Women Prefer Men Like Dad

In a continuation of research confirming Edgar Cayce’s assertion that aroma was the most powerful of stimuli affecting the senses, scientists at the University of Chicago found that women prefer the scent of a man whose genes were similar to their father’s.

In a study published in Nature Genetics, researchers asked women to sniff t-shirts and pick the one with the most pleasant smell. A different man had worn each t-shirt. The t-shirt favored by a woman depended upon the man’s genes. As it turns out, according to a description of the study given by USA Today,  it was the immune system genes that determined the favoritism, genes the women inherited from their fathers. The women preferred men whose immune-system genes were similar to those the women had received from their fathers. According to Martha McClintock, who was the chief investigator in this study, women “can smell differences as small as a single gene.”

For more information on this study, see www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=115553

In another piece of research, odor was found to have the ability to affect the behavior of children. Psychologist Rachel Herz of Brown University had children work on a task in a room scented with an odor the children had never encountered before. She highly motivated the children with promises of prizes, but unknown to the children, the task was impossible to complete. The children became quite frustrated. Later the children were taken to one of three rooms to work on a simple task. One room was unscented, the second was scented with a new aroma, while the third one was scented with the same aroma as was present in the room where the children had been frustrated. The children in this third room performed significantly more poorly at the simple task than the children in the other two rooms. The study showed that odors can be linked to conditioned responses and govern future behavior.

For more information on this research, go to http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2001/dec/research_011210.html

Your Eyes Don’t Lie

Being able to deceive one another depends upon our mutual sense of such that we cannot detect what is the true state of each other’s mind. To make up for this state of affairs, scientists have worked for some time to develop methods to detect deception, such as the polygraph “lie detector machine.” The latest development in this search, according to USA Today, is the discovery that when a person lies, blood rushes to the eyes, an instantaneous change that an infra-red camera can detect.

Researchers at the Honeywell Laboratories in Minneapolis recently published in the journal Nature the results of using such a camera to distinguish who was telling the truth and who was lying. In their study, some participants involved themselves in a mock crime and later tried to lie about it. Other participants remained on the sidelines and thus were “innocent.” The investigators asked all participants if they committed the crime while the camera recorded heat from the suspect’s eyes. The data from the camera correctly identified 75% of the liars, which is about as accurate as the polygraph test. It also correctly identified 92% of the truth-tellers, which was more accurate than the polygraph.

For more information, see http://www.nature.com/nsu/020201/020101-3.html

Edgar Cayce Legacy Is In Your Experience

The Edgar Cayce Legacy is the accumulation of experiences of people who have applied in their own lives any of the ideas, suggestions or principles in the Edgar Cayce Readings. To compile this legacy for posterity, so that others might learn about how people have benefited from this material, a research project has been initiated. Several A.R.E. members have created an internet archive to provide a location where the personal stories that make up the Edgar Cayce Legacy may be collected and stored. If you have applied in your own life any idea from Edgar Cayce and would like others to benefit from your experience, then please email your story to edgarcaycelegacy@yahoogroups.com. You may read all of these stories by going to http:groups.yahoo.com/group/edgarcaycelegacy.

If you wish, you may also elect to automatically receive by email copies of people’s stories by sending an email to edgarcaycelegacy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

If you do not have access to email, typewritten stories may be mailed to Joyce Reisz, 4077 E. Galbraith Rd., Box 356, Cincinnati, Ohio 45236, who will scan your typewritten document electronically and submit it to the internet archives.

Research Studies Support Power of Prayer

Prayers may help people suffering from depression. In a study published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, researchers studied adult patients hospitalized with major depression.

All received standard treatment, and some also received distant healing prayers from a group of volunteers trained in this type of work. The identity of those who received the prayer support was kept secret until the end of the study. When the patients were assessed for depression at the end of the study, it was revealed that the more healing prayer sessions the patient received, the greater recovery from depression. The results were also positively correlated with the healer’s own evaluation of the strength of the healing session.

