The deep significance of the placebo effect

[Brian]

<snip>

The drugs are just the icing on the cake and will not be effective if the doctor hasn't first endorsed them.

<snip>

This would only be the case is the effect of chemical entities was entirely psychological. That is patently untrue yet it appears to be both your starting and ending point.

 

When I was in college, someone dosed the campus sweet shop's coffee urn with liquid LSD one morning during exam week. By your theory, the chemical they ingested wasn't what sent dozens of unsuspecting students to the infirmary, it was the druggie they found passed out in the student union a few hours later with a squirt-bottle in his backpack who psychologically induced trips in people he never even saw? Curious.

[liminal_luke]

The placebo effect brings up some interesting ethical issues. Is the good doctor the one who maximizes the placebo effect by talking up the medication (at the expense of the "truth") and engaging in questionable but flamboyant procedures which give patients reason to think something special is really happening? Or is the good doctor someone who plainly lays out statistical evidence, good and bad, for every proposed treatment?

 

Liminal

[Nikolai1]

Hi Brian

 

 

When I was in college, someone dosed the campus sweet shop's coffee urn with liquid LSD one morning during exam week. By your theory, the chemical they ingested wasn't what sent dozens of unsuspecting students to the infirmary, it was the druggie they found passed out in the student union a few hours later with a squirt-bottle in his backpack who psychologically induced trips in people he never even saw? Curious.

 

Really good question! The key word here is 'unsuspecting'. In reality there is no such thing as unsuspecting, if something is consciously known by one then all is unconsciously known by the rest. At a deep level, all the students knew that they were taking coffee with LSD.

 

This deep level of knowing and its expression is only disrupted by our belief in empirical information. If we believe that we are capable of ignorance, and need to acquire truth through experience, then that belief will obscure our original reaction. In fact, the belief in the possibility of ignorance is the same as the belief in external processes that occur regardless of us. The belief in the active ingredient that obeys laws of chemistry regardless of psychology is therefore failure to understand our own perfect knowledge. This is pure ignorance, sorry Brian.

 

The placebo effect always operates at the conscious level, the level that clouds and distorts pure knowing. If we consciously take a pill then it will operate according to our own expectations. if the pill is taken unsuspectingly, the pill will operate according to the expectations of those who consciously administered it. This is why blinded, double-blinded and now triple-blinded research designs have been deemed necessary. Unfortunately, all the blinding in the world can't remove the placebo effect, if even one person believes in the drug.

 

if the LSD were swallowed without anyone and anything having any conscious expectation then the effects would be void. It would be like breathing air, so to speak.

 

So where did the belief in LSD (or any drug) start? This brings us back to the OP when I talked about the role of revelation. If there is a belief in the possibility of our own ignorance then the aspect of us that knows there is no ignorance will grant us glimmers of compensatory 'truth'. The recipient of the revelation knows in a way that is so powerful and direct that it is enough to influence the whole of humanity. they are creatively inspired. The whole rigmarole of clinical trials are just the modern way of convincing ourselves and spreading the word. They've never been necessary in the past and they are necessary now only because we believe they are necessary - in fact they are nothing more than a kind of show.

 

Those who understand their own perfect knowledge and are not in ignorance have no need for potions and lotions. They don't need to place the healing agent outside of them because they are themselves the healing agent as far as others are concerned.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Nikolai1]

The placebo effect brings up some interesting ethical issues. Is the good doctor the one who maximizes the placebo effect by talking up the medication (at the expense of the "truth") and engaging in questionable but flamboyant procedures which give patients reason to think something special is really happening? Or is the good doctor someone who plainly lays out statistical evidence, good and bad, for every proposed treatment?

 

Both are perfectly ethical and the good doctor will be able to modify their methods according to the needs of the patient. Some people will surely be best convinced by the objectivity of the evidence base. Another will be best convinced by the feeling that the doctor is responding in a bespoke fashion to their own individuality.

