Science and Prayer
Larry Dossey explaining a study of prayer:
It was done by Randolph Byrd, in the cardiac care unit at the San Francisco General Hospital. It involved about 400 patients. Half were treated with routine standard care, as was the other half, but in addition the patients in the second half were prayed for. Their names were farmed out to various prayer groups.
The difference in the outcomes was really striking. For instance, there were no cardiac arrests or necessity to be put on an artificial ventilator in the prayed-for group, whereas there were twelve in the unprayed-for group. If this had been a new drug or surgical procedure being tested, it would have been hailed as a great therapeutic breakthrough.
Nobody among the nurses and doctors knew who was and who wasn't being prayed for, which prevented them from unconsciously giving preferential treatment to the prayed-for group. When the results were in, it appeared as if the group that was being prayed for was being slipped some kind of miracle drug. There were no deaths in the prayed-for group, while there were three deaths in the other group.
Twelve people in the group not being prayed for had cardiac arrests and had to have CPR, or needed a mechanical ventilator, an artificial breathing machine. None of the prayed-for group had to have that done. Twelve to zero - those are pretty good odds.
Most people don't read the Southern Medical Journal, where this was carried. But the late Dr.William Knowland, a physician who could always be depended on to weigh in and criticize any study smacked at all of the psychic, looked at this study and said, "This looks like an excellent study. I think it's going to stand up. It appears on the basis of this study that we physicians, when our patients are admitted to the emergency room and to the coronary care unit, in addition to our usual recommendations, should be writing orders that say "Pray for my patient three times daily.'"