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Plain English Summary
Can strangers praying for you from afar actually improve your health? This meta-analysis crunched 15 randomized studies and found the answer is essentially no. The overall effect was tiny and statistically meaningless. Even more striking: when they removed one study later exposed as fraudulent, the effect plummeted to virtually zero (g = 0.003) -- about as close to "absolutely nothing" as research ever gets. No amount of tweaking the analysis -- looking at how often people prayed, how long they prayed -- changed the picture. The authors make a bold recommendation: stop studying distant intercessory prayer entirely. But they don't dismiss prayer altogether. They note that personal prayer as a coping tool shows some promising signals through ordinary psychological pathways like stress reduction and sense of control.
Research Notes
Key skeptical meta-analysis in the distant healing/prayer controversy. The near-zero effect size (g = 0.003 without a fraudulent study) provides strong evidence against distant intercessory prayer, complementing Benson et al.'s (2006) large null STEP trial. Unique for also proposing constructive research directions for non-distant prayer mechanisms.
An updated meta-analysis of 15 randomized studies on distant intercessory prayer found no discernible health effects. Using a random effects model, the overall effect was g = 0.082 (p = .26); excluding a fraudulent study (Cha & Wirth, 2001), the effect dropped to g = 0.003 (p = .97). No moderator variables — random assignment, prayer frequency, or intervention duration — significantly influenced outcomes. A narrative review of prayer frequency, prayer content, and prayer as a coping strategy found mixed but suggestive results via recognized psychological mechanisms. The authors recommend abandoning distant intercessory prayer research and focusing on naturally occurring prayer practices studied via longitudinal and experimental designs.
Links
Related Papers
Meta Analyzes
- Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer — Benson, Herbert (2006)
- Integrative Noetic Therapies as Adjuncts to Percutaneous Intervention During Unstable Coronary Syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) Feasibility Pilot — Krucoff, Mitchell W (2001)
- Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population — Byrd, Randolph C (1988)
Extends
Companion
- Music, Imagery, Touch, and Prayer as Adjuncts to Interventional Cardiac Care: The Monitoring and Actualisation of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) II Randomised Study — Krucoff, Mitchell W (2005)
- Nonlocality, Intention, and Observer Effects in Healing Studies: Laying a Foundation for the Future — Schwartz, Stephan A (2010)
- Two Meta-Analyses of Noncontact Healing Studies — Roe, Chris A (2015)
- Can We Help Just by Good Intentions? A Meta-Analysis of Experiments on Distant Intention Effects — Schmidt, Stefan (2012)
- Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: Going Beyond Even Meta-Analysis of Distant Intention Effects — Bengston, William F (2012)
- Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial — Leibovici, Leonard (2001)
- Intercessory Prayer for the Alleviation of Ill Health — Roberts, Leanne (2009)
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📋 Cite this paper
Masters, Kevin S, Spielmans, Glen I (2007). Prayer and Health: Review, Meta-Analysis, and Research Agenda. Journal of Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-007-9106-7
@article{masters_2007_prayer,
title = {Prayer and Health: Review, Meta-Analysis, and Research Agenda},
author = {Masters, Kevin S and Spielmans, Glen I},
year = {2007},
journal = {Journal of Behavioral Medicine},
doi = {10.1007/s10865-007-9106-7},
}