I GOOGLED THE WORD, “PRAYER”, and got…

I ‘Googled’ the word ‘prayer’ and got 1,280,000,000 results (0.59 seconds). That might suggest that prayer is a popular subject.

The subjects, or the sub-topics of these search results, range from definitions of prayer to ‘how to pray’ and more – 1.28 billion more.

Since I am a Christian and I hold to more of a reformed view of scriptures (leaving plenty of room for the Sovereignty of God to be and to do beyond what my puny mind can imagine or think). Which brings me to prayer.

I have read, studied and prayed at length about prayer. I believe every word the Bible presents about prayer and praying – and perhaps ‘a little bit more’, if that is permissible, (or does make me a bit Pentecostal or Charismatic with a slant toward an Armenian view of scriptures? If so, oh woe is me.)

The reason I say ‘a little bit more’ is that I have a nagging feeling that I am missing something. A big something, at that. This feeling comes from that fact that I have seen and experienced some absolutely amazing results from prayer. I should call them miracles because these are things of which the occurrence should have been absolutely impossible, at least in this natural world. These are things that have neither a scientific, natural or coincidental explanation (i.e., luck). They have been 100% inexplicable.

I will give you just two examples and a link where you can read more, then I will pose my ‘nagging question’ about prayer:

EXAMPLE #1.

Our family was travelling from a vacation in Orlando, Florida. My sons were about five and eight years old. We stopped at a ‘pull off area’, sort-of-a rest stop, on highway A-1-A somewhere near Saint Augustine, Florida.

The weather was cloudy and blustery. The waves were splashing onto the sidewalk along the shore line, which was lined with large stones to stop erosion, I guessed.

My youngest son, I and walked to the end of a sidewalk cul-de-sac to look at the splashing water. I felt safe enough, then suddenly a huge wave crashed over the rock abutment and onto the two of us. When the water receded, my son was gone! The wave had sucked him into the turbulent water and I could see no trace of him. Prayers began to race in my mind and out of my mouth.

Psalm 116:8-9

For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
I will walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

Panic seized me and my first thought was, “GO GET HIM!”. So, I kicked off my tennis shoes and turned to dive into the water, which was probably a very bad idea, when another huge wave crashed onshore and as suddenly there was my son Jody, standing upright on the sidewalk, soaking wet, sputtering water and crying! I grabbed him and ran back toward the car, thinking, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Nobody is going to believe this.”

EXAMPLE #2.

I had started a mailing business that depended on a mail program to work properly each week. Even a one day delay of getting the mail prepared and sent would be financially disastrous for my business and for our family’s financial needs.

One particular week, this computer program stopped working. The data input from, what was then called ‘floppy disks’, would not work. I feverously tried again and again. I even reformatted the entire hard drive, reinstalled the operating system on the computer, reinstalled the mailing programs and when I tried to download the homeowner’s data FROM THE 26 FLOPPY DISKS, the program would fail at disk number 18, and disks 18 through 26 were the critical disks. I prayed continuously. I prayed fervently. I prayed desperately.

I worked on this for TWELVE hours (through the entire night and into the next morning), reformatting the hard drive and repeating the process, knowing that if this failed, we would become bankrupt and could not even buy groceries the next month.

I stopped in exhaustion, cried out to God, “I give up. I quit! I have prayed and prayed to you! Now, I give up.”

I started putting things away in resignation. I was defeated. My mind darted back and forth between what to do next and resentment. It was then I decided to do this ONE MORE TIME.

I restarted the computer and put disk number one into the computer. The computer whirred and gave me a screen message that confused me, “INSERT DISK #18”. I was completely confounded. It made absolutely no sense that the computer would skip disks 1 through 17 and ask for disk 18.

I followed the instruction and inserted disk #18. The program accepted disk #18 and another message came on the screen asking for disk #19. This continued until disk #26, the final disk, and after installing the data from disk #26, the machine turned itself off! It did it own its own!

My heart was beating what seemed like a hundred beats a minute. I restarted the computer and told it to start printing the mailing list, AND IT WORKED!

God had answered in a humanly impossible situation, in a physically impossible way. As far as I could tell, every logical law of math and programming had been violated and transcended. Yet, here we were. Saved again. Safe and sound. BUT IT WAS NOT EASY.

Now, my nagging question(s) about prayer.

1. Why does it seem that God answers some prayers and is silent at other times?
2. Do we have some control over getting our prayers answered?
3. Is there a particular method or system that works best?
4. Is prayer just to mystical to question or to understand, or
5. Are we just naturally wired to God for prayer?

The Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (see Psalm 139:14) and it seems that scientists are slowly discovering the science behind the Bible’s claims. Could it be (dear God, forgive me) that God has created our being, our brain, to actually communicate our prayers in ways we could not have imagined?

