Double-blind experiments

Double-blind describes an especially stringent way of conducting an experiment, usually on human subjects, in an attempt to eliminate subjective bias on the part of both experimental subjects and the experimenters. In most cases, double-blind experiments are held to achieve a higher standard of scientific rigor.

In a double-blind experiment, neither the individuals nor the researchers know who belongs to the control group and the experimental group. Only after all the data have been recorded (and in some cases, analyzed) do the researchers learn which individuals are which. Performing an experiment in double-blind fashion is a way to lessen the influence of the prejudices and unintentional physical cues on the results (the placebo effect, observer bias, and experimenter's bias). Random assignment of the subject to the experimental or control group is a critical part of double-blind research design. The key that identifies the subjects and which group they belonged to is kept by a third party and not given to the researchers until the study is over.

Double-blind methods can be applied to any experimental situation where there is the possibility that the results will be affected by conscious or unconscious bias on the part of the experimenter.
A blind or blinded experiment is a scientific experiment where some of the persons involved are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead to conscious or unconscious bias on their part, invalidating the results.

For example, when asking consumers to compare the tastes of different brands of a product, the identities of the latter should be concealed — otherwise consumers will generally tend to prefer the brand they are familiar with. Similarly, when evaluating the effectiveness of a medical drug, both the patients and the doctors who administer the drug may be kept in the dark about the dosage being applied in each case — to forestall any chance of a placebo effect, observer bias, or conscious deception.

Blinding can be imposed on researchers, technicians, subjects, funders, or any combination of them. The opposite of a blind trial is an open trial. Blind experiments are an important tool of the scientific method, in many fields of research — from medicine, forensics, psychology and the social sciences, to basic sciences such as physics and biology and to market research. In some disciplines, such as drug testing, blind experiments are considered essential.

The terms blind (adjective) or to blind (transitive verb) when used in this sense are figurative extensions of the literal idea of blindfolding someone. The terms masked or to mask may be used for the same concept. (This is commonly the case in ophthalmology, where the word 'blind' is often used in the literal sense.)

Biases can occur in any one of seven stages of research:

1.in reading-up on the field,
2.in specifying and selecting the study sample,
3.in executing the experimental manoeuvre (or exposure),
4.in measuring exposures and outcomes,
5.in analyzing the data,
6.in interpreting the analysis, and
7.in publishing the results.
The inability of a human being to remain completely objective is the ultimate source of this bias. It occurs more often in sociological and medical sciences, for which reason double blind techniques are often employed to combat the bias. But experimenter's bias can also be found in some physical sciences, where the experimenter rounds off measurements.

When is a PhD not a PhD

There have been a lot of self-help and New Age books written in the last 30 years. I believed some, fell for some, rejected some and laughed at some.

After googling earlier I discovered that evidently it's possible that a few authors have PhD's from unaccredited university's. Now if I buy a book about "Energy Medicine" or anything else from someone with a PhD I expect it to be accurate. The credentials add credence to the book.

Maybe the publishing companies should assume ownership and check that doctorates and PhD's are valid and if there "ghost writers" involved? Talk show hosts should screen too.

God bless the internet.

CHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER.

UNCONSCIOUSLY we are forming habits every moment of our lives. Some are habits of a desirable nature; some are those of a most undesirable nature. Some, though not so bad in themselves, are exceedingly bad in their cumulative effects, and cause us at times much loss, much pain and anguish, while their opposites would, on the contrary, bring us much peace and joy, as well as a continually increasing power.

Have we it within our power to determine at all times what types of habits shall take form in our lives? In other words, is habit-forming, character-building, a matter of mere chance, or have we it within our own control? We have, entirely and absolutely. "I will be what I will to be," can be said and should be said by every human soul.

After this has been bravely and determinedly said, and not only said, but fully inwardly realized, something yet remains. Something remains to be said regarding the great law underlying habit-forming, character-building; for there is a simple, natural, and thoroughly scientific method that all should know. A method whereby old, undesirable, earth-binding habits can be broken, and new, desirable, heaven-lifting habits can be acquired,—a method whereby life in part or in its totality can be changed, provided one is sufficiently in earnest to know, and, knowing it, to apply the law.

Thought is the force underlying all. And what do we mean by this? Simply this: Your every act—every conscious act—is preceded by a thought. Your dominating thoughts determine your dominating actions. The acts repeated crystallize themselves into the habit. The aggregate of your habits is your character. Whatever, then, you would have your acts, you must look well to the character of the thought you entertain.

Whatever act you would not do,—habit you would not acquire,—you must look well to it that you do not entertain the type of thought that will give birth to this act, this habit.

It is a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if entertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by, reach the motor tracks of the brain, and finally burst forth into action.

