Gimme some of that ol’ placebo!
Doesn’t it make you laugh, what people will say, without even thinking
Take this report in an Australian newspaper. It rightly takes a disparaging line on people who read what their favorite celebrities are doing and blindly copy them. So, should some movie star be found to be rubbing freshly cut dandelions on their knees to relieve themselves of tendinitis (or something similar), others will jump at the chance to emulate them.
All well and good so far.
However, the report goes on to say that some of the therapies favored by such celebrities appear to have no scientific basis.
(As they put it, “”Nevertheless, it is remarkable that use of many of the modalities … is not supported by data from clinical trials.
“For example, there is reasonably convincing evidence that homeopathy, spiritual healing and dowsing (a form of spiritual intuition) have no effects beyond placebo.”)
Just look at the two sentences. “…not supported by data from clinical trials” and “…no effects beyond placebo”.
Don’t you ever wonder why no-one has really put a lot of effort and money into creating a placebo pill? If whole modalities can be dismissed in such a simple manner (because they only exhibit a placebo effect), doesn’t that say something about the placebo effect? And why don’t scientists stop making snide comments about this effect and acknowledge that the mind really CAN do strange and wonderful things including making the body sick OR well, without any apparent outside intervention?
I’d love for people to go in to the doctors’ offices and demand a placebo on the basis that it has less damaging side effects than anything else on the market.
And if anyone’s still in the dark why I’m writing about this in the intuition blog, well I really don’t think that dowsing, in any form, is a placebo. But then again, I’m always open to suggestion………
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Hi if plocebo works ,which I am sure it does. During these difficult times where lots of negativity and negative thinking exists then hypnosis must be one of the most powerful tools to heal people of physical and problems of the mind. If you can control the mind to think positively rather than negatively then this must help the condition to get better. Even if it is rubbing an old leaf on a tendon, If you think it will help you it will. If you access a greater power ( the greater ) and accept the possibility that it exists, then this must be a positive move to help with any situation
Many Thanks
Kevin Biggs
Mobile 07788557748
OK, except hypnosis isn’t the same as placebo, is it? Hypnosis might be a route to helping you think something might work, but it’s not the effect itself.
If someone you really have faith in tells you that rubbing sheep dung on your bald head will bring about hair growth, the who’s to say that it won’t work?
You could hypnotize someone into thinking that, but I’m not sure it would work exactly the same….. Then again, I could be wrong.
[…] tend not to be deceptive in these areas. Things like placebo affects (which I have written about elsewhere), tend to be ignored by them. If it works, it works. It’s that simple. Unless you go around […]
The placebo effect is well known in Hypnosis circles and being a dowser as well, I have to say that the response mentioned above is all too common ! We
are a society who “lives on labels” and as mentioned
previously, “can’t see the trees for the forest”….it doesn’t matter HOW it works…only that IT WORKS, and doesn’t harm anyone, huh ??
Yes indeed, Ray. The fact that it does not harm anyone is a major factor, to my mind. This is so particularly as I have seen numerous scientific and skeptical articles all complaining about the harm, the damage that ‘fraudulent’ practices like dowsing and homeopathy can do.