 

A good doctor needs to be abreast of the research, but at the same time cultivate their individuality in a way that borders on the eccentric. It is all for show of course, but it is well to emphasise the importance of individuality. Unusual bow-ties, or very bright socks, and unusual trinkets in the cabinets - even skeletons - are all excellent ways of enhancing the patients faith and are extremely common as I'm sure we've all noticed.

 

The doctor becomes unethical only when he makes the wrong judgement. He might adopt the language of the clinical trial:

 

"There is a new drug and although entirely safe, has proved equivocal in terms of actual efficacy. We can try it and see what happens...?"

 

For some people this is far too experimental and not at all directive enough. He would have been better off peddling a snake oil (prepared with that person in mind) with absolute conviction and therefore was unethical, or rather medically negligent.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Brian]

And when an infant dies of carbon monoxide poisoning, it is not because the molecule binds the oxygen receptors of the red blood cells but because someone outside the house who didn't know the idiot parents were going to light an unvented kerosene heater in the house did believe the molecule was dangerous? Why would the belief of the person outside the house who didn't know about the heater trump the fervent belief by the parents inside the house that the exhaust was totally harmless???

[Nikolai1]

Many people consciously understood the danger of the carbon monoxide. This is a widepsread pattern of belief and is therefore very powerful. No-one had any conscious beliefs about the vent, not even the parents. If they did, then they would not have lit the stove unless they were wanting to poison themselves.

[GrandmasterP]

Just checked to see if UK Docs prescribe placebos and found this from 2013.....

Of the 1,715 GPs contacted, 783 (46%) completed the questionnaire. The researchers found that:

12% (95% confidence interval (CI): 10 to 15%) had used pure placebos at least once in their career

97% (95% CI: 96 to 98%) had used impure placebos at least once in their career

1% used pure placebos at least once a week

77% (95% CI: 74 to 79%) used impure placebos at least once a week

most doctors (66% for pure, 84% for impure) believed placebos to be ethical in some circumstances.

 

There looks to be an ongoing debate as to whether prescribing placebos is ethical or not.

It is obviously permitted or those Docs would not be admitting to prescribing them.

Slightly off topic, I read somewhere that homeopathic remedies are said by some to rely on the placebo effect.

Not sure if that's the case or not but the one time I tried a homeopathic remedy it didn't work for me.

Same goes for Bach 'rescue remedy' that never worked for me either.

Edited January 22, 2015 by GrandmasterP

[Nikolai1]

It is a bit off topic but interesting anyway. Everyone knows the placebo effect, everyone knows that doctors use it. The error is the understanding that the placebo is somehow less ethical than the drug.

 

 

I started this post because the placebo effect is a kind of bridge between modern science and the deeply radical truths expressed by the great mystics.

 

[GrandmasterP]

Not necessarily.

Some people just get better anyway, placebo or no placebo.

Hence I'm not sure that there is a 'deep significance ' to the placebo effect.

Seems to be stretching a point somewhat but it does make for a most interesting thread discussion.

Edited January 22, 2015 by GrandmasterP

[Brian]

Many people consciously understood the danger of the carbon monoxide. This is a widepsread pattern of belief and is therefore very powerful. No-one had any conscious beliefs about the vent, not even the parents. If they did, then they would not have lit the stove unless they were wanting to poison themselves.

And carbon monoxide was harmless until, for some inexplicable reason, a bunch of people suddenly came to believe it to be a deadly poison, at which point it instantly became a deadly poison not only for those who believed it was but for everyone?

 

I find that rather incredible...

[Brian]

I guess cows eating loco weed get sick entirely because some of the cows believe eating it will make them sick?

[Brian]

I am curious about your beliefs on this topic, Nikolai1. Carbon monoxide, for instance. Did it not exist before some people developed a belief that it was poisonous or did it not bind the oxygen receptors on red blood cells before some people developed a belief that it was poisonous? If the government engaged in a massive education campaign to teach everyone that there is no such thing as carbon monoxide (or that it is harmless) would that pervasive belief render it harmless or nonexistent? If so, wouldn't that be a better plan than educating people about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning? Pets are killed each year by carbon monoxide poisoning each year, too. Do dogs and cat have to believe it is dangerous or is it sufficient for people to believe it?

