Nonlocality, Intention, and Observer Effects in Healing Studies: Laying a Foundation for the Future
📄 Original study ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
What if the biggest problem with prayer-healing studies is that scientists have been designing them all wrong? This paper argues the standard clinical trial setup borrowed from drug research just doesn't fit when studying healing intention. Drugs don't care who's watching, but intention might. The authors examine a huge 2006 cardiac surgery trial where patients who knew they were being prayed for actually did worse — a statistically significant harmful effect. Rather than dismissing this, they ask a provocative question: could the beliefs of everyone involved — healers, patients, researchers, even skeptical critics — be shaping results through nonlocal "observer effects"? They pull in evidence from experimenter-effect studies, brain imaging of healers, and a theory suggesting people unconsciously use psychic information to guide decisions. The bottom line: if consciousness operates at a distance, everyone connected to an experiment becomes an uncontrolled variable that future studies must account for.
Research Notes
An important methodological critique arguing that conventional RCT design may be fundamentally inadequate for studying nonlocal healing intention. Introduces the concept that observer effects (both local and nonlocal) from experimenters, participants, and even critics may influence results. Discusses Decision Augmentation Theory, extraneous prayer, negative intention/nocebo effects, healer qualification, and meditation as intention-focusing discipline. Published in Explore, Vol. 6, No. 5, Sept/Oct 2010, pp. 295-307. Note: author is Stephan A. Schwartz (consciousness/remote-viewing researcher), not Gary E.R. Schwartz (mediumship).
A critical narrative review exploring the current status of healing-intention and prayer research, using the STEP trial (Benson et al. 2006; N=1802 cardiac bypass patients; Group C harm P=.003, z=2.8) as a detailed case study. Argues that the pharmacological dose-dependent model adopted for prayer studies is fundamentally inappropriate for intention-healing research. Critiques assumptions about blinding and randomization, presents evidence for nonlocal observer effects from experimenter-effect studies (Wiseman-Schlitz), sheep-goat research, Decision Augmentation Theory (May et al.), MANTRA II (N=748), and Achterberg's healer fMRI study (P<.0001). Proposes that the intentions and beliefs of all participants—including researchers and critics—must be evaluated in study design.
Links
Related Papers
Cites
- 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)
- Experimenter Effects and the Remote Detection of Staring — Wiseman, Richard (1997)
- Evidence for Correlations Between Distant Intentionality and Brain Function in Recipients: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis — Achterberg, J (2005)
- Advances in Remote-Viewing Analysis — May, Edwin C (1990)
- Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology — Utts, Jessica (1991)
- Does Psi Exist? Replicable Evidence for an Anomalous Process of Information Transfer — Bem, Daryl J (1994)
- "Future Telling": A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Experiments, 1935-1987 — Honorton, Charles (1989)
Extends
Companion
- Two Meta-Analyses of Noncontact Healing Studies — Roe, Chris A (2015)
- Prayer and Health: Review, Meta-Analysis, and Research Agenda — Masters, Kevin S (2007)
- Distant Healing of Surgical Wounds: An Exploratory Study — Schlitz, Marilyn (2012)
- Intentional Observer Effects on Quantum Randomness: A Bayesian Analysis Reveals Evidence Against Micro-Psychokinesis — Maier, Markus A (2018)
- Observer Influence on Quantum Interference: Testing the von Neumann-Wigner Consciousness-Collapse Theory — Radin, Dean (2025)
- Consciousness and the Double-Slit Interference Pattern: Six Experiments — Radin, Dean (2012)
- Effects of Healing Intention on Cultured Cells and Truly Random Events — Radin, Dean (2004)
Also by these authors
The Location and Reconstruction of a Byzantine Structure in Marea, Egypt, Including a Comparison of Electronic Remote Sensing and Remote Viewing
A Preliminary Survey of the Eastern Harbor, Alexandria, Egypt, Including a Comparison of Side Scan Sonar and Remote Viewing
More in Healing
Effects of Intentionally-Treated Water on Cell Migration of Human Glioblastoma Cells
Water, Wine and the Sacred, An Anthropological View of Substances Altered by Intentioned Awareness, Including Objective and Aesthetic Effects
Transcriptional Changes in Cancer Cells Induced by Exposure to a Healing Method
Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: Going Beyond Even Meta-Analysis of Distant Intention Effects
Intercessory Prayer for the Alleviation of Ill Health
📋 Cite this paper
Schwartz, Stephan A, Dossey, Larry, MD (2010). Nonlocality, Intention, and Observer Effects in Healing Studies: Laying a Foundation for the Future. Explore. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2010.06.011
@article{schwartz_2010_nonlocality,
title = {Nonlocality, Intention, and Observer Effects in Healing Studies: Laying a Foundation for the Future},
author = {Schwartz, Stephan A and Dossey, Larry, MD},
year = {2010},
journal = {Explore},
doi = {10.1016/j.explore.2010.06.011},
}