Religious and Spiritual Approaches
Examples of religious and spiritual approaches
- Intercessory prayer
- Distance healing
- Distant healing intention therapies
- Nonlocal healing
- Prayer
- Shamanic healing
- Spiritual healing
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Key Points
- You can be spiritual without being religious and religious without being spiritual. Or you can be both.
- Many patients include spiritual and/or religious practices in their approach to healing. Some healthcare providers include spiritual beliefs and practices in their care—whether quietly or explicitly.
- Our interest in spiritual and religious approaches reflects our deep experience—as well as scientific evidence—that they often bring profound comfort and relief of symptoms to people with cancer. Evidence also shows that spiritual and religious practices may extend life with cancer in some cases—or even contribute to lasting remissions.
- Beyond the impact of spiritual or religious practice on symptoms and comfort, these practices often change entire lives.
- We know that regular religious or spiritual practice—participating in a religious or spiritual service or group—is associated with stronger social support, which in turn is associated with better health in general.
- We know that meditation has demonstrated health benefits.
- We know that religious or spiritual beliefs can may have a profound impact in how people experience death and dying—sometimes alleviating fear almost entirely.
- We are intrigued by studies of the power of intercessory prayer. We know that intercessory prayer can be of benefit to the person who prays as well as to the person who simply knows others are praying for her. The question is whether prayer has independent power to heal—for example, if you pray for someone and she does not know you re praying for her. Many religious people believe this to be true.
- On the other hand, we know that beliefs that cancer is a punishment of some kind can be deeply distressing. Religious or spiritual beliefs of this kind are rarely helpful for anyone involved.
- We don’t privilege spiritual or religious approaches over secular approaches to healing. We see them as equally valid.
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Authors
Nancy Hepp, MS, BCCT Project Manager
Read more Ms. Hepp is a science researcher and communicator who has been writing and editing educational content on varied health topics for more than 20 years. View profile.  Michael Lerner, PhD, BCCT Partner and Co-founder
Read more Dr. Lerner is president and co-founder of Commonweal and co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, The New School at Commonweal, and Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies. View profile. Reviewer
 Laura Pole, RN, MSN, OCNS, BCCT Senior Researcher
Read more Ms. Pole is an oncology clinical nurse specialist who has been providing integrative oncology clinical care, navigation, consultation and education services for more than 30 years. View profile. Last updated August 23, 2021
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Writing about the role of religion and spirituality in healing is one of the most difficult things to do. The reason is that the experience of the divine—or whatever you choose to call the realm of spirit—is by definition beyond words. And yet in the Commonweal Cancer Help Program we have witnessed hundreds of people for whom the mystery of spirit has been the most powerful dimension of their experience of healing. This can be true whether they are healing physically or not.
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But it is equally true that many people go through cancer with no interest in religious or spiritual experience at all. Their orientation may be secular, scientific, philosophical, or simply devoid of religious or spiritual interest. It is important to emphasize that BCCT does not in any way privilege a religious or spiritual orientation over a secular or scientific one.
This section reviews the literature on religious and spiritual approaches to healing, but for many of you, the science is somewhat beside the point. I personally have come to a profound belief that religious or spiritual experience can have a transformative effect on healing. The literature we review below is useful and important—but it is the lived experience that matters.
Michael Lerner
Spiritual Approaches in Medical Care
Religious or spiritual experience can have a transformative effect on healing.
Michael Lerner
Spiritual healing has many definitions and practices according to the many spiritual traditions. The Cambridge Dictionary defines spiritual healing as “the activity of making a person healthy without using medicines or other physical methods, sometimes as part of a religious ceremony.” Note the word “sometimes” in this last phrase.
Spirituality is not the same as religiosity, although they may intersect and overlap. No authoritative, widely accepted definitions exist, but “according to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, spirituality is a relationship between a person and a power greater than themselves that improves their lives, whereas religion is a specific practice connected to an organized group.”
Spirituality is a relationship between a person and a power greater than themselves that improves their lives, whereas religion is a specific practice connected to an organized group.
National Comprehensive Cancer Network
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Collectively, spiritual approaches fall under a broader category sometimes called distant healing intention therapies. Defined by one source as “a compassionate mental act directed toward the health and well-being of a distant person,” these therapies include many forms:
- Nonlocal healing
- Prayer, including intercessory prayer
- Shamanic healing
- Spiritual healing
- Laying on of hands
Some sources also include Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, qigong and other similar therapies as distant healing intention therapies. We summarize each of these on separate pages as linked.
