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Healing Research: What We Know and Don’T Know

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Healing Research: What We Know and Don’T Know EXPLORATIONS Healing Research: What We Know and Don’t Know “Something unknown is doing we don’t Even Einstein occasionally emphasized The classic American example of this know what.” the limitations of science. He is reported phenomenon involved the death of —Sir Arthur Eddington1 to have said (although it may be apocry- George Washington, our first head of “Not everything that counts can be phal), “If we knew what we were doing, it state. Some historians believe he was es- counted, and not everything that can be would not be called research, would it?”6 sentially bled to death by his team of well- counted counts.” meaning physicians.9 —Albert Einstein, attributed “No directions came with this idea.” HEALING RESEARCH: THE BEGINNING 2 MODERN —William Maxwell We’ve been bumping into the mysteries PRAYER-AND-HEALING STUDIES and paradoxes of healing intentions and Paradoxes abound in prayer research. For prayer since the first published prayer example, if prayer is effective, many peo- ur ignorance about healing vastly study, an 1872 survey by Sir Francis Gal- ple say “the more the better.” Perhaps not. exceeds our understanding. Some ton, the cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton Rupert Sheldrake, the British biologist people see this mystery as a good reasoned that, since monarchs and highly thing. For example, when I pub- who spent years in India, was intrigued by O placed clergy were regularly prayed for the fact that most married couples in India lished a book in 1993—Healing Words: The (God save the queen!), their health and Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine3— prefer having sons, and that they routinely longevity should exceed that of ordinary that attempted to clarify these questions, a ask holy men to bless their marriage. To- people if prayer is effective. He discovered reviewer wrote, “Life, ultimately, is a mys- ward this end, Indian holy men pray inces- the opposite—that sovereign heads of state tery....Inthe past year, I have found santly. With roughly one fourth the lived the shortest lives “of all who have the myself yearning for the mystery, faith, and earth’s population in India, that’s a lot of advantage of affluence.”7 rapture to be restored to my spirit. I want prayer for male babies. But when Shel- Skeptics love to quote Galton’s study, more prayer and less analysis.”4 drake compared the incidence of male but it was a dreadful exercise, a retrospec- This point of view that some things births in India and England, where the tive stab in the dark that was, one might should not be subjected to dissection, preference for sons is not as strong, he say, too cute by half. Galton failed to take analysis, and the empirical methods of sci- found the same statistic: 106 male births into account a host of confounding fac- ence has a long history. Benjamin Jowett to 100 female births, which is the same in tors, one of which has been pointed out by 3(p172) (1817-1893), the great 19th-century Plato nearly all countries. scholar, theologian, and master of Balliol theologian John Polkinghorne, a physicist Modern prayer-and-healing research College at Oxford, felt this way. He grum- and fellow of the Royal Society. He sug- was launched around the midpoint of the bled, “Research! Research! A mere excuse gests that one of the main reasons sover- 20th century. From 1951 through 1965, for idleness; it has never achieved, and will eigns lived shorter lives was because they three studies explored the correlation of never achieve any results of the slightest were exposed to one of the greatest health intercessory prayer with psychological value.”5 hazards of the day—the continual minis- well-being, childhood leukemia, and rheu- trations of the medical profession.8 If you matoid arthritis, respectively.3(pp170-179) were a European monarch in the 19th cen- Although one study claimed statistical sig- This essay is based on an address to the Inter- tury, there simply was no escaping the bru- nificance, the other two did not. These national Society for the Study of Subtle Ener- talities of physicians and the often lethal studies were not well designed and were gies and Energy Medicine, June 22, 2008, Boul- effects of their leeching, bleeding, and poorly reported. They contribute little to der, CO. purging. our understanding of healing intentions. Explorations EXPLORE November/December 2008, Vol. 4, No. 6 341 We can, however, give these researchers a We found over 2,200 published State College of Medicine, and I have dis- nod of appreciation for getting the ball reports, including books, articles, dis- cussed these elsewhere.14 rolling. sertations, abstracts and other writ- What do these studies tell us? In their The most famous prayer study is that of ings on spiritual healing, energy med- assessment of this field, Jonas and Craw- icine, and mental intention effects. cardiologist Randolph Byrd, published in ford conservatively