Research
This video was produced by Notebook LM based on the content of the literature review summary below, written by Su Mason. The video shows an easy to understand summary for people who prefer this but provides neither the detail nor accuracy of the report below.
A Short Summary of the Research Literature into Spiritual Healing
Su Mason PhD BNurs*
Many people seek spiritual healing and anecdotally report finding it beneficial. (1-4)
A study by Rahtz et al. found that the main recipients of healing in the UK are older women who seek help for a variety of issues, but particularly for mental health and pain.
93% of the clients reported experiencing immediate benefits such as relaxation, improved wellbeing and relief of pain. In addition, 27% had some unusual sensory experiences during the session, such as feelings of warmth, seeing coloured lights, or tingling sensations. (5)
Research Reviews of Spiritual Healing Studies
Dan Benor was the first to look at healing seriously as a research subject. He reviewed 155 controlled studies (6) using a wide range of experimental subjects (enzymes, microorganisms, cells, plants, animals and humans). Over half produced statistically significant results supporting the healing effect, however his review did not include many rigorous, controlled studies in human illness. He revisited this investigation into the efficacy of healing in his comprehensive book, Spiritual Healing. Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution. (7). He examined 191 randomised, controlled studies on the effects of spiritual healing on humans, plants, animals, water and other materials. He found that of the 52 most rigorous, controlled studies, 74% show significant positive effects.
Between 2000 and 2004 there were a number of reviews published of research studies and trials on spiritual healing (8 -13). All reported major methodological problems with these research studies, including inadequacy of blinding, poor outcome measures, lack of statistical power estimations, lack of confidence intervals, lack of independent replication, small sample sizes and inadequate reporting.
Crawford, Sparber and Jonas (9) systematically reviewed the quality of experimental clinical and laboratory research involving hands-on healing and distant healing between 1955 and 2001. 45 laboratory and 45 clinical studies met their quality inclusion criteria. Of the clinical studies, 31 (70.5%) reported positive outcomes and of the laboratory studies, 28 (62%) reported positive outcomes.
In 2000, two reviews of randomised controlled trials (RCTs, which are considered the gold standard in clinical research) of healing in humans, were published. In each, approximately half the trials demonstrated statistically significant effects compared to controls:
First, Astin, Harkness and Ernst’s review (10) identified 23 trials which met research standards (such as random assignment of participants) and which looked at the efficacy of distant healing (prayer, mental healing, Therapeutic Touch or spiritual healing) and involved 2,774 patients. Thirteen (57%) studies yielded statistically significant treatment effects.
Second, in his review of healing as a therapy for human disease, Abbot (11) identified 22 trials for which a full, published paper was available. Of these, 10 reported a ‘significant’ effect of healing compared with a control group. These trials varied greatly in the method of application of healing and its duration, the medical conditions treated, the outcome measure employed and the control intervention used.
Jonas et al. (13) in 2003, reviewed 19 RCTs of ‘energy medicine’ (of which 18 were on therapeutic touch (a type of healing); of these, 11 reported statistically significant treatment effects.
In 2008 the Cochrane Collaboration reported a systematic review (14) of touch therapies (noncontact Therapeutic Touch, healing touch, and Reiki) by So et al. Out of 24 RCTs of So et al’s review, a total of 1,153 participants exposed to Therapeutic Touch had significantly lower average pain intensity than unexposed participants; also, when the touch therapies were conducted by more experienced practitioners, they appeared to yield greater effects.
In 2012, a Cochrane review (15) on wound healing was inconclusive. Four trials in people with experimental wounds were eligible for inclusion. The effect of therapeutic touch on wound healing in these studies was variable. Two of the studies (n = 44 & 24) demonstrated a significant effect of therapeutic touch, however, the results of the two other trials favoured the control group (n = 15 & 38).
Roe et al (2015) have more recently conducted two meta-analyses (16) of noncontact healing studies in both human (57 trials) and non-human living systems, such as plants cell cultures (49 trials). The latter were included because ‘whole’ humans ‘might be susceptible to expectancy effects or benefit from the healing intentions of friends, family or their own religious groups.’ The studies were independently rated for methodological quality.
There was wide variation in the quality of the different trials, and in the effects reported, with lower quality trials often resulting in apparently better results. However, even when low quality trials were excluded, a significant benefit was found for groups provided with healing intention, in comparison to those not treated. The overall effect size (which indicates how meaningful is the relationship between variables or the difference between groups) (17) was larger for good quality studies of cell cultures and small animals than it was for plants or humans.
The review concluded that their results showed a significant effect of healing intention on both human and non-human living systems (where expectation and placebo effects cannot be the cause), indicating that healing intention can be of value.
Individual Research Studies
A small, single-blinded randomized control trial (18) (of 25 patients who had been given a diagnosis of osteoarthritis of at least one knee), randomized patients to therapeutic touch, mock therapeutic touch, or standard care. The trial demonstrated that the treatment group, receiving therapeutic touch, had significantly decreased pain and improved function as compared with the placebo and control groups.
A single-blinded randomized clinical trial (19) of 99 severely burned patients found that therapeutic touch, compared to sham therapeutic touch, produced greater pain relief as an adjunct to narcotic analgesia and a greater reduction in anxiety.
Jhaveri et al’s study (20) provided evidence of healing stimulating growth of human osteoblastic cells and inducing differentiation and mineralization.
A randomized controlled trial, published in 2001, of the effect of spiritual healing on the chronic pain (21) of 132 patients, did not demonstrate statistically significant reduction in pain (which was the primary endpoint). It did show large, non-specific effects and psychological benefits which were significantly different compared to the controls and which were dismissed as being ‘part of the folklore of healing’. The ‘non-specific effects’ reported included ‘changes’ in pain and ‘unusual’ sensations (such as seeing colours / light).
