How prayer works.

Sir,

The article by Andrade and Radhakrishnan,[1] in the latest issue of this journal, involves a topic (i.e., prayer) that arouses as much curiosity as it arouses confusion in today's world; the era of evidence-based research. In my opinion, despite being quite a comprehensive review, the article could have touched upon few other views and evidences regarding the healing effects of prayer.

Some of the widely accepted mechanisms by which prayer is supposed to provide beneficial effect are, (1) health-related behavior (2) enhanced social support (3) stress-buffering (4) cognitive effects and, (5) the psychodynamics of faith.[2] It has been stated that the very knowledge that one is the object of prayer stimulates the immunoendocrinological system; both psychophysiology and psychoneuroimmunology have demonstrated the impact of feelings and emotions.[3] Another hypothesis is that religious involvement activates unutilized energies, which can influence the course of the illness. The famous studies including the double-blind or even the triple-blind ones, which show the healing effects of prayer, can be explained by these unutilized energies.

The other explanation, clearly violating the basic laws of physics, states that an empathic connection between the healer and the sufferer brings about the desired changes.[4] According to Sheldrake's[5] theory of modified materialism, morphic fields exist as vibration or information within nature. They constitute a type of protosubstance, which manifests more subtly than the normal three-dimensional matter. This supernatural healing can operate in a manner, which, with regard to reference of time and space, does appear nonlocal.

However, among all the evidences we have, the most parsimonious explanation for the healing effect of prayer is that there is indeed a transcendent God who supernaturally heals. Ultimately, as Levin[4] argues, the existence of a transcendent God or His supernatural blessings of healing cannot be proven by science; it is a matter of faith.