Posted by SLS on July 8, 2000, at 8:59:24
In reply to hi Chris (I tried), posted by Janice on July 8, 2000, at 0:14:04
> I'll keep praying for you Chris, no problem. My brother told me there is some kind of evidence (not quite scientific) that it works
:-) Your brother is right.
There have actually been scientific investigations into the ability of prayer to help produce improvements in various illnesses. In 1992, I had read some stuff by a Dr. Larry Dossey, who had been a field surgeon in Viet Nam. He's a pretty smart guy. I think he was affiliated with the Mind-Body Institute at that time. Dossey and his colleagues seem to believe that some of the concepts offered by modern physics may explain how someone in Moscow can pray for someone in Cleveland and produce statistically significant enhancements to their healing. There have been placebo controlled, blinded experiments conducted that have claimed positive results demonstrating this phenomenon. Non-locality.
Interesting. Cool. I have an open mind. I certainly like the idea.
- Scott
P.S. Pray for me. I can use all the help I can get!
--------------------------------------------
The following appears on Medline:
19: Altern Ther Health Med 1996 Jan;2(1):66-73How prayer heals: a theoretical model.
Levin JS
Department of Family and Community Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School in
Norfolk 23501, USA.This article presents a theoretical model that outlines various possible
explanations for the healing effects of prayer. Four classes of mechanisms are
defined on the basis of whether healing has naturalistic or supernatural origins
and whether it operates locally or nonlocally. Through this framework, most of
the currently proposed hypotheses for understanding absent healing and other
related phenomena-hypotheses that invoke such concepts as subtle energy, psi,
consciousness, morphic fields, and extended mind-are shown to be no less
naturalistic than the Newtonian, mechanistic forces of allopathic biomedicine so
often derided for their materialism. In proposing that prayer may heal through
nonlocal means according to mechanisms and theories proposed by the new physics,
Dossey is almost alone among medical scholars in suggesting the possible
limitations and inadequacies of hypotheses based on energies, forces, and
fields. Yet even such nonlocal effects can be conceived of as naturalistic; that
is, they are explained by physical laws that may be unbelievable or unfamiliar
to most physicians but that are nonetheless becoming recognized as operant laws
of the natural universe. The concept of the supernatural, however, is something
altogether different, and is, by definition, outside of or beyond nature. Herein
may reside an either wholly or partly transcendent Creator-God who is believed
by many to heal through means that transcend the laws of the created universe,
both its local and nonlocal elements, and that are thus inherently inaccessible
to and unknowable by science. Such an explanation for the effects of prayer
merits consideration and, despite its unprovability by medical science, should
not be dismissed out of hand.Publication Types:
Review
Review, tutorialPMID: 8795874, UI: 96388473
poster:SLS
thread:39404
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000708/msgs/39778.html