Studies on intercessory prayer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For a general discussion of the philosophical and religious issues, please see Efficacy of prayer
Efficacy of prayer
Determining the efficacy of prayer has been attempted in various studies since Francis Galton 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...

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Although religious beliefs are often untestable by the scientific method, some more specific claims can be tested in this manner. One such claim is that praying for somebody who is sick can have positive effects on their health.

Introduction

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.

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

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.

Byrd and Harris

A 1988 study by Randolph C. Byrd used 393 patients at the San Francisco General Hospital

San Francisco General Hospital

San Francisco General Hospital is the main public hospital in San Francisco, California, and the only Level I Trauma Center serving San Francisco and northern San Mateo County...

coronary care unit (CCU)

Coronary care unit

A coronary care unit is a hospital ward specialized in the care of patients with heart attacks, unstable angina, Cardiac dysrhythmia and various other cardiac conditions that require continuous monitoring and treatment.-Characteristics:...

. Measuring 29 health outcomes using three-level (good, intermediate, or bad) scoring, the prayer group suffered fewer newly diagnosed ailments on only six of them. Byrd concluded that "Based on these data there seemed to be an effect, and that effect was presumed to be beneficial", and that "intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU." The reaction from the scientific community concerning this study was mixed. Several reviewers considered Byrd’s study to be well-designed and well-executed, , while others remained skeptical. A criticism of Byrd's study, which also applies to most other studies, is based on the fact that he did not limit prayers by the friends and family of patients, hence it is unclear which prayers may have been measured, if any.

A 1999 follow-up by William S Harris et al. attempted to replicate Byrd's findings under stricter experimental conditions, noting that the original research was not completely blinded and was limited to only "prayer-receptive" individuals (57 of the 450 patients invited to participate in the study refused to give consent “for personal reasons or religious convictions”). Using a different, continuous weighted scoring system – which admittedly was, like Byrd's scoring, "an unvalidated measure of CCU outcomes" – Harris et al. concluded that "supplementary, remote, blinded, intercessory prayer produced a measurable improvement in the medical outcomes of critically ill patients", and suggested that "prayer be an
effective adjunct to standard medical care.” However, when they applied Byrd’s scores to their data, they could not document an effect of prayer using his scoring method. Critics have suggested that both Byrd's and Harris's results can be explained by chance. Psychiatrist Richard P. Sloan compared the Byrd and Harris studies with the sharpshooter fallacy

Texas sharpshooter fallacy

The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a logical fallacy in which pieces of information that have no relationship to one another are called out for their similarities, and that similarity is used for claiming the existence of a pattern. This fallacy is the philosophical/rhetorical application of the...

, "searching through the data until a significant effect is found, then drawing the bull's-eye."

O'Laoire

A 1997 study by O'Laoire measured the effects on the agents performing daily prayers and reported benefits not only for the beneficiary, but the agents, and the benefit levels correlated with the belief levels of agents and beneficiaries in some cases. The study measured anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...

and depression

Depression (mood)

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...

. This study used beneficiary names as well as photographs.

Mayo clinic

A 2001 double-blind study at the Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group specializing in treating difficult patients . Patients are referred to Mayo Clinic from across the U.S. and the world, and it is known for innovative and effective treatments. Mayo Clinic is known for being at the top of...

randomized 799 discharged coronary surgery patients into a control

Scientific control

Scientific control allows for comparisons of concepts. It is a part of the scientific method. Scientific control is often used in discussion of natural experiments. For instance, during drug testing, scientists will try to control two groups to keep them as identical and normal as possible, then...

group and an intercessory prayer group, which received prayers at least once a week from 5 intercessors per patient. Analyzing "primary end points" (death, cardiac arrest, rehospitalization, etc.) after 26 weeks, the researchers concluded "intercessory prayer had no significant effect on medical outcomes after hospitalization in a coronary care unit."

The IVF-ET prayer scandal

In 2001 the Journal of Reproductive Medicine published an experimental study by three Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

researchers which claimed that prayer for women undergoing in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) resulted in a double success rate (50%) of pregnancy

Pregnancy

Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...

compared to that of women who did not receive prayer. Columbia University

Columbia University

issued a news release claiming that the study was carefully designed to eliminate bias

Bias

Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...

. The most important skeptic was Bruce Flamm, a clinical professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University of California at Irvine

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

, who not only found the experimental procedures flawed, but also discovered that some of the authors themselves were frauds. The first-named author Kwang Y. Cha never responded to any inquiries. Daniel Wirth, a.k.a. John Wayne Truelove, is not an M.D. but an M.S. in parapsychology

Parapsychology

The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...

who has since been indicted on felony

Felony

A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...

charges for mail fraud and theft, committed apparently at the time the study was claimed to be conducted, and he pled guilty. On November 22, 2004, Wirth was sentenced to five years in prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

followed by three years of supervised release (parole

Parole

Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...

