The Miracle of Regeneration

 

Behold, I make all things new.
(Revelation 21:5 )

It has been scientifically proven that there is nothing in the body that causes it to age . There are no time-released elements, or alarm clocks set to go off at specific times causing deterioration. The reason people age in appearance and attitude is because they believe they're supposed to. They've programmed themselves subconsciously to look and act a certain way at respective points in their lives. They believe and accept age and therefore get old. (Jean Walters)

Did you know aluminum heals itself after it's scratched? Aluminum oxide grows sideways to fill the gouge and keeps on growing until the scratch is covered and sealed. (L. M. Boyd)

Your body is being renewed constantly. In one year, 98 percent of the atoms in your body will be replaced by other atoms.
(Barbara Seuling,
You Can't Sneeze With Your Eyes Open , p. 30)

The body that is formed in regeneration absorbs the substance of the body of flesh, and makes out of it a new body in divine order, under the law of the Christ Mind. In this process the physical body dies so that the Christ body may live; but the spiritual ego, the I Am, remains consciously active throughout the process of development that Paul referred to when he said; "I die daily." (Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind , p. 43)

Your bone cells replace themselves in a rapid exchange, resulting in a brand-new skeleton about every two years.
(Barbara Seuling,
You Can't Sneeze With Your Eyes Open , p. 17)

A chance examination of a starfish has given us new breakthroughs in research into bone growth. Dr. Arthur Fontaine, a Canadian biologist in British Columbia, noted the starfish skeletin is made up of a porous calcium carbonate. He used it as a base to grow successfully three kinds of bone cells. He took his research further by dropping the material in holes in the leg bones of rats. The bones regenerated even faster than under normal circumstances. (Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance, p. 215)

Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity, consciously let go of the belief that bones could not grow in an adult body, when he worked successfully for several years on causing his withered and crippled leg to lengthen and fill out. (Gregory Barrette)
How long does it take your body to replace every cell in it? Seven years. No bone in your body now has in it anything that was in it seven years ago.
(L. M. Boyd)

Our changing bodies: liver - new every 6 weeks; skeleton - new every 3 months; stomach lining - new every 4 days; atoms - 98% new every year; and skin - new every month. (Deepak Chopra, Quantum Healing )

The amazing clam lives as long as 150 years, shows no signs of aging other than adding bands to its shell, and remains sexually active throughout life. (Ann Adams, in National Enquirer )

A cockroach has six legs. If it breaks one, it grows another. (L. M. Boyd)

Every creature has a need for companionship as biologically important as food and drink. Testing tadpoles, zoologists have found that even these humble creatures are so deeply influenced by social need that a solitary tadpole can regenerate an injured part of its body only slowly, but if it is given the firmly sensed comradeship of fellow tadpoles its healing powers speed up almost miraculously. University of Chicago scientists have discovered that when mice are raised in contact with fellow mice they grow faster than mice on an identical diet in isolation.
(Alan Devoe, The Living World of Nature , p. 245)

A crocodile keeps 60 teeth in chomping shape. As it loses old teeth, it grows new ones. One crocodile can go through as many as 3000 teeth.
(L. M. Boyd)

Crystals grow by reproducing themselves. They come nearest to being "alive" of all members of the mineral kingdom.
(David Louis, Fascinating Facts , p. 103)

A more convenient version of a device that uses electricity to promote the healing of broken bones has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Adiministration for marketing. Known as a bone-growth stimulator, the latest version was developed at the University of Pennsylvania in concert with Bioelectron Inc., the manufacturer. The device, which is used to treat bone fractures that have failed to heal, consists of a tiny power unit attached to a patient's cast or clipped onto a bell and two stainless-steel electrodes that are attached to the skin around the broken arm or leg. It can be installed easily in a doctor's office, it doesn't require cutting into the skin or the use of X-rays, and it works even when a person is walking around on a leg cast. (The New York Times, 1986)

The earthworm has several sets of vital organs throughout its body, which is why it can be cut in half and still survive. If it is cut in the middle its two ends will usually regenerate; if it is not cut in the middle one segment will live. However, if it is cut in too many places the whole worm will die.
(David Louis, Fascinating Facts , p. 184)

An exciting new method of applying electrical stimulation to the spinal cord is giving new hope to previously helpless victims of cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and other crippling spastic diseases. The technique eliminated dangerous brain surgery and has provided stunning improvement in many patients--even allowing some of them to actually walk again. (Rod Gibson, in National Enquirer )

The entire lining of your stomach and both intestines is replaced every three days. (L. M. Boyd)

If there were no regeneration there could be no life. If everything regenerated there would be no death. All organisms exist between these two extremes . Other things being equal, they tend toward the latter end of the spectrum, never quite achieving immortality because this would be incompatible with reproduction. (Richard J. Goss)

It is safe to say that nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of every thousand believe that the resurrection of the body has something specifically to do with the getting of a new body after death; so we find more than ninety-nine percent of the world's population waiting for death to get something in the way of a body. This belief is not based on the principles of truth, for there is no ready-made-body factory in the universe, and thus none will get the body that he expects. Waiting for death in order to get a new body is the folly of ignorance. The thing to do is to improve the bodies that we now have; it can be done, and those who would follow Jesus in the regeneration must do it. (Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind )

A surgical incision on a fetus still in the womb heals without a scar, says a surgeon. (L. M. Boyd)

What to do if your child accidentally cuts off his fingertip ? The best treatment is no treatment, according to English physician Cynthia Illingworth, who found in 1974 that the finger and the nail will grow back, and be as good as new in 11 or 12 weeks. But the child must be under 12, the injury must be above the first joint and no operation should be attempted. (Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance, p. 205)

Of great interest to medical researchers is the fact that some fish can repair their injured spinal cords. (L. M. Boyd)

The Great Barrier Reef has the ability to replenish and rebuild itself, even after total destruction by hurricanes or other devastating forces of nature. The Great Barrier Reef has collapsed four times during the last 600 million years. (Denver Museum of Natural History brochure)

The skin on the palms of the hands is said to regenerate faster than any other part of the body. (Betty Lee Morales, in Let's Live Magazine)

Salamanders' ability to regenerate limbs could yield new clues to human healing and the mystery of cancer, a biologist says. "What's fascinating about this is that a salamander's limb is basically a miniature of our limbs," says Panagiotis Tsonis of the University of Dayton (Ohio). When a limb is cut off, the remaining tissues return to an embryonic state and the limb is regenerated in two to three months, says Tsonis. (Rocky Mountain News)

Listening is the key to prayer. It is the place where truth leaves the intellectual mind of reason and enters the soul where it is experienced.
This shifting makes a kind of spiritual change of chemistry in a person. Actually, the change affects even our material bodies. In the transition from larva to butterfly, the worm attaches itself to a limb, weaves a cocoon around itself, goes into a kind of meditative state, and changes its chemistry, resulting in a totally new body which emerges as a butterfly.
(Walter Starcke, in The Ultimate Revolution )

If 80% of your liver were to be removed, the remaining part would continue to function, and within a few months the liver would have reconstituted itself to its original size. (Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts, p. 323)

Both large legs and claws of the lobster can be regrown if severed; regeneration can take two to three years.
(Jack Denton Scott, in Reader's Digest )

Completely defenseless and covered only by a jelly-soft skin, the freshly molted lobster stays holed up in his burrow. Within a few hours, by absorbing sea water, he swells to his new size--15% longer and 50% heavier than before. (If he's replacing a lost part, the rest of the body's growth slows to let it catch up.) It takes several weeks for the new suit to harden. (David MacDonald, The Living World of Nature )

Anyone who concentrates his thoughts on Christ in faith will attract as a spiritual magnet one or many of his body atoms. These Christ atoms, appropriated by the individual, become food and drink and form the nucleus of a regenerated body for the person appropriating them.
(Charles Fillmore, Keep A True Lent )

Contrary to the general belief that nerve cells cannot be regenerated, other studies done with severed chick cells at the University of Kentucky have opened new doors to further investigation. The severed chick nerve cells were placed in glass culture dishes and specific electromagnetic signals were broadcast to them. This stimulated electrochemical signals which appeared to direct the cells to increase their uptake of sodium, and to accelerate the normally slow outgrowth of new connective linkages.
(Betty Lee Morales, in Let's Live Magazine)

In 1987, Timothy Pons and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health found that adult nerve cells could make new connections after an injury. The new links seemed to be in the sensory cortex, a think layer of cells on the outer surface of the brain.
(Tony Dajer, Discover Magazine)

In protozoans, the nucleus is indispensable for regeneration. Eye regeneration in flatworms is stimulated by the brain. Anthropods fail to grow new appendages unless they can moat. Various extremities in the vertebrates require an adequate nerve supply. The newt lens cannot be replaced in the absense of the neural retina. Antlers grow in response to changes in day's lengths. (Richard J. Goss, Principles of Regeneration )

In certain lower forms, practically any part of the organism can give rise to a whole new animal. Where there is a single cell nearly any part contains enough information to replace the entire body.
(Richard J. Goss, Principles of Regeneration )

A mature porcupine bears some 30,000 quills on its head, back, flanks and tail; the belly is the only large area without armor. The quills are replaced year-round, new ones emerging as old ones drop.
(Bil Gilbert, The Living World of Natuire , p. 72)

According to Richard and Mary Alice Jafolla, Unity ministers, medical science has provided proof of regeneration. The body is constantly renewing itself. It is a widely known and accepted fact that every human being has totally new intestinal lining every three days. Skin cells replace themselves every three weeks, red blood cells in four months, and bone cells in one year. (Christopher Ian Chenoweth)

Rattlesnake fangs are replaced frequently, every two or three weeks in some species. (Bil Gilbert, in Reader's Digest )

Every second, your body manufactures 2 1/2 million new red blood cells . Within a month, all your red blood cells are replaced with new ones.
(Barbara Seuling,
You Can't Sneeze With Your Eyes Open , p. 35)

