Does prayer work?
Yes. A systematic review of the empirical literature on distant intention shows significant effect sizes. (Hobbes, et. al. 2007) See below for more information and examples of remarkable recovery involving prayer.
What is an example of a prayer study?
Prayer has been studied for its effects on well-being. Here is just one example of a well-designed prayer study:
The Blessed Chocolate Study
A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled experiment investigated whether chocolate exposed to positive intentions would enhance mood more than chocolate not exposed to positive intentions. Study participants were matched for age, gender, amount of chocolate regularly consumed, and location (to control mood changes due to the weather). Three groups were given blessed chocolate, while a fourth received unblessed chocolate. The results show a significantly improved mood in the intention condition (blessed chocolate) compared to the control condition.
Does prayer work on animals and plants?
Yes. Animals, plants, biomolecules, tissue, cell cultures, and crystals are good research models, unaffected by expectations and beliefs. More than 150 double-blind studies of distant intention have been conducted on animals, plants, tissues, cultures, crystals, and the human nervous system (to lower heart rate and dermal responses), with significant results. For more information and research summaries, please see a narrative review of healing non-contact practices and an excellent summary in Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, Kelly and Kelly, 230-231.
Here is an interesting side note on distant intention directed toward crystals:
The Japanese author Masaru Emoto famously claimed that human intention can affect the molecular structure of water. His book, The Hidden Messages in Water, became a bestseller but was criticized as pseudoscience. This criticism was somewhat accurate, but it rested on the misunderstanding that Emoto was conducting a scientific study. He was only doing a photo project and making some general observations. However, at least one rigorous scientific study has been performed on distant intention and ice crystal formation. See Double-Blind Test of the Effects of Distant Intention on Water Crystal Formation for more information.
Didn’t science debunk prayer?
No. The Harvard STEP study (Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer, 2006) investigated patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery, some of whom were randomly assigned to receive remote prayer from religious groups, with their consent. This study is often cited as debunking the claim that prayer is effective because the results did not show a comparative benefit for patients who received prayer. It included three groups of patients:
• One group received remote prayer and was told they might or might not receive it.
• A second group did not receive remote prayer and was given the same information.
• A third group received remote prayer and was told they would receive it.
The Harvard STEP study had unique features that reveal the challenges of studying remote prayer in a clinical setting. A few are included below:
Negative associations of prayer
Many people associate prayer with hopeless cases. In the context of heart surgery, being told that you will receive prayer may increase anxiety. These negative associations are not elicited if the patient requests prayer, but may certainly arise if someone else suggests it, especially a medical professional. The STEP study found increased adrenaline in the patients who knew they were receiving prayer. The mental association between prayer and serious illness may have contributed to excess complications in this group.
Treatment constraints
The Harvard researchers told the prayer providers they could pray any way they wished; however, the prayer must occur at the same time every day, for a pre-set period, and include the following words: “For successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.” This is actually a large number of constraints, contradicting the assertion that the prayer providers could pray “any way they wished.” Some spiritual healers have said they would refuse, for example, to introduce the idea of complications into prayer.
Dual provider concerns
A surgery patient’s healing is supported by their trust in their surgeon and treatment team. The Harvard prayer study introduced both a new treatment method and new providers: the remote prayer group. The prayer providers were not part of the patients’ treatment team. This setup could potentially split patients’ trust between providers, rather than focusing it on the provider relationships they chose in advance.
Lack of experimental controls
The Harvard experimental study design assumes that valid experimental controls for prayer among hospitalized patients are possible. However, it is not possible to prevent external prayer, especially with patients undergoing major surgery. Essentially, the control group (which did not receive prayer according to the study design) may have actually received more prayer than the treatment groups.
Can prayer help me?
Yes! God (or the higher power) is Love. Sickness, suffering, and limitation are never God’s will. Prayer promotes a profound transformation of thought, attitude, and focus that can radically change your life.
See below for inspiring, medically documented cases of remarkable recovery.
Cancer Healed
Rebecca Beard, MD, reported Alice Newton’s healing from cancer:
Alice’s appearance when we first saw her shocked us. Her huge abdomen was larger than that of a woman at full-term pregnancy. She had the dreaded cachexia. Her emaciated body was scarcely able to carry the burden of a 38-lb, inoperable, cancerous tumor.
She asked, “Do you think I can be healed with prayer?” For just a moment, I felt a sinking feeling. I heard myself saying, “Yes, Alice, I believe.”
Alice went home, canceled all social obligations, did simple household chores, and prayed. Every day, she repeated the same pattern. She wrote us often, and she never suggested failure in her letters.