[blue eyed snake]

I am curious about your beliefs on this topic, Nikolai1. Carbon monoxide, for instance. Did it not exist before some people developed a belief that it was poisonous or did it not bind the oxygen receptors on red blood cells before some people developed a belief that it was poisonous? If the government engaged in a massive education campaign to teach everyone that there is no such thing as carbon monoxide (or that it is harmless) would that pervasive belief render it harmless or nonexistent? If so, wouldn't that be a better plan than educating people about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning? Pets are killed each year by carbon monoxide poisoning each year, too. Do dogs and cat have to believe it is dangerous or is it sufficient for people to believe it?

 

well spoken!

[Nikolai1]

Hi Brian

 

I'm sure the more this conversation continues the more you feel you are getting into bizarre territory and I certainly feel uncomfortable with the things I'm saying - not least because I can see how prone to misunderstanding they are.

 

Perhaps I should lay out my basic assumptions:

 

Firstly, when I talk about any human behaviour, whether belief or purposeful action, I take it as axiomatic that this behaviour is fundamentally an action from the ultimate ground of being. Any distinction between the two is fundamentally an illusion. One might say that Gods will and the individual will are one and the same thing.

 

From this is follows that any human behaviour undertaken by the individual is inn a sense shared with all individuals; it is shared at the level at which we all united; and this level is the fundamental level of truth and any notion of separation is a kind of optical illusion, to quote Einstein.

 

We've talked a lot about how beliefs have the power to shape material reality. The placebo is an uncontroversial support for this. If I am blindfolded then told my skin is being stroked by nettle leaves then I will come out in a rash, even if it were really dock leaves.

 

I am simply pointing out that this common phenomenon, that beliefs shape material reality, can account for all created reality - if we have the eyes and the intellectual system to see how.

 

Now clearly it sounds pretty preposterous to suggest that our arbitrary human beliefs make carbon monoxide toxic. But it only sounds so silly if you are too fixated on conventional notions of conscious agency. And by conventional, I mean the supposition that all conscious agency is of the everyday thinking, pondering, prevaricating human variety.

 

There is no easy way of getting past the conventional perspective, but certainly direct experiential knowledge of the universal ground of our being is enough to snap us out of the idea that the only level of consciousness and agency is the familiar human level.

 

Actually, and this brings me back to the central purpose of the OP, it doesn't really matter how you understand how carbon monoxide became toxic. All that is required is that whatever way you use is wholehearted. Either 1) believe totally in a deterministic universe where human belief (and therefore the placebo) is falsehood and an illusion 2) believe that beliefs create everything or 3) realise that these two perspectives are actually the same.

 

The sure fire recipe for delusion is what you are doing which is thinking that the placebo effect accounts for some of a drugs efficacy, and that independent laws of biochemistry account for the rest. This position is not only logically untenable, but results in the dualist conception of reality which from a spiritual perspective is hell itself.

 

That said, I would be interested to know how you would explain the famous nettle rash phenomenon. What exactly is going on? What is the science behind it? And blue eyed snake, if you're reading, I would ask you he same question?

[Brian]

No, Nikolai1. What I am saying is that your concept of the placebo effect is fundamentally wrong. What research shows is that the placebo effect is virtually indistinguishable from treatments for some types of conditions and hugely ineffective for other types of conditions. Which types do placebos work pretty well on? Ones in which the subject is asked, "How do you feel?" (like pain or anxiety, for instance). Which ones do they not work so well on? Ones in which the results can be measured.

 

My first job was at a seafood restaurant. We had a born-again Jesus freak named Dean who worked there. One day, Dean walked out into the dining room and said, "I just spilled hot oil all over one of my hands and I asked Jesus to heal it for me. You can't even tell which hand it was!" He then held out his two hands, one of which was bright red, about twice the size of the other and completely covered with massive blisters. We drove him straight to the hospital where no belief was necessary for them to see he had been burned.

 

Read Hróbjartsson & Gøtzsche and Howick et al, for example.

