Reading now: Prayer Is Good Medicine

Prayer Is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer by Larry Dossey

Overview
'With the elegance of simplicity and the precision of science, Dossey shows us how we can create a lasting partnership between faith and medicine.' DEEPACK CHOPRA, M.D.

Publisher description:
Counter Physician Larry Dossey – one of today's foremost authority and most highly sought-after speaker on the relationship between prayer and healing – offers practical methods and illuminating explorations of the what, where, how, and why of the power of prayer to affect our health. Putting aside confounding scientific jargon. Dossey employs his trademark style of informed and warmly anecdotal writing to examine people's hopes and expectations of prayer, as well as their anxieties and misconceptions. For readers who want to understand the spiritual dimension of health and healing. Dossey has created an invaluable and inspiring resource.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Since Larry Dossey wrote his first book, Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, he has toured the world meeting with audiences as diverse as Pentagon employees, church groups, and the British parliament. ... Prayer Is Good Medicine divides these discussions into four neatly contained sections. As prayer moves into the center stage of Western medicine Prayer Is Good Medicine acts as a modern-day prayer book as well as an ethical touchstone for healers and seekers.
From Publishers Weekly
Unlike medical practitioners in the East, many physicians in the West argue that the healing power of science is far superior to, and often incompatible with, the healing power of prayer. Yet, physician Dossey, attentive to the ways in which spiritual health affects bodily health, demonstrated in his Healing Words that the capacity of prayer to heal, combined with the capacity of science to heal, is far greater than the healing power of medicine alone. ...

CONTENTS:
PART ONE: THE EVIDENCE
Testing Prayer Is an Act of Worship
Experiments in Prayer Can Help Heal the Religion/Science Split
The Impact of Prayer Experiments on Religious Beliefs
The Scientific Understanding of Prayer Is Limited
Prayer Is Not Just a Placebo
Prayer Is Not Required to Go Anywhere

PART TWO: THE CONTROVERSY
Evaluating the Criticism That "Prayer Kills"
Celebrating the Diversity of Prayer
Praying for Others Without Their Consent
Using Public Funds for Prayer Research
Medical Malpractice and the Failure to Use Prayer

PART THREE: WHAT IS PRAYER?
The Universe Is Prayer
Prayer Is an Attitude of the Heart
Prayer Is What It Needs to Be
A Prayer for Prayer
Distinguishing Between Religion and Prayer
The Body Does Not Distinguish Between Prayer and Meditation
Ordinary Magic

PART FOUR: HOW TO PRAY
Credentials Don't Matter in Prayer
Children Are Prayer
Four-Legged Forms of Prayer
A Doctor Tests Prayer
Overcoming Ambivalence and Confusion About Prayer
Who Can Benefit from Prayer?
When We Need to Pray, We Will
There Is No Best Way to Pray
More Prayer Is Not Always Better
Choosing to Pray Privately or Publicly Depends on Our Temperament
You Can Pray in Your Dreams
Glimpsing the Infinite
Forgiving Ourselves for Getting Sick
Praying "Thy Will Be Done"
Praying for Corn in Iowa
The Answer Isn't Always Yes
Be Careful What You Ask For
Beware of Negative Prayer
Prayer Helps Us Be Warriors, Not Worriers

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Spirituality May Boost Mental Health, University of Missouri researchers

THURSDA Y, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News)

Spirituality Correlates to Better Mental Health Regardless of Religion, Say MU Researchers, Aug. 20, 2012

Story Contact(s):
Timothy Wall, walltj@missouri.edu, 573-882-3346

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Despite differences in rituals and beliefs among the world’s major religions, spirituality often enhances health regardless of a person’s faith, according to University of Missouri researchers. The MU researchers believe that health care providers could take advantage of this correlation between health – particularly mental health – and spirituality by tailoring treatments and rehabilitation programs to accommodate an individual’s spiritual inclinations.
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