Do you have evidence for the power of the mind?

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Scripture admonishes us to" have the mind of Christ."
There is power to do all things “in Him who strengthens us.”
“He makes His strength perfect in our weakness.”
 
Where the mind goes-the man follows. This is in the bible --I believe in Matthew. I don’t know what verse or correct quote, but this is it in a nutshell.
As for evidence, perhaps a psych study can be googled about rumination.
 
dennyboo said:
Scripture admonishes us to" have the mind of Christ."
There is power to do all things “in Him who strengthens us.”
“He makes His strength perfect in our weakness.”
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum! 🙂

Do you have personal experience of this?
 
mommy_k said:
Where the mind goes-the man follows. This is in the bible --I believe in Matthew. I don’t know what verse or correct quote, but this is it in a nutshell.
As for evidence, perhaps a psych study can be googled about rumination.
Click to expand...
The question is “Do you have evidence for the power of the mind…?” 😉
 
tonyrey said:
???
Click to expand...
A few questions first - what do you mean by ‘mind’ and how would you distinguish it from, say, the rest of the body? Are you referring to supposed powers of the mind specifically, that don’t require execution by the rest of the body - such as telepathy or telekinesis?

Also, what do you mean by ‘power’? Is it simply the ability to do work, to act?

Until these terms are defined, the question is rather nebulous…
 
Sair said:
A few questions first - what do you mean by ‘mind’ and how would you distinguish it from, say, the rest of the body? And are you referring specifically to such supposed powers of the mind that don’t require execution by the rest of the body, like telepathy or telekinesis, for example?

Also, what do you mean by ‘power’? Is it simply the ability to do work, to act?

Until these terms are defined, the question is rather nebulous…
Click to expand...
 
your question is far too vague:
but would “The Placebo Effect” be the kind of evidence you are looking for.

This is a well documented phenomenon which has a dominant effect in medical research.

it shows that if a person takes something they believe to be effective medication or treatment, that up to 1/3 of those people will get well or better even if the medicine or treatment contains no drug or therapeutic agent.
examples include “Sugar Pills” and injections of saline or water.
This effect works on everything from the common cold to cancer to depression and schizophrenia. How strong the effect is varies by condition and type of placebo.

The effect is directly proportional to the effort needed or unpleasantness of the placebo. 2 pills work better than 1. big black pills work better than small white ones. Injections work far better than pills. Placebos that smell will work better than those that dont.

There have been cases where what was thought to be a placebo proved to be very much better than the drug being trialled, and new drugs or treatments thereby discovered. I believe there was a case of an eye ointment being tested, and the placebo was based on cod liver oil. The patients treated with the “placebo” had a massively better response than those being treated with the designed medicated ointment. It was discovered that something in the oil used in the placebo was far (many times) more effective than the drug they had been trialling.

In Psychological therapies and Chinese medicine it is not possible to use the Gold Standard of the “Double blind trial” where neither the person giving the treatment, not the person receiving it knows whether the issued treatment is a placebo or the drug/therapy being tested. Traditional Chinese medicine uses holistic diagnosis not treatemnt of specific symptoms, so 10 people all reporting with the same main disease or symptom could be given 5 or 6 different treatemnt regiemes. - this makes it impossible to use the double blind trial system.
Phsycological and phsyotherapy treatments don’t lend themselves to placebo treatments because the therapist will know, and ethically cannot do “Placebo” treatments, because such deliberately wrong methods can cause direct harm to the patient. Also the patient will normally know that the the treatment is different.
In these cases studies can only look at the difference between no treatment, existing treatment and new treatments.

All of this is a very good example for what many people would consider to be the “Power of the mind”

Another example is to look a genius minds who have preceded us, like Einstein (and his wife with whom he worked)
another is to look at how the mind has the ability to recover from major injuries and strokes damaging the brain.

Does any of this highlight what you are looking for?

If you’re asking about “ESP” examples: telekenisis, telepathy etc. there is no evidence for this type of thing. These concepts come from fiction and wishful thinking. Man has looked for magic for as long as he has had a mind.
to dabble in this area and try to control it may be a grave sin.
 
tonyrey said:
???
Click to expand...
Depends what you mean by “power of the mind”. If you’re talking about someone like Uri Geller who claims to bend spoons by mind power, I’m somewhat sceptical.

But since everything from moon shots to quantum technology to Shakespeare’s plays is due to Man’s application of his mind, then it has a certain power, provided it is allied with physical ability.

If you’re talking about disembodied mind, then I’m not quite so sure. I’ve related a story elsewhere where my old pastor predicted a situation where “I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.”

I won’t go into the tedious details here, but the bloke who told me about the ghost (a former suicide) said that one night he was cleaning the store where the ghost appeared to be located, when **all the stock **on one complete row of shelves just jumped up and landed on the floor. At other times he could push a very heavy buffer just using his little finger, as something unseen was pushing it with him.

