account all these facts.

Nor is this all. There are many facts in this experience which are
strange and puzzling. A prayer that perhaps is trivial meets with an
answer, while another on an important matter fails; a passing trouble is
relieved, while a prayer poured out to save a passionately beloved life
finds no response. It seems almost impossible for the ordinary student
to discover the law according to which a prayer is or is not
productive.

The first thing necessary in seeking to understand this law is to
analyse prayer itself, for the word is used to cover various activities
of the consciousness, and prayers cannot be dealt with as though they
formed a simple whole. There are prayers which are petitions for
definite worldly advantages, for the supply of physical
necessities--prayers for food, clothing, money, employment, success in
business, recovery from illness, &c. These may be grouped together as
class A. Then we have prayers for help in moral and intellectual
difficulties and for spiritual growth--for the overcoming of
temptations, for strength, for insight, for enlightenment. These may be
grouped as Class B. Lastly, there are the prayers that ask for nothing,
that consist in meditation on and adoration of the divine Perfection, in
intense aspiration for union with God--the ecstasy of the mystic, the
meditation of the sage, the soaring rapture of the saint. This is the
true "communion between the Divine and the human," when the man pours
himself out in love and veneration for THAT which is inherently
attractive, that compels the love of the heart. These we will call Class
C.

In the invisible worlds there exist many kinds of Intelligences, which
come into relationship with man, a veritable Jacob's ladder, on which
the Angels of God ascend and descend, and above which stands the Lord
Himself.[296] Some of these Intelligences are mighty spiritual Powers,
others are exceedingly limited beings, inferior in consciousness to man.
This occult side of Nature--of which more will presently be
said[297]--is a fact, recognised by all religions. All the world is
filled with living things, invisible to fleshly eyes. The invisible
worlds interpenetrate the visible, and crowds of intelligent beings
throng round us on every side. Some of these are accessible to human
requests, and others are amenable to the human will. Christianity
recognises the existence of the higher classes of Intelligences under
the general name of