DO OUR THOUGHTS AFFECT OTHERS?

Do our thoughts or feelings really affect others, whether those “others” be people, animals, or plants?

For that matter, does prayer—whether or not invoked via some deity or divine intermediary—really have any impact on the lives and welfare of others?

My own belief is that, yes, such things really do have an impact, and I say that for several reasons.

For example, several decades ago I came across a book titled The Power of Prayer on Plants by Rev. Franklin Loehr. Not surprisingly, the book elicited quite a bit of criticism from the skeptical community, citing various reasons why it couldn’t be true; and indeed, I recall that some attempts to replicate it didn’t work out so well. It was an interesting debate, though, but I couldn’t come to any hard conclusions one way or another based just on that one book.

It was some time later that I learned the TV show NOVA was going to scrutinize those claims by Loehr in his book. Even up to the present, NOVA has always taken a generally skeptical view of ‘fringe’ topics, but since they generally did their homework when discussing such things, I was eager to see what they came up with.

In that episode, they put Rev. Loehr to the test by asking him to affect the growth of plants that were placed inside two sealed glass aquariums, using just the power of thought, or in his case, prayer. The show went out of its way to prevent any possibility of him directly affecting the plants, such as with his breath. He was more than happy to oblige, since he didn’t feel such obstacles had any impact on what he was going to do.

So, over the course of several days, he proceeded to send positive thoughts prayers to the one set of plants, while actually cursing the other set of plants.

The end result? At the end of the agreed-upon time-frame, there was a dramatic difference in the growth of the plants in those two aquariums. The heavily blessed plants looked noticeably healthier and larger, while the cursed plants looked comparatively sickly and withered. Visually, it was a dramatic contrast.

The expert consultants at NOVA were at a loss for explaining what had happened, and were uncharacteristically silent about offering any explanation for what might have transpired. In fact, I couldn’t help but sense there was likely some embarrassment on the part of the show’s producers who had set up the test conditions, since they had generally been pretty successful in their past debunking efforts involving “fringe” claims.

Curiously enough, when I went to search for information on that episode many years later, since I wanted to reference it for something I was writing, it was nowhere to be found. It was almost like the episode had completely vanished. Whether that was because it was intentionally scrubbed, or it was just such an old episode that it dropped off their backlist, or something else entirely, I have no idea.

But the implications of that show have kept echoing back to me in a number of ways since then—such as in the following account related to me by a fellow named Jeffrey Bruce Gold.

After publishing my book An Infinity of Gods, about the Kriya Yoga mystic Shelly Trimmer, Jeffrey got in touch with me to say he had read the book, and actually knew Shelly quite well himself, having visited him and wife Deborah quite a few times at their home in Bradenton, Florida. We shared some of our own anecdotes about Shelly (who passed away in 1996), but one of Jeffrey’s stories was particularly interesting to me. Here is what he wrote:

“I probably visited Shelly and Deborah about 10-12 times. One time—and one time only—I arrived on Longboat Key hours early. It was summer so it was very warm. I was hanging out on a beach near their house with nothing to do.

So I waded in the water. I didn’t get far and sat down in the Gulf with the water reaching up to my chest. I decided to meditate (breathe kriya) while sitting on the sandy floor there. I reached a far more balanced state than I usually reach, so I sent Shelly and Deborah warm thoughts, wishes, vibrations, or whatever one might want to call them. As I said, this is the only time I ever did that prior to a visit with them.

Eventually, I arrived at their house. Early in the conversation, Shelly said: “Thanks for the kind wishes you sent this morning.”

My mind was completely blown. I should add that he never said that any other time when I didn’t send the vibrations.”

There are other stories—and experiences—besides these which have led me to believe our thoughts do have an impact on others, or on our environment, for better or worse. For those who wish to look into this topic further, I recommend the works of an author who used to write for us quite regularly at Quest Magazine back in the ‘90s, Dr. Larry Dossey, who has written several books on the topic. Here is an interview with him I came across a few years ago that explores some of his views:

https://bolstablog.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/dossey-prayer/

Ray Grasse is a writer, astrologer, and photographer living in the American Midwest. He is author of ten books, including The Waking Dream, An Infinity of Gods, and Under a Sacred Sky. His websites are www.raygrasse.com and www.raygrassephotography.com.