The Ninth Street Center Infrequently Asked Questions

Why can't I stay home and just hope for a better world?

I routinely get email about one or another group holding a "prayer vigil" for some perfectly good cause. I'm sure such events make the participants feel less helpless, and that's okay with me. But, aside from any public relations influence such demonstations have, are these activities effective in any objective sense? I doubt it. It is in fact exactly the "wishful thinking" aspect of these events that me despair of their success, however well-deserved. Did wishful thinking stay the Holocaust?

Aside from the few anecdotal claims of miraculous cures, the vast majority of patients with incurable diseases die despite their "wishes" and those of their doctors and families.

If we can believe in a beautiful future for mankind, it's because we believe in our own capability to create that future with our own minds and spirit and intellects and hands and courage and power. Not because a benign Nature is going to hand it to us on a silver platter just because we wish it would happen already.

But, since in the spirit of fairness I occasionally enjoy reviewing claims of the paranormal, please do refer me to any published papers you've found which indicate that, for example, the wishes of one group can affect the will of another group completely separated from it in space. Also, assuming such a capability has evolved, try to explain what possible benefit it could have offered our species. What happens when the wishes of the first group are wrong and the will of the second right? Would the noble thoughts of concerned citizens alone stay the hands of opportunistic criminals only when some Celestial Adjudicator votes in favor of the former's purity of motive?

In any case, whether or not we can affect the world through wishing alone, most men and women of vision and dedication agree that we can certainly and indisputably affect the world through wishing when combined with skillful coordinated action designed to modify or eliminate offending circumstances, behavior and/or attitudes. This second approach is the path I've chosen all my adult life, with daily confirmations of its efficacy.