Thus religion, if it is to remain intellectually honest, must reconcile its ideas about God with the universal laws of nature. To many believers, they are direct acts of God, often in response to their prayers. To scientists like physicist Paul Davies of the University of Adelaide in Australia, an inexplicable event is only inexplicable because we don't yet understand it. And several of them are designing tests to try to confirm it. About two thirds of the patients receive four days of healing prayer through the traditional Christian practice of laying on of hands.
Half also receive six months of long-distance intercessory prayer.
A third control group receives no prayers from participants. All patients, however, get standard medical care and are examined by the centre's clinician throughout the study. Scheduled checkups include examinations right after the experiment, then a month later, and again three, six and 12 months after that. Some participants have already experienced extraordinary short-term results. At the start of the experiment he had 49 tender joints.