Woebeit, every time my Eyeviews have the slightest reference to God, or religions, they translate to a call to the ministry in my folk’s shallow minds.  Yet, I would be remiss not to seize an excellent opportunity that the “Easter Season” affords me to venture into The Outer Limits of blasphemy.  Ergo, I’m gonna put a common sense spin on a supernatural topic.  Surely,   Easter impacts greedy merchants and/or malleable minded consumers that’s (addicted to crass commercialism), more than Christians.  Even so, the holiday lingers until born again believer’s new clothes get old, thus “...my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void.

   For real, I ain’t just cracking, but facting about spirituality. Can you believe the Templeton Foundation wasted $2.4 million to determine if prayer benefits an ailing person?  Damn, they could have given that money to the faith healer in Arces Home that I use.  Hey, if belief in “who-do” can scare one to death, why shouldn’t profound faith in a healing savior energize a believer’s spirit?  Then again, mayhap, my folks  are thinking this crazy, old African warrior is playing mind games again, so I’ll defer to the White folks.  Behold this March 31, 2006 AP article (“Prayers health effects un-certain, study finds Research shows no benefit from strangers' appeals for heart patients”), that reveals: “In the largest scientific test of its kind, heart surgery patients showed no benefit when strangers prayed for their re-covery.

   “And patients, who knew they were being prayed for, had a slightly higher rate of complications.  Doctors in the $2.4 million study could only guess why.  Several scientists questioned the concept of the study. Science ‘is not designed to study the supernatural,’ said Dr. Harold Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center.  The researchers emphasized that the study could not address God's existence or answer prayers made on another's behalf.  It looked only for an effect from the specific prayers offered in the research, they said.  The study ‘did not move us forward or backward’ in understanding the effects of prayer, said Dr. Charles Bethea, a co-author and cardiologist at the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City.  ‘Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect.’

  “Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School, co-principal investigator of the study, agreed.  ‘We cannot come to a conclusion, except to say that by this study design, with its limitations, this is what we found,’ he said.  The study followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers.  It was financed by, which supports research into science and religion, and one of the participating hospitals.  It will appear in Tuesday's issue of the Ameri-can Heart Journal.’” Shazam!  bet you thought I was jiving. Didn’t you? Well, let me tell you “Doubting Thomases” something, I’ve always been into the paranormal and supernatural.  In fact, I’m more of a mystic than a prophet, because I truly believe that there’s a level of consciousness that will allow us to interact with all of the energy that has ever been and/or ever shall be.  I also believe that I’m  hooked up with the source of the force.

  The Twilight Zone theme music aside, Black folks tend to fear mysterious things.  Even so, my research validates the idiom, “Whatever your mind can conceive, you can achieve.”  When I was a wee lad, with an uncluttered mind, I had cause to pause and ponder the meaning of the verse, “The Kingdom of God is within you,” found in Luke 17:21. Decades later, I stumbled upon this: “Using a very special camera, the Canada France Hawaii Telescope was able to get a picture of dark matter. That which makes up 90 percent of the universe and when we looked at this it became amazing clear as to what we were seeing.

   “As we placed the universe picture of dark matter alongside the picture of the circuitry of the human brain, we see that indeed the universe is a cosmic brain or the human brain is a miniature universe.  The circuit pathways are the same. Conveying signals point to point.  So, then you see that if the Kingdom of God is the cosmos, the universe, then it appears to have been duplicated within us, just as Jesus said.” If that’s so, there’s no limit to what prayer can do.  I wonder if anybody knows where I’m coming from?