How Prayer Healing Works

com slash stuff. I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck, Chuck Bryant, Josh Clark, not Brian. I'm Josh. Right. We've got some listener mail claiming that Josh is Brian. Not true. At least they got the spelling of your last name almost correct without the tea they that. I think they used the y generally. Brian. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, So it's not Chucking Brian, it's Chuck Brian and Josh Clark Bryant. That's what I said. Sure, lighten up. That's

that's neither here nor there. No, it's not what it is here and what is there is intercessory prayer. Wow, it's like a bowl in a china shop. Let's go you know. Yeah, yeah, so Chuck, I don't know how you feel about this, but um, there there there have been studies on prayer, right, and actually people who pray, who who who um pray for themselves for others, but who spent a significant amount of time praying you could also call it meditating. Um, they actually lead healthier lives.

Did I read your article? Right? Well? Let me ask you this because this is something that I was aware of before I wrote this article. Um, and it was really interesting to uh to to see how it's been studied. But I was aware that people have been studying it, but to find you know, what the methodologies were like and what the results were. I mean, were you aware that prayer healed? Is that something that you would have

accepted before you read this article? Or well? You know, I grew up in the church, in the Christian Church, and uh, anyone who's who's grown up in church or has been to church like that knows that prayer is very central. It's the personal conversation that you have with with God. And uh so yeah, you're taught from early on that prayer makes a big, big difference, right, and and it actually does have a physiological difference or is that taught as well or is this this a happy byproduct? No,

in my church it wasn't at least Um. They just said to the type they take it results. I got you, okay. Well, speaking of results, there have been studies that have have evaluated people examine people who pray a lot, and they tend to have lower blood pressure, they have they live longer, um, their heart rate is generally uh a slower, right, they're a little they're a little more laid back physiologically than someone who doesn't pray. Um. And there's been some explanations

for it. Well, yeah, I know one that I think makes a big difference is many people who are in fact religious probably tend to lead healthier, cleaner lifestyles issue things like alcohol and smoking and other things that can avoiding prostitutes of the Yeah, so uh yeah, I think that might have a lot to do it personally, It definitely does. But we're not the only ones who thought of that. Other people have as well and explained it

away with that. So there's been follow up studies that took all those factors into account and they still found that people who pray tend to be healthier. My My theory is that you're meditating when you pray, you're you're meditating, You're entering a transcendental state of meditative state, so you're just more relaxed. And I think if you do that enough times, your body learns to relax. Yeah, that makes sense,

That's what I think. Okay, So there's not a lot of people who are I guess, debating whether or not prayer has an effect on the person who's praying. What is really contentious is whether or not praying can have an effect on anyone else or anything else in the universe. Right, And that's where we get into the real um sticky discussion.

Is ready, Yeah, I'm ready. I know. Growing up, as I said, in the Christian faith, they would often, uh, tell us if if a family member, a distant family member of anyone in the church, we're sick, they would call upon the church to pray for them. What do they call this sticks? Prayer lists or prayer shoutouts require shout I don't yeah, I don't remember, to be honest, but they would prayer request for people to keep them

in their hearts and minds. Sure, yeah, and you could actually call in and leave like a voicemail and then you get added to the list. Right. No, No, I don't know anything about that. I'm pretty sure I've seen phone numbers like prayer hotlines. Okay, I kid you not, No, I believe it. Okay, So you've got this congregation praying for this person. Do you do you have any anecdotal evidence, any story of somebody healing from that? Uh? No, I'm sure that that probably happened here and there, but I

don't remember that stuff. Now. Well, that kind of prayer is called intercessory prayer, interceding on behalf of somebody, maybe asking for them to heal. Hopefully you're not praying for them to die. That could still be considered intercessory prayer. But for the most part, people pray that somebody's going to rebound from an illness or get over a streak of bad luck or something like that. It's also called distant prayer because you know, you're it's not centered on

the individual or you're you're you're praying out for somebody. Um. These have also been studied, you know. They There's been some methodologies over the course of the last couple of decades, starting with this guy named Randolph Bird, who's a physician, and he he was the first to create this really groundbreaking landmark study. It was eighty eight I think and um,

