The Power of Prayer.

[Cainkane1]

Does no count as an answer to a prayer? Thats the most common answer.

 

[Pup]

In hindsight, my subconscious aspect had my conscious aspect believing that I was communicating with a 3-4 year old female human child.

...

So at some stage in the preceding communications with this little girl (Who identified herself as “Amy”) I asked her if this is what she had been trying to say, and she answered that it was.

So I apologised for my outbursts and impatience etc, and the flow of communication changed significantly as the process of ‘getting on the same page’ unfolded.

You're using an anecdate about how you learned to pretend to communicate better with an imaginary girl, to illustrate how real people might be able to communicate better with each other.

That's just...

We're real people here, not figments of your imagination.

Here's the difference. It sounds like you were doing what a lot of fiction writers do, vividly imagining characters, and they do seem to take on a life of their own. Writers say that the characters will take the story a direction they weren't expecting. So there's an illusion that the characters are independent of the person who's imagining them, and it's fun and exciting.

But they're not independent. You can make the little girl agree with you when you want, even if you're only doing it subconsciously and therefore preserving the illusion that she's acting independently.

But we're not like that little girl. You really do have to meet real humans halfway if you want to communicate with them, and use words that work, because neither your conscious or your subconscious can make us respond the way you want.

 

[Navigator]

When I was a sick little boy with asthma I prayed for the asthma to go away but it never left me. I was under ten when I made the sincerest prayer a faithful little child can make. Nothing happened. I wheezed away for days.

Later on around age 14 I started to develope spinal schliosis and again I made a sincere spiritual effort to straighten out the curvature and it just curved away.

I gave up prayer and I haven't prayed again in the last 51 years. Hopefully when I lay dying I won't be so desperate for life as to pray. If I do I'll just die anyway.

Well that is what happens when one believes in what religion says prayer can do.

I know that every day living is something I can truly appreciate, that I won’t die wondering what my life was about, even if I am the only one who cared to know.

 

[JaysonR]

Prayer cannot effect anything external to the mind praying. Period.

I'm pretty sure Navigator agrees with that.
He's agreed with that in conversation with me, and instead Navigator has been talking mostly about the power prayer has internally; not externally.

 

[gsmonks]

For those that think the power of prayer is real, show me how I can use it to make my car go. Gas is getting danged expensive.

 

[Navigator]

You're using an anecdate about how you learned to pretend to communicate better with an imaginary girl, to illustrate how real people might be able to communicate better with each other.

Actually, apart from the spin you put on it [how you learned to pretend to communicate better] as events unfolded in my particular frame of experience [AKA a tiny subset of the data available to me.] I found out that there had been an Amy who was still born in the house which I had been using the ideomotor effect process that first time.

This is a picture of the area, house circled in yellow.

As you can see, it is very rural but Livingstone was at the time Amy was alive, a small gold mining town, and her father was involved in this project and died of a mining accident.

I even carved a small limestone memorial with her name on it motivated by loving respect and placed this under her fathers own memorial in the Livingstone graveyard. (circled in yellow)

I was so impressed with this ‘pretend’ girls-childs sincere communication and how much effect it had in helping me as an individual, that I considered her a dear friend.

In fact one of the main reasons I Consciously decided to create my first ideomotor effect communications device was that I was tired of trying to make sense of the ‘living’ and thought I might get better results communicating with the ‘dead’.

Ironically enough, although inevitably I was to learn I had been all along communicating with the Subconscious aspect of who I am, for quite some time I was under the impression some of the Characters I was communing with had lived lives on Earth and had passed on, I gained some really beautiful life lasting experiences from this interaction and communication process which even today is very rare in relation to the living, especially the deep and meaningful things.
Often humans communicate at levels which are barely scratching the surface, in comparison.

We're real people here, not figments of your imagination.

Actually, while this is of course truth, there are similarities. For example, you are pretty much invisible to me. I don’t know even what gender you are, I can’t see your body language, I don’t know how you behave when with other real people and everything I have to go on regarding you, is all in the way you express yourself.
I don’t even know your real name.
For all intent and purpose, you are invisible to me and I to you.
Yet, here we are – at least attempting some kind of communications process.

