Personal Reality and the Power of Expectancy
Personal Reality and the Power of Expectancy
The mind controls the body. The subconscious mind forms our reality from whatever thoughts we think the most and then matches those thought patterns with a corresponding chemistry. If we think mostly positive thoughts our mind will produce a matching positive chemistry. Conversely, mostly negative thoughts will produce a matching negative chemistry. Stanford scientists have recently discovered that “expectancy” creates unique brain waves that manipulate the biology of both placebo (I shall please) and nocebo (I will harm) effect.
A Baylor School of Medicine study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 looked at subjects with crippling arthritis. The study’s lead author Bruce Mosley divided the subjects into three groups. One group had cartilage surgery. Another group had all the inflammatory agents flushed out of their knees. The third group was a placebo group that was first sedated and then merely had an incision made so as to convince them they had undergone surgery. The results were remarkable. The placebo group (fake surgery) had experienced the exact same recovery rate (approximately 56%) as the other two groups. A film crew that had been following the study groups before and after, graphically captured the amazing contrast, from patients once crippled, on crutches and in wheel chairs, to pain free, active participants playing basketball and tennis, all due to a mere ‘belief’ that they had undergone surgery. The patients were not told of their secret for two years. They continued to enjoy the fruits of a recovery not, from surgery but rather from the power of “positive expectancy.”
In 1974 a Nashville physician named Clifton Meador was attending to a patient named Sam Londe. Londe, a retired salesman, was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, a condition that was considered 100% fatal at that time. Londe died not more than a few weeks after his diagnosis. Meador was stunned soon thereafter when he learned that an autopsy had discovered that Londe had absolutely no trace of esophageal cancer. Londe had apparently died of “negative expectancy.”
In 1950, a new drug called Krebiozen had received a tremendous amount of national media attention as a “miracle cure” for cancer. The American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration decided at once to administer extensive trials on the drug. As part of the trials, a researcher named Dr. Bruno Klopfer was working with a test subject named Mr. Wright who was riddled with end stage cancer and given only a few days to live. Wright had orange size tumors in his neck, armpits, chest, groin, abdomen, spleen and liver. His tumors were so advanced they had to be drained of two quarts of milky fluid every day. Wright emotionally pleaded his case begging to be put on the experimental Krebiozen. Soon thereafter his trials began. Wright’s injections commenced on a Friday morning, but he was not expected to live through the weekend. On that following Monday he was seen up and walking around. Dr. Klopfer reported that his tumors had “melted like snowballs on a hot stove,” and were reduced to half their size in a mere three days. Ten days later Mr. Wright was on his way home. He remained well for two months. Then, after reportedly reading a number of news articles that had debunked the drug as ineffective, Wright, who was a logical, scientific thinker had suffered a relapse and was soon re-admitted. This time, Dr. Klopfer told Wright that he would give him a new, more powerful version of the drug. Once again the healing results were swift and miraculous. Remarkably, Klopfer had merely injected plain sterile water into Wright’s body. None the less he was on his way home having beat cancer once again. Wright had remained symptom free for another two months until the American Medical association announced that a nation-wide study of Krebiozen had found the drug worthless in the treatment of cancer. Wright died two days after reading the results of the study.
“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.” - Talmud
