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Smith
Couple Documents History of Prayer
 Always
and everywhere, people pray.
Prayer is a universal human practice
that courses through every religion and culture, uniting people
of all beliefs and backgrounds. The vast world of prayer,
ranging from petition to adoration, thanksgiving to contemplation,
giving rise to great poetry and prose, painting and sculpture,
inspiring saints and sinners, artists and statesmen, is the
subject of Prayer: A History, a new book written
by Philip and Carol Zaleski, members of the Smith faculty.
The book is due to be released in November from Houghton Mifflin.
Carol Zaleski, professor of religion,
is the author of Otherworld Journeys and The
Life of the World to Come. Philip Zaleski, her husband,
is a research associate in the religion department, author
of The Recollected Heart, and editor of the Best
American Spiritual Writing series. The couple collaborated
previously on The Book of Heaven.
“Focusing on extraordinary
stories of lives changed by prayer and on great works of literature
and art inspired by it, Carol and Philip Zaleski map the vast
world of prayer from the sacred pipe to the rosary, from Neanderthal
funerals to Pentecostal revivals,” according to the
cover notes of Prayer: A History. “Examining
prayer as petition, thanksgiving, adoration, contemplation,
ecstasy, magic, and sacrifice, the Zaleskis probe the language
of prayer, the fruits of prayer, its controversies, and its
prospects for the future.”
Prayer: A History begins with the proclamation in
Chapter I, “The Foundations of Prayer,” that “wherever
one finds humans, one finds humans at prayer.” The Zaleskis
map the evolution and transformation of this practice by exploring
the roots of prayer in magic and sacrifice, prayer’s
enduring influence upon such important cultural figures as
Samuel Johnson, Emily Dickinson, Bill W., Mohandas K. Gandhi,
and J.R.R. Tolkien, controversies regarding the efficacy of
prayer, and prayer’s continuing and contentious role
in public and private life. .
Regardless of people’s
stance on the practice, as the Zaleskis observe, there is
a “larger truth about prayer: that it alters the face
of the world, revealing unnoticed harmonies and symmetries
and knitting together the natural and social dimensions of
our existence.”
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