For further information, contact Bruce Greyson, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT, 06030.

In a review of many studies of the effect of prayers on healing, researchers cited

the work of Dr. William Harris, a cardiovascular health researcher at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas
City who studied hundreds of patients with life-threatening heart disease. Half of these people were prayed for by volunteers, while the other half were not. The results indicated that those prayed for experienced over ten per cent fewer medical crises while in the hospital than those who did not receive prayers. Also cited was a study showing that prayers for people undergoing an in-vitro fertilization procedure doubled their chance of success relative to couples for whom no prayers were offered. For more information on these studies, see http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestlife/134365603_prayer13.html

Finally, a somewhat bizarre study, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that prayers can reach into the past to promote healing. Researchers at the Rabin Medical Center in Israel collected the records of over three thousands patients at a hospital during the years 1990-1996 who had blood infection conditions. Then, in the year 2000, on a random, blind basis, half of their names were assigned to receive prayers, while the other half became the control group, receiving no special treatment. One person said one prayer for the treatment group. Afterwards, all records were examined for the history of the patient’s blood infection. The results indicated that the prayer group had a shorter hospital stay and lesser fever than the group that did not receive prayer. There was no effect, however, upon mortality from the infection. The researchers interpreted their results to show that time was irrelevant for God’s actions.

The electronic publication of this study resulted in dozens of electronic letters in response. Some applauded the study in its support for prayer, many criticized the study as being ridiculous and criticized the prestigious journal for publishing it, while others focused on the paradox of retroactive action into the past.

To read the study and the responses, go to http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7327/1450

Do Remote Viewers Investigate Terrorism Threats?

Since the September 11 tragedy, interest in predicting terrorism threats has increased, even to the point of enlisting the aid of psychics. An article appearing in New York Magazine, entitled, “Psychic Ops,” describes how a number of government agencies have hired remote viewers to investigate possible terrorist threats by psychic means. Some have been asked to “look into” the source of the anthrax letters. One FBI spokesperson interviewed for the article wouldn’t confirm or deny the reports of using remote viewers.

Since that article appeared, some of the remote viewers mentioned in it were invited to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America. The invitation was withdrawn when the TV producers asked to know the names of the government workers involved, so that the claims could be verified. The remote viewers insisted that they couldn’t violate confidentiality. Their appearance was therefore cancelled. 

For more information, see http://www.nymag.com/page.cfm?page_id=5615

Anticipation of a Laugh is Good Medicine

Most of us are familiar with the research showing that laughing at a comedy show elevates the immune system. Clearly, laughter is good medicine. Research is now beginning to provide suggestions that even the anticipation of laughing has similar effects.

The “biology of hope” is what Lee Berk, assistant professor of family medicine, and his colleagues at the Susan Samueli Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine  at the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine refer to the anticipatory effect they have found in their research. Having verified that watching a video of a comedy movie elevates several measures of mood and body chemistry, they measured the effect on mood of anticipating watching a comedy.  The researchers found that even as far back as two days before watching a comedy of their choice, participants were already showing improved mood ratings. The next step of their research is to determine if the elevate mood created by anticipation translates into improved body chemistry associated with increased immune response.

For further information, go to http://www.newswise.com/articles/2001/11/LAUGH.UCI.html

Personal Decisions Have Emotional Basis

In making a decision, what role does emotion play? Perhaps more than we think. Researchers at the Rochester School of Medicine have been exploring “functional magnetic resonance imaging” brain scans of people who are involved in decision making and have found that the emotional center of the brain often becomes involved. Whether pondering a personal question such as “which would you most enjoy right now, a warm bath or having dinner?” or an impersonal question, such as “which would cost you more, a theft of your car or a burglary of your home?” it seems that the emotional part of the brain becomes involved.

