The science of faith and prayer –and The Way of The Ancients

“FAITH can move mountains” is a common metaphor we apply to our human endeavours from day to day. It has its origins in the bible, and expresses the determination of ‘mind over matter’; that faith and works-based determination can triumph over plausible obstacles.This force in the human being is not harnessed only by positive energies. The world once celebrated Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 ‘Triumph of the Will: Hitler’s Rise to Power’, then cursed the biography and its filmmaker as nazism outpoured its nature.
I think that it is because of the misuse; the manipulation and perversion of belief doctrines regimented in religious authorities over the ages that exploited, stole from and misused the imagination of the common masses; that science, in unfolding many natural laws once conceived and presented as magical, has developed a disdain for religion, and has too quickly dismissed it. This, however, had to happen so that a clinical eye would evolve to explore further, and find a relationship between science and God.

MIND OVER MATTER
Last December’s issue of the National Geographic carried an article titled ‘Mind over Matter’, with a proverbial and should- be-obvious caption, “You’re not just what you eat, or do, or think; you are what you believe”.
This article brought scientifically recorded and tested experiments of faith, as it applied to healing, into the public arena, with some older suggestive case studies to back it up.
The article did not present a magical ‘this-is-it’ formula; nor should our many ‘conmen’ of religion and sallawalla mysticism find further cause to pounce on our magic-seeking citizenry. The conmen and women are making enough money already to pay for TV ads and programmes.
What, essentially, was conveyed by the study is the recognition of how the brain acts to inhibit pain, and trigger the release of neuro-transmitters into the central nervous system to regulate the pain signal and the process that, in this case, initiates it.
The complex mechanism is the human personal belief system. The faith of the individual and the person or persons praying for that individual must be together; sincere and not dramatic, which, in our world of mirages, is a rarity.
That entire experience can be summoned up in the Gospel of John 17:20: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, lo here! Or, lo there! For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.”
This passage of scripture, when translated and compared to the current medical scientific study, tells us what the brother titled ‘The Christ’ understood then; what we are discovering now. Or, should I say, what we are rediscovering now.

THE HEALING POWER
This reality of the healing power of faith does not belong only to Christianity, Islam or Judaism; the Shaman or Tribal Healer was also recorded as pronouncing with success, using ritual approaches with the same biological connection initiated through the mind/spiritual circuitry.
This is described as the ‘placebo’, which the Webster Dictionary defines as:
A: “An inert medicament or preparation given for its psychological effect, especially to satisfy the patent, or to act as a control in an experimental series;
B: Something tending to soothe or gratify.”
This human faculty is innate but remote to the active consciousness, and has to be ignited by a belief system that generates a personal belief response, and then applies this mental/spiritual marriage of healer and believer in defence against ailments, real and imagined.
I once saw a documentary filmed in India where a doctor gave a patient some harmless tablets. Though nothing was wrong with her, his counsel was not enough; she had to get those tablets to sooth an invisible ailment. We all know, or have known, people like this. But this ‘placebo effect’ does not stand alone in the all-of-human belief culture.
The reference from the New Testament dictates, “Faith without works is nothing”. So, if the knowledge comes to you that fried foods generate fats, and that without exercise, it could bring on a heart condition, it will! If ‘the works’ of discipline that the knowledge commands is not adhered to!
Faith alone will not be good enough; the discipline of exercise, and watch-what-you- eat are all part of the package.
Serious faith in the purer tenets of a belief system is proven to be an efficient ally in the rehabilitation of drug addicts and mental-health patients. The classic publication, ‘Narcotics Anonymous’ prides itself in being a book that’s not about addiction but of the recovery from addiction. This book presents case study after case study confessions from addicts worldwide, from the new world to the old world.
The healing process shares two profound common traits: ‘Bonding’, as in tribal bonding, what we call today ‘group therapy’; and the constant reference to the belief and faith in God. It does become more difficult to dismiss this evidence, even as we are aware and can point to the pantomime of the business of religion literally in our face.
EXORCISM OF GUILT
There is a method used in some parts of Africa, where a violator would be surrounded by members of his tribe who would perform what I can only describe as an exorcism of guilt; the unlocking of the Kingdom of Heaven within.
These tribal members would surround this transgressor and chant to him all the good things known about him; his good deeds from childhood, immersing him in memories of how he should be, from what he has accomplished before.
In our fragmented, pretentious society where irrational false values are even more revealing now that social media offers an honest platform for everyone, from the village idiot to the King and Queen in his/her new clothes. Sometimes it is their children who unveil it all.
That African process would be quite impossible, because that act is driven by collective belief and sincerity. But, here in Guyana, there are also small groups who are concerned and sincere; religious heads that are committed and everyday good people.
We all encountered such people who can tap into the inner fount of our healing process. And we have to be grateful for them, both males and females; they are the balance in an otherwise dismal terrain.

 

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