Assuming that was due to the “ghost”, then I wonder what sort of interface it had with the material world so that it could do these things. Was it due to the ghost’s “mind” or some sort of spiritual manipulation.

As a pastor who’d had a lot to do with street kids said to me once, “There’s a very strange psychic world out there.”

I’m afraid you’re question is somewhat open ended and not very clear.
 
anruari said:
your question is far too vague:
but would “The Placebo Effect” be the kind of evidence you are looking for.

This is a well documented phenomenon which has a dominant effect in medical research.

it shows that if a person takes something they believe to be effective medication or treatment, that up to 1/3 of those people will get well or better even if the medicine or treatment contains no drug or therapeutic agent.
examples include “Sugar Pills” and injections of saline or water.
This effect works on everything from the common cold to cancer to depression and schizophrenia. How strong the effect is varies by condition and type of placebo.

The effect is directly proportional to the effort needed or unpleasantness of the placebo. 2 pills work better than 1. big black pills work better than small white ones. Injections work far better than pills. Placebos that smell will work better than those that dont.

There have been cases where what was thought to be a placebo proved to be very much better than the drug being trialled, and new drugs or treatments thereby discovered. I believe there was a case of an eye ointment being tested, and the placebo was based on cod liver oil. The patients treated with the “placebo” had a massively better response than those being treated with the designed medicated ointment. It was discovered that something in the oil used in the placebo was far (many times) more effective than the drug they had been trialling.

In Psychological therapies and Chinese medicine it is not possible to use the Gold Standard of the “Double blind trial” where neither the person giving the treatment, not the person receiving it knows whether the issued treatment is a placebo or the drug/therapy being tested. Traditional Chinese medicine uses holistic diagnosis not treatemnt of specific symptoms, so 10 people all reporting with the same main disease or symptom could be given 5 or 6 different treatemnt regiemes. - this makes it impossible to use the double blind trial system.
Phsycological and phsyotherapy treatments don’t lend themselves to placebo treatments because the therapist will know, and ethically cannot do “Placebo” treatments, because such deliberately wrong methods can cause direct harm to the patient. Also the patient will normally know that the the treatment is different.
In these cases studies can only look at the difference between no treatment, existing treatment and new treatments.

All of this is a very good example for what many people would consider to be the “Power of the mind”

Another example is to look a genius minds who have preceded us, like Einstein (and his wife with whom he worked)
another is to look at how the mind has the ability to recover from major injuries and strokes damaging the brain.

Does any of this highlight what you are looking for?

If you’re asking about “ESP” examples: telekenisis, telepathy etc. there is no evidence for this type of thing. These concepts come from fiction and wishful thinking. Man has looked for magic for as long as he has had a mind.
to dabble in this area and try to control it may be a grave sin.
Click to expand...
All the examples you have given are indeed evidence for the power of thought! 👍
 
Bob_Crowley said:
Depends what you mean by “power of the mind”. If you’re talking about someone like Uri Geller who claims to bend spoons by mind power, I’m somewhat sceptical.

But since everything from moon shots to quantum technology to Shakespeare’s plays is due to Man’s application of his mind, then it has a certain power, provided it is allied with physical ability.

If you’re talking about disembodied mind, then I’m not quite so sure. I’ve related a story elsewhere where my old pastor predicted a situation where “I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.”

I won’t go into the tedious details here, but the bloke who told me about the ghost (a former suicide) said that one night he was cleaning the store where the ghost appeared to be located, when **all the stock **on one complete row of shelves just jumped up and landed on the floor. At other times he could push a very heavy buffer just using his little finger, as something unseen was pushing it with him.

Assuming that was due to the “ghost”, then I wonder what sort of interface it had with the material world so that it could do these things. Was it due to the ghost’s “mind” or some sort of spiritual manipulation.

As a pastor who’d had a lot to do with street kids said to me once, “There’s a very strange psychic world out there.”

I’m afraid you’re question is somewhat open ended and not very clear.
Click to expand...
It is intended to be open-ended to discover the extent to which you believe it surpasses the activity of the brain. Your view that the mind “has a certain power, provided it is allied with physical ability” suggests that it has a physical basis…
 
Sair said:
A few questions first - what do you mean by ‘mind’ and how would you distinguish it from, say, the rest of the body? Are you referring to supposed powers of the mind specifically, that don’t require execution by the rest of the body - such as telepathy or telekinesis?

Also, what do you mean by ‘power’? Is it simply the ability to do work, to act?

