Foreword
“Faith” = belief without adequate evidence
“Placebo” = psychological benefit from inert treatment
“Magic” = supernatural
intervention or belief therein
=[Faith is a placebo for how you suffer from
uncertainty about what is true and what is good for you. Magic invokes faith
too.]
A placebo is not a cure but can feel like one. We all know that
people were given sugar pills while told they were powerful drugs and many of
them thought the pills worked. Religion [or if you want to say, A particular
religious practice, then fine] can be used as a sugar pill like that. Or it
simply is a sugar pill. Either way, it will be more about feelings than about
truth. One danger with the placebo is that it has to backfire for the truth does
not care about how you feel. And sometimes when we feel ill, a lot of it is down
to psychological causes. It is natural to feel that nature is the enemy in your
bed. A placebo that relieves that is a disgrace for it is not handling the root
problems.
OBJECTION: Endorphin release or pain modulation are concrete benefits. They
are physical responses to using a placebo. The placebo is not necessarily all in
the mind.
REPLY: It does not change the fact that overall, the placebo does nothing.
While it may seem to help for a time, there are indirect and long-term harms
that the person might not even be aware of. No medical body can be diligent
enough or accurate enough for long enough to confirm that any particular placebo
given was for the best.
Yes but using a placebo to induce those physical
benefits will lead to imagination getting out of hand. Take a Christian
Scientist. They turn down their perception of pain but the pain is still there.
A placebo doesn't need to be all in the mind to be a concern. We just need to
take a dose of reality in all its clarity and deal with that.
The placebo can't happen every time one is lied to about a sugar pill or something like it. Plus one risks a physical craving developing for some kind of placebo, an addiction.
Think of the principles. The medic is lying to the person who needs help.
Endorphin release and pain relief matter but each person needs to trigger them
herself or himself. Self-empowerment is key for a medic isn't always available.
We conclude, that the physical effects of a placebo do nothing to commend it.
The Dark Side of the Religious Placebo
Placebos make many feel better, mentally, physically and maybe even
"spiritually" but they are not any better. Emotional improvement is not
necessarily a good thing. And feelings are just feelings so just because they
happen when you take a placebo does not mean the placebo is doing it.
Placebos are based on a web of deception, and when that web is unravelled,
they can backfire emotionally, physically, psychologically and even
"spiritually".
Doubt will set in so the good placebo subject today will be a good nocebo
subject tomorrow. A nocebo is placebo in reverse - it makes you worse not
better. It may take time but it will do damage that is impossible to unravel.
Nobody says that a placebo will work for everybody. If so, I will blame
myself when I see them working for others and not me. They are dangerous.
The placebo is basically a form of emotional manipulation. It is a feel-good
lie. The practitioner gets a good feeling from "helping" and that rebounds on to
you. You think you are responding well emotionally to the placebo. So that is
two lies of that uplifting nature. There is not only the patient to worry about
but the fact that others will see a lie has been told and lies spread and lead
to more lies.
The placebo turns ethics into a sham.
We will look at the placebo harms in the light of the fact that though it is
associated with conventional medicine, it is deployed in religious and social
settings as well. It has been hijacked by actors outside the clinic.
The belief placebo
A belief can be a placebo but does not have to be. There is no way of knowing
if the person with a placebo who seems to benefit really believes in it or lacks
conviction. A fantasy can be a good placebo too. A film can make you feel
wonderful despite you knowing it is not real.
Anything at all can be a placebo and there is no guarantee that the placebo
you get is the best one for you. Most people don't care and just want to feel
better.
So far it is clear that at best, a placebo should be seen as a
necessary evil.
If people get a placebo cure, it cannot make them really in any way better.
It is not a cure and what happens is the person will feel better if she or he
has a deep belief in the cure. Placebos offer you principles that they claim
work while what works is not the principles at all. Placebos breed quackery and
when it is your health you are dealing with you really need to be grounded in
reality for reality does not change for anyone. It is what it is. Placebo-givers
need courses and through those the misinformation and lies are spread.
Mainstream treatments end up being put under suspicion and medical professionals
get slandered.
In medicine, the placebo effect is a necessary evil. It is not something to
be happy about doing to a sick person. Religions apply the "treatment" without
any professional expertise for the spiritually or emotionally sick. This is
horrendous. The medics let them do it.