 

Yes, the placebo effect is real and yes, the power of the mind (and of belief) is amazing powerful. That does not, however, eliminate biochemistry. The two go together quite nicely, in fact. It is not an "either/or" but an "and" -- either/or is a false dichotomy.

 

I just spent a few minutes trying to find anything other than anecdotal Internet legend to back up "the famous nettle rash phenomenon" and I find nothing. Can you point to some scientific studies on the topic, perhaps?

[blue eyed snake]

well, i should have expected that ;-)

 

the human entity is complex, the body can become sick and it can (and will) die.

If exposed to enough carbonmonoxide it will stop functioning, So it is now. I tend to agree with you, that in principle, for entity's with maximum control over matter, this could be different.But those entity's i've not met. It starts with knowing, not only believing, that you're capable of that, that's very rare...

 

For me it's a matter of balance and sensitivity.

 

When I was a child i got another room in the house. Then winter came and i found that i became sluggish in my room, that i couldn't do my homework as before. So I went to my father and told him this, and that I thought there's something wrong with the gasstove. And so it was...the repairman fixed it and told my father that he should be happy his daughter was still alive. That's sensitivity, I didn't die, I moved out of the way before it could take me.

 

and, for you i think explains the curtness of my post.

 

balance, we all have a little control over matter, some more than others. Our body is that part of the universe that we have the most control over ( or should have). But that body is just a fragile sack of water and proteins. It gets hurt very easily. It's a wonder in itself that we survive in this world, fragile as we are.

 

bad food, pollution, electromagnetic smog, emotional stresses all take their tool on the body. Some people are far more healthy than others. They take better care of themselves ( or are in a less dangerous environment, not everybody has the possibility to choose were to live.) People do qigong, yoga etc to alleviate the burden of life.

 

medicine, Brian wrote something about the way placeboeffect and effect of tested drug are handled statistically. The best way we know of. Statistics have nothing to do with individual persons, only with groupeffects.

 

I'm no doctor but a lot of drugs simply work, they have influence on the biological functioning of the body or direct effect on invading bacteria. But body's are very different from each other, that means the effect of a given medicine has different effects on people. Not just bodyweight, also age, general health, gender, metabolism to name a few. And of the placeboeffect.

 

The placebo is an uncontroversial support for this.

 

I don't think that the totality of placeboeffect is uncontroversial support for it, a very small portion at best.

I've never really thought of it but shooting from the hip i suppose this effect can be parted in several categories.

1) people who are not sick in the usual meaning of the word, meaning they feel bodily pains, there are no bodily problems to be found. They need human attention, love in my opininon. In bad cases this can become a sickness in itself. If that is the case family doctors can give a plecebopill, and feel that that is the best thing to do. These people have no bodily disfunction so there is no question of mind over matter

2) people who have real but not severe bodily problems, on some of them a placebo would work, on others not. Might be the spontaneous reaction of the body, might be belief in the doctor might be that selfhealing ( in the conventional meaning of the word, just the body, repairing itself) is quickened.

I think these two are the biggest part of the group

3) and then it becomes interesting,I know of a reported case of brainsurgery, i admit i don't remeber exactly but it was a new technicque for alleviating i think bodytremors caused by a to low function of one of those peanuts in the brain. Because new they made a controlgroup. These people were operated upon, but didn't get the real treatment, just a little hole in the head. Knew that beforehand, some peole will get the real operation, others wont. Everybody of the controlgroup will get the treatment if it is deemed effective. One lady of the controlgroup was really much better after that....and happy, yes, i got the real treatment. That's interesting. But what changed was the severity of the tremors, not the imparted brainfunction, so i doubt if i will call that mind over matter. And later she had the real operation done.

 

4)people who heal themselves from severe, incurable diseases. to me, that is (conscious) selfhealing. That can be called mind over matter. But, even thouhg i've not made a study of it. I think that that is not the placeboeffect but praying, affirmation, consciousness is involved there. And it's a miracle!! makes me happy, especially as i'm going to be one of them :-)

 

If I am blindfolded then told my skin is being stroked by nettle leaves then I will come out in a rash, even if it were really dock leaves.

interesting, only thing i can say about it is i know that the nocebo-effect is much stronger than the placeboeffect.

