Prayer and Healing: A Study of 83 Healing Reports in the Netherlands

Abstract

The setting: 83 reports of healing related to prayer (HP) were evaluated between 2015 and 2020 in the Netherlands. Research questions: What are the medical and experiential findings? Do we find medically remarkable and/or medically unexplained healings? Which explanatory frameworks can help us to understand the findings? Methods: 83 reported healings were investigated using medical files and patient narratives. An independent medical assessment team consisting of five medical consultants, representing different fields of medicine, evaluated the associated files of 27 selected cases. Fourteen of them received in-depth interviews. Instances of healing could be classified as ‘medically remarkable’ or ‘medically unexplained’. Subsequent analysis was transdisciplinary, involving medical, experiential, theological and conceptual perspectives. Results: the diseases reported covered the entire medical spectrum. Eleven healings were evaluated as ‘medically remarkable’, while none were labelled as ‘medically unexplained’. A pattern with recurrent characteristics emerged, whether the healings were deemed medically remarkable or not: instantaneity and unexpectedness of healing, often with emotional and physical manifestations and a sense of ‘being overwhelmed’. The HP experiences were interpreted as acts of God, with a transformative impact. Positive effects on health and socio-religious quality of life persisted in most cases after a two and four year follow-up. Conclusions: the research team found it difficult to frame data in medical terms, especially the instantaneity and associated experiences in many healings. We need a broader, multi-perspective model to understand the findings. Horizontal epistemology, valuing both ‘subjective’ (experiential) and ‘objective’ data, may be helpful. An open dialogue between science and religion may help too. There is an analogy with healing narratives in the Bible and throughout church history. Future studies and documentation are needed to verify and clarify the pattern we found.