This is a very serious question, as it’s something that most of us do in private or in public, but especially in our supposedly private minds. To whom do these prayers go? When I speak to deceased relatives, is anyone listening (not if they got reincarnated)? Where do the prayers to god go? I recently started thinking deeply on prayer and what its true functions are. I suspect there are multiple functions for prayers, and there are some prayers that are only useful with another’s higher authorities (such as priests exercising demons with Christ’s authority, etc). Yeme’s and Courtney’s discussion regarding consciousness and black magic really peaked my interest. In many religions, some prayers can be invocations. Many religions still practice both prayer AND magic. What is prayer from a RV point of view? What’s going on there?

Interesting questions Eloy. I will follow.
I had a session with a clairvoyant (RV'er) woman in which she explained that it takes 17 seconds for an orb (or thoughtform) to form andd to be 'sent out'. So a little prayer of just a few seconds will not effect to anything 'in the universe'. You have to have 'an aim' and a sufficiently strong intention. It will either be picked up by the isbe that it is intended for or, in case of a prayer to 'god', it will be 'registered' by the beings that are 'folowing you'.Then they will decide what effect it should have.

One definition of Prayer that I have come across in the Past was that Prayer is when you are Talking to God; this was in conjunction with also defining Meditation as when you are Listening to God.

And your Prayers do go to whomever you direct them towards; Prayers that are Directed towards your Ancestors or Deceased Relatives certainly do go towards your Ancestors or Deceased Relatives, but, people who are discarnate typically do not have any easy means with which to interact with the still-embodied or physical-world. The «prayers to god» really depend on your mental-image-comprehension of what constitutes what you consider to be god; I have done these Meditation-Type Field-Vision Instances in my past where I simply Pictured the whole entire Universe itself, treated it like I was communicating with said Universe like a whole entire conscious being/entity, only to find that what I THOUGHT was just my imagination ended up being later fulfilled, sometimes even within the same day; how-ever, I should note here, that, even with my requests/desires being /potentially/ granted, I was /not yet ready/ to /actually receive/ its «gifts» as I suppose I shall them describe; this seems to suggest that, just because you might want something in life, does not necessarily mean you are YET «ready» to receive it fully (for starters, I was both an Atheist and an Extremist-Skeptic at that time, rendering myself both emotionally and psychologically and even logically «unprepared» to be able to actually fully enjoy the blessings that were practically throwing themselves at my feet so-to-speak).

Additionally, prayers also reach multiple beings whom are linked into your mind via your shared Resonance-Frequencies, even though most humans would not really be able to fathom the idea or notion that there really are literally millions of them connected in a psychic or perhaps I should use the vocabulary word Quantum-Entanglement manner. For a bit more on Spirit-Communication...

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brotheramin/episodes/Spirit-communication-enc2ip/a-a41g3pe

P.S. : Invocations and/or incantations could be considered something like «initialisation» acts in order to start something, similar to how the «incantation» of «Hey, Siri» or «Hey, Google» or «Alexa... [followed by instruction/command/request]» are initiations in order to start/activate those A.I.

I think the first point to start addressing this must be - what's your view of the universe?

If it's purely materialistic, then clearly your prayers go nowhere except your head.

Any other answer necessarily requires adherence to certain beliefs that can't be verified (through science) - and thus, remain in the realm of 'belief'.

So, ultimately, your question is - what is your belief in where prayers go?

Which, doesn't really help much.

At best. you'll get responses that you may agree with, and/or give you ideas that you may consider worth believing in. At worst, you'll get responses that you won't believe in, and will promptly ignore.

To be more precise...

There has been some research that shows that prayers (for others) can affect ill people in a positive way. However, there's also research that says such prayer hasn't done anything at all above chance/placebo effects.
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/ , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328521978_Reaching_Resolution_The_Effect_of_Prayer_on_Psychological_Perspective_and_Emotional_Acceptance ,

Also, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3396089/ - however, it's difficult, because this looks at 3 different things, so it's not a great paper

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10865-007-9106-7 - " The effects of distant intercessory prayer are examined by meta-analysis and it is concluded that no discernible effects can be found"

Prayers for self-improvement may have some effect, however there's nothing in scientific literature that suggests it's anything other than a psychological factor.

Are 'answered prayers' anything other than human's willingness to see chance and cherry-picking in a confirmational bias type of way?

So far what Farsight seems to suggest about consciousness (and really all the esoterics out there) is that consciousness is partly individualistic but also partly all-permeating, and therefore collective. You can't*have* a thought without it resounding through the universe in some way.

If this is true, then the only result is that all interrelations between thoughts and physics are possible though not always probable. Your prayers reach everyone, your history is available to everyone, just not always easily accessible.