· 2026-10-16T07:16:51+0000 · 24 posts

The Medical Records Say Yes: A Neuroscientist Investigates Healing Prayer

A story about someone healed after prayer is easy to wave away. Medical records are not. In a long conversation on Mighty Pursuit (6 October 2026), host Matthew Thompson sits down with Dr Joshua Brown, professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University and co-founder of the Global Medical Research Institute (GMRI). Brown’s academic work has been cited more than 12,000 times, and his team does something few believers or sceptics bother to do: they gather the before-and-after medical records, put them in front of specialists, and publish the cases in peer-reviewed journals.

His conclusion, after years of this work: “I think God’s real and he intervenes.”

Three Recoveries the Specialists Could Not Explain

Derek: 16 years of a paralysed stomach. Derek was born with gastroparesis: his stomach simply did not work. For 16 years he never ate a meal. He was fed through a tube into his small intestine, with a second tube to drain anything he swallowed. Then a man named Robert, who had himself experienced a remarkable recovery after a truck crushed his abdomen, prayed for him. That night Derek ate a meal for the first time in his life, and it passed through him normally. Months later the doctors removed both tubes, and he has been well for over a decade. Professors of gastroenterology reviewed the records, and their answer, Brown says, was “basically no, this never happens.” The case was published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine (2019).

Marsha: blind for 12 years. At 18, Marsha lost her sight to juvenile macular degeneration. The back of both eyes was destroyed, a condition with no cure even today. She learned braille, walked with a cane, married a pastor and had a daughter she had never seen. One night her husband prayed a simple prayer: “God, we know you can heal her. Would you do it tonight?” She opened her eyes and could see. Her first words to her husband: “The girls told me you were handsome, and they weren’t lying.” Decades later, a professor of ophthalmology examined new images of her retinas and saw only faint scarring where the damage used to be. “Medically, that’s impossible.” She kept near-normal sight for over 40 years. The case was published in Explore (2021).

Peter: “recovery is out of the question.” From birth Peter could not eat without severe pain. He was fed through his veins for about 11 years, became too weak to walk, and suffered seizures and blood abnormalities from a suspected genetic disorder. Doctors told the family that recovery was “out of the question” and to make memories while they could. At a church healing room a volunteer asked him what he needed. “I want to eat.” After prayer he took a bite, then another, then a full meal without pain. He came off intravenous feeding, gained strength, and is now an adult. The case was published in Advances in Mind-Body Medicine (2024).

A Rigorous Standard for “Miracle”

Brown does not use the word lightly. GMRI adopts criteria developed by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, later Pope Benedict XIV, for the Vatican’s investigation of miracles: - the condition must be clearly diagnosed; - it must be medically incurable; - the healing must be instant, complete and permanent; - no medical treatment can account for it.

The cases Brown publishes, he says, are ones where “there’s just no precedent.”

Prayer Outperforms Music in a Clinical Trial

Brown’s team also ran a randomised trial at the University of Maryland’s family medicine clinic in Baltimore. More than 180 patients with pain or anxiety received either five minutes of in-person prayer from a trained Christian volunteer or five minutes of relaxing music. Two weeks later, pain and anxiety were significantly better in the prayer group, and the anxiety benefit lasted about six weeks. “Five minutes of prayer, weeks to months of improvement.” The trial was published in the Annals of Family Medicine (2026).

The Scientist Who Needed a Miracle

Brown’s interest is not academic. In 2003, as a young neuroscientist, he suffered a seizure and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Knowing the odds, he went looking for people who prayed for healing, and received prayer over many hours. After seven years of monitoring, his MRI showed only scar tissue, and the doctors said they no longer needed to see him. By his reading of the literature, the odds of his survival were roughly one in 500.

Along the way he witnessed healings with his own eyes: a woman in Cuba who regained her sight as he prayed, a blind boy in a Brazilian stadium who began counting fingers, and three people with keratoconus who could suddenly see clearly.

He is honest that not everyone is healed. His best man, Andrew, died of colon cancer despite prayer. “I don’t know why some people aren’t healed. What I do know is that the more we pray, the more likely it is that people get healed.”

