Determining the efficacy of prayer has been attempted in various studies since Francis Galton

Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...

 first addressed it in 1872. Some studies have reported benefit, some have reported harm, and some have found no benefit from the act of praying. Others suggest that the topic is outside the realm of science altogether. According to the Washington Post, "...prayer is the most common complement to mainstream medicine, far outpacing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies."

To date, scientific and religious views on the efficacy of prayer do not agree, and much controversy still surrounds the subject. Medical studies have, at times, been interpreted in conflicting ways by different groups while other studies have been specifically designed to clear up such ambiguities, meanwhile debate continues regarding the confounding variables in some studies.

Religious groups have objected to the very measurement of the efficacy of prayer and believe that what the studies measure is mechanical rather than real prayer. On the issue of intercessory prayer Christian teaching have emphasized the need for guidance from the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...

 as to what needs to be prayed for and have taught that "God can not be coerced."

The philosophical controversy on this topic even involves the basic issues of statistical inference and falsifiability

Falsifiability

Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...

 as to what it may mean to "prove" or "disprove" something, and the problem of demarcation

Demarcation problem

The demarcation problem in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science. The boundaries are commonly drawn between science and non-science, between science and pseudoscience, between science and philosophy and between science and religion...

, i.e., as to whether this topic is even within the realm of science at all.

In comparison to other fields that have been scientifically studied, carefully monitored studies of prayer are relatively few. The field remains tiny, with about $5 million spent worldwide on such research. If and when more studies of prayer are done, the issue of prayer's efficacy may be further clarified.

Studies on the efficacy of prayer

A number of studies have been performed to scientifically measure the impact of prayer, often within a medical setting. The studies performed have used different structural methods and measured both hard data (such as blood pressure variations) and soft data such as anxiety levels and number of doctor visits. They have measured first person effects (where the beneficiary performs the prayer) second person effects (where someone with a personal connection to the beneficiary performs the prayer) and third party effects where a group of unknown people pray for the beneficiary.

What can be measured?

Almost all second and third party studies have focused on intercessory prayers or direct petitions to God, while first person studies have measured meditative prayers as well. In general, the requested outcome for a prayer as petition may be either an event in the physical world, e.g. the recovery of a person from an ailment, or an event in the spiritual world, e.g. the repose of a soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

 via a prayer for the dead

Prayer for the dead

Wherever there is a belief in the continued existence of man's personality through and after death, religion naturally concerns itself with the relations between the living and the dead...

. There are, of course, also certain types of prayer whose efficacy can not (by definition) be measured in the physical world, e.g. Roman Catholic tradition includes specific prayers and devotions as acts of reparation

Acts of reparation

In the Roman Catholic tradition, an Act of Reparation is a prayer or devotion with the intent to repair the "sins of others", e.g. for the repair of the sin of blasphemy, the sufferings of Jesus Christ or as Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary...

which do not involve a petition for a living or deceased beneficiary, but aim to repair the sins of others, e.g. for the repair of the sin of blasphemy

Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ

Roman Catholic tradition includes specific prayers and devotions as Acts of Reparation for insults and blasphemies against Jesus Christ and the Holy Name of Jesus. These include the sufferings during the Passion of Jesus...

. All medical studies mentioned below relate to events in the physical world, typically in terms of human effects, rather than inanimate effects such as "prayer for rain".

Study parameters

In most cases, the parameters measured within the medical studies cited here have not been all-encompassing from scientific or religious view points. Some of the mental elements, such as reverence, which are emphasized by religious figures such as popes and saints have not been measured. The studies have also not measured whether meditation prior to prayer affects the outcome.

