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Contents:  Soundings 9

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Fred Coutts (Chaplain at Grampian Univerity Hospitals) edits SACH Soundings

Oor Wullie

SACH  Soundings
 No 9 March 2002

The Sunday Post
and Beyond Reason

Fred Coutts suggests some articles to read

“It’s the Sunday Post on the phone!” I don’t get many calls from them, and ignoring the comments from my colleagues about which character in Oor Wullie I was being invited to understudy, I spoke to reporter Adam Docherty who drew my attention to a paper published in the BMJ which showed that “remote, retroactive, intercessory prayer” was associated with a shorter stay in hospital and shorter duration of fever in patients with a bloodstream infection. The following Sunday, Adam’s article appeared in The Sunday Post suggesting that “The NHS could have a new weapon in the battle to cut waiting lists!”
Unfortunately Adam missed a very important and strange part of the study, which was carried out by Professor Leonard Leibovici of the Rabin Medical Centre in Israel. The patients who were prayed for as a group had been in hospital 10 years before the prayers were said and the effects measured during that stay in hospital (retroactive prayer). Now how does that work? The good Professor is not really worried, reminding us that James Lind, by clinical trial, determined that lemons and limes cured scurvy aboard HMS Salisbury in 1758. He did not know about ascorbic acid. There was a natural explanation for his findings which would only be clarified centuries later.
The Christmas 2001 edition of the BMJ published other articles which delved “beyond reason”: rosary prayers and yoga mantras were shown to slow respiration and had positive psychological effects; and an article was published about four inexplicable cases, including an African woman who died of a death spell.
The same week as the call from The Sunday Post, Grampian Local Health Council Newsletter drew me to another Christmas edition, this time The Health Service Journal. Under the title of “O Come All Ye Faithful” John Swinton (University of Aberdeen) and Stephen Pattison (University of Cardiff) pointed to a growing body of research which suggests that religion and spirituality can have a positive effect on mental and physical health, but like any other powerful belief system they also have potential for harm. They suggest that further research is needed if religion and spirituality are to be understood and therapeutically incorporated into healthcare.
Spiritual care is certainly being taken note of in the secular press. Keep reading!

The Sunday Post 24 February 2002 P4
British Medical Journal Vol 323 2001 P1450 22-29 December 2001
Health Service Journal Vol 111 No 5786 20 December 2001