A good idea on how to study effects of prayer
On formal prayer studies.
Do the truly faithful need the proof? Do the truly atheist?
Empirically, how do you control for all conceivable variables that could influence a prayer study outcome when the premise for the treatment of the active group is so ill-defined?
There was a religious movement in Japan in the mid 80's that I had first-hand contact with. One way that I understood they used to proselytize new members was a promise. They had (sold) a specific butsadon shrine, a small bell, and a specific chant. It all went like this. You were instructed to think of something small, materially or otherwise, that you wanted. A given example was like $25 (5,000 yen at the time.) Set up the butsadon shrine and meditate every day while repeating the chant over and over again for a deliberate number of repetitions, chiming the bell between each repetition. The chant (or prayer) incorporated the asking for the $25 bucks. The promise was that if you did this precisely, for a precise number of days (usually between 1-3 months), you would find your prayer answered. That is, you would have realized $25 you would not have otherwise anticipated having. Perhaps money owed you, forgotten about, found, refunded, unexpectedly saved, whatever. Eventually, you can start to chant (ask) for greater and greater things you want with the same result. Oh, yeah, it seems you always perform your own chant. If you want something for someone else, perhaps convince them to get their own talisman's and chant for it. Of course you couldn't chant your chronic illness away, at least at first, because that's too big. But, I bet you could decrease a symptom, or effect some other small, but specific thing.
I bet dimes to donuts if they set up a study on this concept, they could report some pretty remarkable sounding results.
dras
Do the truly faithful need the proof? Do the truly atheist?
Empirically, how do you control for all conceivable variables that could influence a prayer study outcome when the premise for the treatment of the active group is so ill-defined?
There was a religious movement in Japan in the mid 80's that I had first-hand contact with. One way that I understood they used to proselytize new members was a promise. They had (sold) a specific butsadon shrine, a small bell, and a specific chant. It all went like this. You were instructed to think of something small, materially or otherwise, that you wanted. A given example was like $25 (5,000 yen at the time.) Set up the butsadon shrine and meditate every day while repeating the chant over and over again for a deliberate number of repetitions, chiming the bell between each repetition. The chant (or prayer) incorporated the asking for the $25 bucks. The promise was that if you did this precisely, for a precise number of days (usually between 1-3 months), you would find your prayer answered. That is, you would have realized $25 you would not have otherwise anticipated having. Perhaps money owed you, forgotten about, found, refunded, unexpectedly saved, whatever. Eventually, you can start to chant (ask) for greater and greater things you want with the same result. Oh, yeah, it seems you always perform your own chant. If you want something for someone else, perhaps convince them to get their own talisman's and chant for it. Of course you couldn't chant your chronic illness away, at least at first, because that's too big. But, I bet you could decrease a symptom, or effect some other small, but specific thing.
I bet dimes to donuts if they set up a study on this concept, they could report some pretty remarkable sounding results.
dras
posted by nawledge at
11:42 PM
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