So to compensate, I keep patient, try to adjust my approach consistently, and kept from responding in a knee jerk fashion propelled by emotional reactions.
Skills I learned using the ideomotor effect communications

process

Here's the difference. It sounds like you were doing what a lot of fiction writers do, vividly imagining characters, and they do seem to take on a life of their own. Writers say that the characters will take the story a direction they weren't expecting. So there's an illusion that the characters are independent of the person who's imagining them, and it's fun and exciting.

This is worth considering as it has truth to it, especially if we can understand the speculation that books are written propelled by the subconsciousness and not only books, but every single creative thing that human beings are involved with.

But they're not independent. You can make the little girl agree with you when you want, even if you're only doing it subconsciously and therefore preserving the illusion that she's acting independently.

I Speculate I cannot MAKE my Subconsciousness agree with me (the conscious aspect) or do whatever I want.
I CAN put a spin on the information I get in a variety of ways – such as thinking that it was the child’s fault that I couldn’t understand her - that it was Subconsciouses fault that the Conscious couldn’t understand it, when in reality it was consciousness which was making that thing difficult to achieve.
Once the realisation was accepted, the communication flowed far better.

But we're not like that little girl. You really do have to meet real humans halfway if you want to communicate with them, and use words that work, because neither your conscious or your subconscious can make us respond the way you want.

Of course...however, the way I want has to do with mutually better ways in which communication can be achieved.
That kind of communication cannot even begin until those involved are actually on the same page having assisted as best they could do make that possible.

If they want to.

 

[zeggman]

I'm pretty sure Navigator agrees with that.
He's agreed with that in conversation with me, and instead Navigator has been talking mostly about the power prayer has internally; not externally.

So prayer got him a job in his mind, and a night's stay with some guy and the missus in his mind.

I no longer care what Navigator agrees with. Mystical mumbling does not resonate with me. PM me if a clear stand on anything comes out of this thread.

ETA: I think it's grand that he can communicate so clearly with his subconscious. Pity that skill doesn't translate to communicating with other people.

 

[JaysonR]

So prayer got him a job in his mind, and a night's stay with some guy and the missus in his mind.

So far as he has conveyed, yes.
He admits that at the time he thought otherwise, but that now he sees that it was internal and not external; though I believe there is a tangent about guiding the consciousness via the subconsciousness in what Navigator is discussing; and that such instances appear to the individual to be external in source.

This isn't entirely errant to consider since we do understand that the amount of data pulled in by the subconscious processes of our brain radically outnumbers the volume of information that we consciously pay attention to, and that reviewing the subconsciousness brings "new" information to the consciousness.

I no longer care what Navigator agrees with. Mystical mumbling does not resonate with me. PM me if a clear stand on anything comes out of this thread.

I have found it rather clear so far, but that's just me.
There's a decent amount going on neurologically and we can account for those interactions rather reasonably physically.

These kinds of ritual behaviors do have an effect unto the person practicing them, and they are fascinating neurologically and physiologically, but they are rather physical events and not beyond the realm of nature.

 

[zeggman]

So far as he has conveyed, yes.

A job in his mind would be an imaginary job, would it not?

I can get fifty imaginary jobs in the next thirty seconds. Put me down for "whoop-te-doo" on that achievement.

I have found it rather clear so far, but that's just me.

I suspect it is true that you are the only person other than Navigator who considers his posts to be rather clear.

ETA: What I think is actually going on is that you and Navigator are talking past each other, and since both of you employ a style which is vague, ambiguous (omniguous?) and somewhat incomprehensible, you project your own thoughts onto the Rorschach blurt of his posts, and imagine meanings which were not intended.

But that's just me.

 

[Navigator]

JoeBentley: Prayer cannot effect anything external to the mind praying. Period.

I'm pretty sure Navigator agrees with that.
He's agreed with that in conversation with me, and instead Navigator has been talking mostly about the power prayer has internally; not externally.

Yes.

I am more interested in why it appears to be that way, but I don't necessarily believe in any particular explanations at this time.
The testing regarding Christian interpretation of what prayer is, for example, does not explain anything to me apart from what I have already commented on regarding those tests.

I do not think that IF ‘the mind praying’ somehow has something to do with the external effect, that this would prove that ‘the mind praying’ actually CAUSED the external effect.

