The Mind Is A Powerful Thing

Personal opinion warning: Because of the widespread and blatant fraud that surrounds so many professional psychics, fortune tellers and mediums, I don't have confidence in this aspect of the mysterious.  I believe in premonitions, intuition, bursts of insight, predictive dreams and prophetic visions. But it just seems to me that in my personal investigations of the matter, the pros have to resort to trickery in order to make and maintain a reputation.

The story I am about to relate, which was reported by the Associated Press back in 1965 and based on an article in the British Medical Journal, concerns a fortune teller who accurately predicted a woman's death.

The prediction was 38 years old when it came to pass. A five year old girl was told "you will die when you're 43." How nice to say such a thing to someone so young! Only that girl and her sister knew about this prophecy.

Fast forward 38 years and the little girl, now a woman, is facing a minor operation. Yet, having lived with the fortune teller's prediction, she confided to her sister that she felt she wouldn't wake up from the anesthesia. And when the day came for the operation the unnamed woman also told a nurse she was sure she was going to die.

Shortly after the operation was completed internal bleeding began and the woman lost consciousness and died. The doctors found no apparent reason that this happened.

The British Medical Association opined that

"There is no medical explanation to account for this. It seems rather like the case of natives who die on the date at the time which doctors predict."

Yes, I would say, exactly like that.

The doctors who performed the operation offered this:

"We wonder if the severe emotional tensions of this patient superimposed  physiological stress of the surgery had any bearing on her death."

Which brings me to the title of this post: The mind is a powerful thing.

Hey, I'm as skeptical as most people about such long term predictions. (Perhaps that's because I'm not a fatalist.) But here it is. Just as I firmly believe in the placebo effect, in mind over matter (to a reasonable extent), I believe a prediction like this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just as positive thoughts bring positive results, so negative thoughts bring about negative results.

One King-Sized Case Of Hives, Coming Right Up

I for some time have been quite interested in New Thought. I can't say I buy into all of it, but dang it, I have to believe that how we think about things has a lot to do with how things go for us. Upfront I admit that some of the New Thought emphasis on "think your way to riches" is a turn off. I think riches are often a snare. Moreover, being "rich" is a relative thing. Compared to most of the world, in my leanest times I was rich! Money can't buy happiness, so I'll settle for having enough to be content. (And it doesn't take much to make me happy).

But I'm saying I do believe in the placebo effect, nocebo effect and psychosomatic illness. The subject of this post, in fact, is an incident that took place during my eleventh year in, which I proved to myself for all time that the mind can conjure illness.

It happened in this way. For some reason (time has faded my memory somewhat here) my best friend Jimmy and I had a rather severe falling out. I don't remember the details but do clearly remember that he had promised over the telephone to beat me up the next day at school.

It wasn't the prospect of a "butt whooping" that troubled me so. Those things happen when you're young. But his being my closest friend - and he had been for years - and turning against me so violently upset me beyond measure. I wanted somehow to avoid this entire unpleasant situation.

Voila! Despite the fact I had never had a hive in my life (and haven't again to this day, more than forty years later), I began itching and finding the biggest, reddest hives you could imagine on my face, neck and arms.

My parents were flabbergasted. It did the trick. I was home from school in bed the next day "recuperating." The weekend came next and I made a complete and speedy recovery. Fences were mended with my friend over the weekend. He even felt concern that I had been so upset I broke out in hives.

Can't help but wonder now how many other illnesses my mind concocted when I was growing up. I can just say that as sickly as I was during my childhood, I've been quite robust in adulthood. "Disgustingly healthy" as one doctor put it to me.

On the score of attitude, I can say I've proved to myself that thinking oneself into an upbeat mood when one is down is doable. It works. Give it a try sometime.

So I am more than willing to study New Thought material with an open mind. I wonder how much we can do with our minds.

Strange Attraction

I've never read the secret or seen the movie. I have heard a bit about it on Oprah (not that I was a regular viewer, but before she started her own network her show was on just before the local news when I got home from work and I would often catch her).

However, I have read just a tad (a very little bit, actually) in some old New Thought books about it the Law of Attraction.

Sure it is a lot to swallow. And you would think - judging by the mess this world is in - that either it is a bunch of hooey or else most people just don't know about it or maybe do know and just aren't applying themselves. (I believe its adherents think most people don't know much about this alleged law of the universe, hence it is often referred to these days as The Secret.)

Okay, be all that as it may, I just want to relate a strange little incident that I experienced it goes back to what my thinking about Synchronicity - or meaningful coincidences - offers me. And strange though that concept is, it does make sense to me and even offers some explanatory power for my understanding.

Anyway, I have this little vacuum cleaner that I've had for nearly two decades. I've always loved it because it's small - just right for my small home. It is bag-less and it's easy to empty the storage bin. Also, it has good suction, but not so good that it chews things up and pulls things loose.

Over years of use the black plastic handle cracked and became loose. When I searched for a replacement I sadly discovered that company no longer makes that particular model, and I don't like the newer ones.

Not wanting to give it up until I absolutely had to, I decided to "jury rig" the handle part. But how? Tape is sticky and probably wouldn't be long lasting. Then I hit upon the idea of securing the crack with a zip tie. I have these at my place of employment but never could think about bringing one home as I was leaving.

Now I will add here that finally, after a very long delay, I upgraded my internet service to fiber optics. The power company was here last Saturday to install it for me. After this was done and the service man left, I decided to clean up behind him and vacuum. It was then that I looked down and saw that the installer had dropped a small black zip tie - just the size I wanted. Had I got one from work it would have been bright white on a black handle. Now that would have really looked redneck.

The "law of attraction" brought me just what I wanted, and I all I had to do was think about what I wanted. Yeah, I kept forgetting to grab one from work, but in the end I ended up with something better.

Coincidence you say? Well sure. But I have increasingly noticed that when I am looking for coincidences I find them, and when I follow a path seems to be laid out ahead of me, I come out at a clearing.