Saying grace before a meal can help you maintain tranquility (thereby making it more likely you will experience positive emotions) via framing effects
Or it can suggest to you that you are a worthless sinner destined for the lake of fire :-/
This is basically a claim that reminding people of religion is good for them. I am... doubtful.
It's worth noting that the quoted fragment occurs in a book on Stoicism, which doesn't have a concept of personal god throwing you into hell, and it's a part of the explanation of a Stoic technique. In fact, I think the OP cut away a little too much context from the quote:
...The Stoics are not alone in harnessing the power of negative visualization. Consider, for example, those individuals who say grace before a meal. Some presumably say it because they are simply in the habit of doing so. Others might say it because they fear that God will punish them if t
This thread is for:
- Perfectly natural and functional ideas that came from a spiritual, religious, occultist, parapsychologist etc. source (perhaps with some "baggage")
- Techniques that are bit difficult to explain and may be seen by the gullible as magic, but they actually seem to do something, even if that something is just a novel way to trick the brain.
Both things that are actually useful and "stage tricks" are accepted in this thread.