The thing clearly to understand is this: That the thought is always parent to the act. Now, we have it entirely in our own hands to determine exactly what thoughts we entertain. In the realm of our own minds we have absolute control, or we should have, and if at any time we have not, then there is a method by which we can gain control, and in the realm of the mind become thorough masters. In order to get to the very foundation of the matter, let us look to this for a moment. For if thought is always parent to our acts, habits, character, life, then it is first necessary that we know fully how to control our thoughts.

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The one who takes sufficient time in the quiet mentally to form his ideals, sufficient time to make and to keep continually his conscious connection with the Infinite, with the Divine life and forces, is the one who is best adapted to the strenuous life. He it is who can go out and deal with sagacity and power with whatever issues may arise in the affairs of everyday life. He it is who is building not for the years, but for the centuries; not for time, but for the eternities. And he can go out knowing not whither he goes, knowing that the Divine life within him will never fail him, but will lead him on until he beholds the Father face to face.

He is building for the centuries because only that which is the highest, the truest, the noblest, and best will abide the test of the centuries. He is building for eternity because when the transition we call death takes place, life, character, self-mastery, divine self-realization,—the only things that the soul when stripped of everything else takes with it,—he has in abundance. In life, or when the time of the transition to another form of life comes, he is never afraid, never fearful, because he knows and realizes that behind him, within him, beyond him, is the Infinite wisdom and love; and in this he is eternally centred, and from it he can never be separated.

What All the World's A-Seeking by Ralph Waldo Trine [1896]

You Never Can Tell

You never can tell when you send a word,
Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
Just where it may chance to go.
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend.
Tipped with its poison or balm,
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
It may carry its pain or its calm.

You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God's productive soil
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
With shelter for those who toil.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe --
Each thing must create its kind,
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
Whatever went out from your mind.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1896

Reincarnation

In reality we are all dreaming; when man fully awakens he knows that planets are thoughts, suns and moons are thoughts, and his own consciousness is the space which sustains them all. He begins to realize that the whole world is a thought. For example, he becomes aware of the fact that the body is not real, but it is a thought or idea held in consciousness. The body has no life apart from consciousness. He realizes that there is absolutely no reality to matter or the body of man; it is a group of ideas and opinions. Man gives life to ideas and opinions as long as he believes them. When he disbelieves the errors, these ideas have no life in them.
Man was never born and he will never die. There is no death. Death is an idea that exists in the minds of men. As long as man believes in death, he must witness and experience it. Man has no beginning and no end; he always was, just as God always was, is and shall be. “God and man are one.” “I am my Father are one.”
The man who is always quoting so-called authorities to prove the modern theories of reincarnation is himself without authority. He is still crying in the wilderness and calling other men masters and adepts. Call no man master. “Salute no man on the highway.” Salute the God within. The Kingdom of God is within, and if someone tells you it is “Lo here; lo there,” believe him not. The Kingdom of Heaven is within man.
Where is the Truth? It is within yourself.
Rev. Joseph Murphy
THIS IS IT: The Art of Metaphysical Demonstration [1948]

Where there is an effect there is always a cause; there is no such thing as chance.
This question is answered through the law of reincarnation. Man goes through many births and deaths, until he knows the truth which sets him free.
He is drawn back to the earth plane through unsatisfied desire, to pay his Karmic debts, or to "fulfill his destiny."
The man born rich and healthy has had pictures in his subconscious mind, in his past life, of health and riches; and the poor and sick man, of disease and poverty. Man manifests, on any plane, the sum total of his subconscious beliefs.
However, birth and death are man-made laws, for the "wages of sin is death"; the Adamic fall in consciousness through the belief in two powers. The real man, spiritual man, is birthless and deathless! He never was born and has never died—"As he was in the beginning, he is now, and ever shall be!"
So through the truth, man is set free from the law of Karma, sin and death, and manifests the man made in "His image and likeness." Man's freedom comes through fulfilling his destiny, bringing into manifestation the Divine Design of his life.
Florence Scovel Shinn
The Game of Life And How To Play It [1925]



There is a simple test by which you can tell a true teacher from a false one.

Healing 1887

I've been interested in Phineas Parkhurst Quimby for over a year now.
Ever since I listened to Dr. Ervin Seale's series of lessons entitled "The Quimby Writings" in February, 1981 at the Unity Village Chapel.
I've been intrigued by what the healing methods were he referred to.

Especially since Myrtle Fillmore of Unity cured herself of TB in the 1880's.

"On Healing - No Date" in the concordance is interesting. It probably helps to know Consumption is the old term for TB.

