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An inspirational speaker from Scotland, who has worked with many world class athletes, promotes a program of positive thinking. Briefly, it all begins in your mind. Visualise success and you can make it happen.

Interestingly, he describes this process as a substitute for prayer.

I think the first thing to note is the Times headline, which is, I fear, a touch misleading, "pray every day to remain healthy" is, at least, a limited interpretation of what was said.

The second, is, I think, that's it's a pity that prayer is valued or measured in terms of mere cause and effect, as a kind of transaction with the Almighty, as in the case of research to see if believers are more healthy.

Even if all believers were, and I do not think they are, as William points out one might simply understand prayer in the same way as one understands a walk on a beach.

All that is really a way of saying that to ask if 'prayer works' is not really to ask a Christian question. The trouble of course is that Christians are often the main culprits, presenting prayer in terms of requests to be answered. Is it any wonder then we get ourselves in a tangle over so called unanswered prayer, is it any wonder then that some walk away saying Christianity doesn't 'work'?

Now I don't plan writing an essay on prayer and there are of course many aspects to the Christian understanding of prayer, but to limit prayer to something which 'works' is to miss the point. Indeed it might even be suggested that this approach to prayer is little more than an incantation, or an invocation.

The book of Hebrews records the faithful as those experienced both pleasant and adverse circumstances in their lives as a result of their devotion, and then, of course, we have the story of Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, who said to Nebuchadnezzar, "the God we serve is able to save us.... but even if he does not..."

Yes, no and wait, eh, Peter? ;-)

I've a better way to stay healthy - give up the fags, cut down the booze, eat up your greens and get plenty of exercise, such as in Heliopolitan's Jordanian-Israeli cycling extravaganza!

I once mentioned to a Theistic Christian friend that there is no point in praying for disadvantaged people all over the world if you weren't prepared to actually do some of the work *yourself* to make the prayer come true. He thought about it for a bit, and decided that I was the wisest guru to come out of Dungannon for a Very Long Time.

Even if he's right, that may not be saying much...

-H

Yes, no and wait, eh, Peter? ;-)

Emm, nope!

In fact it's been so long since I even tried to understand that little snippet of evangelical speak that it took a while for me to clue in to what you meant!

However paragraph 3 about actually doing something, yep, now that gets us on the way, gets us moving a little!

Prayer changes me.

And the great thing is that there doesn't need to actually *be* a god for that to work! Welcome to the Power of Positive Thinking.

Well..............

It all depends on the kind of change we're talking about,

and then there's worship.

Sorry to disappoint again!

:-)

Two really good books I've read in the past about prayer which I could be so bold to recommend...

'If God already knows, why pray?' Doug F Kelly (Christian Focus)
'Prayer and the knowledge of God' Graeme Goldsworthy (IVP)

In the 1970s, the medical effects and underlying science of various states of trance and meditation characteristic of some religious sects was studyied systematically and is understood. It is summed up in what has become to be known as "The Relaxation Response." The technique stripped of its religious mumbo jumbo is easy to learn, requires about 20 minutes a day, and has proven beneficial health effects. It is exactly the opposite of the fight or flight response. It can be learned from a book by the researcher Dr. Herbert Benson MD. It should be available in any public library and in most bookstores. It's also available on Amazon. A similar and even more effective technique is self hypnosis which will not only induce a state of complete relaxation but can be used to achieve many other objectives such as weight loss, quitting smoking, improving memory, and many others. You can get these on CDs or cassette tapes (anyone still use those anymore?) inexpensively. I personally lost 28 pounds in 6 weeks effortlessly listening to one 45 minute tape twice a day, once before going to bed and once upon waking up. I also used another to improve my memory. Someone I know went to a professional hypnotist to get help with a sleep disorder when nothing else would work. The effect brain chemistry has on overall body health has only barely begun to be understood. It does not require any religious practice or belief to take advantage of the benefits of this technique. Google "Relaxation Response" to learn more.

"It does not require any religious practice or belief to take advantage of the benefits of this technique."

No, just trust in your therapist.

pm, you don't do this with a therapist, you do this on your own by yourself in a dark quiet room in a comfortable chair or lying down. Your ignorance does not surpise me. You are a product of your society with its blind prejudices and refusal to consider anything beyond the dogma it clings to with an iron grip.

Yes, of course, how silly of me, all you have to do is trust in yourself.

So, "you do this on your own by yourself in a dark quiet room in a comfortable chair or lying down."

And there was me thinking it was something you could explain to me, no "religious practice" involved. Is there any particular direction I would have to face?

And presumably if you are on your own you have to do it by yourself!

BTW Was your friend on his own when he was with the professional hypnotist he went to visit? Now that I'd really like to see.