Scientists have recently identified a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain that’s not been seen before.

Excitingly, the discovery hints that our brains might be even more powerful units of computation than we realized. By measuring the electrical activity in sections of tissue removed during surgery on epileptic patients and analyzing their structure using fluorescent microscopy, the neurologists found individual cells in the cortex used not just the usual sodium ions to ‘fire’, but calcium as well.

This combination of positively charged ions kicked off waves of voltage that had never been seen before, referred to as a calcium-mediated dendritic action potentials, or dCaAPs. A first of its kind signal has been detected in the human brain!

The electromagnetic theories of consciousness propose that consciousness can be understood as an electromagnetic phenomenon. Theorists, however, differ in how they relate consciousness to electromagnetism. Electromagnetic field theories (or “EM field theories”) of consciousness propose that consciousness results when a brain produces an electromagnetic field with specific characteristics. Susan Pockett and Johnjoe McFadden have proposed EM field theories.

The starting point for McFadden and Pockett’s CEMI theory is the fact that every time a neuron fires to generate an action potential, and a postsynaptic potential in the next neuron down the line, it also generates a disturbance in the surrounding electromagnetic field. McFadden has proposed that the brain’s electromagnetic field creates a representation of the information in the neurons. Studies undertaken towards the end of the 20th century are argued to have shown that conscious experience correlates not with the number of neurons firing, but with the synchrony of that firing. McFadden views the brain’s electromagnetic field as arising from the induced EM field of neurons. The synchronous firing of neurons is, in this theory, argued to amplify the influence of the brain’s EM field fluctuations to a much greater extent than would be possible with the unsynchronized firing of neurons.

Susan Pockett has advanced a theory, which has a similar physical basis to McFadden’s, with consciousness seen as identical to certain spatiotemporal patterns of the EM field.

Electromagnetic theories of consciousness

 Spatiotemporal patterns are patterns that occur in a wide range of natural phenomana and are characterized by a spatial and temporal patterning. The general rules of pattern formation hold. In contrast to “static”, pure spatial patterns, the full complexity of spatiotemporal patterns can only be recognized over time. Any kind of traveling wave is a good example of a spatiotemporal pattern.

Energy, a measure of the ability to do work, comes in many forms and can transform from one type to another. Examples of stored or potential energy include batteries and water behind a dam. Objects in motion are examples of kinetic energy. Charged particles—such as electrons and protons—create electromagnetic fields when they move, and these fields transport the type of energy we call electromagnetic radiation, or light.

What are Electromagnetic and Mechanical waves?

Mechanical waves and electromagnetic waves are two important ways that energy is transported in the world around us. Waves in water and sound waves in air are two examples of mechanical waves. Mechanical waves are caused by a disturbance or vibration in matter, whether solid, gas, liquid, or plasma. Matter that waves are traveling through is called a medium. Water waves are formed by vibrations in a liquid and sound waves are formed by vibrations in a gas (air). These mechanical waves travel through a medium by causing the molecules to bump into each other, like falling dominoes transferring energy from one to the next. Sound waves cannot travel in the vacuum of space because there is no medium to transmit these mechanical waves.

Classical waves transfer energy without transporting matter through the medium. Waves in a pond do not carry the water molecules from place to place; rather the wave’s energy travels through the water, leaving the water molecules in place, much like a bug bobbing on top of ripples in water.

When a balloon is rubbed against a head of hair, astatic electric charge is created causing their individual hairs to repel one another. Credit: Ginger Butcher

ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES

Electricity can be static, like the energy that can make your hair stand on end. Magnetism can also be static, as it is in a refrigerator magnet. A changing magnetic field will induce a changing electric field and vice-versa—the two are linked. These changing fields form electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves differ from mechanical waves in that they do not require a medium to propagate. This means that electromagnetic waves can travel not only through air and solid materials, but also through the vacuum of space.

The brain produces electromagnetic radiation. Radio waves and brain waves are both forms of electromagnetic radiation — waves of energy that travel at the speed of light. Furthermore, the brain sends electromagnetic signals. Brain Waves deal with particular states of neurological activity in a physical brain. Electromagnetic waves deal with the propagation of energy from sources of atomic matter (atoms). Brain waves may consist of Electromagnetic waves (radiation) although electromagnetic Waves do not consist of Brain Waves.

Therefore, humans give off electromagnetic waves. In fact, all objects, including human bodies, emit electromagnetic radiation. The wavelength of radiation emitted depends on the temperature of the objects. Such radiation is sometimes called thermal radiation. Most of the radiation emitted by human body is in the infrared region, mainly at the wavelength of 12 micron.

