Joseph S Rowntree

I discovered this little book in the library of West Australia Regional Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). I was seeking precursors to late twentieth-century and early twenty-first century writers who espouse mind-over-matter methods of materializing the things and conditions that we desire in our lives. This was a segment of my study of desire, which I believe to be the engine that drives all creation—no matter what definition of creation is under discussion. What has come to be called the Law of Attraction, the writings of Esther and Jerry Hicks in the 1990s, Norman Vincent Peale's 1950s classic The Power of Positive Thinking, and Lewis Maclachlan's Intelligent Prayer published in the 1940s—and don't forget Napoleon Hill—all speak to the notion that our thoughts can be focused to produce desired results. Rowntree's short treatise, too, addresses these ponderings, both in its text and in its title. But rather than describing prayer as itself being the expression of desire that sets creation into motion, he places its value in its role as a bridge to God. "The sense of the love and of the support of God, calms the wild trouble and excitement of the soul, steadies the nerves through the steadying of the mind," he writes. And thus, he believes, it "releases our intelligence." Then, he proposes, "Our intellect is awake and ready, our experience is fit for use; and a soul and body in this quest and quick condition often conquers disease both in ourselves and others by the careful and intelligent use of the powers and opportunities which nature affords us for cure. We are quicker in this temper to find out the causes and the remedies of the disease. We are at peace within, and for that reason we are intelligent without, in action and in precaution." Rowntree's views on prayer, though couched in traditional religious terms, are in keeping with the more liberal religious view that God's miracles are an unfolding of the laws of nature—not an interruption of the normal flow of life, but rather fortuitous events in keeping with natural law. Rowntree is a Quaker, and his views reflect the purpose of the Quaker Meeting as practiced in unprogrammed (silent) meetings. The silence is not meditation in the usual sense, but rather an attempt to align the human mind with the mind of God, thus influencing worshippers to live more God-like in their daily lives. Talking to God and listening to God, Rowntree says, builds our brain power. His short treatise is a worthy addition to the literature of prayer.… (más)