Placebo, Nocebo
Religion is social, political, economic control that uses our super power against us. The power of belief is biological (epigenetics) in nature, is complex and requires lengthy explanations in order to grasp, which is fine by me because I’m all about complexity.
This excerpt from an interview with the discoverer of epigenetics explains placebo and nocebo.
In the placebo effect, a person is ill in some degree then is given an opportunity to take a very specific medicine. The physician says, “This is the latest, greatest drug to treat you. Look, it’s colored purple, it’s very good. Even the color is going to heal you.” You believe, “My God, I found a drug that is going to heal me.” You take the drug, you get better. Later, you find out that the drug was just a sugar pill. What healed you? Well, obviously not the sugar pill. It was your perception and beliefs about the sugar pill that healed you. Almost everybody says they are familiar with that — how the mind can release chemistry in a belief that actually turns around and heals us.
What most people do not recognize is the consequence of a negative belief, in reference to the fact that a placebo is a consequence of a positive belief. A negative belief is equally powerful in shaping our biology and our genetics. It works in the opposite direction of a positive belief. A negative belief can result in any illness and even cause us to die. Just a belief. It can because that belief is translated in chemistry that will not support our vitality.
A negative belief relates to something called the nocebo effect. The nocebo effect is a consequence that can include any illness, disease, or death. That result is simple. The chemistry that determines our biology, genetics, behavior, and life characteristics is chemistry derived from the brain which, in turn, is derived from the brain interpreting an image in our mind. As we change our mind, we change our biology.
This is the foundation of something called spontaneous remission. Say a person is going to die of terminal cancer. All of a sudden, there is spontaneous remission. What does this spontaneous remission do? In every case, the remission is due to the fact that the patient had a profound change of belief, a change of mind in regard to the factors that affect their lives. A letting go of the stresses and of the mind issues that were creating a nocebo effect. Letting go of those stresses can actually cause cancer to undergo spontaneous remission. The power is not in the genetics; the power is in consciousness. Our consciousness is translated into biology via the chemistry of the natural culture medium called blood.
I bring this up because I attended an event featuring a reporter who professionally marginalizes spiritual quacks who claim they can heal people. He showed various images that he himself took in the course of his reportage. Like the religion he covers, he addresses the symptoms of those who reject religious and medical orthodoxy while mocking them. He ignores the science of epigenetics entirely, likely because he doesn’t know about it, but most likely because it goes against medical orthodoxy’s profit motive.
There’s a lot of money to be made upholding institutionalized fear-mongering. The Christian religion subverts the miracles and messages of Jesus using the world’s oldest business model of altering perceptions. I articulate it as “perform an action in order to receive/achieve what you already have/are.”
You won’t die, eat the fruit and you will be like God.
Receive Jesus as your Savior and you will have eternal life.
During the Reformation those who protested against the social, political, and economic control the Catholic Church exerted for a thousand years eventually agreed that the miracles of Jesus were proof of his divinity, thus only Jesus can perform miracles. This is fear-mongering that is totally in line with Christian orthodoxy that although God created us, we are imperfect.
And yet there it is in front of your very eyes that that you actually have a super power. Jesus said so. If you believe in Jesus of the Bible that you can facilitate equal and greater works than he did, then you will.
But if you believe the orthodoxy of Christianity, then that’s off the table.
Religion does a masterful job of fear-mongering. Once you believe the orthodoxy you will face a lifetime struggle to overcome it because our entire way of life is built on fear-mongering.
Back to the placebo effect. A knee surgeon wanted to know how and why his knee surgeries were successful, so he performed this experiment.
Imagine needing actual knee surgery, receiving the placebo surgery and being given the post-op instructions. Whether patients received actual or fake surgery, the outcome depended on the patient’s belief.
The paralytic of Capernaum believed he was paralyzed because he did something wrong. The Rabbis believed that as well, promoting the idea that if you obey God’s and their rules, things work out. His friends heard about Jesus, brought their paralyzed friend to him and he was healed by merely believing that his sins were forgiven.
What’s easier, to address the symptoms or address the root causes. Sin is believing what religion and others say about you. There’s not a soul on Earth that will ever do anything positive by obeying a religion’s rules because it’s fear-mongering in the name of God in order to create artificial power and wealth. It’s the nocebo, the negative belief. Everyone physically manifests (reaps) what they belief (sow) regardless of the thing believed.
If you took the words of Jesus seriously and said/did something like “Create a new heart (understanding) in me” and believed it would happen and then it did, that is evidence of your belief. It’s not evidence that there is a God, per se, it’s evidence of the principle and power of belief.
It’s curiously pathetic, but totally understandable, that the Reformers would focus on making sure sure nobody knew they could do works equal to and greater than Jesus. That way they could still exert control over their subjects. It was foundational to implementing the Judeo-Christian legal framework that eventually extended and institutionalized control.
Word of the dustup between Jesus and the Rabbis and the healing of the paralytic made its way to a certain nearby Roman Centurion. He left his post to find Jesus which is much more remarkable than it reads because this soldier was in command of 100 soldiers occupying Jerusalem and outlying areas. That means he was in the business of killing Jews by hanging them on crosses, collecting taxes to be paid to Caesar which ate into the Rabbis sin tax revenue channel, which is why the Rabbis were pissed when Jesus replied they should pay taxes to Caesar and pay taxes to God. Anyhow…
It was common practice for Centurions to have sex slaves with them in the field. This particular Centurion sought out Jesus because his sex slave was paralyzed, so he asked Jesus to come heal his slave. Jesus agreed, and then the Centurion realized this would be really bad optics.
“Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Jesus was blown away by the Centurion’s faith which was greater than the religious authorities claiming to be God’s representatives of their religion. The Centurion’s belief epitomizes the principle and power of belief.
I often fantasize about confronting my conservative Evangelical friends with this miracle but alas they derive their living by upholding orthodoxy. They don’t want to have their noses rubbed in miracles anymore than the Christianity’s medieval theology and the Phariseean con from which they were stillborn.
All things are possible. Just believe. There’s literally nothing else but to believe for the sake of believing.
Beliefs agnostically self-reinforce instantaneously, creating feelings, thoughts, and actions in that order, which themselves create more self-reinforcing feelings, thoughts, and actions.
Both the placebo and nocebo align perfectly with your belief. You don’t need religion, you don’t need a doctor. You just need to believe.
But it’s just too easy to doubt when that’s all you hear from both the religion and medical high priests who very existence depends on you believing their fear-mongering.
There’s a remedy for it: don’t listen to them. They literally create hell on Earth. They’re all about the money and its limited outcomes whereas you, by virtue of believing, have unlimited outcomes because all things are possible.
