The Power of Prayer

 An excerpt from "Ten Simple Rules for Living a Blessed Life" by Grant Virtue available at Lulu.com:


"It is a very fortunate time to be alive because after a century long schism spirituality and science are once again
beginning to reconcile their differences. Both the new spiritual teachers along with some particularly enlightened scientists are starting to realize that they are both saying the same things, just in different ways. Not
all that long ago, as human development goes, it would have been a very rare case for a doctor or scientist not to acknowledge the hand of our creator in the human body and our natural world. That did eventually change of course, and the atheist movement sprung up rather suddenly. While that movement is still unfortunately going
strong, we are at last seeing a reversal of that trend in scientists themselves.

Evidence the fact that studies on prayer have been conducted in fairly rapid fire succession in recent years. Larry Dossey M.D., author of such works as “The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary
Things”, has this to say on the subject “In 1993, only three U.S. Medical schools had courses devoted to exploring the role of religious practice and prayer in health; currently 80 medical schools have instituted
such courses.”

At this point it would be far safer to say that it is proven fact. rather than mere theory that prayer can and does have an enormous positive impact on our lives. Now you may have seen the results of a couple of
studies on prayer that stated there was no effect at all, or worse that it even seemed to cause harm to the person who was praying. he fact of the matter is that there is a tremendous difference between cold
mechanical prayer and real, devoted and heartfelt, praying. Just as in all other areas of our lives we cannot simply go at this halfheartedly and expect dramatic results."