In the example I gave re getting a ride, sharing with the father and son my ‘mission’ and how providence is involved, and they then seeing a direct evidence to that claim happen when they stopped to ask the guy how the fishing was, and the guy subsequently invited me to stay at his home, I am not saying that the praying mind shaped the events which unfolded.

In regards to the prayer, this was done once, at the beginning of my journey. It was never repeated.
Therefore the subsequent unfolding events which appeared to be answers to that one prayer are what naturally interested me in relation to that prayer.
I did not see my mind as having created those events, in order to give me the Conscious impression that my mind was answering my prayer.

Actually, I continue to see unfolding events as an evolving answer to that prayer in my continuing life experience.

My understanding has evolved from that time 27-28 years ago, and has everything to do with the Unconsciousness...

In relation to The Power Of Prayer, most definitely the internal aspect, as JasonR rightly suggests - is what I am referring to in relation to the 'Power'.

 

[Navigator]

This isn't entirely errant to consider since we do understand that the amount of data pulled in by the subconscious processes of our brain radically outnumbers the volume of information that we consciously pay attention to, and that reviewing the subconsciousness brings "new" information to the consciousness.

This is exactly where I am wanting to go with this. I have been formulating possible ways of communicating this from what I have learned in my interactions with Subconsciousness and this encourages me JasonR.

zeggman

I don't think that JasonR and I are talking past one another. I have even told him before that a lot of what he says goes over my head, but in saying so I have noticed he has adjusted his expression in order to help me understand what he is saying, just as I continue to adjust my expression for the same reason.

It is working with JasonR and myself because we are making the effort to help this process.

Please reconsider your perceptions about what you think is going on in our interaction/ongoing communication process, and understand that your expression 'But that's just me' is in fact more to the point - it is not us, it is how - for now - you Consciously chose to see us.

 

[JaysonR]

A job in his mind would be an imaginary job, would it not?

I can get fifty imaginary jobs in the next thirty seconds. Put me down for "whoop-te-doo" on that achievement.

That's not quite the concept.

It is similar to the idea of visualizing making a basket before shooting the basket.

It's a way the brain can run through simulations and try out calculations during worry (most commonly) where off-loading material to a secondary source is functionally gainful for reflection.
Now, people can become convinced these interactions are a number of things, but - as Navigator points out - these are internal computations which are relying on a heavy amount of subconscious input to assist in the problem solving.

Does it always work?
Not at all.
Is there confirmation bias?
Absolutely; our brains are hardwired to keep track of what succeeds over an obstacle more than what failed to overcome an obstacle.
As a result, people will repeat behavior like this in the absence of another apparent solution (to them) based on a bias of the brain to recall the success in attempt to solve and unsolvable problem that is causing vexation within the mind.

This is all rather natural neurological processes; projection for problem solving has been a part of the human neurological capacity.

Does this prove any metaphysical claim?
Not at all, and I don't think anyone here is claiming that - if anything, just the opposite has been accounted for.

I suspect it is true that you are the only person other than Navigator who considers his posts to be rather clear.

ETA: What I think is actually going on is that you and Navigator are talking past each other, and since both of you employ a style which is vague, ambiguous (omniguous?) and somewhat incomprehensible, you project your own thoughts onto the Rorschach blurt of his posts, and imagine meanings which were not intended.

But that's just me.

We're not speaking past each other; Navigator is rather easy to understand for me considering that I understand what it is that he's referring to, since I focus quite a bit of time regarding neurology and human behavior regarding spirituality and self identity.
We've also taken the time to compare terminologies and thought, and found our middle-ground for lexical communication.

Once you have that, conversation can start flowing much more easily.

 

[zeggman]

zeggman

I don't think that JasonR and I are talking past one another. I have even told him before that a lot of what he says goes over my head, but in saying so I have noticed he has adjusted his expression in order to help me understand what he is saying, just as I continue to adjust my expression for the same reason.

It is working with JasonR and myself because we are making the effort to help this process.

Please reconsider your perceptions about what you think is going on in our interaction/ongoing communication process, and understand that your expression 'But that's just me' is in fact more to the point - it is not us, it is how - for now - you Consciously chose to see us.

I don't think you're making an effort to communicate with me. If you were, you would clearly state what you wish to convey, instead of this "Prayer landed me a job, but not really, yes really, internal/external seems that way take your pick" cascade of confusion.