The studies cited here have also generally not measured physical parameters, such as "proximity to the nearest place of common worship", e.g. does a prayer by a Christian within a church have more effect than outside a church? Does it vary by the size of church? Does the effect increase or decrease if the Christian prays inside a Buddhist temple? What about a Buddhist praying in a church? Do prayers during Christmas have more or less effect than at other times of the year? And the distance between the beneficiary and the location of the prayer has not been clarified in the studies, e.g. does prayer for a person who is a continent away have the same effect as prayers for a person who is inches away? Does the "skill level" of the person praying have an effect on the outcome as stipulated by Wisneski and Anderson in their book The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine?

Wisneski and Anderson also hypothesize that different individuals have varying "prayer aptitude levels", just as different people have varying levels of athletic ability, and that the effect of prayer is the combined effects of ability and training. Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

 echoed that sentiment when he said: "We have to learn to pray: as if were learning this art ever anew." And he opposed "mechanical prayer" and emphasized the need for self reflection before prayer. The familiarity of the person praying with the words and method of praying, and their distraction level before they start to pray is not measured as a parameter in some studies.

The reverence with which the prayer is recited has been emphasized by other religious writers, such as St. Louis de Montfort

Louis de Montfort

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort was canonized in 1947. He was a French priest and known in his time as a preacher and author, whose books, still widely read, have influenced a number of popes....

 in his book Secret of the Rosary

Secret of the Rosary

The Secret of the Rosary is a book about the Holy Rosary written by Saint Louis de Montfort a French priest and Catholic saint who died in 1716. The English translation of the book bears the Imprimatur of Archbishop Thomas E...

. In section 41 he emphasized the “purity of intention” and stated that it is not the length of a prayer that matters, but the fervor, purity and respect with which it is said, e.g. a single properly said Hail Mary

Hail Mary

The Angelic Salutation, Hail Mary, or Ave Maria is a traditional biblical Catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Hail Mary is used within the Catholic Church, and it forms the basis of the Rosary...

 is worth many that are badly said. Sections 42 and 43 of Montfort's book are devoted to "Attention" and “Fighting Distractions”.

First person studies

An example of a study on meditative prayer was the Bernardi study in the British Medical Journal in 2001. It reported that by praying the rosary or reciting yoga mantras at specific rates, baroreflex

Baroreflex

The baroreflex or baroreceptor reflex is one of the body's homeostatic mechanisms for maintaining blood pressure. It provides a negative feedback loop in which an elevated blood pressure reflexively causes heart rate to decrease therefore causing blood pressure to decrease; likewise, decreased...

 sensitivity increased significantly in cardiovascular patients.

A study published in 2008 used Eysenck

Eysenck

Eysenck is a surname, and may refer to*Hans Jürgen Eysenck , psychology professor*Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, a psychological test developed by Hans Eysenck*Michael Eysenck , psychology professor, son of Hans...

's dimensional model of personality

Personality psychology

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...

 based on neuroticism

Neuroticism

Neuroticism is a fundamental personality trait in the study of psychology. It is an enduring tendency to experience negative emotional states. Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than the average to experience such feelings as anxiety, anger, guilt, and depressed mood...

 and psychoticism

Psychoticism

Psychoticism is one of the three traits used by the psychologist Hans Eysenck in his P-E-N model model of personality. Psychoticism refers to a personality pattern typified by aggressiveness and interpersonal hostility.High levels of this trait were believed by Eysenck to be linked to increased...

 to assess the mental health of high school students based on their self-reported frequency of prayer. For students both in Catholic and Protestant schools, higher levels of prayer were associated with better mental health as measured by lower psychoticism scores. However, among pupils attending Catholic schools, higher levels of prayer were also associated with higher neuroticism scores.

Many accept that prayer can aid in recovery, not due to divine influence but due to psychological and physical benefits. It has also been suggested that if a person knows that he or she is being prayed for it can be uplifting and increase morale, thus aiding recovery. (See Subject-expectancy effect

Subject-expectancy effect

The subject-expectancy effect, is a form of reactivity that occurs in scientific experiments or medical treatments when a research subject or patient expects a given result and therefore unconsciously affects the outcome, or reports the expected result...

