THE POWER OF THOUGHT

by Stanley

It is fashionable to blame your thoughts for the way you feel. But not to blame your feelings for the way you think.
Interesting
Why is that ?
Perhaps it’s because when something is wrong people don’t get the feel of it first. Their first warning is the way they are thinking. Even then they may not get the way they are feeling – or perhaps only much later. Quite natural then to assume that what come first causes what comes second. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, (the logical fallacy of ‘after this, therefore because of this’).
It is more useful to think of thoughts, everyday thoughts that carouse through one’s head, as epiphenomena – particles floating on the surface of consciousness that often have only an oblique connection with what is really going on. But this does not explain the illusionary transference of power into one’s thoughts.
In thinking about sympathetic magic, the belief that one’s thoughts and actions can effect both physical and spiritual actions in the world, Freud said that this was due to an archaic belief in what he called the ‘omnipotence of thought’ (die Allmacht des Gedankens).
Children seem naturally to believe in the omnipotence of thought: ‘close your eyes, throw a penny into the fountain, and wish’; and the utter seriousness with which children believe that a wish will convey itself through the air to Father Christmas.
This, Freud said, is a phase of infantile narcissistic development and also seen in adult regression in obsessional neurosis, where the same kind of magical thinking occurs as a very serious symptom.
Freud also pointed out that the feature of magical thinking and the omnipotence of thought in primitive magic was taken over by religion: ‘And God said: Let there be light, and there was light’.
Prayer and positive thinking are the most widespread practises of magic. Whether prayer actually works is a debateable. But there is an amusing story told by Richard Dawkins about an experiment in ‘intercessional prayer in a medical setting’ conducted by a certain Dr. Benson who was inclined to believe it could be beneficial.
‘Dr Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn't know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it... Prayers were delivered by the congregations of three churches, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray. It is good experimental practice to standardize as far as possible, and they were all, accordingly, told to include in their prayers the phrase 'for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications'.’
The results show no difference in the recovery of groups 1 and 2.
Group 3, those who knew they were being prayed for, ‘suffered significantly more complications than those who did not.’ The experimenters wondered whether they had suffered from ‘performance anxiety’.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. NY, Houton Mifflin, 2006