The Importance of Meaning in Our Lives

"Meaning is the background against which we find answers to the great spiritual questions: Who am I? What is the purpose of my life — my true calling, my natural talents that I should exercise? Where did I come from, and where am I going? What are the limits of my freedom? Is there a God? If the great religions once provided a context of meaning in which answers to these questions could be found, it is no longer so; they appear to have lost much of their power and seem increasingly impotent and out-of-step in our complex world.

"Once the fount of meaning, religion has come to blows with the modern scientific outlook and has been unable, by and large, to remain convincing. The religious and scientific perspectives are polarized over the question of meaning as perhaps no other. For religion, meaning is an intrinsic part of the world, part of the fabric of being behind all phenomena. For science, meaning does not exist. It is something we concoct, not something we discover in the world."
Meaning & Medicine: A Doctor's Tales of Breakthrough and Healing

The Helper's High

"Altruism behaves like a miracle drug, and a strange one at that. It has beneficial effects on the person doing the helping — the helper's high; it benefits the person to whom the help is directed; and it can stimulate healthy responses in persons at a distance who may view it only obliquely.

"Although studies on altruism and the helper's high sometimes employ the complex language of neurotransmitters, receptor sites, and chemicals such as endorphins, these behaviors are really not esoteric. Everyone knows it feels good to 'do something nice' for someone else. Part of the warm feeling may well be due to coming home-returning to our original, undivided, larger Self, the part of us that connects, that knows no divisions in space and time."
Meaning & Medicine: A Doctor's Tales of Breakthrough and Healing

Using Prayer in Medical Practice

"My resistance to using prayer in my medical practice was not unique. Almost all scientifically oriented physicians experience it. It simply is difficult to retain a spiritual instinct if one travels the path of science. The message of modern medical education is clear: one must choose either logical, analytical, and rational approaches, or irrational, religious, superstitious, and 'right-brained' ones, which include prayer. But the choice between science and spirituality appears increasingly artificial today, even from a scientific perspective. It is not possible to tell a new story, one that allows science and spirituality to stand side by side in a complementary way, neither trying to usurp or eliminate the other."
Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine

The Shadow Side of Prayer

"I do not believe that a frank discussion of negative prayer will popularize its use ad spawn an epidemic of harm. Negative prayer is already prevalent. It exists in the background of daily life, like an unnoticed hum. The noise is probably louder today than ever before. Our goal to become aware of it. . .

"Like a magnet, prayer has both positive and negative poles. Like fire, it can be used for either good or harm. For two thousand years we have emphasized the 'light' side of prayer. Now we shall explore its neglected shadow side."
Be Careful What You Pray For…You Might Just Get It

Era III Healing

"Many studies reveal that healing can be achieved at a distance by directly loving and compassionate thoughts, intentions, and prayers to others, who may even be unaware these efforts are being extended to them. These findings reveal the ability of some part of our mind or consciousness to escape its confinement to the brain and body and to act anywhere, regardless of distance. The medical implications of this are profound. For example, the mind's nonlocal nature provides a way for us to help heal one another, making health and illness a collective affair. Era III healing means that 'we're in it together,' that no one's illness is a purely individual matter. When illness occurs, the fact that I can help you and you can help me eases the isolation and feelings of being alone that are a painful part of being sick. Era III also provides new tools for physicians and health-care workers. If the mind operates beyond the body, this provides a way for physicians to know directly, intuitively, what is wrong with their patients. All physicians have had the experience of 'just knowing' what a diagnosis is, with little or no information to go on. We attribute this to experience, but really it's more. It's intuition, too, and intuition is an important hallmark of the nonlocal mind.

"But the greatest contribution of Era III to healing goes beyond diagnosing disease and eradicating illness. If our minds are genuinely capable of breaking free from the body, then they are not subject to time. The implication of this is so revolutionary, we instinctively dismiss it. Although our bodies die, the timeless part of our consciousness lives on. Era III provides a cure, therefore, for the 'disease' that has caused more suffering for more people than any other--the fear of death."
Reinventing Medicine: Beyond Mind-Body To a New Era of Healing

A Thing Apartheid in Our Culture

"There is a veritable 'thing apartheid' in our culture, whereby inanimate objects are not accorded the same respect as living, sensate organisms. Proposing that things can behave well or badly, or that they have any behavior at all, sounds preposterous to anyone schooled in twentieth-century science. Yet things appear to be avid accumulators of significances, particularly when they are chronically exposed to humans. They appear capable of catching our feelings, resonating with our emotions, responding to our meanings, and obtruding in our lives, often when we least expect it. And the implications for healing are profound."
Healing Beyond the Body: Medicine and the Infinite Reach of the Mind