Intercessory prayer is when you ask God for something you want to happen or for something you don’t want to not happen. In these cases, he is asking God to “intercede” on his behalf. It has been a part of most religions for centuries and centuries. But it works?
Well, a few years ago, a study (Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Heart Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer. Am Heart J.2006 Apr;151 (4): 934-42) was completed by a group of researchers (Benson H, Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, Lam P, Bethea CF, Carpenter W, Levitsky S, Hill PC, Clem DW JR, Jain MK, Drumel D, Kopecky SL, Mueller PS, Marek D, Rollins S, Hibberd PL.) The study tested the effect of prayer on the complication rate after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.
Three groups of patients were included in the study: those who were told they would definitely receive intercessory prayer to aid their recovery (601 patients), those who were told they may or may not receive intercessory prayer and did ( 601 patients) and those who were told they could receive it or not, but did NOT receive it (597 patients). Abstract citation: RESULTS: In the 2 groups who were uncertain about receiving intercessory prayer, complications occurred in 52% (315/604) of patients who received intercessory prayer vs. 51% (304/597) of those that did not (relative risk 1.02, 95% CI 0.92-1.15). Complications occurred in 59% (352/601) of patients who were sure to receive intercessory prayer compared with 52% (315/604) of those who were unsure to receive intercessory prayer (relative risk 1.14, 95% CI: 1.02-1.28). Major events and 30-day mortality were similar in the 3 groups. CONCLUSIONS: Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but the certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications.
What are we going to do with it? Is it possible that prayer could cause further complications? It could be argued that if patients knew they were being prayed for, they might have taken more risks or put less effort into recovery. But we are talking about postoperative complications, not lifestyle changes. The operative factors here are short-term events immediately surrounding the surgery, not ongoing lifestyle factors with long-term, sustained ramifications.
Reportedly, this study was carried out with an excellent, very carefully designed scientific design. But in their scientific certainty, the researchers did not consider the factors that make reality work. In the words of a recent acquaintance “they used bad theology.” In principle I agree with this, but I would express it differently. In my opinion, the most important factor these researchers overlooked was humility. Yes, that’s right: HUMILITY.
Where did that idea come from? Bear with me here, this gets a little tricky. A long time ago a friend introduced me to the discipline of Reiki. If he’s not familiar with this, Reiki is a form of energy that aids the body’s ability to heal itself. At least that’s the official introductory explanation. Oh, but it’s so much more than that!
According to the official introductory explanation, a person who has been attuned to Reiki level one can simply place their hands on someone and thus transfer some energy that will help heal, for example, an injury or a part of the body of the person. recipient who is in pain. Although the mechanism of action is not clear to me to this day, the initial concept was quite simple. I was very skeptical, but the very day I first heard about it, I allowed my friend to give me the “attunement” that transferred this healing energy into my hands. In the months that followed I used it occasionally for minor aches and pains, much in the same vein that Bensen and Dusek’s team conducted their study on prayer: “let’s see if it works!”
While it clearly wasn’t magic and I couldn’t do the impossible, before long this Reiki practice had earned enough respect in my experience that I knew it was time to take my skills to the next level. In Reiki Level Two that I had heard of, it was possible to not only transfer healing energy in a practical way, but also to send it into an intention. In fact, it was even possible to send it over distances to help heal someone who was too far away to physically touch. I approached the three-day training session with some trepidation. I was excited but worried: “Was I being pulled into something too ‘out there’ for my usually ‘here and now’ self?”
Sitting through the training session, one concept jumps out at you as very important. “Reiki should always be used for the ‘greater good’. You cannot use it to manipulate people.” For example, you could not send Reiki with the intention that your worst enemy will break his leg. Not that I was planning to manipulate or harm anyone, but this intrigued me. What was that “greater good” the teacher was talking about? Who exactly would determine the greater good in any given situation? While I immediately grasped the idea that one cannot control a person or situation with Reiki, it took some time before I understood the depth of the concept of the “greater good.”
