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- Verified Buyer
This is a great book for anyone who prays, meditates, uses affirmations, or practices any form of magick. But it's about praying, right? Yes, it is, but the author takes the subject far beyond the recitation of memorized prayer. He discusses various forms of negatively remotely influencing another - or a thing, situation, or possible outcome. With plenty of academic research throughout the book, he backs up his observations with hard data. That's very difficult to do when dealing with something as seemingly intangible as any form of prayer.The author points out that whenever we pray/affirm/whatever to win, to succeed, to do well, we may well be creating a situation where someone else will have to fail. That seems obvious, right? What if the person whom you beat out for that great job has four kids and a wife with cancer at home, and really did need that great job more than you? Not so good now. You, for purposes of example, are young and single with little responsibility. But you were "successful" at getting what you prayed for, weren't you?Most people simply don't think things through when it comes to prayers and similar work. Prayer is assumed to be benign, yet how could it possibly be, when both sides in a war will pray to the same god for victory? ... when people pray for a specific form of prosperity, not realizing it can only come at another's expense? The point is that there is always a cost, so pay attention, and be careful. Prayer can be very powerful (as evidenced by the research in the book - research that is fascinating because it doesn't not involve prayer toward people, but to bacteria... which cannot be self-reporting their condition with a prayer-positive bias since they don't talk per se..)The most fascinating aspect of this book is a couple of chapters on "Medical Hexing" and "Death Prayers". These two chapters alone are worth twice the price of the book. It has long been known that what a doctor says to you about your health can have a tremendous effect on your long term well-beig - or lack thereof. The author demonstrates with several examples of individuals whose health radically declined, in the ABSENCE of organic disease, because of something a doctor said, or in one case, a comment made by a doc while a patient was under anesthesia. Doctors are shamans of our time... their words carry great power on the subconscious level, and I do hope this book will be read by MANY doctors. We will all be better off for it.The idea of praying someone to death is taboo, of course. The author bravely discusses this malevolent form of attack - and points out many cases in which a death prayer happens without the person realizing that they are, in effect, praying for harm to come to another.There is also information about protection from these negative influences. Note that the protection is primarily in the state of the mind of the prayee.I recommend this book for anyone interested in their personal well-being who is also interested in the power of the human mind. I absolutely recommend it for doctors, surgeons, therapists, and pastoral counselors. You have -- we all have -- far more power in our words than we usually realize. This book makes it clear that it is long past time to pay attention.