Christ Consciousness ~ Fourth Dimensional Consciousness ~ Casting the burden

• When man knows his own powers and the workings of his mind, his great desire is to find an easy and quick way to impress the subconscious with good, for simply an intellectual knowledge of the Truth will not bring results. In my own case, I found the easiest way is in "casting the burden." A metaphysician once explained it in this manner. He said, "The only thing which gives anything weight in nature, is the law of gravitation, and if a boulder could be taken high above the planet, there would be no weight in that boulder; and that is what Jesus Christ meant when he said: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." He had overcome the world vibration, and functioned in the fourth dimensional realm, where there is only perfection, completion, life and joy. He said: "Come to me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." We are also told in the fifty-fifth Psalm, to "cast thy burden upon the Lord." Many passages in the Bible state that the battle is God's not man's and that man is always to "stand still" and see the Salvation of the Lord. This indicates that the Christ within is the department which fights man's battle and relieves him of burdens. We see, therefore, that man violates law if he carries a burden, and a burden is an adverse thought or condition, and this thought or condition has its root in the subconscious. It seems almost impossible to make any headway directing the subconscious from the conscious, or reasoning mind, as the reasoning mind (the intellect) is limited in its conceptions, and filled with doubts and fears. How scientific it then is, to cast the burden upon the Christ within where it is "made light," or dissolved into its "native nothingness."
• The subconscious is often impressed through music. Music has a fourth dimensional quality and releases the soul from imprisonment. It makes wonderful things seem possible, and easy of accomplishment!
• "In the twinkling of an eye," man's release will come when he realizes there is no power in evil. The material world will fade away, and the fourth dimensional world, the "World of the Wondrous," will swing into manifestation. "And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth--and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."
• Ouspensky states, in "Tertium Organum," that "love is a cosmic phenomenon," and opens to man the fourth dimensional world, "The World of the Wondrous." Real love is selfless and free from fear. It pours itself out upon the object of its affection, without demanding any return. Its joy is in the joy of giving. Love is God in manifestation, and the strongest magnetic force in the universe. Pure, unselfish love draws to itself its own; it does not need to seek or demand. Scarcely anyone has the faintest conception of real love. Man is selfish, tyrannical or fearful in his affections, thereby losing the thing he loves. Jealousy is the worst enemy of love, for the imagination runs riot, seeing the loved one attracted to another, and invariably these fears objectify if they are not neutralized.
• The Christ within, is his own fourth dimensional self, the man made in God's image and likeness. This is the self which has never failed, never known sickness or sorrow, was never born and has never died. It is the "resurrection and the life" of each man! "No man cometh to the Father save by the Son," means, that God, the Universal, working on the place of the particular, becomes the Christ in man; and the Holy Ghost, means God-inaction. So daily, man is manifesting the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Man should make an art of thinking. The Master Thinker is an artist and is careful to paint only the divine designs upon the canvas of his mind; and he paints these pictures with masterly strokes of power and decision, having perfect faith that there is no power to mar their perfection and that they shall manifest in his life the ideal made real. All power is given man (through right thinking) to bring his heaven upon his earth, and this is the goal of the "Game of Life." The simple rules are fearless faith, nonresistance and love!

The Game of Life and How to Play It, by Florence Scovel Shinn, [1925]
"I cast this burden on the Christ within, and I am free."

Old thoughts must be denied and the mind cleansed in preparation before the affirmative Christ consciousness can come in. Our mind and even our body is loaded with error thoughts. Every cell is clothed with thought: every cell has a mind of its own. By the use of denial we break through the outer crust, the material thought that has enveloped the cells, and get down into the substance and the life within them. Then we make contact with that substance and life which our denials have exposed, and by it express the positive, constructive side of the law. When we consistently deny the limitations of the material, we begin to reveal the spiritual law that waits within ourselves to be fulfilled. When this law is revealed to our consciousness, we begin to use it to demonstrate all things that are good.
That is the state of consciousness that Jesus had, the Christ consciousness.
PROSPERITY By Charles Fillmore [1939]

Florence Scovel Shinn

(1871-1940) was a New Thought teacher and writer. Florence Scovel Shinn's approach to New Thought is practical, attempting to bring metaphysical ideas down to earth for everyday people. Affirmations are at the core of her work. Tidbits from her 3 books follow.

Shinn expressed her philosophy as:
The invisible forces are ever working for man who is always ‘pulling the strings’ himself, though he does not know it. Owing to the vibratory power of words, whatever man voices, he begins to attract.

