Is prayer & communicating with spirits the same thing?

Question

When you pray...how do you know who is hearing you...or answering you? Also..is it any different from meditating?

Some of you will say this belongs in R&S..but I want the paranormal view on it.

Answer 1

Definitely not.

Prayer is a personal communication to God of heaven, maker of all things.

Communicating with spirits is communicating with any and all sorts of spiritual entities that frankly could include some rather nasty demon types.  God's word warns against attempting to contact other spiritual beings.  He likens it to witchcraft, which clearly is not considered a good thing.

It is easy to know who is hearing you, God does, as well as anyone or anything else near you.   Meditating is a thought thing, prayer is to be performed aloud.  The Bible can give many insights on how to speak to God, praying in your mind isn't one I have come across yet.

Read the Word.

Answer 2

When you pray you usually ask for help somewhere maybe from a spirit guide, or a god, you could just be giving your thanks, appreciation, opionions out,(when you pray,usually dont expect a 'quick awnser' back.). When you try to communicate with a spirit, this usually means communicating with a low ranked spirit lower then a God, (house spirits,plane of exsistence spirits). Basically this means trying to talk to a spirit and get a fast response back of any topic your talking about.  This could be a coversation-type thing.

                       Now to your other questions. If any God does exsist, and you pray to one, it will hear you out, but not always going to respond. If you pray to your spirit guides ( the guides that supposidly everyone has that guides them thorugh life and spiritality life) they will always hear you, because they are assigned to you. They will understand and "guide" or help in what they can for you if you deserve it, of what you ask from them, they wont do everything. "advanced" spiritual people have a close relationship with thier guides, since they communicate with them quite often.

                  Meditation can mean soo many things. You can do many spiritual things through meditation. If your sole purpose is to communicate with a spirit thorugh meditation, then thats how your going to communicate with one.Everything takes practice.

Answer 3

It's necessary to read the Bible to have effective prayers.  In the Bible, you learn God's name, Jehovah, and can address him personally.  (Psalm 83:18)  You can learn about his Son, Jesus and his life on earth, and his integrity under trial.  We read about people whose lives were a series of mistakes or ones who did the right thing.  We can find out how we can make good decisions and how we can make Jehovah happy or sad.  So then, when we pray, this information comes back into our mind and helps us.  When we actually see Jehovah answering our prayers we grow in faith.

There is two kinds of meditation.  One is thinking deeply about what we've read and how it affects you personally; how you can use that information.  The other is when one empties their mind and tries to make it blank.  The second type could allow 'a place for the devil.'

The Bible forbids communicating with spirits because this is a route to the demons. (Leviticus 19:31)

Answer 4

Yes, it is all a waste of time and pointless.

Answer 5

Dear Deenie;

I'm going to take this question in parts:

1. Is prayer and communicating with spirits the same thing?

If your concept of prayer is the little man kneeling by his bed, with his hands steepled under his chin telling God what he wants, then maybe the answer is no.

But if you're willing to broaden your understanding of prayer, and meditation even, then you may come to a realization that prayer is a form of communication. And that meditation is part of that. If you've ever found yourself "zoning out" and your mind wonders in deep contemplation where answers comes to you from no where, then you're praying. It is sometimes called "Contemplative Prayer". Because just like physical communication involves both talking and (active) listening, communicating with spirits, God, or angels (it's all part of the same thing) also involves talking (prayer) and listening (meditation). And there is no one way of doing this. Prayers can even be in the form of writing, as poems or petitions, affirmative saying, and so forth. So whether you pray (communicate) out loud or in silence, it is really up to you. In general Spirits never read our minds, because that would be an infringement of our free will. So it'd be wise to give them that permission. Either out loud, through a written prayer, or just say in your mind, "God (if you believe in God), I give all spirits, angels, guides permission to read my mind." It depends on what you feel comfortable with.

2. When you pray, how do you know who is hearing you... or answering you?

If you get silent and go to that place within yourself, you will hear a voice that sometimes sounds like your own. Lets say that a loved one comes to visit in your dreams, or through a meditation session, then normally it will sound and feel like them (whether it's your grandma or mom, or an uncle. They can even be someone from a past life). In essence all minds are one mind. It's like the internet: everything is connected. How do you know when you're IM'ing your best friend, who might live a house away (or maybe even a country away), who it is that's really typing back? It's just a feeling you get. Communication through prayer/meditation. You might smell a familiar smell, or everything is very vivid. I know you've had those experiences recently.

3. Is prayer, communicating with spirits, and meditation different from each other?

To answer this part of your question I would say that prayer and meditation are part of one another. In order to have effective prayer, one must enter into meditation: getting silent, relaxing, going to a higher state of consciousness. Again think of it like the internet: Mind (God) is a big collective network. In order to talk to anyone on that network, you've got to actually sign in--meditation is the "signing in" to the "Spirit" network. (If you think about it, everything is the "Spirit World" just in a different form. We are spirits, we just happen to have bodies.) Then prayer is the communication. So while they are a little different, they are part of the same thing. It's really about opening up your awareness to other states of consciousness, which can and does manifest themselves as actual realms: the Other Side, Spirit World. Ultimately it's all part of the same thing. Just like in a house you have different rooms, levels. You have attics and basements, but it is all part of one house--God's House... Our House.

So I hope this is paranormal enough, as well as touching a bit on the religious/spiritual aspects, because like you mentioned above, they are inseperable.

Answer 6

thats a good question, you wouldnt want to be talking to an evil spirit whoses posing as a good one?

Answer 7

Good point, praying is only to God, your own personal relationship with the father, communicating with spirits, its not with God or not only with God, but with.. spirits.. meditating is self-awareness and relaxing, not really communicating, however it maybe communicating.

Prayer overall is: Talking to God personally through hands in hand worship in a way.

When you pray you know whos answering you because your praying to a person.

Meditating is self-awareness, not much communicating, if it is communicating it can be with anyone or anything.

Hope this helps!

Answer 8

either way you are talking to yourself

Answer 9

Prayer is personal with God, but it is a tuning into the spiritual world....And God may send spirits and angels to answer prayers.

This has happen to me more than once, sometimes I will ask God to send her to me Erica my spirit guide and she would come. Once I fell to sleep praying, my hands were in the prayer position. Erica came floating over me, she took my two hands apart and just held them, as if she was comforting me.

I believe this to be true depending on the way you pray, Either God will send them knowing in what way they can help. Or if you ask for them, they may come. This has happened to me about five times, once I was fully awake and saw this spirit that came up to me. Long story, but I believe it to be her, it was not in my home this time,and I was awake.

If the prayer is sincere, and heart felt, you know God feels what you feel, and these type concern prayers can be answered pretty fast as God either sends angels or spirits to answer your prayer in some way.

Once at work, God's presence intervene to me and He spoke telepathy....and I wasn't in prayer, but HE felt what was in my heart, and the truth that came out, basically I done the right thing at the right time, and He came to let me know that He was happy with me....those were his words.

Edit...

When you hear from God you will know 100% that it's God, you'll feel him above you, in you and all around you, happy and warm feeling. You'll know.

Prayer is the key, things happen only when you are in need. Prayers from the heart-soul is more than meditation, it's direct hot line to God....God is the Operator and directs your call to get the job done, by answer your prayer, or sending spirits or angels to help answer, help, guide teach, and protect.

It can work differently for everyone in different ways depending on how sensitive and open a person is to all the ways God communicates.