Study fails to show healing power of prayer

No, this isn't from The Onion:

A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said Thursday.

In fact, the study found some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for did worse than others who were only told they might be prayed for -- though those who did the study said they could not explain why.

The patients in the study at six U.S. hospitals included 604 who were actually prayed for after being told they might or might not be; another 597 patients who were not prayed for after being told they might or might not be; and a group of 601 who were prayed for and told they would be the subject of such prayer.

The praying was done by members of three Christian groups in monasteries and elsewhere -- two Catholic and one Protestant -- who were given written prayers and the first name and initial of the last name of the prayer subjects. The prayers started on the eve of or day of surgery and lasted for two weeks.

"Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on whether complications occurred (and) patients who were certain that intercessors would pray for them had a higher rate of complications than patients who were uncertain but did receive intercessory prayer," the study said.

There is "no clear explanation" for the latter finding, it added.

The study -- called the largest of its kind -- was designed only to try to measure the impact of intercessory prayer on heart surgery patients, an intervention that some earlier reports had showed seemed to be beneficial.

I'm so tired my brain just isn't processing this information. I've seen the benefit of spellwork but I don't substitute it for medical care. It just boggles my mind that people actually believe that talking to an invisible man in the sky (who loves you and needs money) will cure them faster after surgery. I believe in a Divine Power but I don't believe It has nothing better to do than listen to me talk to myself.