Interview w/ scientist who studies the affect of "prayer" on healing

[Book Lover]

Sorry to post and run...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/08/01/findrelig.DTL

Marilyn Schlitz, vice president for research and education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and senior scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center, is no stranger to the debate.

Schlitz, who has published numerous articles on distant healing, cross-cultural healing and consciousness studies, is leading a major study of remote prayer funded by the National Institutes of Health. Recently I asked her about the difficulties of studying prayer in the laboratory.

<snip>

(Quote from interviewee) For example, 35 studies designed to measure the impact of one person's intentions on another person's autonomic nervous system have now been conducted in laboratories across the world, subjected to critical evaluation and published in a major peer-reviewed journal. Researchers concluded the data support the distant-healing hypothesis. The fact that the current study conducted at Duke did not support that same hypothesis under a particular set of conditions is not an argument for disregarding the larger body of data.

[beam me up scottie]

1. Wait 'til the woo woos get a hold of this one.

What a great scientific mind Dr. Schlitz has:

Prayer is a difficult concept to define. There are so many different ways that people pray around the world. How do you define it in your study?


I don't really talk about prayer in my research. I talk about compassionate intention.

What we do is invite healers to practice a certain way, and then we allow them to do whatever they need to do to get there. We tell them, "Please hold a compassionate intention for the well-being of another person -- in whatever way that works for you."

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Damnit - they're stealing our words now!

Noetic, from the Greek νοῦς (nous) is usually translated as "mind", "understanding", "intellect", or "reason". Most dictionaries define the term noetic as a synonym of "mental" or "intellectual." However, in recent decades, the term has taken on new usages among New Age authors and teachers. The Institute of Noetic Sciences defines noetic as, roughly, 'relating to consciousness or intuition'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noetic

[onager]

5. Funny story about that word "noetic.."

I was Monitoring The Enemy one night, listening to the right-wing Fundie FM radio station in Los Angeles.

Some Fundie asshat was talking about a book he had written, where he expounded on his exciting idea of "noetic sin."

When he got the first proof back from the publisher, evidently the spell-checking software didn't recognize the word. And every time he used the term, it had been changed to "Poetic sin."

:rofl:

[BiggJawn]

3. In my personal experience....

You know, that thing that makes ME more of an authority on something than a guy with a Degree? Read a thread about that yesterday....

Anyway, in my experience, nothing fails like Prayer....

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Not only does prayer work, but it works backwards in time

according to this article from the Christmas 2001 British Medical Journal.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7327/1450

I think the BMJ and Professor Leibovici had their tongues slightly in their cheeks. Beware the phrase 'statistically significant'. The comments in "rapid responses" are worth reading, especially:

Purple Unicorns?-you must be a heretic Sir! The only true deity is the Great Invisible Pink Unicorn. Have you not beheld her in All the Glory of Her Ineffable Pinkness?

Competing interests: Member of National Secular Society

[Book Lover]

6. One of the responders was a bit upset...

By the way … the general public is not amused … and we will, therefore, pray for you and your miserable little raisin-like souls (but not until later, because you’ve convinced us that it works better that way.) -- Margaret M. Zacny


:rofl: