A Course in Miracles. I am grateful to all the expositors of the Course who have come before me and from whom I have learned enormously, expositors like Kenneth Wapnick, Robert Perry, Marianne Williamson and Gerald Jampolsky.

A Course in Miracles is published by the Foundation for Inner Peace, P.O. Box 598, Mill Valley, California. 949-942-0598.

All of the references to A Course In Miracles made in this book are taken from the Second Edition of the Course and are referred to according to the numbering used in the Course instead of by page number. The one exception are references from the Preface to the Course which are referred to by page number. For example, each reference begins with a letter which indicates the volume or section of the Course or its supplement: (T=Text, W=Workbook for Students, M=Manual for Teachers, C=Clarification of Terms, P=Psychotherapy and S=Song of Prayer). Following the letter is the number indicating the chapter, section, paragraph and sentence referenced. References from the Text, Psychotherapy or Song of Prayer are listed by chapter.section.paragraph:sentence; e.g., T-7.VII.2:2-4.

References from the Workbook parts I or II are listed W-part (I or II).lesson.paragraph:sentence; e.g., W-pI.1.2:1-2.

References from the Manual for Teachers or the Clarification of Terms are listed by section.paragraph:sentence; e.g., M-1.2:11.

PART I

PRINCIPLES

Chapter 1

Prayer As Communication

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

A Course in Miracles

Communication, unambiguous and plain, is the lifeblood of human relationships. Without it there are no relationships. To communicate is to exchange. It is to share common goals and air mutual concerns. It is not about concealing anything. It’s about being open. But being open doesn’t mean being insensitive. It means being thoughtful of the other person and speaking in a voice that can be listened to without fear. It also means seeking to understand instead of just seeking to be understood. Seeking to understand creates a welcoming place in our hearts where another’s truth can be heard. The fruit of this kind of communication is love.

I taught the above model of communication as an associate professor of interpersonal communications at Pepperdine University years ago. One of the main theses of this book is that prayer fits this same model of communication. To my way of thinking, prayer is open, thoughtful communication with God. Indeed, it is the lifeblood of our heavenly relationship with Him. Without prayer it’s hard to imagine having a relationship with God. To me, when we pray, we get to know God and He gets to know us. We talk to Him. We ask for His help, His guidance. Prayer is not a time for concealing or holding anything back from Him. It’s a time for being open with Him not only about our troubles and hopes, but also about our happiness and all the reasons we have for being grateful.

If my theses is true and prayer fits this model of communication, I think prayer is a time for listening to God more than just talking to Him. It’s a time to seek to understand Him instead of just trying to get Him to understand us. The more we seek to understand God in prayer, the better we become at creating a welcoming place in our hearts where His Truth can be heard. The fruit of this kind of communication with God is love.

However, while most may easily agree that prayer is a superlative way of coming to understand God, they may forget that it isn’t the only way. I suggest there are a few other avenues one can pursue in coming to understand God. These avenues involve studying what has previously been revealed or written about God and His nature, what He expects of us, how He communicates with us, the mediums He uses, and the language He speaks. This opening chapter begins this kind of study of God. However, instead of focusing its attention on what has been revealed about God in the traditional, biblical writings regarding these matters, this study turns its attention to the modern-day revelation known as A Course in Miracles.

Mediums of Communication

Everyone knows that all communication requires a medium or a means of broadcasting or conveying its message. I learned when I was in the graduate school of communications at Pepperdine University that some mediums of communication have a more powerful, albeit more hidden influence, than other mediums over the content of the message they