The placebo effect?

[Karenanna]

Is there a placebo effect to prayer? It is well known that there is a thing called the placebo effect and doctors make use of it in cases where they suspect that the patient’s mind has caused the symptoms. They give the patient a useless pill. If the patient believes that it will work, it sometimes does.

Some people, who are skeptical of prayers being answered by God, claim that the placebo effect causes answers to prayer. Perhaps in some cases this is true. If the person’s mind caused the illnesses, then the person’s mind can also help heal the illness, by sending messages out to the various parts of the body that release hormones etc., but even in cases like this, God made the body and put its natural processes into place. Not all answers to prayer have to be outright miracles. Positive thinking can do much the same, even if the person does not recognize God’s part in creating the body and its processes.

One objection that I have to the claim that prayers are only answered through the placebo effect, is that other people can pray for a very sick person, and the person doesn’t even know that her or she is being prayed for, then the person receives a healing, surely the placebo effect is about the person who receives the healing and their own thinking. It is nonsense to suggest that it can be transferred to the person, by people who the person doesn’t even know are praying for them!

Another difficulty to the claim is that some healings through prayer have been the spontaneous growing of body parts: in one case it was a new toe for a girl whose original toe was accidentally cut off, by an oven door which fell off. This miracle took place through the intercession of Saint Philomena. Try using a placebo effect on something like that!

Another case is that of the multiplication of food. This of course is one of the miracles of Jesus, that are mentioned in the bible, but this type of miracle has also occurred since, in the lives of saints and in the lives of everyday Christians in times of special need. I could give other examples, but I think that the ones already given are sufficient to prove the point.

The article above is from my book: Help from Heaven (Answers to Prayer), which can be read free on-line at:

missionbell.homestead.com/HelpFromHeavenBook.html

There are lots of stories of answers to prayer, covering many different saints and situations. Here is one to wet your appetite.

**Loretta Young **
The following story was told by the late Father Aedan McGrath an Irish missionary priest, at a talk which he gave when visiting Sydney, Australia. Father McGrath was in China during WWII when the Japanese army invaded the country. The Japanese were advancing towards the area where his parish was located. The local women were terrified of what might happen when they got there. The women begged Father McGrath (who was a very small man) to protect them. There was very little that he could do. He prayed to Our Lady for help. When the Japanese soldiers arrived in the area, the soldier in charge of the unit, came to talk to Father McGrath. It seems that this soldier had a big crush on the Hollywood actress Loretta Young, who he had seen in movies. He wanted to know if Father McGrath had ever met her. As it turned out, Father McGrath had actually met her, probably through an association with another Irish priest Father Patrick Peyton, the founder of the Family Rosary Crusade. (Father Peyton knew many Hollywood stars and was able to persuade them to be on his radio programs about the Rosary.) The officer ordered his soldiers to leave this village in peace, just because Father McGrath knew Loretta Young!

 

[adv1sor]

I can’t answer your question, but I can rephrase it,

Is the placebo effect evidence of the power of faith?

 

[Karenanna]

I can’t answer your question, but I can rephrase it,

Is the placebo effect evidence of the power of faith?

I think that you have a really good point. Even when useless pills are used by a doctor for a stressed out patient for their psychosomatic illness, (a real illness which was brought about by stress) the patient only gets well if they have faith in the remedy. The patient who says “that’s not going to work” is not going to benefit from the placebo pills.

In relation to what we are discussing there are two types of faith,

1. faith in the doctor’s treatment (a placebo)
2. faith in God’s ability to help and heal.

 

[shelby2014]

Both.

First, I think my faith is strong, so that I am able to see an answer to a prayer in a small way that maybe God didn’t actually step down and intervene to answer. This is especially common for me if I realize after the fact that such-and-such really answered my prayer. These are not supernatural occurrences. Usually they involve other people. I was praying for more Catholic friends last night and then today talked for an hour at hospitality Sunday with some peeps. Coincidence or God?

I have heard the original Jewish definition of a miracle as a “natural event that happens when you need it.” So, talking to those people was perfectly natural, but it happened at a time in my life when I needed somebody. I have faith in God that it was an answer to my prayer, although a skeptic will say no.

Then, of course, there are those prayers that are answered in completely supernatural ways. I have never experienced one of these first hand, but that does not stop my faith.

