At the Fairfax Community Church in Virginia, the faithful regularly pray for ailing strangers. Same goes at the Adas Israel synagogue in Washington and the Islamic Center of Maryland in Gaithersburg. In churches, mosques, ashrams, "healing rooms," prayer groups and homes nationwide, millions of Americans offer prayers daily to heal themselves, family, friends, co-workers and even people found through the Internet. Fueled by the upsurge in religious expression in the United States, prayer is the most common complement to mainstream medicine, far outpacing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies."Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism -- every religion believes in prayer for healing," said Paul Parker, a professor of theology and religion at Elmhurst College outside Chicago. "Some call it prayer, some call it cleansing the mind. The words or posture may vary. But in times of illness, all religions look towards their source of authority."The outpouring of spiritual healing has inspired a small group of researchers to attempt to use the tools of modern science to test the power of prayer to cure others.

The results have been mixed and highly controversial. Skeptics say the work is a deeply flawed and misguided waste of money that irresponsibly attempts to validate the supernatural with science. And some believers say it is pointless to try to divine the workings of God with experiments devised by mortals.Proponents, however, maintain the research is valuable, given the large numbers of people who believe in the power of prayer to influence health. Surveys have found that perhaps half of Americans regularly pray for their own health, and at least a quarter have others pray for them."It's one of the most prevalent forms of healing. Open-minded scientists have a responsibility to look into this," said Marilyn J. Schlitz of the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

View: Full Article | Source: MSNBC

My answer is yes. Prayer, aka... thought, can influence everything. Next question.

I think that if the "prayor" believes it can, it will. See the placebo effect.

You ultimately control your body, the way you think or act can indirectly influence your health.

Ever tried sweating through your palms through sheer will? I've tried this myself and I have. I knew of a friend in junior high who was able to do this. I remember trying to do this at home but I couldn't. However, if you are able to keep your mind in a state of concentration and relaxation you'll notice your palms starting to sweat while keeping a positive thought that your palms will be sweating. [a few years later, with this in mind, I was finally able to do it]

Therefore in relations to the above, the power of prayer is similar to the power of will.

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I just noticed Rykster posting the Placebo effect. This is pretty much what I was explaining but using a different comparison.

Yes, any type of spiritual faith can help heal. Notice I said "can".

Agreed, its a placebo, nothing to do with deities.

i know that some monks can increase/decrease their body temperature greatly, just through meditation.

I never believed in Spiritual healing, but when we contacted and visited an alternative healing website http://www.healer-cz.com Spiritual & Natural Alternative Healing things really started to improve.

My mother saw the results of new CT Scan and blood work and informed us that it seems the Cancer has backed off and my mother's situation has stabled compare to November 2005.The doctor does not want to start the Chemotherapy and she is very happy with this first very significant positive results due to natural healing.

OK, that's one case where the two seem to be linked. Is there even one case where somebody tried something similar and it didn't work? Without looking at huge numbers of cases and seeing if spiritualism and healing are linked, comparing cases using spiritualism with similar cases without spiritualism, it's impossible to say the healing site did anything at all. Some people go into remission without prayer or spiritualists.
Anecdotal evidence is utterly useless.

I've always been suspicious of "spiritual healings". Especially the mass healings and stuff you sometimes see on TV. I always figure it's just set up. But here's an anecdote I was unable to ignore. A friend of mine was in Mongolia, she got sick from the food and wasn't allowed to go to a ceremony they were having in the village she was staying at. Sick and injured people are considered too unpure to be present at the ceremony. So she was left behind with two men who were both deaf from birth and could not speak. She began speaking to and praying for these two men, and they looked at her blankly... well duh, that's what's expected. But later that evening one of the deaf men began shouting, "mom! mom! jesus healed me! jesus!"

Deaf people can't speak.. they certainly can't shout... and all of the neighbors were witness to the fact that he had never been able to speak or hear since childhood...

What do you think?