 

 

kind regards BES

 

 

 

 

[Nikolai1]

Hi Brian,

 

First of all,that comment about nettles and dockleaves was an allusion (for the Europeans among us) to the famous poison ivy experiments I talked about in post #4. I studied it as a psychology major, and its a medical classic that is known to many doctors. Just google Ikemi & Nakagawa (1962) and you'll see that it is as discussed as much now as ever.

 

Which types do placebos work pretty well on? Ones in which the subject is asked, "How do you feel?" (like pain or anxiety, for instance)

I'm like you in that I prefer to leave mental health (ie anxiety) out of discussions on placebo because there is no medical markers whatsoever. Pain I allow because there are measurable changes in endorphin levels.

 

J.D. Levine et al. (1978) found that placebo lessened pain in most patients who had had their wisdom teeth removed. Interestingly, when he gave the patients nalaxone, which chemically blocks the receptor sites for both morphine and endorphin, the patients pain returned. The first was published in the Lancet, the follow up in Nature itself, perhaps because this found the placebo operating at a level deeper than just subjective well-being.

 

The most measurable illnesses are those that involve invading microbes. These microbes are easy to count and shouldn't, in healhty conditions, be there. But at the same time these illnesses are less woven into the fabric of our physicality than those involving endocrinal or neurocchemical imbalance (like pain). To accept placebo to remove other self-directed organisms is halfway there to expect placebo to remove the vermin from our backyard. Our level of belief in the possibility of healing is reduced as we expand out from our core.

 

But it is still the case that some pretty extraordinary things are achieved through the power of belief. The surgeon I wrote about in post #1 was Henry Beecher- performing surgical operations on jabs of salty water. Google him, and you'll see that he was one of the main lobbyists for the double-blind condition in clinical trial design. Others thought it unnecessary, but he saw that there are processes at force that are almost miraculous.

 

I asked you how you explain all this and all i got was this:

 

Yes, the placebo effect is real and yes, the power of the mind (and of belief) is amazing powerful. That does not, however, eliminate biochemistry. The two go together quite nicely, in fact. It is not an "either/or" but an "and" -- either/or is a false dichotomy.

I don't see how they go together nicely. Studying how morphine operates at the synapse in the same way as endogenous endorphins because of their biochemical similarity gives us an explanation for the improvement we observe in the pain racked patient.

 

And then the placebo undermines everything! Because there is no morphine, there is only salty water which bears no chemical resemblance to endorphin whatsover. All we have in addition is some comforting thoughts by a nurse. What's the chemical structure of a nurse's word then?. Is it similar to endorphin?

 

What i am doing in this thread is to raise our analysis to a level in which the drug and the placebo are made comparable. I am taking a perspective that recognises that the drug and the placebo are just varieties on the same healing theme.

 

Despite your claims, you are doing no such thing. You can say its a false dichotomy and I agree with you. But why is it false? What is the science that unites chemistry and belief. I'm genuinely interested to know your thoughts?

 

Accepting that the placebo exists, as you do, is not the same as understanding why it works. I don't need to be told that the placebo effect is real, I want to know why!

Edited January 26, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Nikolai1]

Hi BES,

 

 

I tend to agree with you, that in principle, for entity's with maximum control over matter, this could be different.But those entity's i've not met. It starts with knowing, not only believing, that you're capable of that, that's very rare...

 

I totally agree with this, which is why in post #13 I said:

 

"But anyway, let's not get critical of big pharma because they are the vehicle of helping that we as a whole society create, believe in and therefore need. "

 

In a sense I'm not talking about nomothetic truths, and what we should all believe. I am talking about the title of this thread - recognising the deep significance of the placebo effect. There are many people who, by understanding the existence of other forms of healing, have transcended the naive faith in western medical science. I am saying that even within the paradigm there is clear evidence under our nose of mysterious healings that are based on belief systems, not biochemistry as we know it.

 

Clearly, I wouldn't talk like this down at my local doctors clinic. My attitude is what I said in #13:

 

"Placebos are real and effective treatments and are exactly the thing that most people need"

 

But at the same time, I am hoping to expand the mindset of those on this website who I assume are less invested in conventional viewpoints.

