A Classic Work on the Experience of Prayer

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	• Prayer: A History Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski Mariner Books, 2006 - 415 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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A Classic Work on the Experience of Prayer

This magnificent rethinking of humankind's experience of prayer abounds in telling examples. Often the Zaleskis devote two to four pages to a case study - one of the most revealing is that of Alcoholics Anonymous which few others would have thought to include as a mode of prayer - and these portrayals balance against innumerable briefer examples, quotations, and vignettes. In this the structure reminds one of William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_. There too major examples stick in the mind as one garners an impression of overwhelming fecundity.

Most useful to me and I suspect helpful to many others, will be the way the Zaleskis differentiate the Ecstatic from the Contemplative. First of all, they differentiate "mysticism" from "spirituality" without relying on those much abused words. Second, they delineate the Ecstatic as a necessary category without implying that it is just an intensification of Contemplation or of some other form of "Spirituality." This book elevates the Ecstatic into a dignity of its own.

I kept wondering, "How are they going to bring this book - so full of mini-climaxes - to a close?" The poet George Herbert provides a brilliant solution by allowing the Zaleskis to compose about him an epitome of the book. Thereby they show that different kinds and occasions of prayer flow into one another and into various sorts of creativity. On a larger scale, the entire book defamiliarizes what we thought we knew, making the intimate open to scrutiny and the banal once agan mysterious.

In that as in so many other ways, the book partakes of classical tradition. This books eschews the trendy, the ephemeral, and the kitschified in favor of the time-tested, the enduring, and the beautiful. It achieves symmetries in composition, it brings clarity to the complex, and it exudes loving respect for the widest range of experience. In a word, it is a "classic."

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One of the Best Books Ever...

Very rarely anymore do I encounter a book that replaces an already existing book in my personal top 10, but this book has easily supplanted some of my earlier favorites. The authors will change your persepctive on the Robinson Crusoe story, reveal the secret devotional life of Salvador Dali, and give you a new pair of glasses with which to view a variety of phenomenon. The authors leave no major faith unexamined. If you weren't excited about prayer BEFORE reading this book, you certainly will be after. At 600+ pages, you would think that it may be a trying text to get through - instead, I found myself wishing that it were a 1,000 pages long. Must read for devotees of any tradition.

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This landmark work presents prayer in all its richness and variety throughout history, across traditions, and around the globe. In a thorough and fascinating look at this spiritual practice, two of today's most versatile and admired authorities on religion probe the language and fruits of prayer, its controversies, and its prospects for the future. With a focus on extraordinary stories of lives changed by prayer and on great works of literature and art inspired by it, Prayer: A History promises to be the standard on the subject for readers of all faiths.