Prayer Heals
"Brand-new research from all over the world is confirming what religious people have known for centuries: Belief in God works miracles, making people happier -- and healthier!
"And the news gets better: Even if you don't believe in God, you can learn to believe.
Consider this astonishing evidence of the power of faith -- all of it completed within the past year:
"1. A recent California survey of more than 5,200 people found that those who attended church regularly had lower death rates than people who didn't. And that's without regard to risk factors like smoking, drinking, obesity and lack of exercise.
"2. In a just-released Paris study, a church group was asked to pray for 60 terminally ill hospital patients. Another 60 dying people at the same hospital were not prayed for. The patients themselves weren't told about the experiment.
"Incredibly, the people who were prayed for lived an average of four months longer than those who were not prayed for. And five of the prayed-for patients miraculously recovered.
"None of the other 60 patients got well....."
Here are some articles which corroborate the notion that prayer can indeed heal:
Can Prayer Heal?
Scientific Research of Prayer: Can the Power of Prayer be Proven?
Can Prayer Heal? In an article on ongoing research into the power of prayer to heal, Dr. Deepak Chopra, who is well-known for his insights on science and spirituality, says these prayer experiments are proving what he's been saying all along: There are healing forces in nature that science is only beginning to understand. "What physicists are saying to us right now," he says, "is that there is a realm of reality which goes beyond the physical … where in fact we can influence each other from a distance."
Intercessory Prayer
What is Intercessory Prayer?
Intercessory Prayer: Going before God on someone else's behalf.
"I commend intercessory prayer, because it opens man's soul, gives a healthy play to his sympathies, constrains him to feel that he is not everybody, and that this wide world and this great universe were not after all made that he might be its petty lord, that everything might bend to his will, and all creatures crouch at his feet." Charles Spurgeon
Intercessory Prayer ".... Some of the earliest Christian gatherings for worship were called synaxis (meaning meeting or assembly in Greek). Typically, worship would include readings from the Psalms, followed by a period of intercessory prayer, and concluding with celebration of the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper). Adaptations of this basic outline of worship can still be found in many worship services today. The epistles (letters) of the Christian New Testament claim that all believers in Jesus Christ are priests. In intercessory prayer, we carry out what traditionally identified as being a priestly function: interceding with God on behalf of others. Webster’s Dictionary defines intercede as “to intervene between parties with a view to reconciling differences.” In intercessory prayer, we go to God on behalf of someone else, or in behalf of a particular situation that is of personal, congregational, or communal concern. Intercessory pray often is referred to as the “prayers of the people.” Ultimately, our prayer is always for complete reconciliation of the person or situation with God’s yearnings, God’s gracious will. Traditionally, in the Christian church, intercessory prayer is offered in the name of Jesus, as Jesus is understood to intercede with us before God. However, there is also a strong tradition that in prayer we have direct access to God, who is with us always...."
Intercessory Prayer: The Model of Christ
Saints and Intercessory Prayer
Eight Priorities of Intercessory Prayer
Interplanetary and Cosmic Prayers
Toms's Prayer Tom’s Prayer appears in the book The Only Planet of Choice, by Phyllis Schlemmer, published by Gateway Books, 1993. The prayer was offered by Tom (known in ancient history as Atum), the spokesbeing for the Council of Nine. This is a circle of exceptionally insightful cosmic beings who work with large-scale universal issues in cooperation with high-level ET civilisations – though they are not themselves ETs. They have given some explanations of who they are, yet our concepts cannot really encompass the full situation. Nevertheless, their intelligence and understanding is profound. They have a special interest in events on planet Earth and they have long been involved in our history. |