I think he was a cardiac physician. He uh he assembled I think three hundred and fifty three different people's um histories and he found people who were statistically inseparable, meaning that they were the same age. Uh, they were the same race, they were this, they had the same heart conditions, they were on paper, they were one and the same basically. Uh. And he contacted some groups. I think it was in California where he got in touch

with some different denominations. I think they were all Christian, but he got in touch with Baptists and Presbyterians and Catholics and all that. And they had these groups get together in groups of three or four and these people would have the name of one patient yeah and UM. They would pray that they they had a speedy and um and I think effective recovery something along those lines. And they prayed for him over the course of I

don't know, several weeks, I believe. UM. And after the after this prayering of this praying was done, UM, the the physician Randolph Bird went back and studied who, you know, who thrived and who didn't, which should also say there's a control group of people who weren't prayed for. Kay, yeah, yeah, right. So he actually found that there was a really significant difference, like a huge difference actually between the recoveries of people

who were prayed for and those who weren't prayed for. Um, something like eight five percent compared to seventy three point one percent. That's that's enormous statistically speaking, that's that's very big. And the thing is is there was no one who could explain away what happened um Bird's. Bird's study has never been basically overturned. Um, the people who were praying

didn't know the people they were praying for. The people who are being prayed for, we're you know, not they There's there's nothing you can say that says, well, this is what happened. Because that's a huge statistical difference. It is that got the attention to the scientific community. So all of a sudden, there's like a slew of of basically follow up studies that use birds methodology. This is the most beautiful thing about Randolph Bird, in my opinion.

He used the scientific method He used science to conduct an investigation into something that science doesn't believe in, which is prayer, intercessory prayer. And he created this study in such a way that, um, it could be modeled like he he said, here's how you do it. And other people have followed the same model and they have come up with with radically different results basically. Um. Another pretty study was the STEPS study, which is the study for

Study of the Effects of Intercessory Prayer. Um, it was. It was a huge study. It covered six different medical centers across the US, and this is published in the American Heart Journal. So yeah, so it was it was pretty significant. Um. They they basically broke these groups down into three groups. Uh, those who received prayer but weren't aware of it, Uh, those who didn't receive any prayer, and those who received prayer but and we're aware that

they were being prayed for us. Yeah. Yeah, So this study it was, like you said, it was. It was published in the American Heart Journal, which is pretty pretty big journal as far as they go in in this country. Right. Um, they found that those who, uh who didn't receive prayer had about the same kind of recovery as those who did it. Was like and even worse, those who were aware that they received prayer actually had the worst results. It was fifty of them had complications after heart surgery.

So this seems to fly in the face of the Bird study. Yeah, it does. It's it's it's totally contradictory. It's also pretty counterintuitive to I mean, how would prayer be harmful? And that's actually one of the reasons why people are investigating prayer, why scientists, why it's become kind of a niche field of study, because it's not really if if people are praying, uh, maybe we should find out if it is in fact harmful. You. Science shouldn't just be like, yeah, go pray, we don't believe in

that whatever. There should be investigations into it. And and this is kind of startling. People who are aware they're being prayed for had complications following surgery. That alone warrants investigation into it. Right, So that that step study was one of a number that have come up with. Nobody's ever come up with the kind of statistical difference that Randolph Bird did, Right. I think personally, Uh, I'm a bit of a skeptic in life in general, and when