The Game of Life And How To Play It [1925]

So we see, to play successfully the game of life, we must train the imaging faculty. A person with an imaging faculty trained to image only good, brings into his life "every righteous desire of his heart"—health, wealth, love, friends, perfect self-expression, his highest ideals.
Whatever man feels deeply or images clearly, is impressed upon the subconscious mind, and carried out in minutest detail.
Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn't the slightest sign of it in sight.
For example: A woman found it necessary to look for an apartment during the year when there was a great shortage of apartments in New York. It was considered almost an impossibility, and her friends were sorry for her and said, "Isn't it too bad, you'll have to store your furniture and live in a hotel." She replied, "You needn't feel sorry for me, I'm a superman, and I'll get an apartment."
She spoke the words: "Infinite Spirit, open the way for the right apartment." She knew there was a supply for every demand, and that she was "unconditioned," working on the spiritual plane, and that "one with God is a majority."
She had contemplated buying new blankets, when "the tempter," the adverse thought or reasoning mind, suggested, "Don't buy the blankets, perhaps, after all, you won't get an apartment and you will have no use for them." She promptly replied (to herself): "I'll dig my ditches by buying the blankets!" So she prepared for the apartment—acted as though she already had it.

Your Word Is Your Wand [1928]
A man called asking me to speak the word for his right work.
I gave him the statement:
"Behold I have set before thee the open door of destiny and no man shall shut it!"It didn't seem to make much impression, so I was inspired to add:
"And no man shall shut it for it is nailed back!"

Nothing is too good
to be true
Nothing is too wonderful
to happen
Nothing is too good
to last
CONCLUSION
Choose the affirmation which appeals to you the most and wave it over the situation which confronts you.

The Secret Door To Success [1941]

If you have spoken the word for a home, prepare for it immediately, as if you hadn't a moment to lose. Collect little ornaments, table-cloths, etc. etc.!
I knew a woman who made the giant swing into faith, by buying a large arm-chair; a chair meant business, she bought a large and comfortable chair, for she was preparing for the right man. He came.
Someone will say, "Suppose you haven't money to buy ornaments or a chair?" Then look in shop windows and link with them in thought.
Get in their vibration: I sometimes hear people say; "I don't go into the shops because I can't afford to buy anything." That is just the reason you should go into the shops. Begin to make friends with the things you desire or require.
I know a woman who wanted a ring. She went boldly to the ring department and tried on rings.
It gave her such a realization of ownership, that not long after, a friend made her a gift of a ring. "You combine with what you notice."The last chapter is a delightful Metaphysical interpretation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, one of Grimm's Fairy Tales called "THE INNER MEANING OF SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS".

Spell of the Yukon

There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land--oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back--and I will.
- Robert William Service, Spell of the Yukon

Law of the Yukon

This is the law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall survive;
That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive.
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
This is the Will of the Yukon,--Lo, how she makes it plain!
- Robert William Service, Law of the Yukon

The Effect of Mind upon Mind

It is an undisputed fact which philosophy has never explained that persons affect each other when neither is conscious of it. According to the principle by which I cure the sick, such incidents can be accounted for, and it can be proved beyond a doubt that man is perfectly ignorant of the influences that act upon him and, being ignorant of the cause, is constantly liable to the effect.
P.P.Quimby February 1863more... The Effect of Mind upon Mind AT PPQUIMBY.COM

A body without soul is a man of opinions without science.
Man is made of opinions and therefore is matter.
Wisdom reduced to practice is the spiritual man or Christ.
Life is self-evident, not matter or mind.
The senses are a knowledge of sensation, with or without science.
Science is a wisdom superior to opinions.
It is not seen or known by opinions; it is harmony.

Aug. 16, 1861

The Work of Byron Katie

is a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause all the fear and suffering in the world. Experience the happiness of undoing those thoughts through The Work, and allow your mind to return to its true, awakened, peaceful, creative nature.
Her website and blog are helpful.
The Work reveals that what you think shouldn’t have happened should have happened. It should have happened because it did, and no thinking in the world can change it. This doesn’t mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance and without the confusion of your inner struggle. No one wants their children to get sick, no one wants to be in a car accident; but when these things happen, how can it be helpful to mentally argue with them? We know better than to do that, yet we do it, because we don’t know how to stop.
YouTube - Byron Katie Loving What Is
YouTube - ‪TheWorkofBK's Channel‬‎
The key to experiencing The Work is to go beyond the quick answers of the intellect and tap into a deeper wisdom. Ask, then be still and wait for an inner voice to respond. With practice, this will become easier. You will learn to rely on yourself—not the world—to see what's true for you.

On Course Looking at the world through forgiving eyes
has some great comments about attending
The School for the Work with Byron Katie
under her About Me.

ACIM says "Minds are joined, bodies are not".

Thoughts are important.

Byron Katie - The Enlightened Mind
There is a simple test by which you can tell a true teacher from a false one.