people release a great deal of energy when they pray

I understood Mr. Gurdjieff to tell us once, at the Wellington, that all people who pray and believe in a finer, higher life release a great deal of energy when they pray… We should feel that we were charging ourselves with this energy thus released and accumulated by lofty aspirations from all directions of the Earth… so that it would help us grow into ‘men made in the image of God. And having done that,’ he added, ‘promise yourselves that you will pay back for the energy you have stolen, through conscious ef- forts and intentional suffering, when the time comes for you to pay.’

Gurdjieff: His Work, On Myself…With Others…For the Work  p. 146