304 mind
1997, D1–2. Ironically, Dale Matthews’s own widely anticipated study investigating
the power of intercessory prayer at a distance proved disappointing. See Gary P. Pos-
ner, “Study Yields No Evidence for Medical Efficacy of Distant Intercessory Prayer: A
Follow-up Commentary,”The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine6.1 (Winter
2002). Also online at http://members.aol.com/garypos/prayerstudyafterpub.html.
- Larry Dossey,Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine
(New York: HarperCollins, 1993). - A prime example of work in this style is Patrick Glynn’sGod: The Evidence
(Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Publishing, 1997). - Targ’s was a six-month double-blind study that aimed to test the effects of
spiritual healing on forty AIDS patients in the San Francisco Bay Area that took a
consciously ecumenical approach to the healing process: the interveners consisted of
forty practicing healers that self-identified variously as Christians, Jews, Buddhists,
Native American shamans, and graduates of bioenergetic schools. The healers were
given photographs of the AIDS victims, their first names, and their blood counts.
Rather than ask God for help, the healers were directed to send positive healing en-
ergy, to direct an intention for health and well-being to the subject. The authors claim
that the twenty AIDS patients who received the healing energy (without knowing they
had been selected for such treatment) had “fewer and less severe new illnesses, fewer
doctor visits, fewer hospitalizations, and improved mood” than the twenty patients in
the control group who did not receive the energy. Fred Sicher, Elizabeth Targ, Daniel
Moore, Helene S. Smith. “A Randomized, Double-Blind Study of the Effects of Dis-
tant Healing in a Population with Advanced AIDS,”Western Journal of Medicine169.6
(1998): 356–363. - “Evidence for God from Science: Harmony between the Bible and Science,”
online at http://www.godandscience.org/index.html. - Opinion within the research community on all these matters is sharply di-
vided. See, for example, “Evidence behind Claim of Religion-Health Link Is Shaky,
Researchers Say,” a report of an article published in the March 2002 issue of theAn-
nals of Behavioral Medicine, online at http://hbns.org/newsrelease/religion3-11-02.cfm.
Compare that to the cautiously encouraging note sounded in the previously refer-
enced 2003 special edition ofAmerican Psychologiston “Spirituality, Religion, and
Health” as an “emerging research field.” - Cf. Joel James Shuman and Keith G. Meador,Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medi-
cine, and the Distortion of Christianity(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 40–
- Harold G. Koenig, Michael E. McCullough, and David B. Larson,Handbook
of Religion and Health(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5. - Cf. Philip Rieff,The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud(Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, [1966], 1987).
bibliography
Autton, Norman.Pastoral Care in Hospitals.London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1968.
Beary, J. F., and H. Benson. “A Simple Physiologic Technique which Elicits the Hypo-