.) Many studies have suggested that prayer can reduce physical stress, regardless of the god or gods a person prays to, and this may be true for many non-supernatural reasons. According to a study by Centra State Hospital, "the psychological benefits of prayer may help reduce stress and anxiety, promote a more positive outlook, and strengthen the will to live." Other practices such as Yoga

Yoga

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...

, T'ai chi, and Meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

 may also have a positive impact on physical and psychological health.

A 2001 study by Meisenhelder and Chandler analyzed data obtained from 1,421 Presbyterian pastors surveyed by mail and found that their self-reported frequency of prayer was well-correlated with their self-perception of health and vitality. This research methodology has inherent problems with self-selection

Self-selection

In statistics, self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with nonprobability sampling...

, selection bias

Selection bias

Selection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...

, and residual confounding, and the authors admitted that the direction of perceived prayer and health relationships "remains inconclusive due to the limits of the correlational research design".

A 2008 study by Bhutkar, et al. considered only 78 subjects, but concluded that the regular practice of Surya Namaskar had a positive impact on cardio-respiratory health.

Second person studies

One condition that may affect the efficacy of intercessory prayer is whether the person praying has a connection to the person prayed for. A 2005 study published by The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine alleges evidence that eleven healers in a variety of "distant intentionality" (defined as "sending thoughts at a distance") modalities were able to remotely influence the MRI

Magnetic resonance imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , or magnetic resonance tomography is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures...

-measurable brain activity in chosen partners who were physically and electrically isolated. As the authors explained, "the study is not about healing per se, but whether there is some correlation in the intention to connect at a distance with a person." The experiment has not yet been reproduced by the authors or by others.

Third party studies

The Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 scientist Francis Galton

Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...

 made the first statistical analysis

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 of third-party prayer. He hypothesized, partly as satire, that if prayer was effective, members of the British Royal Family

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...

 would live longer than average, given that thousands prayed for their well-being every Sunday, and he prayed over randomized plots of land to see if the plants would grow any faster, and found no correlation in either case.

The third party studies discussed here have all been performed using Christian prayers. Some have reported null

Null

-In computing:* Null , a special marker and keyword in SQL* Null character, the zero-valued ASCII character, also designated by NUL, often used as a terminator, separator or filler* Null device, a special computer file that discards all data written to it...

 results, some have reported correlations between prayer and health, and some have reported contradictory results in which beneficiaries of prayer had worsened health outcomes. The parameters used within the study designs have varied, for instance, daily or weekly prayers, whether to provide patient photographs, with full or partial names, measuring levels of belief in prayer, and whether patients underwent surgery.

A 2003 levels of evidence

Levels of evidence

Levels of evidence is a ranking system used in evidence-based practices to describe the strength of the results measured in a clinical trial or research study. The design of the study and the endpoints measured affect the strength of the evidence...

 review found some evidence for the hypothesis that "Being prayed for improves physical recovery from acute illness". It concluded that although "a number of studies" have tested this hypothesis, "only three have sufficient rigor for review here" (Byrd 1988, Harris et al. 1999, and Sicher et al. 1998). In all three, "the strongest findings were for the variables that were evaluated most subjectively. This raises concerns about the possible inadvertent unmasking of the outcomes assessors. Moreover, the absence of a clearly plausible biological mechanism by which such a treatment could influence hard medical outcome results in the inclination to be skeptical of results."

Medical skepticism

An article in the Medical Journal of Australia says that "One common criticism of prayer research is that prayer has become a popular therapeutic method for which there is no known plausible mechanism."

Some medical professionals are skeptical of new claims by studies until they have been experimentally reproduced and corroborated. For instance, a 2001 study by researchers associated with Columbia University has been associated with controversy, following claims of success in the popular media.

Medical hopes

In the early 20th century, Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...

, a pioneer of modern nursing, was a believer in the effects of prayer. She wrote, "Often when people seem unconscious, a word of prayer reaches them".