A placebo does not just appear – it has to be paved the way for and
developed. It never takes one lie to accomplish a placebo, it takes several and
if you lie now you don't know how much lying you will have to do to make the lie
look true.
What does that mean? It means the whole medical body or religious body giving
the placebo, has to be in effect a placebo in its own right. No sugar pill or
sacrament or prayer does anything if you feel bad about the organisation
offering it. Only an organisational placebo gives a placebo. It will give
directly and indirectly. It will also be giving noceboes and hope that you do
not notice. You go for help but what else are you walking away with? Maybe you
were better off staying away?
Prayer placebo
Nobody really likes hurting others or waging war. So why do we do it and
enable it? Prayer is the placebo for evil that gets many believers to overcome
their better nature in order to kill people in the name of God. Even if a
believer kills and thinks God is against it, the believer still thinks that God
somehow is responsible. The believer consoles herself by saying, “If it was
wrong for me to do what I did at least God will get it to turn good.” God being
creator means that God is more responsible for something happening than we can
ever be. Religion and worship and prayer are all about how no matter how
terrible an evil is, he is doing something to turn it good.
The prayer placebo arises from a secular/natural one. I mean that we don't
need religion to have our strong inclination to create totems. For example, we
rail in hate against Hitler, one man. We know he was nothing without his cohorts
and public support. We condense the incredible evil down to one man as if to say
to ourselves, "It is all him. He does not reflect on me or on humanity." When we
think of how it is not just Hitler we do that with but Myra Hindley and
countless others, we should see it paints a very disturbing picture of us
indeed. We care more about how we feel about ourselves than about the atrocities
committed. We emotionally benefit from that.
The religious placebo absorbs and builds on our natural love for totems. I
mean that we use them to make ourselves feel good about ourselves and to get
benefits from being seen as better than what we are. When we practice religion,
we carry over that hypocrisy into it. Religion consolidates and reinforces. We
pray as if we are really speaking from a pure heart when we are not.
Magic placebo
If a placebo helps, that does not mean the help is worth it. We may talk about the power of faith. For example, if you feel strong because you surmise that God is with you that would seem to be an instance. But we are all told we need faith in something. Naturally we are going to get a placebo by thinking that if we strive for faith, it will help us. So we end up with faith in faith. So faith in faith in God is the placebo. It is not about God directly. It could be anything - maybe even the notion that the universe is your magical assistant.
A God who only happens to be our God, is really our accessory.
If it is
never the placebo that heals but one's positive and hopeful attitude to it, then
any placebo should do. So there is no justification for involving religion or
healers in triggering the placebo. Better to give somebody some holy water or a
healing spellbook than to send for a healer. It is better still to give a person
the lifeskills that help them reduce the need for the placebo.
If a placebo is ever justified, using a religious or magical one never is. It
is not needed for a start. It is always better to give a person a sugar pill
than to send them to a spell-weaver. At least then they think it is science that
is helping them.
Depression
Many people suffering from depression are helped by placebos and they get new
hope.
This is such a dangerous area that a placebo cannot really be recommended.
Disagree? Then what?
It is obvious that only testable placebos can be tried. To tell somebody that
God can help them if they ask is irresponsible. Lots of people have done that
and it has not worked and the only thing that helped was another placebo or
medication.
A placebo needs a third party. Thus a placebo for depression should only be
facilitated by somebody who knows what they are doing.
If the problem is depression, thinking that prayer is lifting it, is
dangerous. And even more so when prayer is said to bring answers but not in the
way you expect - for example, it may seem not be God's will that you recover. It
is better to feel that your own inner resources are getting you through it.
Self-confidence needs to grow to help the problem. If you discover that you need
to be lied to by the person giving you a placebo or to deceive yourself that is
not going to help your depression but worsen it.
Religion as placebo
Even if religion is not a placebo the fact remains is that people treat it
like it is. It need not be inherently a placebo in order to thrive on being used
as one.
If a placebo is what a religion needs to be strong then no matter
how wise its teaching is, it is still a bad religion. For example, bad people
who die are always said to be in Heaven! Many religions are inherently placebos.
If a religion treats itself as a placebo or potential placebo for evil that
could be the reason why its members are at times worse than average.
Challenge
If faith is a placebo then it should be challenged, for another placebo
should be as good if not better. It does not matter what the belief is as long
as the placebo works. The person needs you to affirm the placebo for no placebo
works if the friends are negative about it. So you have to be honest and
challenge the placebo. You have to challenge the crutch for the sake of your own
integrity. Lack of integrity in you will be perceived and that will destroy
their placebo anyway so you have to challenge it. It is a good placebo when you
challenge for you are saying, "I believe you can come out of this better than
before."