As for Dr. Herbert Benson MD, I suppose he was there in spirit only. Sorry Marcus, I'm a Christian, the practices of Tuatha Dé Danann don't interest me. But that's just my prejudice, as least now I know what yours is.

Ommmmmmmmmmm

Aw no, the CD player's on the blink.

OK

Let me get this weekend straight.

Heliopolitan seeks an alluring arrangement of stars in the East, and Marcus seeks a dark room, where he might lie down in order to elicit a trance like state.

pm, ignorance is the fuel required for religion to survive and to thrive. Of course it ridicules knowledge. It instinctively sees real knowledge as a threat.

"And presumably if you are on your own you have to do it by yourself!"

You were on your own when you created the stress in your mind in the first place. Whether guided by a live hypnotist or a recording of a hypnotist or the techniques you learned from a hypnotist or in a book, you will reduce or eliminate that stress on your own too. Even by your account, nobody can pray for you, you have to do it yourself. These are methods long accepted as safe and effective by the mainstream of medical professionals because they work. They are simply stripped of their irrelevant religious dogma.

Ah, come on Marcus, please don't assume I have no knowledge of relaxation techniques.

But no doubt it is much lesser than yours, so please do enlighten me. When you lie down and follow the muscle relaxing process and then empty your mind, by doing whatever meaningless repetition it is you do, please explain to me what is happening? What knowledge do you have of this empty mind? I wouldn't want to miss it if it happened.

pm, read the book. I know you know how. I'm not going to entertain your laziness if you haven't read it already. I am not paid to be your teacher.

"Read the book"?

Now where did I hear that before?

And just one other thing, you said, "Even by your account, nobody can pray for you, you have to do it yourself." Actually that's one of the great things about Christianity, we talk to one another, it helps to clarify what's on one's mind.

So you'll pardon me Marcus, won't you, if I ignore it next time someone accuses we Christians of irrationality.

BTW, I hear Yellowstone's looking for Yogis

pm

"So you'll pardon me Marcus, won't you, if I ignore it next time someone accuses we Christians of irrationality."

I don't have to. You accuse each other of it all the time. What do you call 400 year of "the troubles?" Now that's irrationality. Calling a brutal fued that at times was practically a civil war "the troubles." Talk about stretching the meaning of words beyond credibility.

"What do you call 400 year of "the troubles?" "

A distracting thought perhaps?


"When distracting thoughts occur,
try to ignore them by not dwelling upon them
and return to repeating "one." "

(That's one of the steps to relaxation)

Now lie down and close your eyes again, everything will be OK when you mind goes blank.

And the MD you referred to, was he the boy who said, "Seemingly embedded within each of us is a hard-wiring to believe in something beyond. Therefore, one can argue we're wired for God."?

I got that here



There's even a section entitled "The Power of Belief"

Gonny, who'd have thought?

I have practised self-hypnosis for years and I have prayed for years: whatever the side-effects of each their purposes and processes are not only different but diametrically opposed to each other.

In hypnosis we sink deep into ourselves and our own consciousness. As Marcus says we may, in certain applications of the discipline, become our own doctor, our own therapist. There is an old maxim which states that the man who is self-taught had a poor teacher. Let me just say that in the realm of therapy it is very questionable if the self performs significantly better.

In prayer, however, we take our concerns out of ourselves and allow them to be transformed in the medium of God.

The aim of hypnosis can be selfish, the effect of prayer is selflessness.

Shopping-list prayers do not connect us with God. Prayer whose aim might be to make us feel good does not connect us with God.Ìý

When a broken spirit lays its concerns before God it is a different story, then a shift of perspective is possible and a move towards healing and wholeness begins.

pm

"Seemingly embedded within each of us is a hard-wiring to believe in something beyond. Therefore, one can argue we're wired for God."?"

Well he got that one wrong. I'm one of you as long as I am alive and I my conscious mind is not hard wired for anything, at least not for a belief in god. My mind works by observing and drawing logical conclusions tentatively until disproved and so far in my many years of life experience, I have no evidence that leads me to consider even a possibility that god exists. So whenever I meet someone who has had formal religious instruction like the woman I know who studied at a convent but never took her vows as a nun, I ask them what they were told about why they think god exists. And it always comes down to "a feeling." I have no such feeling and never did. Dawkins says it's a mental illness. Maybe he's right. Or maybe it's just a fairy tale that's handed down from parents to children who want to believe that there is something invisible to protect them when they are afraid of the dark...even as adults. Dark, dark eternally dark death. Maybe that's what frightens most people into believing in god. Man may be the only animal aware of its own mortality.

Parratosis;

"There is an old maxim which states that the man who is self-taught had a poor teacher."

