The Return of Prayer by Larry Dossey, MD Reprinted from Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine November 1997; 3(6):10-17, 113-120

[To] Salinas Peak...our Sacred Mountain...our medicine men go, not only for herbs, but for that far more efficacious instrument of healing which we call Power.  Just what Power is I cannot explain, for it is beyond my comprehension....It is a gift to be bestowed not only for virtue but for prayer and courage....
- - James Kaywaykla  

Margaret Mead, the noted anthropologist, once said, "Prayer does not use any artificial energy, it doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, it doesn't pollute."   It has another attribute Mead didn't mention, which should be of interest to all healthcare professionals:  It apparently works.  An impressive body of evidence suggests that prayer and religious devotion are associated with positive health outcomes.

As this information has become increasingly known, prayer is returning to medicine after sitting on the sidelines for most of this century. This has evoked a variety of responses, ranging from elation, to confusion, to horror.  

"PRAYER ACTUALLY WORKS ?"

I bumped into the latter of these responses in 1996 when I was invited to lecture and consult at a large hospital in New York City.  The day began with an address to the house staff, in which I discussed the emerging scientific evidence for the effectiveness of intercessory prayer.  I reviewed several of the salient experiments that had captured the attention of the medical profession, and I summarized some of the studies that were currently in progress.  Later in the day I met with the staff of the hospice department in a follow-up meeting.  Before our discussion could begin, I was approached by a clergyman who was obviously quite disturbed.  He worked full-time in the hospice area and devoted his life to offering spiritual guidance and prayer for dying patients and to providing psychological and spiritual support for the hospice staff.  He said, "Look.  I need to get something straight.  I heard your lecture this morning -- and if I understand you correctly, you're claiming that intercessory prayer actually works?"

For a moment I was speechless and did not know how to respond. Although this man's life was immersed in prayer, he obviously harbored deep doubts about whether his prayers had any effect whatever.  When confronted with evidence that intercessory prayer might actually be effective, he was astonished and confused.  We chatted privately for a few moments, and I affirmed my earlier comments.  I admired his honesty; most of us aren't as courageous as he was in expressing our doubts about prayer. 

This experience confirmed my belief that even "true believers" often doubt, at some level of the mind, the effectiveness of prayer; and that even religious professionals can be shocked to discover that science has something positive to say about prayer.  The reasons are no doubt complex, but are related to the stormy relations that have existed between science and religion for the past two centuries, particularly since Darwin.  When battles between these two camps have arisen, religion usually has not fared well.  As a result, most religious believers are understandably leery of "what science says" about their faith.

Another reason many religious folk object to the entry of science onto their turf is the stereotypical attitude toward science which most of us have developed during the process of becoming educated and socialized in twentieth-century America.  The message that has been driven home to almost all of us in our colleges and universities is, "There are two ways to live your life.  You can choose to be intellectual, rational, analytical, logical, and scientific; or, on the other hand, you can choose to be intuitive, spiritual, and religious. These two vectors of the psyche are incompatible and cannot be brought together; you cannot have it both ways."  Most of us choose one path or the other, and suffer the rest of our life as a result of this artificial, schizophrenic split.  The recent developments in prayer research show, however, that these choices are not incompatible. Science and spirituality can  come together; we can  have it both ways.

WHAT IS PRAYER? 

I have discussed with thousands of Americans what they believe prayer is.  I have concluded that the most common image of prayer in our culture is something like this:  "Prayer is talking aloud or to yourself, to a white, male, cosmic parent figure, who prefers to be addressed in English." 

This is, of course, an extremely limited and culturally conditioned view of prayer.  It disenfranchises large proportions of the world's population, and that of our own society, who do not share this perspective. For example, many people believe that prayer can go beyond words to involve silence.  For some, prayer is more a matter of being than doing   -- such as Thomas Merton, who once remarked that he prayed by breathing .  Moreover, most people who pray worldwide are not white and they don't speak English (nor did Jesus or any of the founders of the world's major religions).  Also, many people who pray are not fond of the idea of a male god or a personal god of any kind.  Consider Buddhism, one of the world's great faiths.  Buddhism is not a theistic religion, yet prayer is central to the Buddhist tradition.  Buddhists offer their prayers to the universe, not to a personal god.  Buddhism, therefore, violates most of the cultural assumptions we make about the nature of prayer.  Shall we inform Buddhists and others who differ from our cultural norm that they aren't really praying?

In the following discussion I want to employ a deliberately broad and ambiguous definition of prayer: "Prayer is communication with the Absolute."  This definition is inclusive, not exclusive; it affirms religious tolerance; and it invites people to define for themselves what "communication" is, and who or what  "the Absolute" may be. This definition is broad enough to include people of the various faiths who have participated as subjects in prayer research.

What is intercessory  prayer?  "Intercessory" comes from the Latin inter,  "between," and cedere,  "to go."   Intercessory prayer is, therefore, a go-between -- an effort to mediate on behalf of, or plead the case of, someone else.   Intercessory prayer is often called "distant" prayer, because the individual being prayed for is often remote from the person who is praying.

» next page