 

[Karenanna]

Both.

First, I think my faith is strong, so that I am able to see an answer to a prayer in a small way that maybe God didn’t actually step down and intervene to answer. This is especially common for me if I realize after the fact that such-and-such really answered my prayer. These are not supernatural occurrences. Usually they involve other people. I was praying for more Catholic friends last night and then today talked for an hour at hospitality Sunday with some peeps. Coincidence or God?

I have heard the original Jewish definition of a miracle as a “natural event that happens when you need it.” So, talking to those people was perfectly natural, but it happened at a time in my life when I needed somebody. I have faith in God that it was an answer to my prayer, although a skeptic will say no.

Then, of course, there are those prayers that are answered in completely supernatural ways. I have never experienced one of these first hand, but that does not stop my faith.

I have had my prayers answered in those so called co-incidental ways, and also in ways that I think were miraculous. An atheist will have trouble seeing the existence of God in the most dramatic miracles.

Here as another of the stories that are in my book on answers to prayer.

It involved the chapel of the Miraculous Medal which is a wonderful gift from Mary to her children.

**No longer crippled **
The following story came from a sister of the Daughters of Charity for inclusion in this collection. A mother from Mexico took her little crippled daughter on a trip to Paris, to visit the chapel where the apparitions of the Miraculous Medal occurred in 1830. When they arrived at the chapel they saw a nun who was arranging flowers on the sanctuary. The mother asked her if it would be possible for her daughter to touch the chair, that our Lady had sat on while talking to Saint Catherine Labouré during one of the visions. The nun said that it was not allowed. She then went into the back room to get some more flowers. The area where the chair was, had been roped off. The mother thought to herself, “I did not come all this way just to look at the chair.” She told her daughter to get down on the floor, work her way on her stomach under the rope, move up and quickly touch the chair and then come back. To the mother’s distress the little girl went up to the chair and placed her head upon it and would not come back for quite a while despite her mother’s pleading. The mother was worried that the nun would come back and that they would get into trouble. Eventually the little girl came back, and the mother asked her why she had done this. Her reply was "I am sorry mummy, but the lady told me to rest my head on her lap.” After this they returned to Mexico on the plane. During the trip the mother noticed that her daughter’s physical condition was starting to improve. By the time they reached Mexico the child was fully healed. She can now run and jump as perfectly as any normal child.

The prayer on the Miraculous Medal is: "O Mary conceived without sin pray for us, who have recourse to thee.” Many favours are granted to those who wear the Miraculous Medal and who pray to Our Lady confidently trusting in her intercession. These favours include healings, protection in danger, conversions, help to fight temptations and many other needs such as employment. The feast day of the Miraculous Medal is celebrated on November 27.

 

[Sneaglebob]

I am also worried about praying for one’s self being is the placebo effect. I asked my science teacher if prayer is a placebo effect and he said no if you expect results. But sometimes I pray for my health and completely forget about what I prayed and move on with my life and later when I get sick I recuperate faster. Now I don’t know if that is the placebo effect or not, can anyone help?

 

[Sherry_G]

The most powerful effect of prayer is putting oneself in closer union with God. Understanding that our small time here on this earth may be pleasant, unpleasant, we may have illnesses, or health, or problems or smooth sailing, but all our lives are in Gods hands. It’s not in the asking or receiving of miracles that prayer works, its in the realization that we are His creatures and totally in His grasp. Why some people have an easy time of it in this life is a mystery. It is through prayer that we are helped to be closer to the creator. Without prayer which is a conscious turning of our own minds and hearts to God, we can fall prey to the sins of the flesh, the world and the devil very easily. Forgetting who we truly are and why we were created can lead us to fall into grave/deadly sins of pride, greed, lust that cause so much misery in this life.God is always answering us when we pray. Sometimes we just don’t see it, if it doesn’t match up to what we believe is the best solution. In hindsight, most of us can see when God has stepped into our situation. We still have to choose to do what God’s commandments require of us. When we choose evil, then consequences will ensue. We cannot judge when and what God can and will do. I know He has performed miracles in my life, some great and some small by human standards. I walked away from Him in my early years, but He kept calling me back to Him. The miracle is how much He loves each one of us.