Jewish Prayer Service World Week of Prayer for Animals

Efficacy of Prayer

A child praying before lunch, 1936 Determining the efficacy of prayer has been attempted in various studies since Francis Galton first addressed it in 1872. Some studies have reported benefit, some have reported harm, and some have found no benefit from the act of praying. Others suggest that the topic is outside the realm of science altogether. According to the Washington Post, "...prayer is t...

Can Prayer Increase Gratitude?

The objective of these studies was to determine the strength and direction of the relationship between prayer and gratitude. In Study 1 (n 674), the authors replicated the cross-sectional association between prayer frequency and gratitude that has been demonstrated in previous research. In Study 2 (n 780), prayer frequency predicted gratitude 6 weeks later even when controlling for initial grat...

The Efficacy of Prayer

Diffused Religion and Prayer

It is quite likely that the origins of prayer are to be found in ancient mourning and bereavement rites. Primeval ritual prayer was codified and handed down socially to become a deep-rooted feature of people‟s cultural behavior, so much so, that it may surface again several years later, in the face of death, danger, need, even in the case of relapse from faith and religious practice. Modes of p...

Prayer: A Challenge for Science

Since ancient times, a strong and pervasive belief in the efficacy of prayer–for the living and the dead–reinforces the notion that consciousness is not limited to the physical body. Not only do traditions throughout the world share a belief that prayers may in some way help (or invoke help from) deceased ancestors, many cultures throughout history have believed that prayer can bring about chan...