Healing Magic
The placebo effect has been a villain of scientific medicine. Each trial for a new scientific therapy has to be measured against this natural mechanism of humanity that has yet to be fully understood. I say “embrace this natural healing mechanism and use it to your advantage”.
The fall 2013 issue of a favored magazine called The Intelligent Optimist has several articles regarding placebo. The Medicine Man Was Right After All quotes Andrew Weil, M.D. as having said, “Physicians and patients both think that illness requires outside help. I try to show that everything we need, everything important, comes from within. That is the essence of healing.”
Jurriaan Kamp, the author, finishes the article with “According to spiritual traditions in Asia dating back thousands of years and echoed in indigenous cultures that remain intact, our body is a vehicle for our spirit. In that vision, we discover the meaning of our lives by experiencing our bodies and the three-dimensional reality on Earth. Illness becomes an instrument of personal growth. And because that growth is ultimately the point, the only true cure is self-healing — but the medicine man knew that already.”
The next article You Have To Believe It authored by Elleke Bal tells the healing story of Alexander Dekker who recovered from a brain tumor in his own personal way. He experienced an epiphany after a Reiki treatment he received in his hospital room. Awaking after the restful sleep it triggered, he felt connected to “the source of life: ‘If I believe in my own healing I will be better….’ From that point on, I knew: I’m cured”.
Walter Brown, psychiatrist, has been studying the placebo effect for the last 25 years. A conversation discussing his new book, The Placebo Effect in Clinical Practice (Oxford University Press) occurs in the same issue of The Intelligent Optimist.
Dr. Brown states “What the placebo effect tells us is that for lots of conditions, we have the capacity for self-healing. It’s a very important part of the healing process. We intuitively know this…. It’s simply making use of all the properties of healing and of the healing mechanism that are so very important. Actually, the placebo effect even seems to work when the patient knows that a treatment is based on it.”
Healing comes from within! The tools you choose to spark the mechanism require your believing in them. So believe in whatever intervention you choose.
Having practiced Reiki since 1989 and Te A Te since 2002, I believe in healing energy that clears blockages restoring healthy flow that is the undercurrent of zest in living. I see patients who are very skeptical who benefit from the energy medicine I practice. I also ask them to change their lifestyles to support balanced flow. And I encourage them to believe in their capacity to heal themselves.
We created the Healing Energy Blanket to help facilitate focus on self-healing. To cradle oneself in a field of healing intention. My experience shows me that the energy charge contains a healing vibration that resonates with our natural healing frequency. Is this response the placebo effect? I don’t know. I believe there is more to it. Yet, if it is just the placebo effect at work, there is great power in that.