Adano Ley (Swami Nitty-Gritty) said, “Consciousness acting on consciousness is mind acting on mind – total placebo.”

Until we master total placebo, we can apply partial placebo to the simpler diseases that come our way.

Matthew Solan (“The Placebo Effect,” Men’s Fitness, Nov. 2000) wrote …

“In 1994, J. Bruce Moseley, M.D., a surgeon and team physician for the Houston Rockets, did fake knee operations on five men who suffered from arthritis. (Five others received either partial or full surgeries.) The placebo patients were given the whole song and dance: wheeled into an operation room, examined and anesthetized, poked with scalpels to simulate incisions, and then sent home with crutches and painkillers. Six months later, all of them reported a significant drop in chronic pain and considered themselves pleased with the results.”

Janice M. Horowitz (“What the Knees Really Need,” Time, Jul. 22, 2002) wrote …

“According to the New England Journal of Medicine, fake arthoscopic knee surgery works just as good as the real one.”

Damaris Christensen (“Medicinal Mimicry: Sometimes, placebos work – but how?,” Science News, Feb. 3, 2001) wrote …

“Some types of placebos may be more effective than others, [Ted J.] Kaptchuk [of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston] says. For example, some experiments find sham surgery more effective at reducing pain than placebo pills are. Kaptchuk is investigating whether sham acupuncture is better than placebo pills for treating a chronic pain condition.”

According to “Influence of the Mind on the Body,” The Eclectic Magazine, Volume 30, 1879 …

“Mrs. S. had had severe rheumatic fever in 1839, during the course of which the left eye was affected, in such sort that both its internal and external structure suffered injury. In 1842, when Mrs. S first consulted Mr. Braid, this eye was free from pain, but was useless. More than half the cornea was covered by an opaque film, any object placed opposite the outer or left half of the eye (the temporal half, doctors prefer to call it), being seen through a dense haze; and objects placed toward the opposite side were seen very imperfectly, owing to injury which the choroid and retina had sustained in the points on which the images of such objects were reflected. The opacity was not only an obstacle to distinct vision, but was also a source of annoyance from its disfigurement, being obvious even at a considerable distance.

“‘Mrs. S. was a relation,’ Dr. Todd mentions, ‘of Mr. Braid, and was in his house three months before he operated upon her, during which time no change took place. Violent pain in the arm and shoulder induced her to submit to the hypnotic treatment, which proved successful; but what was more surprising, and quite unlooked for by Mr. Braid, her sight was so much more improved that she was able to see every thing in the room, and to name different flowers, and distinguish their colors, whilst the right eye was shut, which she had not been able to do for more than three and a half years previously. The operation was continued daily, and in a very short time the cornea became so transparent that it required close inspection to observe any remains of the opacity.'”

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