Hmmm, that seems odd doesn't it?
Anyways, the study is not complete. When one 'puts God to the test' one finds him/herself destined to fail. I believe in the existence of a higher being, the manifestation of which may well be the universe or, as Hegel might have put it, the 'Zeitgeist.'
Things very rarely turn out the way we humans expect them to; this is a fundamental requisite of existence. When the world thinks A is going to happen guess what happens? Why B, of course; would you expect it to be any other way? We have seen this on many occassions in our past; both DUKE studies exemplify this fact in that both results were unexpected! That is, in the initial study, most academics would have thought that prayer would have no effect on the 150 patients in the sample population yet a significant effect was observed; in the subsequent study, academics from experience with the first study may well have been expecting results similar to those of the first study yet were surprised once again. So humans, being the primitive beings we are, just can't seem to figure out what is going to happen....unless, of course, we happen to be successful traders! hehehe
Here is what I think may have happened. There was no widespread interest in the first study until the results were published; that is, very few people throughout the world were conscious of the FIRST experiment until it had been completed. So, we can fairly say that the prayers of those people that were praying for the hospitalized patients in the FIRST experiment did not meet oppositional prayers from many people who wanted the experiment to fail whereas in the second experiment, such opposition may have been prevalent (of course, those who wanted the experiment to fail were probably not believers in any higher being and therefore would not be inclined to pray under any circumstances.....but, I firmly believe that their intentions, their thoughts, their skepticisms may well have contributed in some unbeknownst to us way in opposing the good natured prayers). God is the Zeitgeist, and if a significant part of the Zeitgeist wishes for something to happen, the thing will inevitably happen; and, for some uncanny reason, when a significant portion of the Zeitgeist expects something to happen, the thing will inevitably NOT HAPPEN! You can take philosophies from my formulation above and apply it quite succesfully, I believe, to the financial markets.
I believe prayer can be fruitful because it provides an articulation of one's goals and aspirations and a way of sending your request to the Zeitgeist, which is God. I personally have found many pleasures, of mind and body, in saying a particular prayer known as the prayer of the heart. It is a prayer one recites continuously and unceasingly so as to soften the heart and allow for forgiveness for the things we feel guilty about. The prayer is:
'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me the sinner'
The prayer is said over and over and over again until it becomes a part of one's existence; until it begins to be recited in one's heart automatically and algorithmically; until it's recitation becomes as involuntary as the beating of one's heart! This prayer was developed by monks of the 13th century Greek Orthodox tradition. The prayer allows one to live in one's heart rather than in one's mind; thus emotion, unaffected by distractions of the mind, is pure and unadulturated, and unlike anything one has ever experienced in one's life (except as a child I would imagine when one's love and emotion is necessarily pure and unaffected by a brain not full of malice and contempt...you look into a child's eyes and you can see what I mean by pure love and pure emotion). So, that is my experience with prayer. The Jesus Prayer has been life changing for me and I'm sure it will be for anyone who wishes to escape the guilt they've built up throughout the years; people often say to me 'but I don't believe in Jesus!'; I say, it doesn't matter because the prayer is really a way of asking one's self for forgiveness for one's own perceived wrongdoings; in other words, you are really asking yourself to forgive yourself, if that makes any sense. All of us feel guilty about something, some of us about many things (some of us don't even realize the suppressed guilt our souls harbor)! The prayer of the heart leads one toward forgiveness of one's self! It's like a child who asks his/her parents for something and the parents say no; the child may eventually give in and stop asking or the parents may eventually give in and provide the child with the desired thing. Interestingly, when we consider the child who NEVER STOPS ASKING (define 'NEVER' in the literal sense), we find that the parents might as well concede failure immediately because they will surely become tired and give in to ceaseless askings. In a similar way, when we ask ourselves for forgiveness, we will be at first unwilling to give in and forgive ourselves; but when we activate the algorithm of perpetual prayer of the heart, we MUST give in! And so this prayer I speak of here today must work; there is little question about that in my mind for our askings become as involuntary as our beating hearts while our strength of character could not possibly be stronger than the perpetual asking for mercy! All of the details relating to the prayer of the heart can be found at:
http://www.monachos.net/monasticism/jesus_prayer.shtml
If you want to read a book by the original authors of the prayer, check out the four volume set of "The Philokalia." I regard the prayer as life changing and recommend it to all people of any religion and even to people with no religion (for even those who don't believe harbor some guilt, however repressed and therefore unidentifiable to them such guilt may be).
I hope this helps people!