Spiritual Approaches in Medical Practice
Research indicates that a significant percentage of patients are interested in including spiritual beliefs and practices in their medical and health approaches. A 2002 survey of American adults by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics found that three of the top five most popular complementary healing practices involved prayer. Prayer and other spiritual healing practices were similarly popular among Australian women in another report. In contrast, patients report that healthcare providers provide spiritual care infrequently.
Spiritual and Faith-based Approaches to Healing: Review and Evidence
Religious Teachings on Health
The connections between religion and health are ancient. Several verses from the Jewish Ketuvim, Christian Bible and Muslim Quran (Koran) speak to health practices relevant to cancer:
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- Proverbs 23:20-21: Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
- Psalm 37:8: Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.
- Proverbs 14:30: A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.
- Proverbs 17:22: A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
- 2 Corinthians 7:1: Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
- Quran 2:172: Eat of the good things which We have provided for you.
- Quran 2:168: Eat of what is lawful and wholesome on the earth.
- Quran 5:3 and 5:91-92: Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead animals—cattle-beast not slaughtered, blood, the flesh of swine, and the meat of that which has been slaughtered as a sacrifice for other than God...and intoxicants.
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General or Unspecified Approaches
In a small study, 12 breast cancer patients undergoing long-term hormone treatment were given ten weekly sessions of unspecified “spiritual healing” by four healers registered with the National Federation of Spiritual Healers. All patients continued their hormone treatment while participating in the study. Reported positive effects of the spiritual healing:
- Alleviation of the physical side effects of their treatment
- Increased energy levels
- Enhanced well-being
- Emotional relaxation
- Re-engagement with precancer activities
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No control group was used for comparison. Because this study involved a very small number of patients, and the study design is weak, it cannot be considered strong evidence for spiritual healing.
A 2012 survey found that very religious Americans—defined by either church attendance or self-reported importance of religion—of all major faiths have higher overall well-being than do their respective counterparts who are moderately religious or nonreligious.
A 2001 book details the evidence for a connection between religious practice and health, finding a positive relationship between religiousness and less physical illness and with overall lower mortality. However, the authors caution that no inference of causation can be drawn, and that many practices that are known to promote health—a healthy diet, some sexual behaviors, curtailing smoking and others—are also promoted by many religions. Determining the influence of religious practices separate from these other health-promoting practices is difficult.
Many of these practices promoted by religious groups align with our 7 Healing Practices and creating healthy habits. Some examples:
- A community of about 9,000 Seventh-day Adventists in the Loma Linda, California, area live as much as a decade longer than the average for the United States. Analyses have concluded that much of their longevity can be attributed to their religious practices of regular exercise (moving more) and minimal (if any) consumption or meat (eating well) or alcohol or use of tobacco (creating healthy habits).
- A 25-year study of practicing California Mormons “found that Mormon men and women who were married, had never smoked (creating healthy habits), attended church weekly and had at least 12 years of education had some of the lowest death rates ever reported for any group followed for that long a time.”
Intercessory Prayer
An intercessor is one who takes the place of another or pleads another's case. Intercessory prayer can be defined as "holy, believing, persevering prayer whereby someone pleads with God on behalf of another or others who desperately need God's intervention."
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A 2005 prospective, randomized control study investigated the impact of intercessory prayer and music, imagery, and touch (MIT) therapy on patients undergoing a coronary intervention. Outcomes evaluated by the researchers:
- Combined in-hospital major adverse cardiovascular events and six-month readmission or death
- Six-month major adverse cardiovascular events
- Six month death or readmission
- Six-month mortality
The researchers concluded that “neither masked prayer nor MIT therapy significantly improved clinical outcome.”
A study in 2006 divided cardiac bypass patients into three groups:
- Those receiving prayer who were told they may or may not receive prayer
- Those not receiving prayer who were told they may or may not receive prayer
- Those receiving prayer who were told they would certainly receive prayer
The study found no evidence of effect of intercessory prayer on medical complications within 30 days of their bypass, although an interesting twist was seen in a higher rate of complications among patients who were certain they were receiving prayer compared to the other two groups.
A 2009 review of 10 studies concluded that, “although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer, the majority do not and the evidence does not support a recommendation either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer.” This review used these outcome measures:
- Prolonging life
- General clinical state
- Readmission to coronary care unit
- Rehospitalization
In contrast, a 1988 prospective, double-blind study found that six conditions improved significantly more for the study group receiving intercessory prayer than for the group not receiving prayer:
- Need for intubation or ventilation
- Need for antibiotics
- Incidence of cardiopulmonary arrest
- Incidence of congestive heart failure
- Incidence of pneumonia
- Need for diuretics
Differences in outcome measures between the review and the study could explain at least part of the discrepancy in conclusions. Many would consider even minor improvements in medical condition and quality of life a success, regardless of whether they prolonged life or reduced rehospitalization. However, the overall evidence of the effectiveness of intercessory prayer is not strong.
