Be Careful What You Pray For...You Just Might Get It [Paperback]

Larry Dossey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 1998

From the 'New York Times' bestselling author of 'Healing Words' and 'Prayer Is Good Medicine' comes this compelling exploration of the negative side of prayer. Larry Dossey, M.D., offers remarkable evidence that, just as prayer can be used positively t

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A solid work of scholarship, a thoughtful and significant book." -- -- NAPRA Review

"A solid work of scholarship, a thoughtful and significant book." -- NAPRA Review

"Brilliant, poetic, scholarly...The imperative is urgent and clear: we must assume a high level of responsibility for our negative and hurtful thoughts, wishes, and prayers for one another." -- Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., coauthor of Rituals of Healing

"With penetrating insight and meticulous research, Dr. Dossey revels the power of prayer to harm as well as to help. This book will forever change how you think and what you pray for." -- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

About the Author

Larry Dossey, M.D., is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Healing Words, and Prayer Is Good Medicine. An authority on spiritual healing, he lectures throughout the country and has been a frequent guest on Oprah, Good Morning America, CNN, and The Learning Channel. He is responsible for introducing innovations in spiritual care to acclaimed institutions across the country. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (September 23, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062514342
• ISBN-13: 978-0062514349
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,118,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Think in the Beauty Way, January 14, 2001

By 

Mary R. Bast (Gainesville, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Be Careful What You Pray For...You Just Might Get It (Paperback)

Larry Dossey describes the Navajo belief in the power of words, the importance of thinking and speaking in a positive way -- in "the Beauty Way." Counter this with how easily caretakers can "hex" a patient's recovery with such statements as, "You have three months to live if you're lucky," or, "Only 2% of people with this kind of cancer survive more than a year."

Dossey is a physician and researcher who has helped bring credibility to alternative therapies and to spirituality in medicine. In an earlier book, "Healing Words," he reported on scientific experiments illustrating the positive effects of prayer. In this book he explores prayer's potential for harm. Perhaps the most obvious illustration of this argument is how often nations have prayed for victory against each other, both invoking the protection of God! And we've all heard of the power of belief in such practices as voodoo to create harm. But there can be more subtle influences at work, as well.

Citing the sociologist Charles Perrow, Dossey describes the nature of a "tightly coupled system." In loosely coupled systems -- such as a lawnmower's gasoline engine -- the parts are relatively autonomous and can be individually replaced when they malfunction. We are becoming increasingly familiar with the interdependence of more tightly coupled systems, often learning the hard way. In "The Logic of Failure," for example, Dietrich Dorner described a city council which attempted to limit noise and air pollution by lowering the speed limit and installing speed bumps. The unintended effects: Cars were forced to travel in lower gear -- producing more noise and exhaust, increased travel time produced increased congestion, and eventually people began to prefer shopping at outlying malls -- leading to economic failure of the downtown area.

Tightly coupled systems -- such as the human body -- are highly interdependent, where a malfunction can create an entirely unpredictable cascading effect. Dossey illustrates how giving orders with prayers can invite disaster. We could pray to rack up our immune systems, for example, and overdo it. Since it's difficult to predict all the complexities of healing, he suggests resorting to the age-old invitation of leaving the details to a higher power.

One of my favorite sections of this book is entitled "Reversing Medical Curses Through Prayer." He does acknowledge that doctors don't usually intend to do us in; nonetheless, the harm is real: "Medical curses such as 'It's your funeral,'" he writes, "'You're a walking time bomb,' 'You should have had surgery yesterday,' 'There's nothing more I can do,' and so on, are not uncommon." A spiritual approach can counter the impact of such harmful and influential statements. For example, Dr. Thomas Oxman and colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School found that the factor most highly correlated with survival and a positive post-operative course after surgery was the degree of spiritual meaning in the patient's life.

In such a situation you would do well to ask yourself, "How can I participate in my recovery and not be a victim?" "What is my purpose?" "What is meaningful to me?" "How might I make a difference in the world?"

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating the Shadow Side of Prayer, December 22, 1999

By 

Cynthia Sue Larson "www.realityshifters.com" (San Francisco bay area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Be Careful What You Pray For..You Just Might Get It (Audio Cassette)

Can prayers cause damage and destruction? Do we possess the power to harm others with our minds? If so, how can we minimize the damage? Dr. Larry Dossey answers these questions and more as he delves into the topic of the power of prayer to cause harm in his brilliant book, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. Dossey describes how people utilize negative prayer both consciously (in order to win at a game or in business), and unconsciously (venting feelings and thoughts without regard for the effects on the recipients)... and he covers a wide spectrum of negative prayers from the sophisticated curses and hexes of sorcerers to the more common varieties of "drive-by prayer" and "prayer muggings". Those who work with prayer every day, such as sorcerers and priests, know better than to make idly damaging statements such as, "he ought to be shot", or "I hope he chokes" -- and Dossey includes some fascinating stories of how such thoughts have precipitated real physical effects. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of how to understand and protect oneself from negative prayer, even when those prayers come from well-meaning friends, family, and colleagues.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars inspired, intelligent worshipping of a knowable God, January 28, 2007

By 

Rosemary Thornton "Niece of Addie Hoyt Fargo ... (Norfolk, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Be Careful What You Pray For...You Just Might Get It (Paperback)

Having read several hundred books on spirituality, prayer, religion (etc), I'd say this is one of my top five favorites. The only downside is the title. The book's focus is a little bit more on the power of NEGATIVE prayer than anything else.

I've never had any patience for religious teachings or faith systems that require you to check your intellect at the door before entering into a holy and inspired place. That's the beauty part of this book. It's written for people who love God and people who refuse to ignorantly worship "an unknown God."

Nearly every page of my copy of this book has been highlighted, as I've found so many powerful truths contained there. One of my favorite stories is Dossey's telling of "The Death Prayer."

He writes, "When Europeans first came to the Hawaiian Islands, they encountered a practice they literally called the 'death prayer'. They developed a horror of this practice, which came to be the 'most feared phenomenon in old Hawaii.' Eventually, laws were drafted prohibiting it" (p. 98).

Dossey then goes on to write in depth about why this prayer is so powerful and how The Lord's Prayer is truly a strong weapon against this "negative prayer."

"One native healer said, 'Have you ever heard of the Lord's Prayer. Do you remember the words, 'Deliver us from evil?' You white people have one of the best forms of protectoin, and you don't even know it! Why, I even use it myself!' he said with a grin" (p. 196-197).

On page 24, Dossey writes, "I have often thought that a handy definition of negative prayer is 'prayer without empathy.'"

As a mature believer, I'd highly recommend this book for all people who take their praying seriously. For Christmas, I purchased a copy of this book for my dearest friends, so they could understand a bit more about the awesome power of prayer - for good and for evil.

Some of the best quotes:
"We can feel the presence of another as keenly through animosity as we can through love" (p. 183).

"Curses permeate our religious life. The most obvious example is the condemnation of the unsaved to eternal, unimagineable suffering in hell" (p. 12).

And in talking about the death prayer of the Hawaiian Kahunas, he wrote,

"Not only did [William Tufts Brigham] confirm Long's [early 1900s American psychologist] impression that the kahunas could kill people at a distance with negative mental intent...he also described how the curse could be fatal to the individual who perpetrated it" (p. 98).

Powerful book. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to protect themselves from evil people and their evil thoughts and purposes.