I think your magic mirrors look kind of neat, but I have no interest in the insights into your subconscious which you receive as you gaze into them. I'll leave you and JaysonR to explore this undiscovered country.

 

[JaysonR]

This is exactly where I am wanting to go with this. I have been formulating possible ways of communicating this from what I have learned in my interactions with Subconsciousness and this encourages me JasonR.

On that note, you might find this article interesting:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305144210.htm

 

[zeggman]

That's not quite the concept.

It is similar to the idea of visualizing making a basket before shooting the basket..

No, it's not like that at all. The basket doesn't choose whether or not to offer the inside track (i.e., a job) to the ball you throw.

Visualizing someone offering you a job doesn't make someone choose to offer you a job. If he says prayer resulted in a job offer in the real world, then he's saying prayer affected the external reality. Is he saying that? You seem to think not.

 

[JaysonR]

"Prayer landed me a job, but not really, yes really, internal/external seems that way take your pick" cascade of confusion.

I can attempt to explain this.

It means the praying did effectively get him a job.
How? Through external manipulation of some cosmic Santa Claus?
No.

The act of praying pushed the emotional imperative greatly upon the brain to pay attention to any and all information (social data as well) gainful to achieve employment.
This internal escalation (through imprinted emotional value) produced information from the subconsciousness to the consciousness, which then altered his (Navigator's) behavior.
Navigator's behavioral changes, altered the external conditions surrounding his acquisition of employment (in his opinion, since there wasn't a test lab on-hand to measure the event) by consequence.

It's somewhat, metaphorically, like aikido.
If you can't alter the external opponent, then you can alter yourself and move yourself into a position to affect the external setting, which changes what options you now have; hopefully in your favor.

The brain focuses more on anything that consumes emotional weight more than other things.
For instance, if you are in a room and a person has a knife; then you will notice the knife due to the emotional weight that knife carries as a threat to your life.

If, on the other hand, you are sitting in a room and the only thing in there is a blank piece of paper, then the paper will most likely not create an emotional attention to itself since paper is rarely a threat to life.

Now, humans can self-program (sometimes to their detriment) what to consume their attention to; and can do so on the "back-burner" or "front-burner" of the worrying stove-top.

Firstly, people will focus directly upon a problem.
If the problem cannot be solved, the amount of effort and time that went into solving the imperative problem will aid in increasing the emotional weight of the problem; then, the overt attention will take a break (the individual may stop thinking about it and do something else for a while [like play Violin, or go to sleep]), meanwhile, the subconscious parts of the brain's activities, in part, will continue to worry over the problem for any possible aid.

Praying can often times be used as a means of imprinting even more value into the problem than normal; a sort of escalation process.
Same can be said about sigils as well.

Meditation tends not to work quite the same, but instead tends to take the approach of helping the brain back off from the event to "reboot" the dormant state of the brain for later reproach.
Depending on how a person uses prayer, it may work more like meditation than the previously described prayer concept of escalating the value of a problem.


These are not the only capable exchanges in these behaviors, but in regard to "getting a job", this is the concept involved.

No, it's not like that at all. The basket doesn't choose whether or not to offer the inside track (i.e., a job) to the ball you throw.

Visualizing someone offering you a job doesn't make someone choose to offer you a job. If he says prayer resulted in a job offer in the real world, then he's saying prayer affected the external reality. Is he saying that? You seem to think not.

That's not the idea.

The idea behind this is that the individual changes, and the changes in their own self cause external reactions to be different than otherwise would have been had they not addressed their self.

In this respect, it is similar to walking in for a job interview at a bank wearing only your underwear compared to walking in wearing proper attire.
The difference is that we're not talking about clothes, but instead, about a massive amount of behavioral psychology that goes into very subconscious actions through proxy of other believed to be true conditions.

 

[zeggman]

The idea behind this is that the individual changes, and the changes in their own self cause external reactions to be different than otherwise would have been had they not addressed their self.

In this respect, it is similar to walking in for a job interview at a bank wearing only your underwear compared to walking in wearing proper attire.
The difference is that we're not talking about clothes, but instead, about a massive amount of behavioral psychology that goes into very subconscious actions through proxy of other believed to be true conditions.

There was a preacher in NYC in the 1950s by the name of Norman Vincent Peale, who advocated prayer.