Today, the fact that different medical studies have been at odds with each other has not stopped physicians from studying or recommending prayer. According to Larry Dossey M.D.: "In 1993, only three U.S. medical schools had courses devoted to exploring the role of religious practice and prayer in health; currently, nearly 80 medical schools have instituted such courses", though many factors other than the efficacy of prayer are involved in such courses.

Different approaches to medicine

Apart from traditional medicine, alternative approaches based on prayer have been proposed. Prayer is becoming increasingly used in approaches to healing. For instance, Larry Dossey claims that there will be three eras of medicine, the first dealing with physical medicine (where patients take pills), the second with mind-body medicine (where the body treats itself through psychosomatic methods) and the third with eternity medicine in which patients are affected from a distance via intercessory prayer.

Skepticism on scope of prayer

In a debate/interview in Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

 with Christian evangelical Rick Warren

Rick Warren

Richard Duane "Rick" Warren is an American evangelical Christian minister and author. He is the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch located in Lake Forest, California, currently the eighth-largest church in the United States...

, atheist Sam Harris

Sam Harris (author)

Sam Harris is an American author, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and current CEO of Project Reason. He received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Stanford University, before receiving a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA...

 commented that most lay perceptions of the efficacy of prayer (personal impressions as opposed to empirical studies) were related to sampling error

Sampling error

-Random sampling:In statistics, sampling error or estimation error is the error caused by observing a sample instead of the whole population. The sampling error can be found by subtracting the value of a parameter from the value of a statistic...

 because "we know that humans have a terrible sense of probability." That is, humans are more inclined to recognize confirmations of their faith than they are to recognize disconfirmations.

Harris also criticized existing empirical studies for limiting themselves to prayers for relatively unmiraculous events, like recovery from heart surgery. He suggested a simple experiment to settle the issue:

Get a billion Christians to pray for a single amputee. Get them to pray that God regrow that missing limb. This happens to salamanders every day, presumably without prayer; this is within the capacity of God. I find it interesting that people of faith only tend to pray for conditions that are self-limiting.

Within Christian teachings, the comment by Harris regarding what he called the self-limiting nature of prayer had been addressed years before by multiple authors. For instance, in the 19th century William Peabody discussed the efficacy of prayer in the face of what he called the immutability of the laws of nature. He said:

Night follows day, and day night. The seasons preserve their succession... We may not hope to suspend their operation by our prayers... And yet notwithstanding all of this, we hold in an undoubting faith the doctrine of the efficacy of our prayers, or to use the language of another, "of an influence from above as diversified and unceasing as are the requests from below".

Peabody then argued at length that prayers may have efficacy in a form that does not interfere with the arrangement of the laws of nature, and that God may respond in ways that are not anticipated, without changing the arrangement of nature. George Burnap echoed the same concept when he wrote:

God governs the universe by fixed and uniform laws, not only for the sake of order, but for
human good... The fulfillment of every human desire would break up this order, and
bring everything into disorder and confusion.

Prayers and miracles

The view expressed by Harris above regarding the "relatively unmiraculous" petitions used in prayers has been addressed in religious circles in the context of miraculous outcomes for prayer. There are different theological classifications of miracles, one of the most common being the three categories: "surpassing nature" (Latin supra naturam), "against nature" (Latin contra naturam) and "alongside nature" (Latin praeter naturam).

The raising of the dead is considered a "supra naturam" event and is not reported
in theological writings beyond the gospels. Contra naturam events require significant changes to the "order of the world" (e.g. regrowth of limbs) and are also hardly ever reported. Praeter naturam events can proceed along the laws of nature. They have been reported in a number of cases, and have been subject to a large amount of debate. Examples include the claims of miraculous cures at pilgrimage site such as Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes is the name used to refer to the Marian apparition said to have appeared before various individuals on separate occasions around Lourdes, France...

