Does Online Praying Work For Illness?

Yes, according to a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The study, conducted by Dr. Bret Shaw and reported on CNN, said that breast cancer patients involved with online prayer could function better, had lower levels of negative emotions and found they could cope better with their illness.

What's so interesting about this is that we have heard for a number of years that prayer works for people trying to cope with illness and that even remote praying works -- meaning prayer circles who pray for people who aren't sitting next to them. Dr. Shaw decided to look into this, according to the article, because so he noticed many people were using online prayer support groups. Isn't that a great use for technology?

And how nice that people adapt to natural ways of dealing with illness whether or not the community in general has "endorsed" these types of activities. It gives me great hope that ordinary people are very open to new ideas and willing to try them.