No, that's wrong and besides, that's not how it goes. It says a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. A lawyer who tries his own case has a fool for a client. Even psychiatrists will tell you that when it comes to therapy of the mind, they can only help their patients explore what is troubling them so that they can resolve it themselves. Unlike cutting out a tumor or killing a bacteria, there are no outside interventions that can "cure" a troubled mind. Drugs only suppress the symptoms. Getting at the root cause is something the mind must ultimately do for itself.

"Shopping-list prayers do not connect us with God. Prayer whose aim might be to make us feel good does not connect us with God."

No point then in praying to win the Irish Sweepstakes or for world peace. World peace might make some feel good but I guess it's a waste of time praying for it. Lots of people have and experience proves it doesn't work.

"When a broken spirit lays its concerns before God it is a different story.."

Whew. I don't have a broken spirit. No need to pray after all.

Marcus

"Dark, dark eternally dark death."

You mean like one 'ommmmmmmm' too many?

pm

poetic, dontcha think? Some people report seeing a brigth light during a near death experience. How do they know that is not the furnaces of hell that awaits them?

Marcus # 22

You know what that means: I guess I'll just have to pray for you...

Parrhasios

Maybe we could talk about fear here? What you said about desire fits Frankenstein and Dracula. I'm not so sure about MR James. Have you read much by him?

GV

Graham - it's rather unfortunate that I am the person who picked up your comments on 'fear' as I'm afraid I know just about zilch as far as its literary manifestations are concerned. I have to confess that I have never read either Dracula or Frankenstein; I do remember though, quite vividly, James' Lost Hearts which I read as a child and one by Saki whose title I cannot recollect but whose story-line left a lasting impression.

I just don't particularly care for horror as a genre (just as, whisper it gently, I don't really enjoy science-fiction or fantasy literature either).

I am very interested in 'fear' nonetheless: its origins in any particular instance can be very complex and a masking of desire is only one aspect. That said I think in general our fear of ghosts at some level relates to a desire to survive death - something that seems fairly clear in the one and only James' story I remember!

Graham further to # 27 above.

When I spoke of the literary manifestations of fear I meant in the context of horror fiction - obviously a work like Metamorphosis is infused by fear, so indeed is Pride and Prejudice.

I didn't mean to sound snobby either - it is purely a matter of personal taste on my part.

I would add too that a fear of ghosts may not only indicate a desire to survive death but in some cases a desire for death (our own, those we hate, or indeed those we love).

Parrahasios
You make a good point about M.R. James' "Lost Hearts". James' stories are animated by the premise "If I am not careful something like this might happen to me!" Unless, like Mr Abney, we desire eternal life, we can't be disturbed by this story.
I'm not interested in reading horror. "Horror" is the absence of hope. I think that's why I don't like Poe. James' stories inhabit a moral universe. I've never read anything that chills so effectively, and enjoyably.
Which is interesting. Why do we enjoy the fear? There's no adrenaline rush in reading a ghost story.
If you get half an hour try these -



GV

"I would add too that a fear of ghosts may not only indicate a desire to survive death but in some cases a desire for death (our own, those we hate, or indeed those we love)."

That takes us close to discussing evil. I think that's what Freud was trying to explain when he postulated a death wish. But that's too simple. It doesn't capture all the data.

GV

Parratosis;

You'd better pray every day...that I don't one day become President of the United States. If I did, the world would change very quickly...and for most people it would not be a change for the better.

Marky with his finger on the Red Button.

Now there's a nightmare!

Marcus I am not sure you've entirely got the hang of this praying lark, for instance, in Ireland we don't usually think it necessary to pray for rain.

Graham I think man is essentially amoral. We function better as social individuals by hiding that amorality not only from others but from ourselves. Fear, like apparent adherence to moral systems, is a useful tool for acknowledging yet concealing the implications of our 'baser' appetites and natures. I think, too, that the experience of fear relates to the crushing hopelessness that pervades any real recognition (conscious or subconscious) of what we are and indeed what we are not. One of the great Biblical insights, however, is that "perfect love casts out fear": knowing God diminishes and eventually banishes fear.

Okay - so there are "demons" within? 'Malice' was an essential ingredient to M.R. James stories. So we fear our own malice, and we're simultaneously attracted to it. And we want to pretend that it's make-believe. Does that explain the sense of relief? It was only a story.

That makes a lot of sense. There's also a fear of the Holy. (Otto etc.) Do we tell stories about that at all? Otto included ghosts and ghouls, but that doesn't seem right. Especially on your account.

GV

BTW

'Frankenstein' is as much a Romantic tract as anything else. You'd be pleasantly surprised.

GV