Now, to explain what the growth inducer
and the growth retardent were (in the previous email).
They were prayer.
Yes, that is correct - PRAYER.
The plain side had received nothing else except prayer for its growth
and the red side nothing else except prayer that it would not grow.

If you find this latter strange,
please do remember that Jesus cursed the fig tree
and that it withered.
And that such a prayer could be very effective against
cancer, plagues of locusts and such.
But no matter, the experiment did go strangely,
(the side receiving the prayer for growth - withering,
and the side receiving the opposite -
growing astoundingly strange).
and later I shall explain to you why.

As I have said, these experiments,
of the Power of Prayer on Plants,
(there is a book by that name)
have been conducted at Red Stone University,
and elsewhere (I think perhaps Duke)
and I know at the University of Wichita,
because I later did them there myself.

The experiments have been thoroughly controlled
and there is no statistical possibility that the results
are attributable soley to chance.

POP this time stood for the Power of Prayer on plants,
but we shall get around to the relationship between prayer
and prophecy.

My interest in prayer had been long standing.
I am a class taught student of the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College
which is the training received by Christian Science Practitioners.
I had already served as a volunteer War Time Minister,
and although I am no longer a Christian Scientist
I still have a deep respect for its teachings
and can give many testimonies to its effects.

Thus it was, at that time,
I approached the Botany Department
at the University of Wichita
and asked permission to repeat my experiments there.
I was granted use of the entire green house,
and with the aid of the Department Chairman
undertook the experiments on a much grander scale.

We emptied and scrubbed the green house.
New flats were obtained
along with wheel barrows of sterilized soil.
The Chairman insisted that we use hybrid seeds
known for their consistent response and even growth.
A planting device was devised to assure that all were planted
at the exact same depth.
A more accurate watering method was stipulated,
and so forth.

I won't go into the details,
but the end result was that we had rows and rows
and rows
of the most evenly grown plants that one might imagine.

To my mind the outcome was the result of the exact same cause
that had contributed to the reversed results
in the first experiment.
What in Christian Science is called mental malpractice.

I won't go into all the philosophical details,
but there is good reason that Jesus said,
"That whatsoever ye ask for secretly
will be awarded to you openly."

Similar results had been reported in the Redstone experiments.
What I think happened in the first case
was that my former wife,
who was quite distraught with me at the time,
was present with the plants on the table all day long,
and she was quite aggravated with me, them, and the experiment,
and consequently the inverted result,
as with much else in my life at that time.

In the University green house,
many people made the trip down to the green house,
having heard about the experiment,
to laugh about it.
Their cumulative mental influence
and trust in the power of hybrid seeds
far exceeded mine.
Probably the world's most even crop ever.

Miracles are only miracles
to the person for whom they occur.
If by a miracle we mean the repudiation of natural law,
there is no such thing,
but rather there is application of supranatural (not supernatural) law.

Jesus said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed
you can move mountains,
but if one claimed this faith to a non-believer
and they asked you to prove it,
and you pointed at a mountain and prayed
and it jumped into the sea
they would simply say,

"You were just lucky that an earthquake came along right then."