Until these terms are defined, the question is rather nebulous…
Click to expand...
The question is intended to be open-ended to discover the extent to which you believe it surpasses the activity of the brain. Those who are acquainted with your posts are well aware that your answer is “none”!
 
tonyrey said:
It is intended to be open-ended to discover the extent to which you believe it surpasses the activity of the brain. Your view that the mind “has a certain power, provided it is allied with physical ability” suggests that it has a physical basis…
Click to expand...
Well, seeing my father appeared to me the night he died (he materialised in the corner of the room), I obvously believe the “mind” exists without the brain. He didn’t have a body (his body was lying dead some kilometres away), but he could obviously think, talk, see (even bits of the future from some of the things he said), argue, appeal etc. And he could give one almighty scream at the end. He was able to be absolutely terrified.

I could see him, but also see through him if I wanted to. I still remember being able to see my long chipboard bookcase through him, which had a big sag in the middle shelf.

So as far as I’m concerned, he was a duality the night he appeared in my room - mind and spirit. He lacked the body to be fully trinitarian, which is how we’re made in God’s image, so he couldn’t do anything in the purely physical sense.

Which reminds me of accounts of “near death” experiences, where people say they can see doctors, nurses etc. operating on their body, but can’t do anything to get their attention. They can see, hear, think etc. but not physically contact, touch or interfere.

While we’re alive, it appears the mind is closely linked to the brain. But when we’re dead, it seems to become disassociated from it.

As the old pastor said, “There’s a very strange psychic world out there.” Spirits don’t have bodies, but they certainly have minds, whether angelic or demonic (same birds, different feathers - demons are simply fallen angels, when it’s all said and done).

And an angel’s mind must be intuitive in its knowledge, yet not physical.

I doubt if an angel ever sat down and learnt the arithmetic tables, or how to spell “The cat sat on the mat”.
 
Not sure if you would call this evidence … but … however …

I was surfing the net and came upon a fellow who had a long history of medical complaints because as a young man he was in the military and while at his duty location, he saw some empty chemical drums … the place where he worked had been sprayed with Agent Orange. From that moment on, he had nothing but medical problems.

What is interesting is this: I had been at the exact same place … exact same … and at the exact same time period as that fellow … we are the same age … as near as I can tell without doing a formal epidemiological study … but I had never seen the drums and had had NO IDEA that there had been any spraying of any kind going on.

And I have never had any of those medical problems as that fellow … in fact, I have enjoyed perfect health.

So, is it the power of suggestion? … the power of the mind? … mind over matter? … the power of positive thinking? [Norman Vincent Peale wrote a book called “The Power of Positive Thinking”]

Many years later, I was taking a medical course … and the instructor, a very senior, very experienced professional, asked for a volunteer and a very strong fellow offered his services. The instructor asked the volunteer to hold his arms out to his sides and then to think of some really positive, happy thought … and then to keep his arms up as the instructor put all his weight down on one of the volunteer’s arms … the volunteer had no difficulty supporting all of the instructor’s weight.

Then the instructor asked the volunteer to think of something sad … not traumatic, but merely sad. The instructor reran the experiment and the volunteer was unable to support the instructor’s weight … at all … it was very easy for the instructor to push the arm down even though the volunteer tried to support the weight.

Then the instructor had the volunteer go back to thinking the positive, happy thought and the volunteer’s strength was restored.

The instructor also spent time making sure that the volunteer was fully back in his original high-strength condition.

So, it definitely appears that our frame of mind can affect many things. Based on my experiences, frame of mind can also affect the people around us.

Maybe not the battery of our car, but certainly many human factors.
 
Bob_Crowley said:
Well, seeing my father appeared to me the night he died (he materialised in the corner of the room), I obvously believe the “mind” exists without the brain. He didn’t have a body (his body was lying dead some kilometres away), but he could obviously think, talk, see (even bits of the future from some of the things he said), argue, appeal etc. And he could give one almighty scream at the end. He was able to be absolutely terrified.

I could see him, but also see through him if I wanted to. I still remember being able to see my long chipboard bookcase through him, which had a big sag in the middle shelf.

So as far as I’m concerned, he was a duality the night he appeared in my room - mind and spirit. He lacked the body to be fully trinitarian, which is how we’re made in God’s image, so he couldn’t do anything in the purely physical sense.

Which reminds me of accounts of “near death” experiences, where people say they can see doctors, nurses etc. operating on their body, but can’t do anything to get their attention. They can see, hear, think etc. but not physically contact, touch or interfere.

While we’re alive, it appears the mind is closely linked to the brain. But when we’re dead, it seems to become disassociated from it.

As the old pastor said, “There’s a very strange psychic world out there.” Spirits don’t have bodies, but they certainly have minds, whether angelic or demonic (same birds, different feathers - demons are simply fallen angels, when it’s all said and done).

And an angel’s mind must be intuitive in its knowledge, yet not physical.

I doubt if an angel ever sat down and learnt the arithmetic tables, or how to spell “The cat sat on the mat”.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Bob. I’m sure your experience is not unique in view of so many accounts of similar throughout recorded history. It goes to show that reality cannot be reduced to the things we can usually see with our eyes. Materialism is a form of madness that leads to a myopic, miserly and miserable distortion of life!
 
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