conclude: This included 122 laboratory studies, 80 1988.10 This controlled clinical study took randomized controlled trials, 128 sum- place at University of California, San maries or reviews, 95 reports of obser- There is evidence to suggest that Francisco, School of Medicine and San vational studies and nonrandomized mind and matter interact in a way Francisco General Hospital. It involved trials, 271 descriptive studies, case that is consistent with the assump- 393 patients admitted to the coronary care reports, and surveys, 1,286 other tions of distant healing. Mental in- unit for heart attack or chest pain. Al- writings including opinions, claims, tention has effects on nonliving though there was no statistically signifi- anecdotes, letters to editors, commen- random systems (such as random cant difference in mortality between the taries, critiques and meeting reports, number generators) and may have ef- and 259 selected books [emphasis groups, those receiving assigned prayer fects on living systems. While con- added].12(ppxv-xix) clusive evidence that these mental in- did better clinically on several outcomes. teractions result in healing of specific Areas of statistical significance included The following categories are included in illness is lacking, further quality re- less need for cardiopulmonary resuscita- 12(ppxv-xix) the data analyzed by Jonas and Crawford: search should be pursued. tion, less need for potent medications, and a lower incidence of pulmonary edema ● religious practice This conclusion is so cautious many and pneumonia in the group receiving ● prayer healers insist that it does not go far intercessory prayer from prayer groups ● “energy” healing enough. I disagree. The key question is not around the United States. These differ- ● Qigong (laboratory research) how large the effects are, but whether they ences, although statistically significant, ● Qigong (clinical research) exist at all. In fact, the Jonas and Crawford were not earthshaking: a 5% to 7% advan- ● laboratory research on bioenergy conclusion is radical because it suggests tage for the prayed-for group. ● DMILS (direct mental interaction with what conventional science considers un- thinkable: that human consciousness can Although it was the first major prayer living systems; remote influence on act nonlocally to affect the so-called mate- experiment, the Byrd study is not the best; electrodermal activity) rial world at a distance, beyond the reach it could have been improved in many ways, ● DMILS (direct mental interaction with 3(pp179-186) of the senses. This involves a fundamen- as I’ve described elsewhere. Byrd living systems, such as remote staring) tally new way of thinking about the nature deserves great credit, however, for this cou- ● MMI (mind-matter interaction, such as of human consciousness and its place in rageous effort, which could hardly have em- the remote influence of individuals on the world. bellished his career as an academic cardiolo- random event generators) These findings represent more than a gist at one of the nation’s best medical ● MMI (mind-matter interaction, such as new tool in the physician’s black bag. Al- schools. His great contribution was estab- the remote influence of a group with though it’s true that intentionality, includ- lishing a principle that came as a shock to random event generators, so-called field- most physicians, including me—one can ing prayer, has been used throughout his- REG experiments) tory to heal illness, this practical side is not study prayer in a clinical setting much as one ● healing in a group setting studies a physical intervention such as a new the primary contribution of the emerging evidence. The key significance is the non- medication. In assessing the quality of healing stud- local nature of consciousness that is sug- If we fast-forward to present time, we ies by using strict Consolidated Standards gested by these studies. This implication can identify around two dozen major-con- of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) criteria, dwarfs whatever pragmatic benefits these trolled studies in humans, approximately Jonas and Crawford give the highest grade, studies convey. half of which show statistically significant an A, to lab-based, mind-matter interaction Many skeptics realize what’s at stake results favoring the intervention group studies, and a B to the prayer-and-healing here. If only a single one of these studies is toward whom healing intentions were studies. Religion-and-health studies get a D 11(pp216-232) valid, then a nonlocal dimension of con- extended. because they are epidemiological-observa- sciousness exists. In this case, the universe Approximately eight systematic or meta- tional studies and are not blinded and is different than we have supposed, and analyses of studies involving healing in- controlled. the game changes. Therefore, all these tentions and prayer have been published This context does not permit us to re- findings must be rejected, or the conven- 11(pp226-229) in peer-reviewed journals.
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