The healing power of intercessory prayer.

Arising from an emerging world view in philosophy, it is argued that the mind can function beyond the individual and is not constrained by time and distance; it is in fact non-local. Prayer is cited as an example of non-local manifestation of consciousness. Dossey describes three distinct eras of medicine. The hallmark of Era 3 is the non-local mind and unexplained discoveries of distant healing and intercessory prayer. In researching the medical literature, Dossey discovered 130 studies dealing with the efficacy of prayer as a healing treatment. Those studies disclosed that prayer had a remarkable effect not only on human beings, but also on many other things including bacteria, germinating seeds and animals. Some cases of distant manifestation of consciousness on non-humans are discussed en passant, but the focus of this paper is the healing power of intercessory prayer on humans. Two case studies are offered in support of the evidence for non-local healing and the question is asked whether there is no place in medicine for a multiple approach to healing. Further, if these reported studies of prayer therapies are meaningful, are physicians not using these additional treatments withholding something curative from their patients?