The Return of Prayer by Larry Dossey, MD

The outward practice of prayer adds little virtue or none at all to prayer itself.  Prayer is good by reason of its own quality.  Anything which is good because there is a lot of it has not much intrinsic worth.
                             -  Meister Eckhart, 13th century

[Cont. from page 4] 

ARE EXPERIMENTS THAT INVOLVE MICROORGANISMS RELEVANT TO PRAYER?

As we've seen, some experiments deal with prayer not for cuddly pets such as cats and dogs, but with invisible microorganisms.  Many people believe these studies cannot possibly involve prayer because there is no biblical injunction to pray for or against microbes.  But, of course, the Bible is mute on this question because the concepts of bacteria, fungi, yeast, and viruses did not exist in biblical times.  Therefore, we must interpret for ourselves whether or not it is fitting to apply prayer to these creatures.

There are indirect biblical sanctions to pray both for and against microbes.   For example, when we pray for the sick, as we are instructed to do, this often includes those suffering from infections.  A prayer for  someone with an infectious disease is a prayer against   the microorganisms involved, whether we realize it or not.  Likewise, when we pray that our food, which is never sterile, be blessed, we are presumably asking that the bacteria it contains be put out of commission.  A sanction to pray for  microbes can be found in the Lord's Prayer.  When we pray for our daily bread, this presumably includes praying for the yeast cells that make it rise.

Microbes are not  insignificant when compared to humans, because without them human life could not exist.  All ecological systems are microbe-dependent.  How could prayer involving microorganisms be trivial, when our life is inextricably linked to theirs?

BUT IS IT PRAYER?

When confronted with experimental evidence that prayer can indeed enhance or retard microbial growth, some people dedicated to an anthropocentric view of prayer resort to a last-ditch objection -- that these effects are not really due to prayer but to  "mind over matter" or some "mental force"  (although they have never been able to clarify what this force might be).  Others condemn these effects as "the work of the devil" and let it go at that.   Some engage in ad hominem attacks on the pray-ers, claiming that anyone who would be willing to engage in such an experiment must be trying to demonstrate their personal power instead of God's, which is further evidence that these studies are corrupt and blasphemous.

Perhaps the strongest evidence that these studies involve genuine, authentic prayer is the fact that respected spiritual healers often serve as the subjects, as we have already seen in the Haraldsson and Thorsteinsson experiment. As a further example, consider a study involving the well-known spiritual healer Olga Worrall, who for years conducted prayer-based healing services at The New Life Clinic at Baltimore's Mt. Washington United Methodist Church.  Mrs. Worrall was revered by all who knew her as a humble servant of God.  On one occasion she accepted the invitation of physicist Elizabeth A. Rauscher and microbiologist Beverly A. Rubik to participate in a laboratory experiment involving bacteria. The study originally called for Worrall to inhibit bacterial activity in a particular phase of the experiment.  When she objected to using prayer to harm God's creatures, the study was redesigned to allow her to help, not hurt, the microorganisms by protecting them from the killing effects of antibiotics.  The results showed that she was able to do so. It is difficult to dismiss this study as not involving genuine prayer, with which Mrs. Worrall was intimately familiar.

Are the pray-ers in these experiments glorifying themselves instead of the Almighty, as often charged?  Are they putting their ego first?  For all I know, this objection may have merit in some cases.  But if it does, it surely applies to prayers offered in church as well in the laboratory.  We cannot fully know the heart of another person.  This fact should make us hesitant to pass judgment on the sincerity of the prayers of others, whether they take place inside or outside the lab.

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