A.R.E. Meeting for 05/24/10

Leader: Eric
Reader: John

We completed the chapter on "Destiny of the Body." After a break for the Memorial Day holiday, we will start in June on "Destiny of the Soul."

The experiment this week is:

Treat your body in a way which reflects an awareness that it is eternal.

During the following week our experiment will be:

Practice using this training exercise for meditation. Let it carry over as well into your daily living. In tense times take a moment to think of a spiritual affirmation, then harmonize mental awareness with breathing. This can be done with your eyes open, even in the midst of daily affairs.

A.R.E. Meeting for 05/17/10

Leader: Eric
Reader: Sylvia

Eric pushed us along the chapter "Destiny of the Body." We are up to "How Should We Regard the Experiences of the Physical Body?"

The experiment is:

Sacrifice something related to your body--not in the sense of giving something up, but rather to lift that something to a greater sense of purpose or love.

Glad Helpers Healing Prayer Group

On 25 May 2010, I listened to Refections: The Wisdom of Edgar Cayce and heard an interview with David Riblet from the Glad Helpers Healing Prayer Group in Virginia Beach. He discussed the purpose of the group, how it was founded, and how they conduct their sessions.

The group was founded in 1931 and Edgar Cayce gave 65 readings for the group (the 281 Series). The group recently got funding to publish a Meditation book with those readings, and it should be available soon.

The group contains members from all over the world. David said that being a member means being of service to those who come seeking healing of different types (physical, financial, job seeking, looking for a house, and so on).

David described three types of prayer used by the group:

• Direct prayer--This is for those who ask directly for prayer of help.
• Surround prayer--Used when someone has a concern for someone else, where the person is not directly asking for prayer. They get surrounded by light. Sometimes people who ask for prayer directly get surround prayer. There was a case of a person suffering from addiction who was given direct prayer and they received so much energy that it magnified the problem. This can also happen with people suffering from alzheimers, so they get surround prayer also. When a person gets surrounded by light they can use it in any way that is best for them and do not get overpowered.
• Passed on prayer--This is for those who have passed on. It surrounds them and their families.

Many times the group does not want to know why someone is asking for help. What people have in the physical realm started spiritually or in their minds. The group prays that they get the healing they need, but they do not want to just pray for the condition.

I was interested in how the Glad Helper meetings are conducted compared to a study group and see many similarities. The meetings are held at the A.R.E on Wednesday mornings at 9:30 am, and they take turns facilitating. Visitors are welcome to attend. They begin the meeting by studying the 281 Series readings. David has been a member for three years and has just completed one pass through the readings. Sometimes they just discuss a paragraph and sometime they discuss a page. Around 10:00 am they prepare for meditation. They say the Lord's Prayer, chant ah-ray-ohm three times, and surround themselves with protection. Then they meditate for 10 minutes.

After meditation the group reads the names of those seeking help from a personal list and remember the helpers who are not present. They also have a compiled list of names of those who have contacted the A.R.E. There is a laying on of hands that also occurs.

The group asks those wanting prayer to also pray for someone else. This completes the circle. As we pray for others, we heal ourselves. David said the Search for God study groups are about the qualities of life and the Glad Helpers are about applying them.

A.R.E. Meeting for 05/10/10

Leader: Greg (for Eric)
Reader: Greg

We began the chapter "Destiny of the Body" and read three sections. We are up to "What is Meant by Presenting Our Bodies a Living Sacrifice?"

The experiment is:

Complete the exercise in visualization for your body as described above. Try it regularly for serveral days.

The visualization described in the section is for health and perfect integration with mind and spirit, and goes as follows:

1. Get into a comfortable position, sitting or lying down.

2. Focus your attention for about a minute on your slow, deep breathing.

3. Take a total of at least two minutes to move mentally through areas of your body, beginning with your feet and moving up the ankles, calves, etc., up to your head. At each point, feel the life and energy of that part of your body, the consciousness which is there. Speak to that part of your body, to those cells, and direct them to be relaxed and attuned to the Christ Consciousness.

4. Now work with visualization and awareness at the level of each of the seven spiritual centers. Move from the first center (the gonad center) up to the seventh center (pituitary center). Spend about a half a minute with each one. Apply that Edgar Cayce reading which says to fill each center with the ideal. You may wish to visualize the white light at each of these points. Most importantly feel a sense of your spiritual ideal touching and healing the patterns of energy stored at the respective center.

5. Close the exercise by feeling your body to be a channel of light and take a few moments to pray for others for whom you have concern.

A.R.E. Meeting for 05/03/10

Leader: Eric
Reader: Nancy

We finished the chapter "Destiny of the Mind." Next week we start the chapter "Destiny of the Body."

The experiment is:

For a week take special note of your dreams and note the precognitive process that is in many dreams. You will find dreams that predict the physical manifestations of things which you have set in motion at a mental level. If these dreams of physical events do not look favorable to you, work on changing your thought patterns. Observe whether or not such a change in your thinking immediately affects your dreams.

Why Prayer Is Important Now

Tina D. Erwin posted an article on the A.R.E. blog where she poses the question as to whether prayer for major world catastrophes helps much. She then gives an analogy of what happens during these events:

When a disaster of great magnitude occurs, there is a wave of grief, horror, fear, anger, bewilderment, and shaken faith that sweeps the whole planet. In the ether, this wave looks like black soot. It adds to the soot that is already there, but it is such a huge volume of new sooty blackness that we can feel the difference. We feel bad, achy, irritable, sad, and prone to tears and have queasy stomachs.

With this analogy to soot, I like the way she describes how prayer works to overcome it:

Prayer is the one spiritual tool that works in the ether. Prayer cleans up this sooty blackness, transmuting it into pure light. Prayer that comes from our hearts and is sent to all of those who are grieving, injured, afraid, confused and alone helps to clear them so that they can think more clearly. Prayer cleans the blackness of hurt and replaces it with seeds of hope and energy. Prayer is the energy that people need to get up another day and face a shattered life. That is what we can give to a person we don't know and to a place we haven't been. Prayer opens the way to cleaning up the physical mess the on-scene people feel and see.

According to Erwin, even when we are praying for others, we are also helping ourselves:

Prayer helps us to heal ourselves. As we grieve for others, we are often grieving for things that we have lost as well. When we pray, we open ourselves up to pure light and goodness. We may not realize it, but we fill ourselves up with this light so that we can send it to other people. This serves two purposes: we are healed and we are helping other people to heal.

And what kind of prayer should we use?

Christ was once asked about what was the best prayer and His answer was eloquent in its simplicity: the prayer that springs naturally from your heart, the one that you feel deep within you, the one that is the easiest for you to use to communicate with God.