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Even in the absence of hypnosis or mental
training, people can heal themselves of a specific ailment, simply
because they believe that they will be cured by a drug. The
well-known placebo is an inert chemical substance, like a
sugar pill, which is typically prescribed by a physician as if it
were a "real" medication, along with the standard
reassurances that it will cure the illness or alleviate symptoms.
Controlled studies examining the effects of this "white
lie" are truly incredible.
In one review of the relevant
literature, it was found that placebos gave substantial relief to
diabetics, peptic ulcer, rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson's
disease, radiation-sickness, and other serious health problems.
[The clinical study of the effectiveness of minoxidil, the drug
that is used to regrow hair in balding men and women, showed the
surprising result that 11% of the patients in the placebo
condition regrew new hair!]
People will even develop some of the
adverse side-effects associated with the 'real' medication (e.g.,
headaches, nausea, insomnia, constipation, etc.)! Given that there
is no active substance in the placebo, this research shows that
the cures and symptom alleviation are triggered by the patient's
own mind -- even though the person is completely unaware of it.
If the unconscious mind can accomplish such feats of self-healing,
then it is likely that much of what goes by 'psychic healing' is
in fact more like a placebo effect: it seems likely that many
instances of psychic healing are due not to a mental force or
cosmic energy channeled from healer to patient, but rather to
social and psychological factors that trigger self-healing
mechanisms in the person's unconscious.
People who come to a healer may be desperate; they may have
abandoned hope with conventional treatment methods. To many, it
might feel like the healer is their last hope. Others, having
developed a solid distrust of allopathic medicine, may feel that
mental or psychic means of treatment are the only way to go.
Either way, many coming into a healing session have high hopes and
expectations, or are in a hyper-suggestible state. If, coupled
with this receptive state of mind, we have a healer who engages in
all kinds of unusual rituals -- magnetic passes, prayer, chanting,
etc. -- then the situation may be just right to trigger a
self-healing process, leading to alleviation of symptoms or even a
cure. Of course, as in classical placebo studies, the patient will
tend to attribute the healing to the external agent (in this case,
the healer); but the real agent would be the patient's own
unconscious mind. |
