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“Yesterday’s science fiction often becomes tomorrow’s science.”

- John A. Astin, California Pacific Medical Center.

It has been a lifelong conviction of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions that prayer has the power to heal. In the words of Paul Parker, professor of theology and religion at Elmhurst College outside Chicago, “Some call it prayer, some call it cleansing the mind. The words or posture may vary. But in times of illness, all religions look towards their source of authority.”

Evidence abounds of prayers healing people with incurable diseases. Vivid descriptions of the healing power of prayer have been documented in a number of books. Among them are His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith by John G. Lake, Healing by Smith Wigglesworth, Prayer, Faith, and Healing by Kenneth W. Caine and Brian P. Kaufman, and Listening Prayer by Leanne Payne. The authors of these books describe their own experiences of healing by prayers and reveal how prayer can be a rich source of meaning and transformation in our lives. What’s more, some of them describe themselves as channels of God’s healing energy for others.

Once upon a time, people believed in spiritual miracles when they were ill, injured, or afflicted with any sort of curse—emotional, interpersonal, financial, or legal. They made appeals to God. And, they turned to their spiritual guides: holy men, priestly purveyors of prayer therapies. Often, the prayers, belief, and God worked wondrously.

Then along came medical science: biology, pharmacology, radiology, and modern surgical practices. Suddenly, we had scientific miracles: a pill or an operation for everything that could be cured. Prayer and faith were shunted to the side and their incredible power forgotten, never mind that some people got well even when the treatments and pills failed and the doctors wrote their patients off.

Today the very science we trust is showing what people knew was true all along: prayer, faith, and spiritual healing work. The outpouring of spiritual healing has inspired a small group of researchers to use the tools of modern science to test the power of prayer to cure others. By and large, the findings of such studies provided support for the power of prayer. For example, in one study patients with longstanding, moderately severe rheumatoid arthritis derived significant short- and long-term physical benefits from in-person intercessory prayer.

Although many people’s minds are unlikely to be changed by research, prayers will continue to bring healing to those who believe in them. At the same time, everyone can agree with skeptics that it is impossible to validate the supernatural with science and it can be waste of money to try to prove how prayer works. Proponents maintain the research is valuable, as there are a large number of people who believe in the power of prayer to influence health. Surveys have found that perhaps half of Americans regularly pray for their own health, and at least a quarter have others pray for them.

Many studies indicate that the religiously devout tend to be healthier. The quiet meditation and incantations of praying or the comfort of being prayed for, appear to lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, slow the heart rate, and have other potentially beneficial effects. Although science offers no definitive proof, the traditions and experiences of many throughout the history provide a foundation for the practice of healing prayer. Science is beginning to concur with history and religion.  In spite of having no comprehensive rational explanation for how a prayer might work, study after study is showing the connections, thereby raising possibilities and suggesting that God not only exists and answers prayers, that prayerful intentions not only influence physical reality, but that prayer, religion, and faith are good for us: good for our health, good for our outlooks, good for our communities, good for our overall physical, and mental well-being.

Sources: Matthews, D., Marlowe, S., & Macnutt, F. (2000). Effects of Intercessory Prayer on Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis. Southern Medical Journal, 93(12).

Researchers look at prayer and healing.

Author: Dace Jansone, St. Joseph's College, West Hartford, CT