Power of Prayer

Natural Health, April, 1999 by Katherine Gallia, Susanne Althoff, Melissa Nachatelo

Advanced AIDS patients who received an hour of prayer (or "remote healing") six days a week for 10 weeks were significantly healthier than those who received no prayer, according to a study led by Elizabeth Targ, M.D., director of the Complementary Medicine Research Institute in San Francisco.

During the six-month study, patients who were prayed for required 85 percent fewer days of hospitalization and 29 percent fewer doctor visits, and developed 83 percent fewer new illnesses than the control group. The 40 remote healers involved came from seven different religious and healing traditions.