Does anyone know anything about a double b lind study done years ago about prayer and healing? What i remember is that it was a double blind study with heart patients, using all demoninations of prayer, and that prayer had a significant effect. But then I read Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People. His thesis is that prayer only benefits the one praying -- that if it did help the recipient, then in cases where it didn't, it would mean that either you didn't pray well enough or that God doesn't like you. My father heard him speak and asked him (at my request) about the study. He said that it had been refuted. Does anyone know the real story? Kushner seems like a highly intelligent, well-red person, but I didn't hear anything about the study b eing challenged.
"God must be greater than the greatest of human weaknesses and, indeed, the greatest of human skill. God must even transcend our most remarkable-to emulate nature in its absolute splendor. How can any man or woman sin against such greatness of mind? How can one little carbon unit on Earth-in the backwaters of the Milky Way, the boondocks-betray God almighty? That is impossible. The height of arrogance is the height of control of those who create God in their own image."
~~~Ramtha, speaking through J.Z. Knight (from the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?")
To say that God doesn't like you is blasphemy. God is Love. God loves us all, no matter what we are or what we do or don't do. The only thing that would stop that prayer from working is a personal agenda. As Robert Holden said a few days ago on his show, "When I want something and it's not happening, what is really happening? Maybe I don't want it.." ...maybe deep down the person feels they don't deserve to get well, or they want to leave the planet and move on.
and what Louise Hay says about God
” I find it hard to believe that the vast, incredible Intelligence that created this entire Universe is only and old man sitting on a cloud above the Planet Earth….watching my genitals! Yet so many of us were taught this concept as a child. It is vital that we release foolish, outmoded ideas that do not support us and nourish us. I feel strongly that even our concept of God needs to be one that is for us, not against us. There are so many different religions to choose from. If you have one now that tells you, you are a sinner and a lowly worm, get another one.”
“When we remove sexual guilt from people and teach them to love and respect themselves, then they will automatically treat themselves and others in ways that are for their highest good and greatest joy.”
I know that prayer works. Everything we think is a prayer going out to the Universe, to God, to the Eternal energy we are all part of and created from. Although I could go with Kushner with a twist!! ...and say, yes, prayer only benefits the one praying. If someone is speaking a prayer and you are with them in the prayer and you agree with the prayer and say amen to the prayer, then you are also praying.
When I was a child, I fell out of a tree. I dislocated my collar bone (clavicle) and several days later went unconscious and could not be woke up. It turned out I'd also broken a blood vessel on my heart and it bled into the pericardium, the heart's cave, and beating into that blood instead of into space wore my heart out, and all systems except the vitals shut down. It was several days before I woke up. I got lots of tests, every day, and was in the hosp for 3 weeks. They told my mom I would have a heart problem and not be able to exert myself for the rest of my life. BUT! I had a blessing, a prayer, my head was annointed with oil and 2 darling young missionaries blessed me with perfect health. 6 months later, a doctor checked me out and told my mom my heart was perfect. I went on to run and play, and in 10th grade beat everyone in the 600 yard run. There were some upset ladies who thought they were fast, but I showed them!
I also know that when I am happy, I feel better and my health improves! I would say that the very act of praying with someone, showing that you care, would touch their heart and maybe heal that which is making them sick, if it has to do with emotional pain.
We all need to be happy, not try to be happy, or hope to be happy, we just need to BE Happiness. Happiness boosts the immune system. The body responds to the way we think about it. Try this: Think that you are fat - feel dismal and guilty about it - and watch your tummy poke out. Now smile and think that you are healthy and trim - feel happy and healthy - and watch you tummy suck in. It's amazing!
I was in my 30's when I first felt that love. It was unconditional, like nothing I had experienced on this earth. It was like - I don't know, maybe the Childlike Princess in the Neverending Story, LOL - up until I felt that love, I didn't much approve of myself or like myself. I used to avoid my own eyes in the mirror, I felt shame, guilt, low self-esteem. People reacted to that and treated me the way I felt I deserved to be treated.
Then one day, I was listening to some motivational tapes, and the guy said something like, Every morning when you get up, look into the mirror and say, I like you, to you, say, I love you, to you. Those words hit me hard and made me take notice. I was panicked!!! I couldn't do that, I couldn't even look at myself!! But I knew I had to do it, it was just something that I had to do to grow.
I went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror at my reflection and I said, I love you, Kathy. Almost immediately my reflection was tainted by the images of filthy nasty men who were degrading me, their eyes were telling me I was only good for one thing. I knew I had to overcome that, even though I wanted to run and hide. I took a deep breath and continued saying, I love you Kathy, over and over, and meaning it more and more, as I began to feel empowered, and suddenly all the nasty images disappeared and I saw myself as an angel of light, my flesh was sparkling with light, my hair was covered with a halo of light, and the room disappeared in that light. I was learning to love myself.
He gives me an image at times of Jesus holding my liver in his arms like holding a beloved baby and i feel his love healing my liver. Livers are such an ugly looking organ, so glad it is loved.
clarification -- Kushner wasn't saying god doesn't like anyo ne. He has a similar belief to you, Mak, that God loves everyone. He says that if you believe prayer heals, then the logical conclusion when it doesn't is that god doesn't like you or you prayed wrong.
I want to believe that double blind prayer would work -- that if you pray for someone and they don't know it, they'd still be helped because prayer is a palpable energy. But the studies don't seem to support that.
I think sometimes God has different plans for us that we do.