). In December 2001 an investigation of Columbia University

Columbia University

by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) revealed that the study’s lead author, Dr. Rogerio Lobo, first learned of the study six to twelve months after the study was completed, and he subsequently denied having anything to do with the study’s design or conduct and claimed to have provided only editorial assistance. The name of Columbia University

Columbia University

and Lobo were retracted.

Retroactive intercessory prayer

A 2001 study by Leonard Leibovici used records of 3393 patients who developed blood infections at the Rabin Medical Center

Rabin Medical Center

The Rabin Medical Center is a medical center in Petah Tikva, Israel. It is currently the second largest medical center in Israel after Sheba Medical Center, having lost the title of largest in 2006...

from 1990-1996 to study retroactive intercessory prayer. To compound the alleged miraculous power of prayer itself, the prayers were performed after the patients had already left the hospital

Rabin Medical Center

. All 3393 patients were those in the hospital

Rabin Medical Center

between 1990 and 1996, and the prayers were conducted in 2000. Two of the outcomes, length of stay in the hospital and duration of fever, were found to be significantly improved in the intervention group, implying that prayer can even change events in the past. However, the "mortality rate

Mortality rate

Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...

was lower in the intervention group, but the difference between the groups was not significant." Leibovici concluded that "Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer was associated with a shorter stay in hospital and a shorter duration of fever in patients with a bloodstream infection." Leibovici goes on to note that in the past, people knew the way to prevent diseases (he cites scurvy) without understanding why it worked. In saying so, he suggests that if prayer truly does have a positive effect on patients in hospital, then there may be a naturalist explanation for it that we do not yet understand. After many scientists and scholars criticized this retroactive study, Leibovici later stated that it was "intended lightheartedly to illustrate the importance of asking research questions that fit with scientific models."

The MANTRA study

A 2005 MANTRA (Monitoring and Actualisation of Noetic

Noetic theory

In traditional philosophy, noëtics is a branch of metaphysical philosophy concerned with the study of mind and intellect...

Trainings) II study conducted a three year clinical trial led by Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

comparing intercessory prayer and MIT (Music, Imagery, and Touch) therapies for 748 cardiology patients. The study is regarded as the first time rigorous scientific protocols are applied on a large scale to assess the feasibility of intercessory prayer and other healing practices. It produced null results and the authors concluded, "Neither masked prayer nor MIT therapy significantly improved clinical outcome after elective catheterization or percutaneous coronary intervention." Neither study specified if photographs were used, or if belief levels were measured in the agents or those performing the prayers.

The STEP project

A 2006 "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP)" led by Harvard professor

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

Herbert Benson

Herbert Benson, M.D. , is an American cardiologist and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He graduated from Wesleyan University and Harvard Medical School....

was by far the most comprehensive and rigorous investigation of third-party prayer to date. The STEP, commonly called the "Templeton Foundation prayer study or "Great Prayer Experiment", used 1,802 coronary artery bypass surgery

Coronary artery bypass surgery

Coronary artery bypass surgery, also coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and colloquially heart bypass or bypass surgery is a surgical procedure performed to relieve angina and reduce the risk of death from coronary artery disease...

patients at six hospitals. Using double-blind

Double-blind

A blind or blinded experiment is a scientific experiment where some of the people involved are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead to conscious or subconscious bias on their part, invalidating the results....

protocols, patients were randomized into three random groups, but without measuring individual prayer receptiveness. The experimental and control Groups 1 and 2 were informed they may or may not receive prayers, and only Group 1 received them. Group 3, which tested for possible psychosomatic effects, was informed they would receive prayers and subsequently did. Unlike some other studies, STEP attempted to standardize the prayer method. Only first names and last initial for patients were provided and no photographs were supplied. The congregations of three Christian churches

Local church

A local church is a Christian congregation of members and clergy.Local church may also refer to:* Local churches , a Christian group based on the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, and associated with the Living Stream Ministry publishing house.* Parish church, a local church united with...

who prayed for the patients "were allowed to pray in their own manner, but they were instructed to include the following phrase in their prayers: 'for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications'. Some participants complained that this mechanical way they were told to pray as part of the experiment was unusual for them. Major complications

Complication (medicine)

Complication, in medicine, is an unfavorable evolution of a disease, a health condition or a medical treatment. The disease can become worse in its severity or show a higher number of signs, symptoms or new pathological changes, become widespread throughout the body or affect other organ systems. A...

and thirty-day mortality occurred in 52 percent of those who received prayer (Group 1), 51 percent of those who did not receive it (Group 2), and 59 percent of patients who knew they would receive prayers (Group 3). Some prayed-for patients fared worse than those who did not receive prayers. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

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

wrote, "It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, 'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?'" Study co-author Jeffery Dusek stated that: "Each study builds on others, and STEP advanced the design beyond what had been previously done. The findings, however, could well be due to the study limitations." Team leader Benson stated that STEP was not the last word on the effects of intercessory prayer and that questions raised by the study will require additional answers.

Reviews

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. Finally, and most importantly, this 2003 review was done before the two most scientifically rigorous investigations, namely, the 2005 MANTRA study and the 2006 STEP project, both of which strongly support the conclusion that intercessory prayer is not effective."

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