11.06.08

Barack Obama as Mystic

Posted in articles at 12:17 am by MPJ

Now that the election is over I can say it without anyone accusing me of trying to influence the election!  About a year ago, while reading “the Audacity of Hope,” I got the notion that Barack Obama may be at the Mystic level of spiritual development - that is at the fourth of four stages we have enough data to address.*  That of course was not reason enough to vote for him as president and I really did not think too much about it after that.  It was only today, while I was recalling some aspects of some of his speeches, that it hit me:  I am pretty sure:  Read the rest of this entry »

10.15.08

On Intercessory Prayer, Reiki and the “Greater Good”

Posted in articles at 8:57 am by MPJ

Intercessory Prayer is when you pray to God that something you want will happen or that something you don’t want will not happen.  In these cases, you are asking God to “intercede” on your behalf.  It has been a part of most religions for ages and ages.  But, does it work? 

Well, a few years ago a study ( Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. Am Heart J.2006 Apr;151(4):934-42) was completed by a group of researchers (Benson H, Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, Lam P, Bethea CF, Carpenter W, Levitsky S, Hill PC, Clem DW JR, Jain MK, Drumel D, Kopecky SL, Mueller PS, Marek D, Rollins S, Hibberd PL.)  The study tested the effect of prayer on the rate of complications following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

Three groups of patients were included in the study:  those who were told they would definitely receive intercessory prayer Read the rest of this entry »