Prayers can really heal
A recent study has revealed that the effects of praying really can benefit someone who is healing.
Researchers from Indiana University in Bloomington conducted an investigation on the powers of spiritual healing practices to heal disease.
The study involved investigating two charismatic Christian groups one from Africa and one from South America.
The researchers measured the hearing and vision of impaired people both before and after they received proximal intercessory prayer. The team concluded that this significantly improved the condition of many of after they had received a prayer.
Two participants with impaired hearing found that after the prayers they were able to detect sound by 50 decibels and three people with vision impairment at 20/400 or worse improved to 20/80 or better. Another women who has almost no vision was able to make out a persons hand afterward as well as being able to count their fingers and read 20/125 line on a vision chart.
Candy Gunther Brown, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at IU and author of the study believes the reason for this could be related to people believing that a particular religious or spiritual practice healed them. ''They are much more likely to become adherent. This phenomenon, more than any other, accounts for the growth of these Christian subgroups globally," she explained.