 

There is such a thing as intellectual morality, and it involves three things. Firstly, the ability to identify dissonance in the conventional viewpoint. This is by far the hardest thing and like I said in post #39:

 

"There is no easy way of getting past the conventional perspective, but certainly direct experiential knowledge of the universal ground of our being is enough to snap us out of the idea that the only level of consciousness and agency is the familiar human level."

 

I wouldn't be able to understanding the radical primacy of the subjective consciousness of the material world, were it not for my own practice and the experiences that I've had. It has put me into a higher level of understanding reality, and I would not like to unsettle others with my conclusions unless I had hope they had experienced similarly. This website IS the place to discuss such matters, and God knows, for me the only place!

 

I'm sorry if that sounds elitist, but that's what it is.

 

The second aspect of intellectual morality is the drive to move past the dissonance and develop theory that includes all the evidence. The instinct towards parsimony unites all thinkers, and is the same as the instinct to pass beyond plurality into unity. It is this effort that I think Brian is reneging on, and you also.

 

Thirdly, intellectual morality is recognising that people are only capable of some truths and it takes judgement to what to say to whom. After your child has spent the last three hours wring to Santa Claus, drawing pictures, buying a stamp from their pocket money and posting it - it is not the time to tell him that Santa is unreal.

 

It is unethical to disabuse people of their faith in medicine without offering something in return.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

Oh dear.

 

More self incrimination.

 

I shouldn't post this...

 

But I have a lot of sympathy for nikolai's pov, which is perhaps more subtle than folk realise. Notions such as "collective or even cosmic (sub)consciousness", placebo/nocebo, "consensus reality," the primacy of mind over matter and so on, however unlikely they may seem, may have some substance. I have had insights concerning this that I really cannot put into words. It's difficult to conceive of such a thing on a universal level.

 

Sorry!

 

Faith moves mountains. The mustard seed is planted.

 

Now, cigarette packets carry powerful nocebo mantras, so some years ago, I decided to try a little self hypnosis. I carefully cut letters from spare packets and using cellotape and as much care and time as I could muster, I changed the messages whilst still making them look authentic. These boxes I would decant my cigarettes into and use all the time. I called them my box cantrips. Now my boxes carried nice, positive messages!

 

eg "Smoking Skills", "Smoking seriously heals you and others" and so on.

 

I'll edit this later. I don't want folk thinking I'm crazy. I know, I know, it's way too late for that.

...

[blue eyed snake]

point taken

 

I am talking about the title of this thread - recognising the deep significance of the placebo effect.

 

There are many people who, by understanding the existence of other forms of healing, have transcended the naive faith in western medical science. I am saying that even within the paradigm there is clear evidence under our nose of mysterious healings that are based on belief systems, not biochemistry as we know it.

 

But I would wish you tagged this phenomena different, no offence meant, but a placebo doesn't work. it's just a name for a not understood phenomena that regular science doesn't care to explore. I suppose that's why i conjured up some categories

 

"Placebos are real and effective treatments and are exactly the thing that most people need"

 

 

 

 

I'm sorry if that sounds elitist, but that's what it is.

 

doesn't sound elitist to me, maybe you want more than you will get, just human

 

The second aspect of intellectual morality is the drive to move past the dissonance and develop theory that includes all the evidence. The instinct towards parsimony unites all thinkers, and is the same as the instinct to pass beyond plurality into unity. It is this effort that I think Brian is reneging on, and you also.

 

 

It is unethical to disabuse people of their faith in medicine without offering something in return.

 

 

Reading this, I think I'm not reneging, I think you overestimated me.

But I pull the line at carbon monoxide.

 

and the last line is another reason for tagging this phenomena as unexplained healing or something like that.

 

 

On the more funny side, you wrote something that it would be nice to be able to clear the backyard of vermin this way.