. Many of these claims have been analyzed and only a few have been accepted by the Lourdes Medical Bureau

Lourdes Medical Bureau

The Lourdes Medical Bureau is a medical organization based in Lourdes, France. It is an official organization within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, but is administered and run only by doctors...

.

Massive prayer

The scientific measurement of the efficacy of massive prayer requires the coordination of the activities of a large number of people, and no direct citations for the existence of such studies appear in the scientific literature. However, non-scientific instructions for massive prayer have been issued in the past, and conclusions about the effects of the prayer have been drawn by a large number of believers, outside a scientific framework.

In a historical context, in 1571 Pope Pius V

Pope Pius V

Pope Saint Pius V , born Antonio Ghislieri , was Pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman liturgy within the Latin Church...

 called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary

Rosary

The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...

 for victory at the Battle of Lepanto

Battle of Lepanto (1571)

The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic maritime states, decisively defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece...

, in which the Christian belligerents included the Papal States

Papal States

The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

. Trophies from the battle are now enshrined in various Christian churches which attribute the victory to the massive prayers. For a scientific test, the battle would need to be repeated several times, in similar weather conditions, with each side refraining from prayer, or performing different types of prayers with varying degrees of effort over different time periods.

Directions for even more massive, long term prayers were provided by the messages of Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fátima is a famous title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary as she appeared in apparitions reported by three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal. These occurred on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13...

 reported by Lucia Santos

Lúcia Santos

Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos – Sister Mary Lucy of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart, better known as Sister Lúcia of Fátima – was a Roman Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun from Portugal...

, who stated that the Virgin Mary specifically asked believers to pray for the conversion of Russia. The 9 day Fatima Novena prayer includes a petition for the conversion of Russia

Consecration of Russia

The Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a belief in the Roman Catholic Church that a specific act of consecration on the part of the Pope has been required by the Virgin Mary in return for which there would be world peace....

. With a blessing from Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....

 (who called himself "the world chief against communism") millions of members of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima

Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima

The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima is a public international association of the Christian faithful that has as its general purpose "the promotion of the authentic teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the strict adherence to the tenets of the Gospel; the personal sanctification of adherents...

 were instructed to pray for several years in publications such as Soul Magazine. Some Christians attribute the fall of communism in the Revolutions of 1989

Revolutions of 1989

The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...

 to massive prayers, while economists attribute them to market forces and socioeconomic conditions.

Religious and philosophical issues

Religious and philosophical objections to the very study of prayer's efficacy exist. Some interpret Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...

(6:16 "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test") to mean that prayer cannot, or should not, be examined.

The religious viewpoint objects to the claim that prayer is susceptible to experimental designs or statistical analysis, and other assumptions in many experiments, e.g. that a thousand prayers are statistically different from one. The objections also include the complaint that religion generally deals with unique, uncontrollable events; statistics, and science in general, deal with recurring phenomena which are possible to sample or control and are susceptible to general laws.

Religious objections also include the complaint that as prayer starts to be measured, it is no longer real prayer once it gets involved in an experiment and that the concept of conducting prayer experiments reflects a misunderstanding of the purpose of prayer. The 2006 STEP experiment indicated that some of the intercessors who took part in it complained about the scripted nature of the prayers that were imposed to them, saying that this is not the way they usually conduct prayer:

With respect to expectation of a response to prayer, the 18th-century philosopher William Paley

William Paley

William Paley was a British Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy .-Life:Paley was Born in Peterborough, England, and was...

 wrote:

To pray for particular favors is to dictate to Divine Wisdom, and savors of presumption; and to intercede for other individuals or for nations, is to presume that their happiness depends upon our choice, and that the prosperity of communities hangs upon our interest.

