The Prayer Palace; or the Power of the Mind, Pt. 2

 Boy, is it about to get weird. 

I love the show Sherlock that aired on BBC, with Benedict Cumberbatch as the eponymous Sherlock Holmes. One of the tools that Holmes uses in his arsenal of mental training is something called a "memory palace". I've studied memory techniques. This is one of the cooler ones out there, as well as one of the oldest. It takes advantage of the fact that humans have excellent spatial memory, generally speaking. We can remember where things are better than most things we need to learn. The trick is to imagine a place you are familiar with, one of the more common go-to's is a childhood bedroom. Then you decide where you're going to start in that setting. You pick out distinct spots in your memory of that place. Things you want to remember, you create a striking image that reminds you of each thing, then you place that striking image in the distinct spots of your chosen palace. With some training, you should be able to mentally visit each distinct location and find the image of the thing you're trying to remember without much effort.

When my kids were born, I don't remember where I heard it first, but I had heard about people who learned how to use old school Japanese abacuses, called sorobans, to do fast arithmetic. Then they got rid of the soroban and instead visualized it, allowing them to keep the speed they had attained with the abacus, but relying entirely on the mind. I thought it would be really cool to teach my kids how to utilize this, so that they could excel at math throughout school. I never got around to it, but I still have time.

During the pandemic, I heard about these studies that were done. They involved people who had basically become friends with fictional characters. They found that the brain responds the same way to revisiting familiar shows and novels as it does to revisiting old acquaintances and friends. Honestly, this didn't surprise me. I could have told you something along these lines as a nerd growing up with social awkwardness and a small group of friends. As an adult, I rewatched a lot of things I really liked as a kid. I rewatched the Stargate shows. I rewatched the Star Trek shows I grew up with. I rewatched the Avatar show. I searched for and rewatched the Invisible Man show, Eureka, and Farscape. Any real fan of Christmas can tell you the joys of rewatching favorite Christmas classic movies, from A Muppets Christmas Carol, to It's a Wonderful Life, to Elf, or any other fan favorite. 

This is what I found out to be the real power of the human mind. Imagination. Visualization. 

I'm not talking about any New Age garbage about "visualizing your future" or anything of the sort. I'm talking about creating and enjoying a rich internal life that fleshes out your faith and your mental health. There are long-standing traditions throughout Christian history that support this. Last time I talked about the power of the mind, I was talking about mindfulness and journaling, and the habits that help deal with the ongoing rushing flow of thoughts and emotions that never stop going through our minds. 

Those are all really helpful habits to establish. But this, this is the real meat, the stuff that makes for some really cool experiences. 

One of the cooler orders in Christian history is the Order of Jesuits. I won't pretend they don't have a long history of contributing to European colonialism and racism, because they do. But the ideals behind them are still impressive. I think it's possible, even necessary, to distill the excellent parts of our past out of the mud, because there will always be mud in human achievement. Anyway, the Jesuits were started by one Ignatius of Loyola. He was once a soldier, before he became a clergyman. Despite his newfound nonviolent lifestyle, he brought the discipline and excellence to his order. 

When I first heard about them, it honestly reminded me of Starfleet, the pseudo-military from Star Trek. Starfleet makes a point to focus on scientific study and diplomacy, the organization using a naval hierarchy. The Jesuits, too, had a diverse and noncombat related focus, but used militaristic tools to achieve their goals. Their training spanned fifteen years. It started with four years of theology training, capping that with a year of review. Then it proceeded with another four years of liberal arts training, with a year of interdisciplinary mixing. Then there was something like three years of medical training and two years of craft skills, like carpentry or masonry. Throughout their training, they were expected to learn three languages, as well. This left them with the ability to speak to multiple groups of people, skills that made them very useful to communities in need of a doctor or craftsman. 

