Muslim prayer involves bowing, kneeling and prostration. Jewish prayer may involve swaying back and forth and bowing. Some Native Americans regard dancing as a form of prayer.
Some Christians bow their heads and fold their hands. There are morning and evening prayers, graces said over meals, and reverent physical gestures. Various spiritual traditions offer a wide variety of devotional acts. The Vulgate Latin is oratio, which translates Greek προσευχή in turn the Septuagint translation of Biblical Hebrew תְּפִלָּה tĕphillah.
The English term prayer is from Medieval Latin: precaria, lit.'petition, prayer'.
The efficacy of prayer in faith healing has been evaluated in numerous studies, with contradictory results. Scientific studies regarding the use of prayer have mostly concentrated on its effect on the healing of sick or injured people. Today, most major religions involve prayer in one way or another some ritualize the act, requiring a strict sequence of actions or placing a restriction on who is permitted to pray, while others teach that prayer may be practised spontaneously by anyone at any time. The act of prayer is attested in written sources as early as five thousand years ago. Prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal statement, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person. Prayer can take a variety of forms: it can be part of a set liturgy or ritual, and it can be performed alone or in groups. More generally, prayer can also have the purpose of thanksgiving or praise, and in comparative religion is closely associated with more abstract forms of meditation and with charms or spells. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ancestor. Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication.
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