I hear about studies like this. It's to me, prayer something that's hard to quantify statistically because people pray in different ways, people pray for different lengths of time. Um, it just I'm not sure how you could say that this this solid group that prayed, all prayed exactly the same in the same way and had the exact same beliefs. Uh, it's hard to quantify. Yes, it is. And again Randolph Bird came the closest to it. He told these people

how often to pray? You know, what to say when they're praying, specifically to pray for Here's the problem with with studying prayer is you can control these groups of people who are praying for these heart patients or whatever as much as you want. But if prayer is real, if prayer does work right, and you've got somebody else out there praying for this patient, it completely screws up the results. Like the patient itself where they told not to pray for themselves, I I don't know, I don't

I don't know. And and how how would you control that? Would you want to control that? Apparently prayer is the number one alternative medicine in America that tops vitamins and herbs, which is like a multibillion dollar industry. If the best part is prayers free of course, um, but you can't control how much prayer. You can't say, here's ten ccs

of prayer, let's see if it has an effect. Um. And you also can't you can't can't control other people coming along behind you and saying I'm going to pray for this person. So it's it's very difficult to study, and not everybody thinks you should study it, right, And this is then this is uh, these are people that are being treated medically as well. This is not Christian scientists who, from what I understand a lot of times don't believe in medicine and they only believe in the

power of prayer to heal. Yeah, no, these were These were people who are being treated through modern innocent and we're being prayed for, right, So you kind of like, I don't know, there's different doctors and different levels experience, and so that's something you also have to take into consideration as well. You can't say that everyone was getting the exact same care and their whole life history and whether or not these people typically recover quicker than others.

I mean, there's there's a lot of factors that weigh in here. There are, but you could also make the argument that all those factors would would appear in any study, you know, and prayers just like this extra layer um SmackDown basically just smack me down. Yes, sorry chucking. I tried to do it gently. Um. But like I said, not everybody thinks that we should be studying this, right,

and that that falls on both sides. There's obviously um scientists who are totally skeptical of prayer and think it's a waste of time and funding. But there's also religious religious devotes um who believe we shouldn't be studying this kind of thing either that it's folly um, that you

couldn't possibly study something like and um. One guy put it that studying heart conditions studying the power of prayer um is basically like asking a composer with I think a quadrillion times the talent of Beethoven to uh to compose the notes to three blind mice. Like, we're we're getting so granular here, We're missing the big picture, right. I would love to hear that version of three blind

man be really, really good. So yeah, ultimately the jury is still out, and I don't know personally whether I wanted to ever come in. I think it'd be pretty cool. And I definitely believe that there are aspects of us as humans and among the universe that science either can explain under the scientific method or just hasn't figured out

the right methodology to apply it. Definitely don't think science explains all and anything science can explain doesn't exist, right And since my uh growing up in the church now here as an adult, my belief is I'm sort of it to each his own kind of guy. Now, sure, if you want to, if you want to pray and you feel like it has an effect on you and your family and your loved ones, I say go for it. If you're skeptic and you don't think that it does,

then you know, don't. Yeah, And and trying to avoid the harmful praying, you know, where you're you're actually praying for somebody to you know, become injured. That's just me. Yeah, And I don't think that come on, So different strokes for different folkus then fantastic. Yet, like Gary Coleman, all right, well, coming up, Chuck is going to tell you about an article that um satisfies the childhood fantasy of his All right, Chuck, what's the what's the article? Then that? Hold on? I

love this. That satisfies the childhood fantasy. Right, it sounds so perfect. No, no, it's not at all. It's could I install a hidden passageway in my home? Awesome? And uh, I think, I don't know. Maybe it's a little boy thing. But when I was a little kid, just like hidden passageways and tunnels and all that stuff was just the coolest thing to me. That's Edmunds, right, Edmunds about that, Molly Edmunds a great, great writer. Molly, you know I haven't a hidden passage bay in my house? Going now,

did you pull a book down from your library? It was We had a linen closet and for some reason, the interior of it was painted black and there was a door at the back of the closet and it opened up onto the steps going down to the basement, which immediately got you onto the other side of the house. Bring out the gimp, Hide and go seek in my house was awesome. It was very cool. So you can read that one could I install a hidden passage away

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