One night, Alice dreamt of Jesus during his crucifixion. She woke up, and her tumor was gone. How does a 38-lb tumor disappear? There was no discharge of any kind; her bedsheets were dry.
Later, Alice came to St. Louis and asked if I wished to examine her. I found every organ fresh as though she had never been ill. For twelve years, the Leavenworth newspaper and the Kansas City Star mentioned this remarkable recovery each January on the anniversary of Alice’s healing!
(Paraphrased from Everyman’s Search by Rebecca Beard, MD.)
Organ Regrown
On the evening of November 16, 2006, Wisconsin diesel mechanic Bruce Van Natta slid under the six-ton front end of a Peterbilt logging truck while responding to an unplanned inspection request. The truck was supported only with a jack; no other supports had been placed. As the assisting mechanic got in the truck to check a gauge, the jack collapsed, and the truck’s axle crushed Bruce’s abdomen.
First responders could not find a pulse. Bruce suffered from severed arteries, and most of his small intestine was crushed. He was transported by helicopter to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospital, where the trauma department was amazed he was still alive. Bruce needed five major surgeries to resect his small intestine and remove dead bowel, but was left with less than 10% of viable intestine. He was not able to extract enough nutrition from his food to maintain weight and was wasting away to a virtual skeleton.
An acquaintance, Bruce Carlson, learned of his situation and visited his home in Wisconsin to pray with him. When his friend prayed, Bruce Van Natta said it felt like he touched an electric fence, and the electricity traveled into his belly. After this prayer session, he started gaining weight, and follow-up X-rays showed a dramatic increase in small intestine length to 274cm from only 116cm. It is considered impossible for an adult’s small intestine to grow in length. Bruce is healthy and active today.
Accounts of Bruce Van Natta’s healing are available on YouTube and other websites. I’m grateful to Joel Lantz, who provided all available medical documents, interviewed Van Natta personally, and presented this case thoroughly in Bridges for Honest Skeptics.
Paraplegia Healed
Leo Perras was working in a textile mill when a cart laden with 300 pounds of cloth fell on his back. An operation for a herniated disk followed, then a sacroiliac fusion, then ten years in a steel brace, taking painkillers and enduring more operations. Doctors in Boston performed a cordotomy to remove pressure from Leo’s spinal cord, but he woke up from this operation with no sensation from the chest down.
Leo fell into a period of despair, but then he started volunteering at local hospitals. He returned to his former profession, carpentry, and created a marvelous contraption that enabled him to use tools and hoist materials. He built a house almost single-handedly for his daughter. But he considered healing impossible, as did the entire field of medical science.
After nearly twenty years in a wheelchair, Leo attended the healing prayer service of Catholic priest Father Ralph DeOrio in Worcester, MA. He had no hope of recovery, but his wife had a friend bring him. Leo enjoyed watching the service for a few hours. Suddenly, Father DeOrio approached him and commanded him to rise in the name of Jesus Christ.
Feeling like he’d been picked up from his wheelchair by invisible hands, Leo looked down and saw he was standing! Father DeOrio encouraged him to walk down the center aisle of the church to the front door. He did this, then continued down the street, stopping off at friends’ houses triumphantly with a growing crowd.
It was almost midnight when they pulled up to his doctor’s house, Dr. Mitch Tenerowicz, Chief of Staff at Cooley Dickenson Hospital. “When he saw me standing there,” Leo said, “he just yelled, Omigod!”
According to his doctor, Leo’s leg muscles were so wasted that anatomically, they shouldn’t have been able to support him. Three months after his healing, his muscles had tripled in size, and sensation had fully returned to his legs and feet. After twenty years in a wheelchair, Leo’s ability to walk was fully restored. “God uses simple things,” he says, “to confound the wise.”
(Leo’s story appears in many books and articles. I’m grateful to Caryle Hirschberg and Marc Ian Barasch’s summary of his case in Remarkable Recovery: What Extraordinary Healings Tell Us About Getting Well and Staying Well, Riverhead Books, 1995. The quoted statement from Leo (above) is from an interview with Barasch for Remarkable Recovery.)
Pulmonary Fibrosis Healed
Patricia Kaine, MD, is a primary care provider treating low-income patients in rural Appalachia in the United States. She had experienced many financial struggles herself. At times, she couldn’t afford medical care, even when she was pregnant. She worked tirelessly to put herself through medical school so other rural families wouldn’t have to suffer alone as she had.
Dr. Kaine started feeling tired and struggled through her days visiting rural patients. A lung biopsy revealed pulmonary fibrosis; the formation of scar tissue on the lungs that is thought to be irreversible. She was given a prognosis of 3-5 years to live.
