The Many Methods of Affirmative Prayer

Praying effectively, Foulks writes, is a matter of relaxing, removing any blocks to Source energy, and allowing our good to flow. Effectual Prayer offers seven steps of prayer, from preparation to praying from our own divine nature. The book includes a long section called “Meditations for the High Watch” that Foulks said were revealed to her in times of trouble. Foulks was a Kansas City businesswoman who became a Unity student and practiced healing others alongside Unity cofounder Myrtle Fillmore, who encouraged Foulks to write.

This book was written together by Unity cofounder Charles Fillmore and his second wife Cora. They said we have been taught for so long to ask God for what we want that we have become “praying beggars.” Instead, they said, we can make direct, conscious contact with Spirit. They wrote, “As we practice this kind of prayer our innate Spirit showers its life energies into our conscious mind and a great soul expansion follows.” This book focuses on prayer as taught by Jesus with plenty of biblical backup and metaphysical interpretation.

Hypatia Hasbrouck was a longtime Unity minister who collected and adapted various prayer techniques, then gathered them in this book. She does not simply teach that prayer is a worthwhile practice—she teaches how to pray. Handbook of Positive Prayer is full of exercises, tools, specific steps, and practices to use in creating your personal prayer life.

Hasbrouck explains the meaning of affirmative prayer and why we use the word amen. She writes extensively about visualization as a form of prayer. She makes suggestions for prayer journals, prayer partners, prayer letters, and a nine-hour prayer vigil or novena to create peace of mind in any circumstances. She teaches how to construct prayers using scripture, and she backs up her teachings with lessons from the Bible that might surprise you.

Eric Butterworth was a legendary Unity author praised for his wisdom by both Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou. In this book about prayer, he said the same thing Charles Fillmore was saying 50 years earlier—that our fundamental concept of God must change before we can experience true connection with the Divine.

Instead of praying to an imperialistic and remote God, Butterworth encourages praying from a consciousness of God. In this awareness, he wrote, “prayer is not something you say or do to God. It is something you consciously let God do to and through you.” Butterworth outlines the spiritual principles behind prayer and offers techniques to guide you.

Setting a trap for God means creating an opening in your life and consciousness for the inexhaustible power of the Divine, which may show up as healing, prosperity, guidance, or understanding. Rocco A. Errico is an authority on the Aramaic language Jesus spoke and on ancient Semitic culture. Words and ideas we think we understand often have a completely different meaning in the context of the Middle East as it was 2,000 years ago, especially considering the layers of meaning in the Aramaic language. In this book, Errico focuses on the specific meaning of words in the Lord’s Prayer.

If we know we are one with God, then how do we pray? This book is for readers who are already familiar with New Thought but want to learn more about affirmative prayer and what is sometimes called oneness language. It explains how the universal spiritual principles taught in Unity support our prayer practice.

Rather than listing rigid steps to prayer, the authors—both Unity ministers and premier prayer teachers in New Thought—see prayer as a flow, moving from one phase to the next like an unfurling fern frond. Affirmations are unpacked in detail—what they are, how to use them, how to create them, and also how to balance them with releasing what is undesired.

The last quarter of the book is addressed to ministers, chaplains, and those who are called upon to pray out loud with others one on one. Also check out Martella-Whitsett’s earlier book, How to Pray Without Talking to God: Moment by Moment, Choice by Choice.

This is the world-famous “Prayer for Protection” in a beautifully illustrated board book for young children. (“The light of God surrounds you, the love of God enfolds you …”) Use it as an early lesson in affirmative prayer and reassurance that a child is never alone.