The book he wrote was not called "The Power of Prayer", however, it was called "The Power of Positive Thinking".

May I humbly suggest that, if you have accurately described what Navigator has in mind, that this would be a more appropriate thread title.

 

[JaysonR]

More or less, in conversion to you, yes; that's the idea.

However, what Navigator was bringing up was the emotional imperative imprinting that prayer can bring, or the emotional respite that it (or meditation) can bring to the situation.

This is a bit different than positive thinking alone.
Positive thinking goes up to a point, and is extremely useful.
However, if you take that and add to it a conviction of solution in the absence of one, and the above imperative stamping and cognitive respite while still running subconsciousness, then it may produce solutions to people where otherwise they would have simply (for example) remained positive without a solution.

This is why Navigator, earlier, suggested to someone else that their prayers didn't work because they were praying the way a theology claimed prayers work, rather than how we understand the brain to work.
Meaning, a prayer to relieve asthma by external force isn't going to go anywhere since that ailment isn't resolvable physically by the brain (unless it was psychologically induced physiological restriction to begin with; rare, but it happens).

This is quite possibly why the idea of "prayer for character" evolved over time to be felt to be more successful than prayer for "hand-outs".

 

[Navigator]

No, it's not like that at all. The basket doesn't choose whether or not to offer the inside track (i.e., a job) to the ball you throw.

Visualizing someone offering you a job doesn't make someone choose to offer you a job. If he says prayer resulted in a job offer in the real world, then he's saying prayer affected the external reality. Is he saying that? You seem to think not.

Just to clarify:

The nature of my belief systems regarding the instruction of prayer at the time was that “Do Not Worry – Do Not Concern Yourself”
I did not visualise a particular job. I spent 3 weeks having a holiday before going out. I ‘knew’ that I would get a job, regardless of the fact that I was told by my cousin who had been looking for a job for some time, that the area was highest per capita for unemployment because jobs were scarce.

I did not visualise getting a job first day out, let alone first place I asked.

In relation to the particular iconic personality I followed at the time who is attributed to instructing the particular way to pray that I followed, this served to strengthen my belief systems to do with that personality, because the prayer and the external reality of the answer to the prayer appeared to be linked, and I had followed the instructions and part of the instructions included the promise that I would have such prayers answered.

In my understanding at that time then, it was the personality who is attributed to having instructed on this particular type of praying which had something to do with the events transpiring as they did, which lead me to believe that the personality was a powerful being.

As to whether my praying for a job had anything to do with someone offering me a job, I do not know, but am formulating speculation about this aspect, which I will share when I have the time and have thought more on it and how to best express it.

 

[zeggman]

More or less, in conversion to you, yes; that's the idea.

However, what Navigator was bringing up was the emotional imperative imprinting that prayer can bring, or the emotional respite that it (or meditation) can bring to the situation.

This is a bit different than positive thinking alone.
Positive thinking goes up to a point, and is extremely useful.
However, if you take that and add to it a conviction of solution in the absence of one, and the above imperative stamping and cognitive respite while still running subconsciousness, then it may produce solutions to people where otherwise they would have simply (for example) remained positive without a solution.

This is why Navigator, earlier, suggested to someone else that their prayers didn't work because they were praying the way a theology claimed prayers work, rather than how we understand the brain to work.
Meaning, a prayer to relieve asthma by external force isn't going to go anywhere since that ailment isn't resolvable physically by the brain (unless it was psychologically induced physiological restriction to begin with; rare, but it happens).

This is quite possibly why the idea of "prayer for character" evolved over time to be felt to be more successful than prayer for "hand-outs".

"Imperative stamping" seems to be a term which you invented, and which is meaningful only to you.

"Cognitive respite" seems to mean "relaxing".

I don't see why it would be necessary to add "a conviction of solution" to positive thinking, since the notion of a solution seems to be implicit in the term "positive thinking". In the two examples provided so far (job, place to crash) the possibility of those solutions couldn't have been in question.

I don't know what "still running subconsciousness" would add to the mix either.

So, assuming "positive thinking" includes being both confident and relaxed, I still think it would be a better term for what you two are calling "prayer". It would not be particularly controversial to claim that people who are confident and relaxed are more likely to achieve their goals than people who are timid and anxious.