Larry Dossey

Larry Dossey (1940–present) is an American internist and former chief of staff of Medical City Dallas Hospital who became a leading advocate for the role of spirituality and consciousness in healing, and a longtime executive editor of the journal Explore.

He is best known for promoting the concept of “nonlocal mind” — the idea that consciousness is not confined to the brain or body and can act at a distance — and for championing studies of intercessory prayer, the practice of praying for the recovery of patients who do not know they are being prayed for.

His books Healing Words (1993) and Reinventing Medicine argued that the “Era III” of medicine would recognize mind as a nonlocal, distance-spanning healing force. Dossey requires the archive’s sharpest distinction.

He sits within mind-body medicine institutionally, but his signature claims are firmly in the contested category and must be separated from legitimate mind-body science (Benson, Langer, Davidson). FLAG: the intercessory-prayer literature he draws on is methodologically weak and, in the largest and best-controlled trials (notably the 2006 STEP study), showed no benefit from distant prayer on patient outcomes; “nonlocal mind” acting on others’ bodies has no accepted mechanism and is not supported by reliable evidence.

Dossey is thus the clearest example in this lineage of credentialed mind-body advocacy that overreaches into unsupported distant-intentionality claims — to be flagged, not endorsed. Tier: contested / not supported (distant prayer and nonlocal healing).