Study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer (STEPP) on auditory and visual impairments in rural Mozambique

Background. Proximal intercessory prayer (PIP) is a common complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapy, but clinical effects are poorly understood partly because studies have focused on distant intercessory prayer (DIP). Methods. This prospective study used an audiometer (Earscan 3) and vision charts (40 cm, 6 m “Illiterate E”) to evaluate 24 consecutive Mozambican subjects (19 males/5 females) reporting impaired hearing (14) and/or vision (11) who subsequently received PIP interventions. Results. We measured significant improvements in auditory (p < 0.003) and visual (p < 0.02) function across both tested populations. Conclusions. Rural Mozambican subjects exhibited improved audition and/or visual acuity subsequent to PIP. The magnitude of measured effects exceeds that reported in previous suggestion and hypnosis studies. Future study seems warranted to assess whether PIP may be a useful adjunct to standard medical care for certain patients with auditory and/or visual impairments, especially in contexts where access to conventional treatment is limited

Book Review: The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad as Religious Founders

In his introduction to Rivers of Paradise, David Noel Freedman explains how the book finds a guiding metaphor in a passage from Genesis (2:10–14) that relates how a river emerges from Eden and splits into four different rivers that flow to different parts of the world. He associates these five rivers with five “great personality religions of the world,” which are traditions “originating in and centering around the person, the life and experience, of a single individual—as it happens all of them men” (p. 2). These “founding fathers” are Moses, the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad, in that order; no one after them has accomplished anything comparable to their achievements. Rivers is an edited volume of five essays on these figures and their legacies. Of the five “founders” mentioned in the title, I am competent only in primary sources that deal with Confucius, and so I shall focus my comments accordingly. [excerpt