Take care!
Anyways, the study is not complete. When one 'puts God to the test' one finds him/herself destined to fail. I believe in the existence of a higher being, the manifestation of which may well be the universe or, as Hegel might have put it, the 'Zeitgeist.'
Things very rarely turn out the way we humans expect them to; this is a fundamental requisite of existence. When the world thinks A is going to happen guess what happens? Why B, of course; would you expect it to be any other way? We have seen this on many occassions in our past; both DUKE studies exemplify this fact in that both results were unexpected! That is, in the initial study, most academics would have thought that prayer would have no effect on the 150 patients in the sample population yet a significant effect was observed; in the subsequent study, academics from experience with the first study may well have been expecting results similar to those of the first study yet were surprised once again. So humans, being the primitive beings we are, just can't seem to figure out what is going to happen....unless, of course, we happen to be successful traders! hehehe
Here is what I think may have happened. There was no widespread interest in the first study until the results were published; that is, very few people throughout the world were conscious of the FIRST experiment until it had been completed. So, we can fairly say that the prayers of those people that were praying for the hospitalized patients in the FIRST experiment did not meet oppositional prayers from many people who wanted the experiment to fail whereas in the second experiment, such opposition may have been prevalent (of course, those who wanted the experiment to fail were probably not believers in any higher being and therefore would not be inclined to pray under any circumstances.....but, I firmly believe that their intentions, their thoughts, their skepticisms may well have contributed in some unbeknownst to us way in opposing the good natured prayers). God is the Zeitgeist, and if a significant part of the Zeitgeist wishes for something to happen, the thing will inevitably happen; and, for some uncanny reason, when a significant portion of the Zeitgeist expects something to happen, the thing will inevitably NOT HAPPEN! You can take philosophies from my formulation above and apply it quite succesfully, I believe, to the financial markets.
I believe prayer can be fruitful because it provides an articulation of one's goals and aspirations and a way of sending your request to the Zeitgeist, which is God. I personally have found many pleasures, of mind and body, in saying a particular prayer known as the prayer of the heart. It is a prayer one recites continuously and unceasingly so as to soften the heart and allow for forgiveness for the things we feel guilty about. The prayer is:
'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me the sinner'
The prayer is said over and over and over again until it becomes a part of one's existence; until it begins to be recited in one's heart automatically and algorithmically; until it's recitation becomes as involuntary as the beating of one's heart! This prayer was developed by monks of the 13th century Greek Orthodox tradition. The prayer allows one to live in one's heart rather than in one's mind; thus emotion, unaffected by distractions of the mind, is pure and unadulturated, and unlike anything one has ever experienced in one's life (except as a child I would imagine when one's love and emotion is necessarily pure and unaffected by a brain not full of malice and contempt...you look into a child's eyes and you can see what I mean by pure love and pure emotion). So, that is my experience with prayer. The Jesus Prayer has been life changing for me and I'm sure it will be for anyone who wishes to escape the guilt they've built up throughout the years; people often say to me 'but I don't believe in Jesus!'; I say, it doesn't matter because the prayer is really a way of asking one's self for forgiveness for one's own perceived wrongdoings; in other words, you are really asking yourself to forgive yourself, if that makes any sense. All of us feel guilty about something, some of us about many things (some of us don't even realize the suppressed guilt our souls harbor)! The prayer of the heart leads one toward forgiveness of one's self! It's like a child who asks his/her parents for something and the parents say no; the child may eventually give in and stop asking or the parents may eventually give in and provide the child with the desired thing. Interestingly, when we consider the child who NEVER STOPS ASKING (define 'NEVER' in the literal sense), we find that the parents might as well concede failure immediately because they will surely become tired and give in to ceaseless askings. In a similar way, when we ask ourselves for forgiveness, we will be at first unwilling to give in and forgive ourselves; but when we activate the algorithm of perpetual prayer of the heart, we MUST give in! And so this prayer I speak of here today must work; there is little question about that in my mind for our askings become as involuntary as our beating hearts while our strength of character could not possibly be stronger than the perpetual asking for mercy! All of the details relating to the prayer of the heart can be found at:
http://www.monachos.net/monasticism/jesus_prayer.shtml
If you want to read a book by the original authors of the prayer, check out the four volume set of "The Philokalia." I regard the prayer as life changing and recommend it to all people of any religion and even to people with no religion (for even those who don't believe harbor some guilt, however repressed and therefore unidentifiable to them such guilt may be).
I hope this helps people!
Take care!
