What is the power of prayer? When I ask this question I'm not presupposing that any of the supernatural claims made by people who pray are true. I'm not asking if prayer can move a certain deity or if prayer heals the sick. I'm asking what power can a prayer have for an atheist or agnostic?
It is a silly question on the face of it. I can admit that. The word 'prayer' like the words 'good' and 'evil' are steeped in ancient superstition and mysticism. All three words are so overloaded with ancient and primal meaning that they are not fit for fine semantic precision. They are poetic words, deep and complex like dark chocolate. They are words that I enjoy tasting on my tongue. These potent words, like eldritch spells instantly transform the sentences they are placed in with a flash of light or darkness and a lasting resonance of meaning. This means that we will continue to use these words even though there are no adequate definitions for either (good or evil).
Prayer is obviously a troublesome word for those of my persuasion. In general atheists avoid using it and substitute in its place the equally ideologically troublesome word wish. The most stoic, thorough and pedantic among my tribe avoid the use of both words. I have found lately that I wish to use the word prayer again. I want to pray. The question is who would I pray to and what is the purpose? The answer is that I wish to pray to me.
A reader could be forgiven at this point (assuming that I have any readers) for considering me to have gone round the bend. Unfortunately I cannot claim to be completely sane but I will defend myself by saying that I do not think that I am a kind of supernatural creature that can grant myself wishes. Neither do I consider myself to be worthy of worship, so please put your mind at ease. What I wish to do is to consciously address myself, respectfully and with awe. The awe isn't because I'm great and powerful, it is because the human mind is amazing and the concept of consciousness is mysterious. Consciousness, like good and evil, is inadequately defined.
I address myself all day long. Frequently the content of those internal messages are negative. I berate myself for making a mistake at work. I beat myself up for forgetting a name or a word. There is no end to it all. It isn't strange to talk to oneself. Everyone does it and most of us talk to ourselves in such a manner that if it was possible our inner self (whatever that is) would have stopped listening long ago. I want to do something different. I want to speak my intentions to myself. The phrase 'Speak my intentions to myself' besides sounding a bit self involved in an Allen Ginsbergian sort of way is a striking phrase. It has some amount of power. But I don't want to just 'speak' to myself for two reasons. One is that I need a way to mentally change the state of the tone of the dialog with myself from the pedestrian and casually insulting (as much of my internal dialog is) to respectful and even reverential which is what each of us deserves. We deserve to e treated with dignity and respect due to humans and the mystery of consciousness and intelligence deserves awe. Reason number two is that when speaking to myself I do not hear answers. I do not hear a voice in my head speaking back to me. I have realizations. These realizations are not reliable or are they always timely. When having dialog with oneself one might have to wait weeks for an answer, or only moments. My inner 'voice' that answers me in images and memory is much like the Christian god. My inner self sends me realizations much as their god supposedly sends them revelations. While gods traffic in miracles, consciousness has truck with thoughts and actions.
So I will pray to myself with as much awe and reverence as I can muster. If we can use the words good and evil, why not also throw in the words prayer and divine. Each of us is mysterious, powerful and amazing. Each of us is in a purely secular way divine.