Larry Dossey on the possible negative effects of prayer

[Sena]

Larry Dossey is a physician who has written a number of books on spiritual topics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Dossey

His relevence to the Seth teachings is this: Seth has pointed out that thoughts are very powerful. In the process of creating our own reality, we need to be careful not to harm other people. Dossey points out that people who pray sometimes unwittingly harm other people. He gives this example:

"Consider the experiences of Katherine, a woman who was involved in corporate management. She was deeply interested in the nature of human consciousness and considered herself a serious student of this area. At one point in her career, Katherine was in charge of a project involving several companies. Two women, representing the companies involved, were opposed to the organizational changes she knew were necessary. The project was bogging down, and Katherine became increasingly annoyed at what she considered petty politics. A crucial meeting was coming up. In the days prior to it, Katherine decided to use the skills she had learned in her study of consciousness to "intend" and "manifest" events. She "wished" that the women who opposed the changes would somehow "go away" so she could get on with the job at hand. One week before the meeting, both the troublesome women, in unrelated accidents in different parts of the country, fell and broke their right wrists. Katherine was horrified by the thought that she may have been responsible. While she didn't physically push the women down a flight of stairs, she believed her "mental push" had had physical consequences."

"If you play in this arena, you better be very clear about the ethics of your actions. Our thoughts are a loaded gun."

(from "Be Careful What You Pray For, You Might Just Get It: What We Can Do About the Unintentional Effects of Our Thoughts, Prayers and Wishes" by Larry Dossey)

From the Kindle edition: http://amzn.eu/5jqvlIS

[jbseth]

Hi Sena, Hi All,

This reminds me of Star Wars, where Darth Vader is powerful in the Dark Side of the Force. Two of his underlings have just screwed up and are now on his list.  As a result of this, Darth Vader, using the Force, reaches across space and strangles them to death. And they, because they are not nearly so powerful in the Force, have no power or ability to resist, and die as a result.

Or if you will, in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, does something similar and reaches across space and strangles two good witches, if you will, to death.

We have lots of stories like this in our society and I think the reason for this has to do with the fact that many people actually believe that this is how life really works.

The only problem here is this, if life actually worked like this, then wouldn't some Evil Emperor / Darth Vader or Lord Voldemort type of person, actually rule our planet today?


How about this, Katherine really did want these 2 women to quit hampering her, and they, for their own reasons, at a certain level, perhaps not consciously known to them, agreed to play along with this scenario and chose to do so by falling and hurting themselves.

There are no accidents, there are no victims.

-jbseth

[Deb]

"If you play in this arena, you better be very clear about the ethics of your actions. Our thoughts are a loaded gun."

I agree with his statement only because of the last sentence, "Our thoughts are a loaded gun." Because we each make our own reality, and a thought repeated over and over becomes a belief.

Mr. Dossey needs to read some Seth.

How about this, Katherine really did want these 2 women to quit hampering her, and they, for their own reasons, at a certain level, perhaps not consciously known to them, agreed to play along with this scenario and chose to do so by falling and hurting themselves.

That sounds right to me. If it was that easy to cause harm to others with thought and intention (and without their psychic cooperation) we'd have complete chaos. And an a lot of dead politicians.

[inavalan]

This reminds of the human induced climate change. There is some truth there, but not the way it is widely publicized, so the solution isn't the one pushed by activists.

[inavalan]

because of the last sentence, "Our thoughts are a loaded gun." Because we each make our own reality, and a thought repeated over and over becomes a belief.

One's "thoughts are a loaded gun" pointed to one's own head!

[Sena]

The only problem here is this, if life actually worked like this, then wouldn't some Evil Emperor / Darth Vader or Lord Voldemort type of person, actually rule our planet today?

jbseth, I think the Sethian view is that every human being is potentially powerful. The net result is a balance of power. So the Darth Vaders, Hitlers, and Stalins have their day, but they don't last forever.

[jbseth]

Hi Sena,

You always post some really interesting and thought provoking questions on this forum. Thank you for that. 


I really think that the answer here has to do with the issues related to the individual reality creation and mass reality creation. I've always thought that it was interesting that Seth produced the book NoPR before he introduced the book NoME.  Somewhere, as I recall, he mentioned that he did this intentionally because he wanted people to realize that they do have a part in forming their personal reality.

Even though I've read both NoPR and NoME on at least 2 separate occasions, and many of Seth's, other books, I still struggle with the dilemma of the issues involved in distinguishing these 2 concepts.

-jbseth