Quote:
Originally Posted by esselcue
People...the human brain...can do many amazing things. Not sure if it's just the electricity that makes us "tick" or if it's something more, but we as humans can accomplish a lot of "magical" things if we believe it hard enough. This is why "prayer" sometimes seems to work. Shamans and mystics probably rely more on that sort of "hypnosis" than anything else. It is found that an positive attitude can heal a sick person, whereas a depressed and negative person can "will" themselves to die. It's a physical thing and a part of the whole mystery of being human.
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Well stated. The most amazing chance development in the evolution of humans was the establishment of whatever oddball neuronal connections allow us to think abstractly, to conceptualize things far into the future, to ponder our past mistakes and the implications of the past, present and future.
One of those things was to assume, since we were so d@mned smart, that, of course we could "do things" with our minds. Some prayers coincidentally answered, someone "sees" their old Aunt Tilly, someone feels they have actually, physically, spoken to a mythical spiritual figure.
It was perhaps Roxolan who noted the link to that $1M Paranormal Challenge, started in 1968, where a prize has been offered to ANYONE who could provide a
bona-fide example of any paranormal action. Move or bend a fork, read a page from the room next door, send directions with your mind to a blindfolded person in another town who is in a maze, heal someone's cancer, etc. All under controlled conditions. So far (predictably), no winners.... Never will be, frankly.
This does not discount that our minds can have an influence within ourselves. Far from it. Our "state of mind" [depressed, anxious, fearful or full of rage, and on and on] has a strong influence. and so, anything that has an effect on our senses will obviously directly affect our well-being, our sense of position and, in some cases, power over others.
The power of prayer may be most effective in it's potential influence on the spiritual health of the target individual. They know for instance, that the entire congregation of their friends are all praying for their recovery. They may have given up or given in to the depressing aspects of their disease or their situation, and for sure the body responds to a sense of well being versus a depressed mental state. Hence, yes, prayer can have positive effects.
Thus, the indian medicine man, chanting and dancing around the near-fatally wounded local warrior, leading to his revival.
I met and got to know an Inupiat shaman in a small village near Inuvik in the (once) NW Territories in Canada. He was an older, slightly oddball character, but he took me out way out of town on his snow machine and talked to me about the tundra, the wildlife and the intensely intertwined interactions between a people who had evolved their culture there, in a place as far north as humans have or could ever live, under the most demanding environmental conditions.
Google Image Result for http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/Inupiat/images/kaktovikchildpipe.gif
They had no choice but to integrate with the flow of nature up there and so had become especially tuned to its variations, the subtle changes in it's moods, it's "reactions" to things. Of course, there was a strong element of mythology built in. The various gods and the shadows of the legendary old tribal members who had departed to the spirit world, but who also showed up, visibly & conveniently only to shamans, to provide sage advice.
That connectivity within the shaman community was interesting to observe, because it showed an element of our human nature: to take the reins of power when they are offered to us. It can only be achieved through mysticism
(the understanding of which is, perforce, limited to a select few) such that the larger community can not generally partake.
This shaman hated the encroachment of the whites, the Hudson Bay Company, and of learning. The local white priest / teacher in the then-mandated Indian schools strongly disciplined the children if he even heard them talking about the old days and the old ways. This arrogance forever tainted the relationships between the Inupiat and us interloper whites, with our dreaded question-answering "science". Within his community, this man was "god", and his ancestors knew and revered that relationship.
It was foolish of the arrogant Catholic French-Canadian priests to try to step in and have their version of a mystical figure take over. In case they are still blissfully unaware, it didn't "take" with these people; the Inupiat people just smile, nod and go on with their long-held and far more practical spirituality.
The knowledge that this wonderful man was able to impart to my previously sheltered Western mind was spiritually altering, and became part of my own larger, naturally-oriented "spirituality". Long live the shaman!
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! dunno of any plump advertising strategies. too far removed from all that!
