The Best Books on Prayer and Science — What the Research Shows

Prayer is one of the most widely practiced and least scientifically examined human behaviors. The research that does exist is more interesting than either believers or skeptics typically acknowledge. Here is what the best books on the subject actually establish.

The Research Literature

What studies have and have not established

—How God Changes Your Brain — Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman: The most accessible account of the neuroscience of religious experience and prayer. Newberg's brain imaging research with practitioners of multiple traditions — Franciscan nuns, Tibetan meditators, Pentecostals — documented consistently. Required reading for anyone interested in the scientific side of prayer.
—The Healing Power of Prayer — Harold Koenig: The most comprehensive review of the epidemiological research on religion, prayer, and health outcomes. Koenig at Duke has spent decades reviewing this literature. The findings are more consistent than most people expect.
—Prayer — Philip Yancey: The most honest and theologically serious popular account of what prayer is and what the honest difficulties with it are. Not a science book but the best account of the practice from inside the tradition.
—The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James: The most rigorous early empirical account of religious experience across traditions. James takes the phenomena seriously without claiming more than the evidence supports.

What the Research Establishes

Consistent findings — honestly stated

The epidemiological research on religion and health — reviewed comprehensively by Koenig and others — consistently finds that people who pray regularly and attend religious services show lower rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse; higher levels of social support and immune function; and in some studies, longer lifespan. These are not small effects. They are consistent across multiple large studies and multiple cultures.

What the research cannot establish from these correlations is the mechanism. The effects could be explained by social support, by lifestyle factors associated with religious practice, by the relaxation response produced by regular contemplative practice, or by something more. The brain imaging research adds a specific piece: prayer activates the social brain networks — the regions involved in genuine interpersonal relationship — in ways that suggest the relational orientation is functioning as genuine relationship rather than as self-generated imagination.

What the Framework Says

Why relational orientation to the ground is accurate perception

The Infinitely Simple framework provides a specific account of why prayer — understood as genuine relational orientation toward the Necessary Foundation — is not irrational and not merely self-generated comfort. The Foundation is constitutively characterized by Love, Consciousness, and Will. These are relational properties by definition. A ground constituted by these properties is, by nature, a ground that can be related to personally. The social brain networks activating during prayer are not generating an illusion. They are the structural apparatus through which genuine relational orientation to the ground of being is expressed locally through the creature.

Read the book

Infinitely Simple: The Foundation. Nine chapters. First principles derivation of the nature of reality — and what it means for the brain, the body, and the life you are living right now. No assumptions. No tradition. No faith required.

The Books Free Guided Practice