Prayer Research
Home Blog: Pysanky Gallery Contact
Blog Post #76
"In perhaps the most rigidly controlled scientific study ever done on the effects of prayer, cardiologist Randolph Byrd, formerly a University of California professor, has shown that prayer works and that it can be a powerful force in healing.”
— Larry Dossey, M.D., Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and Spiritual Search
Excerpts from Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and Spiritual Search
“During Dr. Byrd’s ten-month study on prayer, a computer assigned 393 patients admitted to the coronary care unit at San Francisco General Hospital either to a group that was prayed for by home prayer groups (192 patients) or to a group that was not remembered in prayer (201 patients)… It was a randomized, prospective, double-blind experiment in which neither the patients, nurses, nor doctors knew which group the patients were in.
“Dr. Byrd recruited Roman Catholic and Protestant groups around the country to pray for members of that designated group. Those recruited were each given the names of five to seven patients, something of their condition, and were simply asked to pray for them each day… The frequency and duration of the prayers, the nature of the images held in the mind, and the specific goals of the prayers were left to the preference of each prayer recruiter involved… The results were remarkable:
The prayed-for patients were five times less likely than the control group (not receiving prayers) to require antibiotics (three patients compared to sixteen).
They were five times less likely to develop pulmonary edema, a consequence of the heart failing to pump properly (six compared to eighteen patients).
None of the prayed-for group required endotracheal intubation (mechanical ventilation), while 12 in the control group required this support.
Fewer patients in the prayed-for group died (although the difference in this area was not statistically significant).
“If what was being studied had been a new drug or a surgical procedure instead of prayer, it would almost certainly have been heralded as some sort of breakthrough.
“This study suggests that something about the mind allows it to intervene in distant happenings, such as the clinical course of patients in a coronary care unit hundreds or thousands of miles away… In this prayer study the degree of spatial separation did not seem to matter… When the mind works — here via prayer — distance is not a factor. Healers need not to be on site, close at hand, by the bedside or at the operating table.
“All major theistic religions have never confined God to a specific place.
He is everywhere. He transcends spatial confinement and location.
He is nonlocal, an attribute shared by our own minds.
“Thus we can say without hesitation that something about us is divine.”
Peace Affirming Prayer
Peace fills my mind and flows through all my thoughts.
Peace fills my heart and flows through all my love.
Peace fills my soul and goodwill flows to all.
Peace fills my being and permeates all my activities.
Peace within. Peace without. Peace everywhere.
Peace in my mind. Peace in my heart. Peace in my soul.
Peace in me. Peace in my home. Peace in my country. Peace in my world.
Peace everywhere.
Amen.
Ukrainian folklore characterizes pysanky as a symbolic, talismanic writing that invokes a higher Universal Power for help, while believing with faithful certainty that It will. The contemporary version of this characterization is a paper-and-pen journaling practice called prayer writing that develops a personal relationship with God.
Copyright © 2024 Nancy Kopack.
All rights reserved.