During the 20th-century, philosopher Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

 believed that religion and science "have long been at war, claiming for themselves the same territory, ideas and allegiances". And Russell believed that the war had been decisively won
by science. Almost 40 years earlier, a 22 year old Russell also wrote: "For although I had long ceased to believe in the efficacy of prayer, I was so lonely and so in need of some supporter such as the Christian God, that I took to saying prayers again when I ceased to believe in their efficacy."
The 21st-century evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...

, describing how Richard Swinburne

Richard Swinburne

Richard G. Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and...

 explained away the STEP experiment's negative results "on the grounds that God answers prayers only if they are offered up for good reasons", says that some elements of religion are testable.

Other theologians joined NOMA

Non-overlapping magisteria

Non-overlapping magisteria is the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that "science and religion do not glower at each other... [but] interdigitate in patterns of complex fingering, and at every fractal scale of self-similarity." He suggests, with examples, that "NOMA enjoys strong and fully...

-inspired sceptics in contending that studying prayer in this way is a waste of money because supernatural influences are by definition beyond the reach of science. But as the Templeton Foundation correctly recognized when it financed the study, the alleged power of intercessory prayer is at least in principle within the reach of science. A double-blind experiment can be done and was done. It could have yielded a positive result. And if it had, can you imagine that a single religious apologist would have dismissed it on the grounds that scientific research has no bearing on religious matters? Of course not.

The Holy Spirit and Christian teachings

Christian authors have contended for long that the efficacy of prayer involves the action of the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...

, e.g. referring to the Gospel of Luke

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

 , John Tillotson

John Tillotson

John Tillotson was an Archbishop of Canterbury .-Curate and rector:Tillotson was the son of a Puritan clothier at Haughend, Sowerby, Yorkshire. He entered as a pensioner of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1647, graduated in 1650 and was made fellow of his college in 1651...

 a 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

 argued at length that the efficacy of prayer depends on the Holy Spirit. Moreover, Christian teachings suggest that the person praying needs to be "guided by the Holy Spirit" as to what needs to be prayed for, and that given the "right petition", the Holy Spirit will then intercede for the prayer.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official text of the teachings of the Catholic Church. A provisional, "reference text" was issued by Pope John Paul II on October 11, 1992 — "the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council" — with his apostolic...

 re-iterates this teaching:

"Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man." "The Holy Spirit who teaches the Church and recalls to her all that Jesus said also instructs her in the life of prayer, inspiring new expressions of the prayer: blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise.". "Christian prayer is a communion of love with the Father, not only through Christ but also in him". "The father gives us when our prayer is united with that of Jesus 'another Counselor, to be with [us] for ever', the Spirit of Truth." "The [Holy] Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sights too deep for words."

"One enters into prayer by the narrow gate of faith. It is the face of the Lord that we seek and desire; it is his Word that we want to hear and keep" "Once committed to conversion, the heart learns to pray in faith. Faith is a filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. It is possible because the Son gives us access to the Father. He can ask us to 'seek' and to 'knock', since he himself is the door and the way.

In Christian teachings, prayer is not possible in a subject-object dichotomy where the person is separated from God, for God cannot be the object of a prayer without being at the same time the subject. On the specific issue of intercessory prayer Christian authors have taught that "God can not be coerced, nor may ideas which are outside of his will be grafted onto his plan". The union between man and God happens because of the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit is the law in Christ Jesus for the Holy Spirit is for us the gift of Christ exalted in glory and signifies vital incorporation into Christ." The declaration Dominus Iesus

Dominus Iesus

Dominus Iesus is a declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was approved in a Plenary meeting of the Congregation, and bears the signature of its then Prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and of its then Secretary, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, now...

states:

The action of the Spirit is not outside or parallel to the action of Christ. There is only one salvific economy of the One and Triune God, realized in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, actualized with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, and extended in its salvific value to all humanity and to the entire universe: “No one, therefore, can enter into communion with God except through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit”.

In Christian teachings, it is the Holy Spirit who guarantees an authentic prayer for a petitioner who is not separate from Christ.