Leibocivi first raised the possibility of retroactive prayer in 2001. He reported a study that showed prayer done for patients well after they had left the hospital, had reduced the length of stay in hospital and duration of fever from blood stream infections.1 In short, prayer somehow seemed to act backward in time to shorten patients' stay in the hospital. The study was intended lightheartedly to illustrate the importance of asking research questions that fit with the scientific model of the world.2 Olshansky and Dossey subsequently argued that a logical explanation might be found for Leibovici's results.3 They point to numerous other randomised controlled trails to support their thesis that prayer could work at a distance of space and that it might be plausible that prayer could act retroactively in time. We argue that their claim is built on a confusion and lacks a deep physical model. There is considerable fogginess about what science means in relation to the world of spirituality, and we wish to throw some light on the subject.

Praying at the Wailing Wall

Credit: JACQUELINE LARMA/AP