She was unable to work and slept 18 hours a day to compensate for her lack of oxygen. She required a CPAP oxygen machine at all times. But Dr. Kaine believed in miracles because her sister was healed of the worst polio her doctors had ever seen by being blessed with water from Lourdes.
Dr. Kaine’s niece recommended that she visit Dr. Issam Nemeh, a surgeon and anesthesiologist who offers prayer treatment. Dr. Nemeh does not consider himself a faith healer but a conduit for God’s love. Dr. Kaine left his office feeling peaceful and refreshed. She didn’t feel drained, like she did after all her other appointments. She continued to receive prayer treatments from Dr. Nemeh for approximately five years. Gradually, she was back on track, visiting patients again and no longer needing an oxygen machine.
A follow-up chest X-ray showed her lungs were completely healed and free of all scar tissue. This was such an extraordinary reversal of a progressive, incurable, and fatal disease that her case has received national attention.
Her case has been profiled on The Dr. Oz Show and elsewhere. I am especially grateful to Jeffrey Rediger, M.D., for his clear summary and in-depth interview in Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing (Flatiron Books, 2020).
Multiple Sclerosis Healed
Barbara Cumminskey was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when she was a teenager. Her condition was severe and deteriorated quickly. From ages 15 to 31, Barbara spent most of her life in the hospital.
Barbara had chronic pulmonary disease with frequent infections and pneumonia. Her surgeon, Dr. Harold Adolph, said her diaphragm was completely paralyzed. One lung was nonfunctional, and the other worked less than 50%. She had a tracheotomy tube for breathing and could speak only a few words. Her abdomen was extremely swollen because her intestinal muscles did not work. She couldn’t swallow, so she had a feeding tube in her stomach. Her bladder didn’t function. She was blind except for two small areas in each eye.
Barbara hadn’t walked for many years. Her feet pointed down, unable to rest naturally against the floor. Her arms were curled against her chest, and her hands curled against the inside of her wrists. Her body was contracted in a fetal position.
Dr. Thomas Marshall assumed responsibility for Barbara’s palliative care in what appeared to be her final weeks of life. Doctors at the hospital sent her home, warning her family that she was unlikely to survive long enough to make it to the hospital next time and would soon die at home.
On Pentecost Sunday, June 7, 1981, some church friends visited her and read encouraging letters from people who were praying for her. Suddenly, Barbara heard a booming, authoritative voice: “My child, get up and walk!”
Barbara couldn’t speak because of her breathing tube, but sensing her agitation, her friends helped her plug the hole in her neck. Barbara gasped out that God told her to get up and walk. Her friends grew quiet but respected her request to go and get her family.
Getting Barbara into a sitting position was a many-step process, but she couldn’t wait and leaped out of bed. Her feet were too deformed to stand or even wear slippers, but she discovered she could set them flat against the floor. She noticed her hands were in a natural position, not curled up; then she realized she could see all this. She was no longer blind! Sensing she could breathe normally, Barbara freed herself from the tracheotomy tube and oxygen tank.
Barbara’s mom burst into the room, thinking her friends’ urgent summons meant she was passing away. She froze in amazement. Barbara was healed. Her mom noticed she had calves again; her muscle atrophy was reversed!
Barbara called out to her dad. “Just a minute!” he replied. Barbara had not been able to raise her voice for years, so her dad thought it was her sister calling. Realizing she no longer had to wait for people to come to her, Barbara raced to her dad. Overcome with joy, he waltzed her around the room. Barbara ran outside to enjoy the beautiful, sunny day with feet that could feel and eyes that could see.
The next day, she visited her doctor’s office. When Dr. Marshall saw Barbara walking toward him, he thought it was an apparition. Barbara wasn’t expected to live another week, and even standing was entirely out of the question. Barbara saw virtually every doctor in the office and received every conceivable test.
X-rays showed her collapsed lung was no longer collapsed; her diaphragm was functioning normally, and her bowel was healed. All of Barbara’s tubes were removed. She was completely healed of MS and has remained healthy and without recurrence for roughly four decades.
I am indebted to Craig S. Keener’s superb summary of Barbara’s case in Miracles Today: the Supernatural Works of God in the Modern World, Baker Academic Publishing, 2021.
Complete accounts of Barbara’s case may also be found in Harold P. Adolph, MD and Mark D. Williams, MD, Today’s Decisions, Tomorrow’s Destiny, White Birch, 1999, 48-49 and Scott Kolbaba, MD, Physician’s Untold Stories: Miraculous Experiences Doctors are Hesitant to Share with Their Patients, or Anyone! CreateSpace, 2016.
A YouTube video with documentation and interview segments may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQs4zzfOAHc.
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