Ignatius of Loyola popularized something called imaginative prayer. It was a form of meditation. You imagined yourself a witness to pivotal Biblical events. You took the time to tell yourself the story, imagining you are there. The Gospels were their favorite places to insert themselves. St. Teresa wrote a book called The Interior Castle that bears a striking resemblance to the practice of memory palaces. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, with his description of Hell in the Inferno, is thought to have been used, commonly, as a memory palace by those that memorized the vices and virtues for their spiritual disciplines. 

A newer book, one that I thought was quite helpful, called Seeing is Believing, by Gregory Boyd, talks about imaginative prayer. I do it all the time, often in conjunction with my journaling. Honestly, I think it's a great way to open yourself up to the Holy Spirit and have live, ongoing conversations with God in a way that most people hunger for. Many get frustrated with prayer, because it seems one-sided. We talk and we talk, but even when we listen, so often, we find silence. Imaginative prayer is a great way to hear what God has to say in our situations. 

Let me share some of the deeper secrets to doing this kind of prayer correctly. First and foremost, read the Bible. I've read through the whole thing. There are reading plans out there that break it down and show you how to do it in a year. If I remember, if you can manage to read four chapters of the Bible a day, you should get it done in about a year. For me, it took a little longer than that, but not much. In John 10, Jesus talks about being the Good Shepherd, and talks about how his sheep, that's us, know his voice, and he knows us, and we trust him. You cannot learn anyone's voice without hearing it first. That's why it's so important to read the Bible. That's why it's most important to get to know the Jesus of the Gospels, because he is the very image of the invisible God. Every character trait of the Holy Spirit was first illustrated in the person of Jesus. The better you get to know the historical Jesus, the better you can get a feel for him in your life. 

As far as I'm concerned, this is the secret to modern day prophecy, too. I was taught that most of prophesy is forthtelling, rather than foretelling. Meaning a prophet's job is to speak God's truth to a given situation. Only rarely does that mean telling the future somehow. The greatest way to do that is to learn God's will, then apply it to your situation. One of the greatest prophets in history, Elijah, did just this. One of his greatest prophesies had to do with a drought that Israel would be facing, as a result of God's judgment. But how did he know that was going to happen? Scripture said it would. In Leviticus 26, Israel is promised blessings if they follow God's decrees and commandments, and punishments if they don't. Those punishments include the withholding of rain. As an educated man, Elijah knew his Scripture, and saw what was happening around him, and spoke truth to the situation. When the Israelites repented, he called that the situation would be righted, and it was. 

This is one of the reasons why, even today, we give so much authority to the disciples of Jesus as leaders of the Church. They studied at his feet, listened to him, got to know him, for years. That is where the power of imaginative prayer comes in. We have the ability to study Jesus, to hear his words, to learn his character, get to know his personality. Once we do, it's easier to guess what Jesus' will for our lives is. 

When I encounter Jesus like this, I imagine meeting him in a place that I have long thought to be holy. A Christian summer camp I used to work at had a chapel, when I first arrived there to work, that was old, and wooden, and the paint was peeling. It had supposedly been built in Europe, but deconstructed around WWII and relocated to New York, rebuilt on camp property. It had seen decades and decades of worship and ministry. In my mind, as hot as it was those summers, it was still a most holy place. A few years later, a bad storm knocked a tree down on top of it, and they rebuilt the chapel all new. But when I meet with Jesus in my prayers, I meet him in that original chapel, on those hard wooden pews. 

I don't presume to argue that the words I receive from God when I meet him like this have anywhere near the authority of Scripture. On the contrary, I acknowledge that any conversation, any interaction, I might have with God in these moments are primarily filtered through my own imaginations. As such, they can easily be wrong, or tainted by own biases and prejudices. But if I make an effort to base them on the character of Christ, then these conversations can still be comforting, can still be moving. 

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this. I don't have nearly as much practice with these techniques as I do the mindful or journaling techniques of prayer. I'm not an authority. But I have discovered some really cool things that I think can bring a deep sense of meaning to anyone's prayer life, if they used them. Maybe leave a comment below, or hit me up on social media and we can chat.