The principal investigator, Dr. Dean Shibata, assistant professor of radiology at the University of
Washington, theorizes that when we have to make a decision, even a supposedly rational one, we explore inwardly the emotional “feel” of the projected outcome of each choice. This idea would be similar to the suggestion made by Edgar Cayce concerning the development of intuition for decision making. He suggested that after making a rational evaluation of a yes/no choice, in terms of ideals, projected outcome, and so on, that you go into meditation and wait for an answer, yes or no, to come to you. Perhaps at that time, the intuitive “feel” of each option is evaluated at that time.

For more information, go to http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-11/uow-pde111901.php

Music Expands Aura

According to Edgar Cayce, healing comes from changing the vibrations from within. In an application of this idea, A.R.E. member Richard Martin has been experimenting with the use of certain music to affect the human aura. According to a report published in the Canadian Society of Dowsers Newsletter, dowsers measuring the size of the human aura of several participants before and after listening to a special CD recording, “Gateway to Fulfillment.” They found that the size of the participants’ aura increased by about twenty feet.

For more information about this study and the CD used in the study, contact Richard C. Martin, 601-263 Russell Hill Rd., Toronto, Ontario, M4V 2T4, Canada or visit the website www.sacredheartsounds.com

Apples Better than Vitamin C

As researchers discover the value of vitamin C in fighting cancer, it turns out that they find that apples do the job better. Researchers from Cornell University and Seoul National University have determined what they believe to be the mechanism by which vitamin C inhibits the growth of cancer. Reporting in the medical journal The Lancet the researchers reported their finding that vitamin C “prevents the inhibition of gap-junction intercellular communication induced by hydrogen peroxide.” This inhibition has been found to be essential to the carcinogenic process, and whatever prevents that inhibition from forming helps to fight cancer.

On the other hand, the researchers also noted that raw apples contain quercetin, a phytochemical that has even stronger anticancer activity than vitamin C.

For more information, go to http://www.newswise.com/articles/2002/1/VITCMECH.CNS.html

Faith Aids Forgiveness and Healing

Forgiveness is an aid to recovery from trauma. Sometimes it is hard to forgive, even when you know it would be good for you. One researcher found that religious faith is one factor that makes it easier to forgive.

In a project studying war refugees living in America, Nancy A. Peddle, Ph.D. found that the sense of betrayal was a major factor in the war traumas suffered by her interviewees. Her findings supported previous research that those who had been able to forgive were the ones who demonstrated the greatest level of recovery from their traumas. She also found that religious faith factors made forgiveness easier. In an account of her research she published in Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology, she wrote that she heard many stories of “miracles, God’s protection, and acts of kindness.” She concluded that faith provided “a bridge for the reestablishment of trust.”

For further information, go to www.preventchildabuse.org or write to Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology, Eastern Nazarene College, 22 East Elm Avenue, Quincy, MA 02170

See Your Dream in the Comics

Comics and dreams are natural bedfellows as they both share the format of a sequence of visual scenes. You can actually tranform your dream into a comic book format on a website that specializes in this magic. Several website reviewers have given the nod to this unique site. You submit your dream and the comicbook artist Jesse Reklaw decides whether or not to memorialize it in comicbook form.

For more information, go to www.slowwave.com

Thou Art That

To know yourself to be yourself and one with All. Students of Edgar Cayce will recognize this statement as a special formula representing an enlightened state of consciousness. What Joseph Campbell, in his book, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor (New World Library), reveals, is that this state of consciousness is also expressed in another formulation, one which is a universal hidden within all religions, “Thou Art That.” In his research on universal symbolism in world religions, he finds that the symbol of the cross takes on special significance in understanding the enlightened state of consciousness. To know yourself to be yourself, yet one with All, to know that Thou art That, requires a certain balance, living between the universal and the particular, between the eternal and the temporal, between all that is and your personal manifestation, and between the literal and the symbolic. To approach this balance in one’s life can be achieved through suffering or through grace, but requires one’s willingness to experience Life’s experiment that is occurring in one’s own particular being.