Affirmative prayer is a form of prayer or a

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...

technique that is focused on a positive outcome rather than a negative situation. For instance, a person who is experiencing some form of illness would focus the prayer on the desired state of perfect health and affirm this desired intention "as if already happened" rather than identifying the illness and then asking God for help to eliminate it.

New Thought

New Thought The New Thought movement (also Higher Thought) is a new religious movement that coalesced in the United States in the early 19th century. New Thought was seen by its adherents as succeeding "ancient thought", accumulated wisdom and philosophy ...

spirituality originated during the 1880s and has emphasized affirmative prayer as an essential part of its philosophy. Practitioners among the various New Thought denominations Religious Science, Divine Science and Unity may also refer to this form of prayer by such names as "scientific prayer," "spiritual mind treatment" or, simply, "treatment." Within New Thought organizations, centers, and churches, the foundational logic of this form of prayer is based on the belief that God is unlimited and plays no favorites, that God has created spiritual laws that are both as mysterious and as constant as scientific principles like

gravity In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

, and thus if one's prayer is correctly and diligently focused, it will be answered consistently.

Religious Science, Divine Science, and Unity

Affirmative prayer is called "Spiritual Mind Treatment" by practitioners of Religious Science. Affirmative prayer with a Christian theme is a central practice of the Unity School of Christianity.

Jewish Science

In the early 1900s, some in the American Jewish community were attracted to the teachings of

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes in ...

and the New Thought Movement, by the 1920s they were referring to their study by the term '' Jewish Science''. A major figure in this movement was Morris Lichtenstein who together with his wife Tehilla Lichtenstein, published the ''Jewish Science Interpreter'', a periodical featuring much of his own writing. Lichtenstein found affirmative prayer to be particularly useful because he believed that it provided the personal benefits of prayer without requiring the belief in a supernatural God who could suspend the laws of nature. Lichtenstein considered that affirmative prayer is a method that can access inner power that could be considered divine, but not supernatural. He taught that the origins of affirmative prayer can be found in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

book of

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

, and that affirmations or affirmative prayer are best offered in silence.

Spiritualism

The well-known

Theosophist Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neo ...

, Spiritualist, and New Thought poet

Ella Wheeler Wilcox Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet. Her works include the collection '' Poems of Passion'' and the poem "Solitude", which contains the lines "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you ...

popularized the power of affirmative prayer. After the death of her husband Robert Wilcox, she wrote that she had tried in vain to communicate with his spirit, but only after she composed and recited the affirmative prayer, "I am the living witness: The dead live: And they speak through us and to us: And I am the voice that gives this glorious truth to the suffering world: I am ready, God: I am ready, Christ: I am ready, Robert" was she able to contact him by means of a

Ouija board The Ouija ( , ), also known as a Ouija board, spirit board, talking board, or witch board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the Latin alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", and occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along ...

, an event she described in her 1918 autobiography, ''The Worlds and I.''

Hoodoo

Affirmative prayer is used by practitioners of African American hoodoo, usually in conjunction with its opposite, which is called a ''prayer of removal''. In this folk magic application of the technique, the prayer of removal may be said during a waning moon or at sunset or at

ebb tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravity, gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide ...

("As the sun goes down, this disease is removed from my body") and the affirmative prayer may be said during a waxing moon, at dawn, or at

high tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ...

("As the sun rises, this day brings me perfect health"). The explanation for this application of affirmative prayer is that God has ordained laws of natural inflow and outflow and that by linking one's prayer to a natural condition that prevails at the time, the prayer is given the added power of God's planned natural event.

Self-help

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...

described affirmative prayer as an element of the American metaphysical healing movement that he called the "mind-cure"; he described it as America's "only decidedly original contribution to the systemic philosophy of life." What sets affirmative prayer apart from secular affirmations of the

autosuggestion Autosuggestion is a psychological technique related to the placebo effect, developed by pharmacist Émile Coué at the beginning of the 20th century. It is a form of self-induced suggestion in which individuals guide their own thoughts, feelings ...

type taught by the 19th century

self-help Self-help or self-improvement is "a focus on self-guided, in contrast to professionally guided, efforts to cope with life problems" —economically, physically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. When ...

author

Émile Coué Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie (; 26 February 1857 – 2 July 1926) was a French psychologist, pharmacy, pharmacist, and hypnotist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and Self-help, self-improvement based on optimism, optimistic ...

(whose most famous affirmation was "Every day in every way, I am getting better and better") is that affirmative prayer addresses the practitioner to God, the Divine, the Creative Mind, emphasizing the seemingly practical aspects of religious belief.

References

{{Divine Science footer New Thought beliefs Personal development Prayer