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Prayer Experiments
Prayer and the human body
The most widely publicized study on prayer-based healing is the one performed by cardiologist, Randolph Byrd. He studied 393 patients admitted to the coronary care unit at San Francisco General Medical Center between August 1982 and May 1983. Using a computer generated list, he randomly divided the patients into two groups. 192 patients, along with standard medical care, were prayed for. The other 201 patients were just given the standard medical care and were not prayed for. None of the patients, hospital staff, doctors or nurses knew which patient belonged to which group. The people who prayed for them were given the patient's first name, diagnosis, and general condition, along with updates on their condition. Prayer was done outside the hospital daily until the patient was discharged from the hospital. All patients signed a consent form letting them know that they may or may not be in the group that was being prayed for.
The results of that study were dramatic and surprised many scientists. It showed that the patients that were prayed for suffered less congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema, 5 times less likely to require antibiotics, had fewer episodes of pneumonia, had fewer cardiac arrests, and were less likely to have tubes inserted in their throats to assist breathing.
Prayer and a blade of grass
One of the most dramatic experiments of distant healing involved a single blade of grass. Dr. Robert Miller, a chemist, had been conducting experiments on the growth rate of rye grass under different lighting conditions. He used an extremely sensitive instrument, capable of measuring the growth rate of grass, to accuracy within thousandths of an inch per hour. By maintaining constant lighting, temperature and watering conditions, Miller was able to measure a relatively constant growth rate in the plant of about .006 inches per hour.
Miller met a couple who was known for their distant healings. He asked them to attempt to mentally affect the growth a single blade of rye grass. A date was fixed, and the time was set for the regular prayer time of 9:00 P.M. The couple prayed for the plant, visualizing a white light around it which would help it growing vigorously. Their home was over 500 miles away from the lab. Here's what Dr. Miller says about the graph representing the plant's growth:
"All through the evening and up until 9:00 P.M the trace was a straight line with a slope which represented a growth rate of .00625 inches per hour. At exactly 9:00 pm the trace began deviating upward and by 8:00 am the next morning the growth rate was .0525 inches per hour, a growth rate increase of 830%."
Prayer and blood cells
In his 1994 book, Healing Words, Larry Dossey, M.D., cites a number of studies that have researched the effects of prayer and healing.
At the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, researchers took blood samples from 32 volunteers, isolated their red blood cells (RBCS) and placed the samples in a room on the other side of the building. Then, the researchers placed the RBCS in a solution designed to swell and burst them, a process that can be measured extremely accurately. Next the researchers asked the volunteers to pray for the preservation of some of the RBCS. To help them visualize, the researchers projected color slides of healthy RBCS. The praying significantly slowed the swelling and bursting of the RBCS.
Prayer and Mood
In another study at the Mind Science Foundation, volunteers in a room on one side of the building were asked to visualize volunteers in a room on the other side of the building becoming calmer or more agitated. Meanwhile, the "receivers" were hooked up to biofeedback-type equipment to gauge their reactions. The results showed that the "influencers" exerted a statistically significant effect on the receivers' moods.
Most of us do not need to conduct a double-blind study on prayer to know the impact it can have on our lives. If you would like people to pray for your marriage, please take a few minutes and make your own prayer request.
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