Every Point the Video Raises

Brown’s credentials. He is a leading Indiana University neuroscientist cited more than 12,000 times. (Thompson, 0:00)
Derek’s gastroparesis. His stomach was paralysed from birth, and he was tube-fed for 16 years without eating a meal. (Brown, 1:00–4:00)
Robert’s intestines. After a truck crushed his abdomen, later surgery reportedly found his intestines several times longer than after his trauma surgery: “intestines don’t just grow.” (Brown, 4:00–8:00)
Derek’s healing. After Robert prayed, Derek ate his first meal that night; both tubes were removed months later, and he has been symptom-free for over 10 years. (Brown, 8:00–10:00)
Published with records. Derek’s case was published in a peer-reviewed journal with the medical records, and gastroenterology professors said “this never happens.” (Brown, 10:00–11:00)
Doctors and miracles. Surveys show just over half of US doctors believe miracles happen today and have seen one. (Brown, 11:00–12:00)
Marsha’s blindness. She lost her sight at 18; the Mayo Clinic documented destroyed retinas, and she spent years at a school for the blind. (Brown, 13:00–15:00)
Marsha’s healing. She was healed instantly after her husband’s simple prayer and saw her husband and daughter for the first time. (Brown, 16:00–18:00)
Retinas restored. An ophthalmology professor saw her retinas restored decades later: “Even the best treatments today can’t reverse this.” She kept near-normal sight for over 40 years, and her case was published. (Brown, 18:00–20:00)
Rigorous review. Brown’s team publishes only cases where the specialists agree “there’s no way that can happen.” (Brown, 20:00–21:00)
Peter’s condition. He suffered severe malabsorption, intravenous feeding, a wheelchair and seizures, and doctors called recovery “out of the question.” (Brown, 21:00–25:00)
Peter’s healing. He was healed at a church healing room, ate a full meal without pain, and is now a healthy adult. (Brown, 25:00–28:00)
A genetic disorder. The apparent genetic disorder resolved without any gene therapy. (Brown, 28:00–29:00)
Proximal intercessory prayer. These healings came through in-person prayer by one person for another. (Brown, 29:00–30:00)
The Lambertini criteria. A miracle requires a clear diagnosis, an incurable condition, and a healing that is instant, complete, permanent and medically unexplained. (Brown, 32:00–35:00)
“No precedent.” GMRI’s published cases have no known precedent. (Brown, 36:00)
Faith and health. Believers who pray show brain activity like that of interacting with a real person, and faith lowers stress and helps the body heal. (Brown, 38:00–40:00)
Both positions take faith. Insisting on an unknown natural cause is itself “an article of faith”; “what more evidence would you want?” (Brown, 41:00–43:00)
Physical damage, not just the mind. Conversion disorder can explain blindness with no physical damage, but not Marsha’s documented retinal damage. (Brown, 45:00–49:00)
The woman in Cuba. She regained her sight as Brown prayed after her emotional pain was addressed. (Brown, 50:00–53:00)
Expectation is powerful. A Scandinavian sham-surgery trial shows how strongly expectation affects recovery. (Brown, 55:00–1:00:00)
Koenig’s review. Harold Koenig’s review of more than 600 studies finds religious practice consistently linked to better health. (Brown, 1:00:00–1:02:00)
Science and faith. The 2005 Society for Neuroscience keynote by the Dalai Lama helped open science to studying spiritual practices. (Brown, 1:05:00–1:07:00)
Faith is not a burden to blame on the sick. “If you think they don’t have enough faith, that’s not on them. That’s on you.” (Brown, 1:10:00)
The prayer vs music trial. In the University of Maryland trial, 180-plus patients who received five minutes of prayer had significantly less pain and anxiety at two weeks than those who heard music, and the anxiety benefit lasted about six weeks. (Brown, 1:16:00–1:20:00)
The five-step prayer model used in the trial. (Brown, 1:18:00–1:19:00)
Brown’s personal conviction. “There has to be some kind of supernatural element in some of this.” (Brown, 1:23:00)
A blind boy in Brazil. In a stadium in northern Brazil, a blind boy began seeing light, then counting fingers, within minutes of prayer. (Brown, 1:24:00–1:25:00)
Instant sight in keratoconus. Brown saw three people with keratoconus, a physically misshapen eye, see clearly instantly. (Brown, 1:26:00–1:27:00)
Distant prayer. Randolph Byrd’s study of distantly prayed-for cardiac patients found fewer complications. (Brown, 1:29:00)
The STEP trial’s pray-ers. In Herbert Benson’s large trial, the people praying did not themselves believe in praying for healing. (Brown, 1:30:00–1:33:00)
Never alone. In every healing, someone was present praying; Marsha’s and Derek’s recoveries go beyond what social support can explain. (Brown, 1:35:00–1:37:00)
Brown’s brain tumour. He prayed and was prayed for, and “felt a powerful force.” (Brown, 1:37:00–1:42:00)
A metal plate. A woman reported she could no longer feel a metal plate in her arm after prayer. (Brown, 1:42:00–1:44:00)
Unanswered prayer. His best man died of cancer, and yet “the more we pray, the more likely it is that people get healed.” (Brown, 1:45:00–1:49:00)
Countless restorations. He has “long ago lost count” of people he has seen instantly healed of severe vision impairment. (Brown, 1:54:00)
Gather with others. There is “no downside” to gathering with people who care about you to pray. (Brown, 1:55:00–1:56:00)
The same standard as medicine. We don’t demand that medicines work 100% of the time, so why demand it of prayer? (Brown, 1:58:00–1:59:00)
Brown’s faith. He believes in the Jesus of the Gospels, who “physically came in the flesh.” (Brown, 2:01:00–2:02:00)
“Miracles do happen in ways that we can’t explain.” (Brown, 2:03:00)
His tumour. It reduced to scar tissue after seven years, against odds of about one in 500: “I think God’s real and he intervenes.” (Brown, 2:04:00–2:05:00)

How This Supports “Crime Scene: Jerusalem”

Our earlier post, Crime Scene: Jerusalem. The Ultimate Cold Case, argued that faith does not ask us to switch off our minds. If you are a sceptic, “we want the receipts,” and the evidence, examined like a detective would, points to the truth of the Gospels.

Dr Brown applies exactly that method to healing today. He does not ask anyone to take a testimony on trust. He collects the records, puts them before specialists who have no stake in the outcome, holds them to the Vatican’s strictest standard, and publishes them for anyone to examine. Post 185 showed that the Gospel accounts stand up as eyewitness evidence. Brown’s cases show the same Jesus still at work: the blind see and the sick are made whole, and the paperwork is there to prove it. As Brown puts it, insisting there must be some unknown natural cause “becomes like an article of faith.” The receipts are on the table.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk… and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” (Matthew 11:4–5)

Source Video:

https://youtu.be/ioKW7roL6Fw

What will this mean for you if God still heals in answer to prayer today?