Background:  The Klingbeils contemplated what a hypothesis of quality prayer might do for children when they were most teachable.  Part of the hypothesis of testing children during their school years paralleled with the Klingbeils’ findings that seeds, cells, and plants were the most amenable to changes in their growth patterns during specific early stages of their development.  It was hypothesized, since changes and measurements registered best in the early stages of plants, perhaps changes and measurements registered best with people at specific and early stages in the development of children.

“Blessing a child and praying for a child is believed to prosper a child.  Would Spindrift consider testing school prayer and the effects of spirituality on children?”

“Possibly.  It's a legitimate area of research.  However, testing school prayer is asking for trouble, because the whole premise of it will stir up a hotbed of emotions for people.

I think there is something beneficial about prayer and spirituality being taught in the schools.  Parents and teachers’ supportive prayers for a child improves some variable in that child.

Spindrift isn't equipped to test it now because:

1)  John and I are overworked as is.
2)  Testing the effects of school prayer on a child's developing qualities of mind is too complex for us to attempt now.  School prayer will take rigorous testing so the results aren't perceived as just another sociology study of children and of parents’ attitudes about what should be taught in school.  [Presently] we're researching simple experiments involving non human subjects.  It's similar to when people ask us why we don't test people instead of plants.  It's because we want to do rigorous testing of prayer on simple subjects to establish a quantifiable relationship between the prayers and the results.  How a quantifiable relationship can be established in a school setting is the foremost scientific problem to be solved.
3)  As a starting point for any researcher, silent prayer would be preferable to verbal prayer because of the religious bias and political controversy caused by verbal prayer.
4)  Tracking and collating data is an enormous task.  It takes many volunteers and some paid staff including a statistician.
5)  Enormous funding is necessary for testing a school prayer hypothesis.”

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THE MIND-BODY-SPIRIT CONNECTION

“Would you please comment on the difference between the monk and monkey in us?”

Bruce and John Klingbeil answered in essence:

Evidence of qualitative holy thought being effective would illustrate the difference between
the monk and the monkey in human beings. When more of humanity realizes that their thoughts actually do affect material conditions, this realization will cause a variety of psychological reactions.  Such as:

    1)   Some people will be angry to find out that their consciousness interacts with
          the environment and affects it.
    2)   Some people will be glad they discovered that their consciousness interacts
          and has a good effect on the environment.
    3)   Other people will be happy they discovered another way to manipulate and
          abuse people's minds.  It will validate or unleash terrorizing powers for them.
    4)   Other people will experience great psychological strain and worry caused by
          finding out that thought is pushing material conditions around inside and
          outside of themselves.
    5)   Scientific skeptics will think the world is going crazy.  These scientists will
          find ways to debunk each new study of consciousness and nonlocal healing.
    6)   Healers will be excited with the growing recognition of the mind-body-spirit
          connection.  Healers will feel more acceptance.
    7)   Why would a healer feel more acceptance?  Science is saying that healing
          at a distance is becoming more acceptable because 'nonlocality theory' supports
          that a healer's mind to mind communication is likely true, and not a myth.
    8)   Apparently a healer's mind communicates normative healing information
          to a healee's mind.  A consequence for society will be more respect for a healer's
          position on the human scene.  Like monks, many healers have a life purpose of
          cultivating and nurturing their inner qualitative thoughts.  Scientific evidence to
          support that qualitative thought is nonlocal love which affirms life, will help
          sanction that a spiritual lifestyle is reasonable. *

What a qualitative healer apparently communicates to mankind are healing qualities of holiness.  The word qualitative refers to these qualities.  Some of these holy qualities are
love, compassion, inspired thought, and a perception of order to surface from disorder.

A qualitative spiritual healer encourages spiritual growth.  A spiritual healer's thoughts act as
a template to promote patterns of normalcy.  A spiritual healer's thought becomes empathic with healing information and the healee's thought and there appears to be no separation between all three.  They form a triangle.  A qualitative healer is drawing on the Divine Mind showering order to mankind through the energy of Spirit.

QUALITY IN THE ENERGY IS MORE THAN INTENTIONALITY

The Klingbeils felt that holy qualitative thoughts produced distinctive informational healing patterns of energy which could be measured by the scientific method.  People's qualitative patterns of thought, shown to be effective in the laboratory, could add weight to the argument that fundamentally man and woman are spiritual beings.

As controversial as it is for modern research to consistently isolate any effects from consciousness, Bruce Klingbeil said that “Spindrift's more difficult work will be to establish preliminary experiments that [decipher] that consciousness effects pouring forth from a holy qualitative spiritual consciousness contain more ‘quality and order’ as a healing mechanism than just directing one's intention or mind at what will happen in a test situation.”  Bruce postulated that "There is a loving and information based healing ordering-mechanism
operating in consciousness."

SPIRITUAL HEALING BEYOND THE BODY

    In a 1986 interview, Bruce Klingbeil was asked, "Where does this activity of prayer research lead next?"
    Bruce replied:

It leads into four areas.  One is the evaluation of spiritual healers and the educational and developmental systems that produce them.  Another is into pure research.  Yet another is into the evaluation of religious and philosophical questions in the light of those experimental tests which can be devised for the purpose.  And yet another is into the application of spiritual healing to collective as well as individual human and environmental needs.

I feel something of an obligation to my peers of the future and perhaps the present.  The world's view of a person's holiness and healing power is a flawed lens.  ...  When the world values healers, there will be a place for anyone who can heal, regardless of people's beliefs or prejudices.  A life of quiet spirituality should not be denied anyone who seeks it.  ...  I believe the truths illustrated by the tests will get people both to think about holiness and to understand its relationship to their well being.

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