The doctor who almost single-handedly legitimized the study of
prayer inmedicine now talks about prayer's surprising shadow side.
I grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt--the fundamentalist
county of Limestone, Texas, where a lot of praying went all the time. I
remember once when I was six years old, a young preacher was discoursing
on the fires of hell in a tiny, country church, on a cold, wintry
night--perhaps to warm up the room. There were about 12 folks in
attendance.
For nearly 30 minutes he described Satan and the flames of eternal
damnation, and began to beat on the pulpit to simulate the drums of hell.
At the climax of his sermon he had someone turn off all the lights as he
lapsed into prayer for lost sinners. My six-year-old mind was utterly
hypnotized by fear, and when the invitation for salvation was offered, I
numbly stumbled forward--only half-conscious-to be saved.
I learned early on that there could be a raw, brutal edge to
religion and prayer. Even though I moved beyond this spiritual territory
as I grew older, I carried with me a legacy I consider very important--an
enduring interest in prayer. It's impossible to grow up in a
fundamentalist environment and not be fascinated by the capacity of
prayer to catalyze change in people's lives. For me, prayer remains one
of the most effective methods of finding meaning, because it is a way of
contacting a dimension of experience that seems wiser, deeper, and more
real than an individual sense of self.
Claims that people can actually influence the health and well-being
of others through prayer are often met with skepticism and derision. As
one of my colleagues remarked, "This is the kind of thing I would not
believe even if it existed." Yet it does exist. I've written at length
about the astonishing capacity of prayer to heal, even over long
distances and when the recipient does not know they are being prayed for.
It's unclear how any form of energy currently known to modern physics can
account for the distant influence of prayer, but abundant anecdotal and
experimental evidence supports this phenomenon.
I stumbled onto the research about prayer and healing in 1988, when
I read a study by Randolph Byrd, M.D., a cardiologist at the University
of California at San Francisco School of Medicine. Dr. Byrd tested the
impact of distant prayer much like a new medication, recording its
effects on 393 patients who all had severe chest pains and/or heart
attacks; half were prayed for, and half were not. The prayed-for group
required fewer antibiotics (three in the prayed-for group, compared to 17
in the group not prayed for), had less need for mechanical respirators
(zero compared to 12), required fewer diuretics (five compared to 15),
suffered less congestive heart failure (eight compared to 20),
experienced less cardiopulmonary arrest (three compared to 14), and fell
ill with pneumonia less often (three compared to 13).
This study does not stand alone. David Larson, M.D., formerly at
the National Institutes of Health, and now director of the National
Institute for Healthcare Research, a private research organization in
Rockville, Maryland, which explores the role of religious practice in
health, has reviewed over 200 studies examining the role of faith and
religion on health. In the majority of cases, faith is beneficial.
In 1995, a pilot study on the use of distant healing and prayer for
AIDS patients was initiated by psychiatrist Elisabeth Targ, M.D.,
clinical director of psychosocial oncology research at California Pacific
Medical Center in San Francisco. Twenty patients with advanced AIDS were
randomly selected, and half received 10 weeks of distant healing from 20
professional healers across the country. Blood and psychological tests
were administered before and after the study, as well as three months
later. Results were encouraging, and Dr. Targ is now conducting a larger
study involving 60 AIDS patients and healers. She's also seeking funds
for a similar study with breast cancer. It is studies such shed light on
the way that prayer can be alongside conventional medicine.
SCIENCE AND SUPPLICATION
Prayer, when studied, usually has positive results. But what about
prayer's capacity to harm? Most people choose to believe that thoughts
and prayers work positively or not at all. But we cannot hide from the
mind's power to harm. Everyone is aware of the placebo response--the
impact of positive belief. But the flip side of this phenomenon is the
nocebo effect, the ability of negative beliefs and expectations to cause
harm. For example, in a provocative British study of patients with
stomach cancer, patients thought they were taking a chemotherapy drug,
but were actually receiving a placebo. One-third developed nausea,
one-fifth developed vomiting, and almost one-third lost their hair. (This
study was conducted with the patients' consent, and they were ultimately
given the proper drugs.)
Tags:
30 minutes,
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climax,
derision,
doctor who,
eternal damnation,
fires of hell,
flames,
invitation,
limestone,
long distances,
medicine,
negative prayer,
prayer,
preacher,
pulpit,
religion,
sermon,
shadow side,
skepticism,
tiny country,
violence,
wintry night
