Can prayer harm?

"Faith in God that enables one to be and do good is a sure protection against mental manipulation."

By Beulah M. Roegge

Can My Thoughts hurt another? Can another's thoughts hurt me? Can prayer harm? These are the questions a spiritual mentor was addressing when she recounted an incident in her life when she herself had been harmed. She felt that this experience could have been preventable. She concluded her comments with a smile: "But that was when I believed more in mental malpractice than I did in practice." She was talking about practicing the laws of God and about the healing, protecting power of such Christian practice.

Mental, malpractice—the ignorant or malicious, hurtful thoughts directed at others—has no power to harm or disturb, when one's daily practice is to think and act from the basis that God is All and God is good. Keeping one's life God-centered, and honestly facing up to that which needs correcting in oneself or in the world, is a powerful protection against any ignorant or malicious attempt to harm mentally.

It is naive to ignore the evil intentions of others. On the other hand, habitual suspicion of others' motives or even superstitious expectations about evil are unenlightened states of thought that must be dropped. Neither of these will actually lead us toward a balanced and healing approach to life.

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