Not long after the training session, I was describing my new Level Two Reiki abilities to a friend, a non-religious friend, who I thought would be equally skeptical, when, to my surprise, he blurted out, “Oh, so it’s like a prayer!” At first I was insulted and bewildered by this. My view of prayer at that time was like asking for magic. He wasn’t prone to praying for personal favors from an anthropomorphic God he didn’t believe in, and he was proud of it.
However, I continued to use Reiki and over time my understanding of it continued to deepen. I slowly came to see that part of what that “greater good” meant involved having the HUMILITY to know that what I want to happen in any given situation may not be the best overall. With this wonderful tool in my hands, which allows me to send healing energy to all kinds of conflict situations and people with various diseases, how could I, in my limited humanity, know all the factors? In any given situation, whatever intent you send, you would have to admit that you did not, in fact, know what outcome would be the best. I had no right to specify and ask for MY WILL to be done; I could only send energy for the “greater good” and trust that the Reiki, or whoever was providing it, would “know” the difference.
Here’s a perfect example that was happening right around the time I was realizing this. One of my brothers was having problems in his marriage. I decided to send Reiki to his relationship with his wife. Understanding the concept of the “greater good” required me to have the HUMILITY to know that as much as I had great hope that the relationship in question would blossom, my sending Reiki could have the effect of helping it end. Sending Reiki meant giving up my investment in the outcome and trusting that my efforts would help the “greater good” to occur, even if it meant that I would be furthering the unwanted outcome. If it was time for him to end his relationship, my Reiki could help make that happen faster, possibly with less hurt and ill will, but end the same way. It was quite a task for me to accept this. As much as I liked my sister-in-law, and as much as I didn’t want my brother to get a divorce, I had to accept that my place was simply sending “for the greater good of their relationship.” …and NOT with the intention of trying to save his marriage!
Over the years, there have been many opportunities to help people by sending Reiki. Some got better, some died. Some grew up, some got divorced. The opportunity for humility came from knowing that I was not the one in control of the process, whether you want to call it prayer, Reiki, or wishful thinking. I had to learn to develop the humility to see that the greater good (whatever it was or whatever kind of being determined exactly what that greater good was) was something beyond my knowledge and beyond my comprehension.
So if Reiki is similar to prayer, and yes, now all these years later, I can say that I see what it is like: it’s not that important who exactly you pray to. If there is a god up there with any kindness or perspective, he would accept your prayer, your chant, or your sending of Reiki, no matter who or what you think you are sending it to. Only a small-minded, man-made god would only listen to prayers sent specifically to a limited concept of him in a particular way from a certain group of his people, supposedly favored by him above all others!
Mystics say they pray, not so much for personal favors, but to align themselves with God’s will. In most cases, the God they refer to is not the specific, bearded, humanoid guy in the sky of organized religion, but something broader than that, less defined, something like Goodness, Truth, or Love. Pray to “align with” the God of the mystics seems to be almost the same as sending Reiki to the “greater good”.
Before designing another study testing the powers of prayer, Drs. Benson, Dusek, and their team would do well to understand the concept of “greater good.” They need to have the humility to see that they cannot know what is the greater good in any situation. They especially need to know that the highest good, the will of God, or whatever you want to call it, is surely more complex than the assumption that each patient should have the fewest cardiac complications. Perhaps the greater good in the case of some of these cardiac patients was that they learned something from the experience of the complications! Maybe they needed to learn stamina! Perhaps the prayer helped the doctors learn something new about how to manage complications. Perhaps the prayers offered in the study DID help the greater good. But the study itself did not measure the effectiveness of intercessory prayer. He studied only the need for men to assume that they know more than they do.
And when we are trying to determine if intercessory prayer “works” or not, we must have the HUMILITY to realize that OUR idea of judging it may not be in accordance with the “greater good”. Our prayers may be working toward an end we have no way of knowing about: a “greater good” that respects a larger, broader reality than we can perceive.
“…NOT MY WILL, BUT MAY “THE” BE DONE!”
… Look out for my soon-to-be-published article on correlating the concept of “greater good” with the upcoming election!