What's the harm?
You may think that it does not matter how people find a placebo as long as it
works or they think it does. That is short-sighted. And it is concerning that
those who say go to a Catholic Church all the time certainly don't think any
placebo will do. Why are they not interested in mosque or trying it?
Some
attempt to trigger a placebo in others by telling them they are praying for
their healing be it of a spiritual nature or non-spiritual. Religious people
will believe that God will not be dumb enough to accept such prayers. They are
props not prayers. To ask God to heal somebody's body implies that healing them
from spiritual flaws comes first. The idea is that God never gives you anything
that makes you less holy or good. So praying for spiritual healing is at the
back of the minds of all who pray for others. But back to the placebo. In tests
it backfires and the prayed for end up giving up a bit or a lot and end up no
better or worse as a result. Some wonder if the failure is evidence that praying
for people psychically or magically hurts them. If that happens the nocebo will
grow very strong.
If you want to support others, genuine hope and encouragement are more
beneficial than relying on spiritual or magical interventions - and even many
medical or social ones. People's immune systems and their hearts get a boost
when they know somebody hopes for the best for them. Hope is better than faith
and you are better rid of faith than rid of hope. Faith is a very wrong approach
and is not even necessary.
If religious faith is a placebo, it needs to be challenged. Another one
should do just fine if not better.
You see people finding organised religion such as Mormonism and Catholicism
as their placebo. But a less formal spirituality, such as community mindfulness
or a non-denominational centre offering different spiritual activities that are
tailored to suit them, has not been tried. Do not support an organisation that
is bigger than you to get a placebo from it. That is not healthy or wise.
No placebo works in isolation. The person needs you to affirm their placebo.
No placebo works if friends are negative about it. So you have to be honest for
them and for you. You have to challenge the crutch for the sake of your own
integrity. Lack of integrity in you will be perceived and that will destroy
their placebo anyway so you have to speak up. It is a good placebo when you
challenge for you are saying, "I believe you can come out of this better than
before."
Finally
A placebo is intended to fool you into thinking it will make you better. This
causes you to feel better and more hopeful. It is never the placebo that helps
but how one feels about it so it follows any placebo will do. That could be
dangerous. It proves nothing has the right to claim to be the best placebo.
Sometimes what helps you is best done without and the placebo is one example of
that. The bigger the placebo, eg if it is an organised religion like Christian
Science, the harder it needs to fall.
A placebo is fundamentally a mechanism by which you seek to dodge the truth
because you think it relieves or stops pain. It does not follow that the truth
is really as painful as you imagine. The sensible person makes the truth her or
his placebo instead of trying to look for quick and ultimately harmful
solutions.
A placebo needs to be in some way religious, perhaps to invoke magical
invisible forces, to be at its "best". It does not have to be explicit. In some
cases, people may take say aspirin and feel a buzz as if some magic is the real
power. Maybe magic sends the tablets. Maybe magic works instead of the tablets.
When a placebo - especially with religious connotations - does not work. the
person will feel that the healer or God has cursed them either by maliciously
not helping or by doing a nocebo. A magic power that just leaves you in your
suffering or one that actively hurts you is not made any less bad or any better
by leaving you in your mess. You will fear it doing something nasty. By
forsaking you it is doing something nasty anyway.
Every healer who uses the placebo is harming ten for every one that seems to
be helped. If I help x, what about how it is only luck that lets that help come?
The potential harm is frightening. That is what matters not what that one person
says. The healer deserves discouragement and suspicion. Acting as if magic can
help, is inherently a refusal to concentrate on fixing things correctly.
Applying for a job? Use methods to enhance your confidence, instead of muttering
spells or prayers. The belief will lead to more trouble down the road.
Be warned, the nocebo is well-documented. It is remarkable that any documentation at all has happened for if people are spending money and time on snake oil they like to hide how wrong it has all gone. Nobody going to a fake alternative healer does it without dragging others down that road as well. That is further grounds for being embarrassed. My point: commonsense tells you that the nocebo has done untold harm and you would be horrified if you had any idea. The placebo and nocebo are two sides of the same coin. Saying the placebo is good compares to saying that the heroin addict had some fun at times.