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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >Well, no. From the NYT article 

Articles and 'studies' are not the whole of truth.  In fact in most 
discussions like this one, studies are not so much used to ferret out the 
thruth of the 
matter as they are used as sabot tossed into a world of possibilities that 
one does not want to consider.  Discussion is obfuscated by the almost 
rhetorical, "Where's the double blind peer reviewed study ...."

As an example different enough from the topic to serve as an example:  For 
years crows pulling up the newly sprouted corn diminished my corn yield to an 
annoying level.  I came upon the idea of strining black thread over the 
sprouting corn under the notion that there was something obout it that crows 
could not 
and would not abide.  After everything else gave mediocre results or failed 
entirely,  the black thread worked 100% and has worked every year of the ten 
years that I have used it.  No crow has pulled up even one corn seedling in 
that 
time.

In an another homesead forum, someone who did not want that to be true ('I 
gave up growing corn because there is NOTHING you can do about the crows!!!') 
asked "Well, where is the study that shows this is true??"   As far as I 
know, 
there isn't one.  But due to our several ways of approaching reality and 
truth, 
I have good corn fields every year and he has none.

The most fascinating thing about this genetic question, says I, is that 
someone who views the human mechanism as a sort of music box that can in no 
wise 
play any tune but what is determined by the pegs on the wheel will always 
find 
100% validation for that point of view.  No matter what happens, there is 
always the remonstration, 'Ah, see, that's what was in the genes!'  There is 
never 
an penetration of this closed loop of thinking.  Whatever happens in the 
human 
life, it will be viewed as per force being the result of genetic 
determination.

Now ... if anyone is interested in giving the limits of their understaning a 
push beyond the "Double blind peer reviewed " rut, I recommend a very short 
book by one Deepak Chopra who is at the same time an MD and proponent of 
mysticism.  The book is "Escaping the Prison of the Intellect".    Having a 
cultural 
foot in the Ayurvedic thinking about health, but having at one time been 
given 
over to the strict mechanistic thinking of western science, he has for a 
number of years explored the "mind-body connection".   He has authored a good 
number of books about the subject, the most notable is probably "Ageless 
Body, 
Timeless Mind".  But the one I'd recommed to add a new dimension to the 
present 
thread of thought is "Creating Health"  (ISBN 0-395-57421-8).  

Dr. Chopra describes how the concept and the books derive from two profound 
experiences he had as a beginning MD.  One, when he was practicing in India 
as 
an intern, happed as the result of caring for a terminally ill old man and 
when Dr. Chopra had to go away for a few days the man said his last goodbyes 
opining that he would not be alive when Dr. Chopra returned.  As an attempt 
at 
bedside manner, he said, "I will not say goodbye so you will have to live 
until I 
return."  The trip became complicated and it was several months before he 
could return.  When he did the many was an absolute human horror of 
deterioration, still alive beyond all reasonable medical explanation.  When 
Dr. Chopra came 
to see him, the man said, "There, I have suffered through all these weeks 
because you said I could not die until you returned."  And the man promptly 
died.

The other was when a woman's examination revealed she had terminal and 
untreatable cancer.  The woman was beside hereself with terror at even before 
the 
exam and tests began.  So much so the woman's daughter begged the Dr. Chopra 
not 
to reveal the diagnosis to her mother, the daughter said she'd take care of 
it in her own way.  Months later the woman returned for an exam and Dr. 
Chopra 
found no traces of cancer whatever.  The woman was cheery and relaxed and 
said 
that when Dr. Chopra had not confirmed her deep seated fears that she might 
have cancer, she stopped worrying about it.  It seems her daughter never told 
her.

>From this the good doctor began to keep his eyes open for evidence of a 
possible mind-body connection and how people might consciously make use of 
it.  
It's one place to look if one has the predisposition to look beyond the view 
of 
the human being as a genetically determined windup toy.

James