Thread: "Spiritual" healing and the placebo effect.

We all (or at least most of us) quite rightly dismiss spiritual and energy healing as woo, but could there actually be something in it?

Of course, I'm not talking about the existence of auras, reiki, crystal magic and all that stuff. That's just silly.

Could the effectiveness of spiritual healing methods be a manifestation of the placebo effect? If someone actually believes that these healing methods will work for them, could that be enough into kick-starting the body into speeding up recovery from these ailments?

I guess it helps that people who would already be willing to accept the effectiveness of energy healing are more likely to be responsive to any placebo effect caused by it.

Certainly placebo - if it has any effect at all.

Not so sure about the willingness to believe necessarily having a positive effect. The only formal study I've ever heard of with prayer - not by the patient but with people praying for the patient - came up with a slightly negative effect. It's the only one though (but I no longer have the reference) and no one's done any further work to analyse why this might happen.

Originally Posted by adelady

The only formal study I've ever heard of with prayer - not by the patient but with people praying for the patient - came up with a slightly negative effect. It's the only one though (but I no longer have the reference) and no one's done any further work to analyse why this might happen.

Are you referring to one of these studies: Methodology of Prayer Experiments

Can't remember, probably.

I do recall that they got a fairly heavy trampling and trouncing at Respectful Insolence. But when I checked there, Orac doesn't have prayer (nor spirituality) listed as a searchable category. And nothing useful turned up on a straight google search.