The trial was heavily criticized, however, on a number of points (22), but especially for the design which assumed a very large effect size (the size of the expected difference in pre- and post-healing pain), which was considered inappropriate for chronic pain. Walach et al (22) conclude:
What is increasingly emerging is the fact that the ‘non-specific effects’ [of Spiritual Healing] are sizeable’.
Gerard et al. (23) conducted a small, randomised controlled trial on 68 adults with restricted neck movement. The intervention was three weekly, 30-minute sessions of spiritual healing compared to the control group who received normal care and no healing. After treatment, the change from baseline in rotation and flexion-extension neck movement was significantly greater in the treatment group. Compared to the control group, after the three weeks of spiritual healing, the treatment group also reduced their pain severity scores and significantly improved their scores for physical function and energy and vitality.
Wiesendanger et al (24) conducted a small, randomised, waiting list-controlled study of distant healing in patients with long-term conditions, the population most likely to see a healer in practice. Sixty patients were treated by various methods of distant healing over 5 months, and 59 patients were put on a waiting list (control). Quality of life (expressed by the sum of all MOS SF-36 health survey items) improved significantly (p less than 0.0005) in the treated group, while it remained stable in the control group. The authors conclude that chronically ill patients who want to be treated by distant healing and know that they are treated, improve in quality of life.
Lee et al’s randomised controlled trial (25) aimed to assess the benefits of healing therapy (spiritual healing) as an adjunct to conventional management in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
200 outpatients with IBS or IBD were randomised to either conventional treatment (control) or conventional plus five sessions of healing therapy (intervention). After 12 weeks controls also had healing therapy. Quality of life outcomes measures used were, the Measure Yourself Medical Outcomes Profile (MYMOP). IBS-QOL, IBDQ, and symptom measures.
Results showed a significant improvement in the MYMOP score at week 6 (p < 0.001) which was maintained to week 12 (p < 0.001) and 24 (p < 0.001). Improvements in MYMOP were significantly greater in the intervention group at both 6 (p < 0.001) and 12 weeks (p < 0.001) with effect sizes of 0.7 and 0.8. Condition-specific data for IBS showed that most QoL dimensions had a significant minimum 10-point score improvement at 6 and 12 weeks. The overall score improvement was 12.9 units at week 6 (p < 0.001), 12.4 units at week 12 (p < 0.001) and 13.8 units at week 24 (p < 0.001). In IBD there was also similar score improvement, but only up to week 12 were there associations of improved social and bowel functions (p < 0.001, respectively). Between group differences were identified for QoL scores in IBS at both week 6 (p < 0.001) and 12 (p < 0.001) but only for week 12 (p < 0.001) in the IBD group.
The researchers conclude that the addition of healing therapy to conventional treatment was associated with improvement in symptoms and quality of life in IBS and IBD.
McCutcheon and Habiya’s 2025 study (26) investigated self-reported stress and pain levels before and after a single, ten-minute Reiki session to 1,724 members of high-stress
communities in Chicago. The majority of participants reported significant change in stress (72.62% reduction overall) and pain (63.34% reduction overall) following a single ten-minute session. Quantitative results were statistically significant, with a p-value of <0.01 in all categories. Most participants felt very relaxed and reported feeling less pain and profound surprise at the positive outcome post-session.
Conclusion and Comment
Historically, much of the research on the effect of healing has been of poor quality, however, more recent studies have been of good design and suggest that healing can benefit health and wellbeing.
Part of the problem of research into healing has been that the research reviews have examined many different healing modalities together (for example, reference 10, Astin et al), including such diverse modalities as intercessory prayer, spiritual healing, aura healing, energy healing, energy psychology, shamanic healing, nonlocal healing, Therapeutic Touch, Quantum-Touch, qigong, Reconnective Healing, Johrei, and Reiki. Placing these therapies together confounds the ability to evaluate their separate efficacy (27). Distant healing and conventional prayer are often examined as though the same (28) whereas they are not (29). A Cochrane review of intercessionary prayer of 10 RCTs involving 7,646 patients, did not demonstrate therapeutic efficacy (30) so including this intervention (as a distant healing intervention) together with actual distant healing is likely to decrease the apparent effect size of healing as a modality.
A further problem of research evidence in healing concerns the nature of healing and that it involves people with different, baseline, energetic frequencies. As healers we are taught that it is important to work on ourselves so that we can be the best healing practitioner that we can be for our clients. If healers involved in the studies are not highly vibrational, then this is very likely to affect the efficacy of the healing. No mention of this is made in the overviews of healing research, except it is alluded to in the finding of So et al (2008) that studies conducted by more experienced practitioners appeared to yield greater effects.
A study which investigated spiritual healing’s effect on in vitro cancer cells found that it did not inhibit viability and growth (31). This does not seem surprising as healing aims for the greater good of the recipient and to inhibit growth and viability of the tumour cells per se is not for their greater good. The study design was not appropriate.
Conventional randomised controlled trials, widely considered to be the gold standard of research, may be incompatible with the nature of healing phenomena (32). As Radin et al (33), in their overview of the scientific evidence of distant healing intention therapies, write
‘Tools must match the requirements of the subject, and if the right tools are not available, then new ones must be devised. In other words, it is inadvisable to use a sledgehammer to study the surface structure of a soap bubble’.
Walach et al. (22) suggest that future studies of spiritual healing should focus on the healer-patient relationship and the importance of belief; in addition, that specific therapeutic effects should use different methodological approaches such as qualitative research and N-of-1 trials.
*Su Mason PhD is a Director of Omnes Healing (www.omneshealing.com), Co-Chair of The Confederation of Healing Organisations (www.the-cho.org.uk) and previously Joint Head of the Clinical Trials Research Unit at the University of Leeds.
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