Faith healing
Wikipedia contributors · 2024 · Wikipedia
This source is used as context evidence across 2 linked claims and 5 related evidence hubs. Its citation record is marked verified; that verifies the source trail, not the truth of any linked claim.
Summary
Cross-tradition survey of faith and prayer-based healing claims, plus the major controlled studies of intercessory prayer.
How this source is used on the map
Background context for distant intercessory prayer alongside the STEP and Cochrane references below.
Citation record
- Authors
- Wikipedia contributors
- Year
- 2024
- Publication
- Wikipedia
- Source type
- Secondary summary
- Map role
- context
- Credibility level
- secondary
- Citation status
- Verified
- DOI
- Not recorded
- PubMed
- Not recorded
- Not recorded
Linked claims
Reported across every religious tradition. A small number of well-documented unexplained cures (Lourdes Medical Bureau) survive scrutiny; the inference to 'divine action' is a separate, much larger step.
The 2006 STEP study, the largest controlled trial, found no effect of intercessory prayer on cardiac patients.
Related evidence hubs
Psychedelic, contemplative, and out-of-body experiences and what they may reveal.
World religions and traditions, scored as systems.
Psychedelic, contemplative, out-of-body experience.
Practice claims — prayer, reiki, chakras, astrology, tarot, manifestation.
Reiki, chakras, auras, crystals, prayer healing.
Related sources
Academic frame for first-person mystical and psychedelic experience reports, especially when users ask whether an experience can justify a metaphysical belief.
Useful background for claims involving God, religious figures, or traditions because it clarifies what counts as a religious claim before evidence is weighed.
Default reference for the miracles claim's epistemic status; covers the Humean argument and the modern probabilistic responses.
The reference systematic review on the question; conclusion is null overall.
The largest, best-funded trial of distant intercessory prayer to date. Null result.
General reference for the miracles claim; pair with the SEP entry for the philosophical analysis.