 

I did, well, not my backyard but an unexpected invasion of very large, shiny black beetles in my living-room. Just after my divorce, my ex had just left and these buggers came up. Mind you, i had been living in that house for say 15 years, never seen big beetles before. A friend of mine told me I should make the place my home again, that these critters would then move out. I took that as good psychological advise, I did feel uprooted in my own house ( I stayed there for the kid, we both deemed that better, but at that moment I loathed it). But didn't believe that the beetles would move out, I had already asked the drugstore what to do about it....

To my utter amazement, 3 days later there was no beetle in sight, only thing I'd done was give myself the feeling of, this is my home. I bought flowers, cleaned up more mindfully, that kind of things.

So, maybe i'll develop sending out mice in the next ten years,

 

BES

[Nikolai1]

Hi BES

 

 

no offence meant, but a placebo doesn't work. it's just a name for a not understood phenomena that regular science doesn't care to explore.

 

Regular science both acknowledges and explores the placebo. Some have made it their life's work to understand it better - Fabrizio Benedetti is the obvious example.

 

It is only misunderstood because everybody refuses to confront the obvious hypothesis:

 

That there is an ingredient at work in the placebo pill that is also at work in the active pill.

 

And the same ingredient is at work in the complementary therapies like acupuncture; in the healing arts like medical qigong, and is at work in the miraculous actions of the Christian relic, and the powerful effects of the voodoo curse.

 

So what is this ingredient?

 

I call it the power of belief, the power of expectation. Events will unfold as we expect them to unfold. The more powerful our sense of expectation, the more likely the expected subsequent events will be.

 

Modern medical science has massive punching power in this regard. It is the default worldview of the modern mind. There is a great deal of worldwide belief in the laws of biochemistry, and in those fine minds who study them and tell us what they've found. This raises our level of expectation to an extremely powerful pitch.

 

Those who doubt modern medicine, (and there is ample reason to be cynical if you care to look), will instead revert to a belief in the complementary therapies, and they will subsequently work for them.

 

But all this switching between belief systems brings you little positive benefit. It is a step sideways, not forwards. On this website I read many stories of healing through qigong and the positive energy it harnesses which I believe and find plausible. But there is also a lot of concomitant talk about the existence of negative energies - either locked in the self or radiating from people, places, buildings. And this is no different to the stove vent leaking carbon monoxide!

 

The only true healing comes when we realise that the common denominator is within us. it is our consciousness itself, a form of energy that has no opposite. This consciousness - this powerful and primal subjectivity - is the thing we can take refuge in. Allow yourself to be taken in by all these belief systems - medicine, alternative medicine and the rest - and you make yourself vulnerable to sickness because they always contain the anti-healthful concept, the pathogen.

 

To know yourself is the highest healing art, superior to all systems. Anyone, who develops a stable spiritual practice will start to increase the knowledge of true self. And you will get sick less often, and when you do get sick it will be less severe. It is subtle, gradual and authentic. Compared to this, taking a pill is superstitious and vulgar, and intellectually retrograde.

 

Nikolai

[Nikolai1]

Hi Captain,

 

 

I have had insights concerning this that I really cannot put into words. It's difficult to conceive of such a thing on a universal level.

 

Well I'd like it if you gave it a go. Start a thread on it?

 

 

I don't want folk thinking I'm crazy. I know, I know, it's way too late for that.

 

Well thankfully I know I'm more than sane. Actually, I have theories on schizophrenia that ties in to some of this, I might start a thread on it!

[blue eyed snake]

eh,

Nikolai,

you're getting me hooked on this thread, I'll comment later,

 

but for a starters. I don't think this can all be explained by believing it.

 

I didn't believe those beetles would disappear for instance.

 

And I didn't belief qigong would be working either,

I remember the first weeks, i thought: "I'm crazy to be here and this socalled teacher is even more crazy than I am. But it worked anyway. And by now I have a deep respect for my teacher, but at that time...

 

edit: btw. do you have personal experience with energywork?

Edited January 27, 2015 by blue eyed snake

[Nikolai1]

BES

 

 

I don't think this can all be explained by believing it.

 

I didn't believe those beetles would disappear for instance.

 

And I didn't belief qigong would be working either,

 

Yes you did.