Shamanic Healing
Through the millennia of human history, medicine men and women known as shamans have conducted the ancient human art of guiding sick people through life-threatening illness, whether back to recovery or through the dying process. According to Robin Cathleen Coale, “a shaman works to restore balance and wholeness by addressing the root cause of the problem. Many methods are used in shamanic healing, including soul retrieval, retrieval of a spiritual ally, removal of unwanted energies, soul remembering, ancestral work, psychopomp (helping the deceased to cross over into the Light) and hands on healing.”
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Sometimes derided as “only” placebo effects, shamanic practices “including transcendent experiences also promotes healing effects and recently has been shown to involve neural systems (brain networks) comparable (if not identical) to those engaged in placebo responses” —which can be both real and health-promoting.
Brain activation during a shamanic state of consciousness have been traced and studied, finding that “the physiological concomitants of the shamanic state of consciousness make it appear to be both physiologically and psychologically beneficial as well as indicating that it is most likely that there is a genetic component affecting one's ability to enter the shamanic state of consciousness and other altered states of consciousness.”
Meditation
Many meditative practices include a spiritual component, and some are deeply spiritual.
Meditation is marked by focusing attention, regulating breathing, and raising awareness of thoughts and feelings to achieve inner calm, physical relaxation, psychological balance and improved vitality and coping. Many meditative practices include a spiritual component, and some are deeply spiritual.
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Meditation can take many forms and has deep roots in both eastern religious traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism) and western traditions (Christianity). Assessments of the role and purpose of meditation in Christian practice vary. Some examples:
- “According to In Eastern traditions...meditation is usually practiced with the purpose of transcending the mind and attaining enlightenment. On the other hand, in the Christian tradition the goal of contemplative practices is, one may say, moral purification and deeper understanding of the Bible; or a closer intimacy with God/Christ, for the mystic stream of the tradition.”
- “Non-Christian meditation practices aim at emptying the mind. Christian meditation engages the mind in prayer.” (emphases in the original text)
- “When we speak of ‘Christian meditation’, we are referring to a way of opening ourselves to receive this gift [of the Holy Spirit] which we believe God most wants to give. Meditation is a preparation for contemplation.”
- “Christian meditation is rooted in the Bible. In fact, the Bible commands us to meditate. In Joshua 1:8, God says to meditate on His word day and night so we will obey it.”
See more about meditation approaches and outcomes: Mind-Body Approaches.
Psychedelic Therapies
Psychedelic therapies are used to “produce a nonordinary state of consciousness for religious or spiritual purposes.” These therapies can also be used for psychological effects. Therapies are typically of three origins:
- Ethnobotanical substances naturally produced by organisms, such as psilocybin found in hundreds of varieties of mushrooms
- Synthesized substances such as MDMA (ecstasy)
- Non-drug approaches to induced non-ordinary states of consciousness: music-evoked visual imagery, holotropic breathwork, MARI (Mandala Assessment Research Instrument) and hypnosis are examples.
Summaries of these therapies are planned for our therapies database.
Spiritist "passe"
- Lower anxiety level, perception of muscle tension, and sensation of well-being, and improved peripheral oxyhemoglobin saturation among cardiovascular inpatients receiving Spiritist "passe" compared to sham and no intervention in a small RCT
Other Spiritual Healing Approaches
Other approaches include psychic healing, laying on of hands and incantations. A 2014 investigation in Germany of spiritual healing included these other approaches as well as prayer. The study involved interviews of both clients and healers about expectations and beliefs, methods and perceived outcomes of spiritual healing. Clients and healers perceived “a symptomatic relief of medical complaints as well as positively experienced body sensations, positive emotions and general well-being.”
- Comparable benefits on well-being of laying on of hands among people with advanced cancer whether from a healer or an actor mimicking the healer in a small RCT
Cautions
Spiritual and religious practices can be appropriate adjuncts to conventional and other complementary therapies. However, we at BCCT do not recommend relying solely on spiritual approaches in addressing cancer unless you are fully aware of the risks or have consciously chosen not to participate in active treatment.
Note: BCCT has not conducted an independent review of spiritual therapies research. This summary draws from the National Cancer Institute and other sources as noted.
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