By testing the response of the human body on a vibrating platform, many researchers found the human whole-body fundamental resonant frequency to be around 5 Hz. However, in recent years, an indirect method has been prosed which appears to increase the resonant frequency to approximately 10 Hz. These changes in power were mostly detected in one versus all three coils simultaneously. These results suggest that it is possible for human beings to alter the electromagnetic environment around their hands at will.

Humans give off mostly infrared radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation with a frequency lower than visible light.

Additionally, The mind acts like a powerful magnet. It can attract things, people and situations, and it can also repel them. This depends on your attitude, and how positive or negative you are. You can attract into your life what you think about most often.

Our bodies naturally conduct electricity. In fact, every organ and cell in the human body has its own field. The magnetic field produces electrical currents that are weaker than you may first think. The brain experiences its own activity through its magnetism, and subjective experiences are actually the brain’s magnetic field, resonating with the brain’s electrical activity. Consciousness is how magnetic each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other.  (That would suggest that the phenomenon cannot be explained by magnetism and uses a different kind of physical effect.)

Oh, well. Who knows how all of this can affect our prayers? At this point, only God knows. So, just pray in faith. God hears and answers prayer!

^{1 John 5:14} And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. Read full chapter

^{John 15:16}  You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name [as My representative] He may give to you. Read full chapter

^{Matthew 7:7} “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Read full chapter.

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

Other interesting links:

“It ain’t always easy to believe”

“Was this a miracle?”

 

Additional Questions and answers:

Reimagining education.org – Does the brain produce electromagnetic radiation?

Does the brain produce electromagnetic radiation? Radio waves and brain waves are both forms of electromagnetic radiation — waves of energy that travel at the speed of light.

Does the brain send electromagnetic signals? Brain Waves deal with particular states of neurological activity in a physical brain. Electromagnetic waves deal with the propagation of energy from sources of atomic matter (atoms). Brain waves may consist of Electromagnetic waves (radiation) but Electromagnetic Waves do not consist of Brain Waves.

Do Humans give off electromagnetic waves? Yes, all objects, including human bodies, emit electromagnetic radiation. The wavelength of radiation emitted depends on the temperature of the objects. Such radiation is sometimes called thermal radiation. Most of the radiation emitted by human body is in the infrared region, mainly at the wavelength of 12 micron.

What frequencies do humans emit? By testing the response of the human body on a vibrating platform, many researchers found the human whole-body fundamental resonant frequency to be around 5 Hz. However, in recent years, an indirect method has been prosed which appears to increase the resonant frequency to approximately 10 Hz.

Does the brain produce electromagnetic radiation? – Additional Questions

Can humans manipulate electricity?

That is, these changes in power were mostly detected in one versus all three coils simultaneously. These results suggest that it is possible for human beings to alter the electromagnetic environment around their hands at will.

Which type of electromagnetic waves does your body emit?

Humans give off mostly infrared radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation with a frequency lower than visible light.

Are humans electromagnetic beings?

For your question “is human an electromagnetic field?”, the answer is no because electromagnetic fields are produced by the electromagnetic energy from radio frequency (low frequency and low energy) to gamma rays (high frequency and high energy) in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Do radio waves go through your body?

For example, microwave frequencies below 3,000 megahertz can penetrate the outer layers of the skin, be absorbed in the underlying tissues, and result in all of the known biological effects of heating, including burns, cataracts, and possibly death.

Are humans naturally magnetic?

Today, two hundred years later, we know that the human body is indeed magnetic in the sense that the body is a source of magnetic fields, but this body magnetism is very different from that imagined by Mesmer.

Can humans manipulate electromagnetic?

That is, these changes in power were mostly detected in one versus all three coils simultaneously. These results suggest that it is possible for human beings to alter the electromagnetic environment around their hands at will.

Is our mind a magnet?

The mind acts like a powerful magnet. It can attract things, people and situations, and it can also repel them. This depends on your attitude, and how positive or negative you are. You can attract into your life what you think about most often.

Does the brain have a magnetic field?

The comparison revealed that the human brain had a detectable magnetism after a magnetic field had been applied to the samples. The results showed that magnetite was in “almost every piece” of the specimens, said Gilder.

Are humans magnetically charged?

Do Humans Have A Magnetic Field? Our bodies naturally conduct electricity. In fact, every organ and cell in the human body has its own field. The magnetic field produces electrical currents that are weaker than you may first think.

Is consciousness a magnetic field?

The brain experiences its own activity through its magnetism, and subjective experiences are actually the brain’s magnetic field, resonating with the brain’s electrical activity. Consciousness is how magnetic each pole of a magnetic field experiences the other.

Can a human be magnetic?

That would suggest that the phenomenon cannot be explained by magnetism and uses a different kind of physical effect. Skeptic Benjamin Radford has used a compass to check the magnetic field of a person that claimed to be a human magnet. He concluded that person did not produce magnetic fields.