Let’s take a poll. How many of you rely on prayers when you get sick? How many of you resort to healing prayers when nothing for you, or any of your loved ones seem to work regarding treating an illness?
Now let us ask this question on a greater basis. How many people in the United States do you think resort to prayers for healing from an illness, along with obtaining conventional methods of treatment?
Well, there has been a research conducted regarding this topic. To your utmost surprise, an analysis has revealed that nine out of 10 Americans, somewhere in their lives, have committed upon praying for healing. And these healing prayers for most of them meant to be for their loved ones, rather than themselves.
Isn’t that an amazing figure? To be honest, how many of you did not realize this before? Many of us might be still scratching their heads, wondering if it is even true.
Despite of the great prevalence of atheism and communism in today’s world, these many Americans still have faith that besides following the medical ways of treatment, healing prayers yet have a strong impact in curing a person.
The author of this study as well as a professor of epidemiology and population health at the Baylor University was quite surprise at these results. As he said that, “I was expecting that some proportion of the population would be involved in this, but I wasn’t expecting the numbers to be this high.”
Well, these statistics might contraindicate what we have assumed always assumed regarding the view of people in this subject. However, it may be the time to rethink what the majority of the American put their faith into.
This study which is carried out by Jeff Levin, is published by the name of “Prevalence and Religious Predictors of Healing Prayer Use in the USA: Findings from the Baylor Religion Survey.” In this study, data is extracted from the year 2010 Baylor Religious Survey. The purpose of this research was to explore the popularity and religious indicators of healing prayers among the adult population of the United States.
Levin comments that in majority of the Americans, the concept of healing prayer for treatment is more than just a “mane activity”. He also says that most of the Americans who do so, perform in association with medical treatments, and not just as the only mode of treatment.
This study which aims at exploring the prevalence of belief in healing prayer among adult American population has discovered more astonishing facts as well. The analysis has found that about 80 percent of the country’s population admit that they have prayed for themselves regarding healing from an illness. 90 percent of the Americans claim that they have prayed for someone else to heal. Now where do you think have we been lacking in underestimating the power of faith in healing prayers among the Americans?
Such great numbers have astonished the lead author as well, as he remarks that, “There’s this hidden substrate of spirituality in this country, and by asking these questions, it uncovered something always there that was bubbling beneath the surface. This is not a marginal or minor expression. This is pretty ubiquitous.”
Above 50% of the population says that they have taken part in prayer groups for asking help from God for healing themselves or for someone else. But more unpredictable than all of the facts mentioned above is that, “laying on hands”, a concept which includes placing one’s hand on the body of a sick person to transfer blessings of healing is followed by more than a quarter of people.
Levin says that with such great statistics, one can say that is practice is just what everyone does; its more than an alternative treatment, its “normative”. Levin adds that more questions need to be inquired, more information is yet to be retrieved. This concept of spirituality which is prevailing among the Americans, about which many known psychologists, investigators, and researchers may be still unaware of, cannot be proved by a single study merely. According to Levin, “A lot of people may not be institutionally religious in the same ways they have been, but as far as their own private practices and beliefs, they are still very engaged. It still remains a very spiritually involved country one way or the other.”
REFERENCE: 90% of Americans have prayed for healing, study finds