 

In our lives we are exposed to an almost infinite amount of beliefs and opinions about things. For the most part they are just other peoples stuff and have no active role in our lives.

 

Those very few beliefs that we extract and actually use to guide our behaviour are very deeply held in comparison.

 

The fact that you took your friend's advice shows that you believed it very much deep down.

 

Any scepticism you had was purely surface level and probably based on those conventional attitudes that you have learned by being in the world.

 

If you were truly sceptical you would have ignored the advice, and considering its highly unconventional nature, so would 99.9% of the population.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Nikolai1

[blue eyed snake]

No, i didn't believe it, not even deep down. I believed it would be healthy for me to make myself at home again, that was just good advise, I didn't scrub the floor with salt water as she advised, i thought that BS

 

The thing is, western psychology in general tends to say that placebo works because people believe it will work. That's the conventional viewpoint.

 

Building a positive attitude and belief in yourself are the building blocks of cognitive therapy, Works fine for a large group of patients. Changing the mindset to positive things, believe you can do it. But for some people it doesn’t work ( cognitive therapy I mean) do they not believe, are they not able to believe? That's an insult for those people, I know people who feel insulted this way and feel the worse for it.

 

Same with Lourdes, some people will find ( some) healing, others won’t. Is their Faith not big enough, should they believe more?

 

Some posts ago I automatically started ‘debunking’ your ideas about the placebo-effect in the classic way, following the paradigm. You informed me I was wrong to do so, you were right. Old thinking habits die but slowly. Now it seems to me that you are following the ‘classic’ idea, its not modern western medicines so it has to be believing.

believing as fundamental way of healing,

 

That said, to believe that you will get better is surely part of the story, but in my opinion not the whole story. For the sake of clarity I will for now keep beetles and carbonmonoxid out of it.

 

First, what is healing, the body is constantly healing itself. External influences injure the body, can be bad food, bad weather, a knifecut, bacteria, virus, overstretched muscles and a whole range of other, more internal things. The body heals itself, children have a far better selfhealing than elderly or ill people. Why is that? How does it work? Has modern medicine an answer to hat? I don’t think so.

 

You made a split between biochemistry based medicine and some other things. You seem to think that healing by taking modern drugs is also partly by belief.

 

western medicine developed out of herbal medicine. Here in the west we've gone that way and I agree wholeheartedly with you that it has many bad sides, but good sides too, we shouldn't forget that.

 

Than you lump together faith-healing, alternative medicine, (vague term i fill it in as homeopathy for now) and voodoo and lastly you name acupuncture and qi-gong and likewise.

 

I will skip homeopathy here and go to the directly energy-related items on your list.

 

Traditional Chinese Medicine is old, older than western medicine. Just as in the west, it started with herbal medicine, but they didn't go the biochemistryway. They discovered how the vitality of the body is related to the flow of energy in the body. And with that discovery also were able to give an explanation for sickness that roots at least as deep as the western way. Imo the combination of those could give humanity much relief

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/37350-why-chest-pleasurepain-during-meditation/?p=605281

 

I had an experience like that. But you won't believe it, because you haven't experienced it. You would say that it is because I believe and I understand that wholeheartedly, because i didn't and don't believe it. I don't need to believe in the chair that I'm sitting on either. It's just there

 

But science is slowly catching up, they are coming out with measurable things now. They have measured the large differences in the EM-field between the hands of healers while they are sendeg chi compared to controls.. And last winter I found some very interesting studies which made a start with making visible the meridians. Sadly I didn't keep them on my computer, I might try to find them back though. I've got a dutch one on paper that says that the normal emfield of a human is about 10 ^-6 Gauss, the healer did produce a field of 10^-3 with his hands while sending.

 

In my opinion healing that is not understood by the conventional western ideas is founded on energy/chi , what people believe is a factor that overlays this and is needed. And that is part of energywork. Taoism says something like: where your intent goes, your chi goes. meaning that you can choose a destination (believe), but when you haven't got enough fuel or the fuel can't reach the motor, you won't reach that destination.

 

But as long as you think energywork is a belief, i won't try to explain how I think that it's working