To regenerate is to go back to the spiritual pattern after which we are created as the image of God, our parent, and reproduce this likeness of God in soul and mind and body. In the soul it is the building of a new character, a new disposition, a new nature that conforms to the law of God and that is a replica of the God nature. In the mind it is to deny the image of the world and flesh with their limitations and to lay hold of new thought patterns, new and divine concepts, new ideas that confirm to Truth. In the body it is to build into every cell and tissue new life, strength, and stability, like until that of the body of Christ. It is to make of it in every sense a temple of God and as such a place of worthip, His church. (Silent Unity pamphlet)

It is by reproducing that organisms regenerate themselves and their species. At this level of organization everything regenerates. Likewise at the molecular level. (Richard J. Goss, Principles of Regeneration )

The direction of our research and goals should be changed, from seeing the human body as a machine to be opened-up or lubricated by drugs, and refocused toward learning how the human body regenerates or heals itself.
(Dr. Charles N. Shooster)

Can a rhino that loses its horn in a fight grow it back? Yes, at a rate of 3 inches a year. (L. M. Boyd)

A rodent 's teeth never stop growing. They are worn down by the animal's constant gnawing on bark, leaves, and other vegetable matter.
(David Louis, Fascinating Facts , p. 7)

Here's one you can post on the refrigerator door. A disemboweled sea cucumber can grow new intestines. (L. M. Boyd)

Sharks are also equipped with several rows of teeth. They can replace those that are lost within a matter of days. While humans go through only two sets of teeth in a lifetime, sharks go through a new set every few months. Researchers have estimated that some of them lose as many as 30,000 teeth during their lives. (Mark Wexler)

Bone tissue is constantly being destroyed and replaced. About every seven years the body grows the equivalent of an entirely new skeleton .
(Marc McCutcheon, The Compass in Your Nose , p. 130)

The skin is constantly growing from within, creating new cells that push their way outward. The whole process takes about one month.
(Susan Smith Jones, in
Let's Live Magazine)

It's during your sleep that your skin does much of the work to replace itself. Twice as much as when you're awake. (L. M. Boyd)

Young, growing spiders can regenerate missing legs and parts of legs.
(Bruce D. Witherspoon, Astounding Facts , p. 357)

Scientists at Sweden's Karolinska Institute have shown that a combination of nerve-implant techniques can restore partial use of the legs in rats whose spinal cords have been severed.
Henrich Cheng, Lars Olson and Yihai Cao cut rats' spinal cords at chest level and removed a small segment. They then successfully grew new nerve connections across the gaps of the severed cords, restoring some motion and sensation to the animals' paralyzed hind legs.
While the findings, reported in the journal Science , aren't immediately applicable to humans suffering from paralysis, they "nevertheless provide a strong basis for hope in the field," writes researcher Wise Young of New York University Medical Center. "The possibility of effective regenerative therapies for human spinal-cord injury is no longer a speculation but a realistic goal." (Washington Post)

There is a renewing Spirit within me that buds with new ideas, that blossoms with new experiences, that grows through new endeavors. I keep my mind and heart open to this renewing Spirit. I shed old thoughts and feelings as a tree sheds its old leaves in the fall, making ready for new growth. (Helen Hopper)

I went to all the life centers in my body and spoke words of Truth to them--words of strength and power. Then I asked the Father to forgive me for taking His life into my organism and there using it so meanly. I want everybody to know about this beautiful, true law, and to use it. It is not a new discovery, but when you use it and get the fruits of health and harmony, it will seem new to you. (Myrtle Fillmore)

Scientists still study the sponge . Genetic memory is what intrigues them. For example, if a red sponge is ground up and forced through a fine nylon net into a cloud of tiny particles, it will reform itself into a sponge of exactly the same shape as the original. (L. M. Boyd)

Another unique thing about stainless steel is that it can "heal" itself. When scratched or nicked, the protective oxide immediately recoats the damaged area. (Don Voorhees, Thoughts for the Throne , p. 92)
A starfish can be cut into sizable chunks and each piece will grow into a completely whole starfish. (Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts, p. 122)

In the past starfish were dredged up from oyster and mussel beds (where they are predators), ripped apart, and thrown back into the sea in the belief that they were dead and could do no more damage. Far from it--the injured starfish grew new arms from the torn body parts to form two new animals.
(Reader's Digest: Strange Stories, Amazing Facts)

If you cut your tongue , it will heal without scar tissue. Other tissue in the human body regenerates, but not without scarring. (L. M. Boyd)

Since nothing is lost in the many transformations that occur in nature, what becomes of the energy that is being released in the disintegration that is going on in our earth? The answer is that a new earth is being formed in which matter will be replaced by atomic energy. This process of refining matter into radiant substance is taking place not only in the natural world but in our bodies also. In fact the speed with which the transformation takes place depends on the character of the thoughts that we project into our brains and through them into our bodies and the world about us.
(Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind , p. 51)

If animals are able to grow new body parts, maybe it is because they don't understand English when they are told that they can't do it. Humans on the other hand can be easily affected by the power of the spoken word and talked out of what they are capable of doing. (David J. Seibert)

Thoughts Along The Way : 24th issue. Compiled by Rev. David J. Seibert
c/o Unity Temple, 1555 Race Street, Denver, CO 80206--(303) 377-4838