Prayer as Manipulation: The Cautionary Tale of Franz Boas

    Have anthropologists and scholars of religion learned to think about prayer in a way that is not condescending to people who pray? The description of prayer the great Franz Boas (1858-1942) offered a century ago leaves room for doubt. Boas defines prayer, along with bloody sacrifice and other rites, as an effort to impose one’s will, or a collective will, on a supernatural power (cite below the fold). Prayer for Boas has a manipulative purpose, whereas prayer for some other end, such as communion with one’s God, is apparently so anomalous that Boas comes close to leaving it unmentioned.