Professor of Psychopharmacology, Department of Psychopharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore - 560 029, India.
Indian J Psychiatry. 2009 Oct-Dec;51(4):247-53. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.58288.
Religious traditions across the world display beliefs in healing through prayer. The healing powers of prayer have been examined in triple-blind, randomized controlled trials. We illustrate randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of different categories of outcome. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human as well as nonhuman species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to have retrospective healing effects. For a multitude of reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is riddled with assumptions, challenges and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that the research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that we outline.
世界各地的宗教传统都表现出通过祈祷来治愈疾病的信仰。祈祷的治疗效果已经在三盲、随机对照试验中进行了检验。我们通过在不同类别的结果中各进行一项研究来说明祈祷和治疗的随机对照试验，并对这类研究的科学和哲学维度进行了批判性分析。据报道，祈祷可以改善人类和非人类物种的结果，可以对结果没有影响，可以使结果恶化，并且可以产生回顾性的治疗效果。由于诸多原因，关于祈祷治疗效果的研究充满了假设、挑战和矛盾，使得这个主题成为一个科学和宗教的雷区。我们认为，这项研究没有任何结果，如果有未来的研究，也将永远受到我们所概述的科学限制的制约。
