An Unwanted Journey: Day 0036 - Down The Rabbit Hole

“How far down the rabbit hole are you prepared to go?”

“It makes you think, doesn’t it? If thoughts can do that to water, imagine what our thoughts can do to us.”

Two separate scenes from a movie that is on my top ten list – What The Bleep Do We Know? (a sequel will be released in February 2006 entitled What The Bleep – Down The Rabbit Hole).

The first quote is an obvious reference to Alice in Wonderland. The second is made by Armin Shimerman, the actor best known for his portrayal of the Ferengi bartender Quark in Deep Space Nine. He is talking to the character portrayed by Marlee Matlin about an exhibit he and she are currently viewing of an experiment done by a Japanese scientist (Dr Masaru Emoto) in which the effects of thoughts and blessings on ordinary water are documented with photographs. What is so extraordinary about the exhibit and the photographs is that they clearly show how thoughts and feelings affect the physical reality of water crystals. Words are spoken or “sent” by focused intention to the frozen water which then responds by changing its “expression”. Negative thoughts or polluted water sources have a distinctly “ugly” expression compared to the beautiful expressions arising from positive thoughts or clean water sources.

The implications for cancer patients from both the movie and Dr Masaru Emoto’s experiments relate directly to my reflections over the past couple days about “arguing with oneself” and “prayer”. They relate as well to the increasingly persuasive and sophisticated science of positive psychology promoted by Dr Martin Seligman. The bottom line is fairly simple to state: there is mounting evidence that prayer, love, good intentionality, optimism, and happiness affect physical reality in ways modern, flatland science would never have imagined only a few short years ago.

Does this mean those of us afflicted with cancer can heal ourselves? Well, that’s another question entirely and I simply don’t have an answer yet. But whatever the complexity of the subject, whatever the limitations of this emerging science, whatever the hurdles we face in empowering individuals to apply some of the lessons of quantum physics to self healing…there is reason to hope, there is reason to be optimistic, there is reason to be kind and to love one another.