THE EFFECT OF PRAYER ON PLANTS, AND OTHER THINGS
In the 1960's and 1970's I was a close friend--still am--of the then Religion Editor of the Toronto Star, Allen Spraggett--a careful student of philosophy, psychology, theology and all the religions. He was very interested in the role played psychology, psychic phenomena, parapsychology in religion and faith healing, and the like.

It was with his help that I first met the Rev. Dr. Franklin Loehr--minister and researcher regarding the claims of religion--in 1963. Then, in cooperation with the Toronto Star, I invited him and his wife to my church and my home. He spoke to my whole congregation on a Sunday and to a special group interested in faith and healing, later. He spoke of his carefully controlled experiments on the nature and effect of prayer on seeds and plant life.
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Does prayer effect plant seeds?
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He told us that the objective of his controlled experiments was to see what effect prayer had over living and seemingly non-living matter.

In one experiment--covered in detail is his book, with pictures--his research team took three pans of various types of seeds. One was the control pan. One pan received positive prayer, and the other received negative prayer.

Time after time, the results indicated that prayer helped speed germination and produced more vigorous plants. Prayers of negation actually halted germination in some plants and suppressed growth in others.

In another experiment two bottles of spring water were purchased. One container was used as a control, receiving no prayer; a group prayed for the second.

The water was then used on pans of corn seeds layered in cotton, with one pan receiving the prayer water and the other receiving the control water. The pan receiving the prayer water sprouted a day earlier than seeds in the other pan. The prayer seeds had a higher germination and growth rate. The experiment was repeated with the same result each time.

MY DAUGHTER'S EXPERIMENT--on the power of focussed imagination, affirmitive and meditative prayer
As I have written above, my daughter, a child in the 1963, was very ill at that time of Dr. Loehr's visit. But what I learned from him and others helped, later, to restore her to health.

Years later, when she was a healthy Grade 9 student in junior high, my daughter became very interested in understanding more about the power, which had been of so much help to her. Thus she read the book of which she heard me speak, The Power of Prayer on Plants, by Dr. Loehr. I still have it in my library.

Inspired by this, and with her science teacher's permission and supervision, she decided to do an experiment. I still have her hand-written document on file in which she tells about what she did and what happened as a result of her experiment. She used tomato seeds.

HERE IS A SUMMARY
She planted three containers of fifteen tomatoe seeds each, all with the same kind of soil and each received the same amount of watering.

Container #1, the control group, was set aside and left to grow, naturally, on its own, with no attention other than watering.

Container #2 was placed next to container #3. Using her imagination and a focussed and meditative kind of prayer, she prayed over #3.

The seeds in the container #3 sprouted quickly and grew quite well.

Meanwhile the seeds in container #2 sprouted and grew as expected and in pace with the control group.

At this point, my daughter did something unusual. She focussed on the healthy plants in container #3. She sent them negative prayer-thoughts. Soon, they stopped growing and began to die.

Then she focussed on the slow-growing container #2. Rapidly the plants developed and surpassed the plants in # 3, which continued to wither. Then they all died. Meanwhile, #2 container progressed, rapidly.

I FOUND THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENT TRULY AMAZING: She brought the healthy plants home--the ones in #2 container--and put them in the freezer long enough to freeze them. Then she took them out; focussed on them her postive imagination and warm prayer thoughts. They survived the freezing and continued their growth as healthy plants.

That summer I had the best tomatoes I ever had.

Her supervising teacher gave her top marks for the project.

My daughter, now an accomplished artist, and her artist husband now live in a floating home, and a floating garden as part of it, near Tofino, British Columbia. It covers over one quarter of an acre. There, they do their art and grow all the vegetables they need. Check out:
http://www.wildretreat.com/
This will give you some idea of what the Tofino area looks like. My daughter said: "This place time came to me as a result of focussed meditative praying."

Her mother and I have visited there, often. It is a work of art in progress, which is at a new creative stage each time we see it.

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http://www.plim.org/PrayerDeb.htm
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For three years, beginning in 1952, Dr. Loehr conducted a double-locked laboratory experiment, using 156 people to determine if prayer could have an effect on the growth of plants.

THERE ARE FOUR TYPES OF PRAYING
Loehr's book documents the astounding results of these experiments, proving not only that prayer is effective, but he also isolated four different types of prayer. He found that to be effective we need to do more than just petition God, or gods. We must at least use our imaginations. Here are the steps:

First of all, use your imagination; to this add how you feel about plants, whatever; then do not be afraid to call on friends you know who are in the realm of spirit. Finally, connect with the divine in an through all things. In summary, use your:

1. Imagination
2. add feeling
3. then ask for spiritual assistance
4. and connect with the divine mind in and through all that is.

The book, The Power of Prayer on Plants, originally published in 1959, by Doubleday, brought Dr. Loehr on a lecture tour that carried him all over the United States, Canada and also to lecture at Cambridge in England. 1969. 127 pages.
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ABOUT DR.LOEHR http://www.answers.com/Franklin%20Davison%20Loehr

Last edited by Revlgking; 04/14/07 08:33 PM.