THE FAR SIDE: OK, so prayer can work, but after the fact. . .?
There are plenty of studies around to suggest that prayer can quicken a
patient's recovery. If you accept the current non-quantum space/time
paradigm, this alone is a remarkable fact, and would suggest that the
space between us all is far from empty.
But Dr Larry Dossey, who researches the effects of prayer, is positing
an even more extraordinary theory: that prayer can also influence past
events. This suggests that you can intend (or pray) for a better
outcome for something whose outcome would appear to be determined - and
still influence it.
He quotes in support a study carried out by Leibovici, published in the
British Medical Journal in 2001 (BMJ, 2001; 323: 1450-1). Leibovici
enlisted 3393 patients who were prayed for between four and 10 years
later. While the mortality levels were similar in the group prayed for
and the one not prayed for, those who were prayed for actually left
hospital sooner - even though they were prayed for up to 10 years
later. (I know, it's hard to get your head around this. Imagine what
it's like trying to write it).
How can this be? Dossey suggests that we really don't know enough about
the way the universe functions, or our own consciousness, to answer
that. Physicists don't know how time operates, and they are equally
clueless about consciousness so "dismissing retroactive prayer, which
involves both, seems premature," says Dossey.
(Source: British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 1465-8).