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What comes after successful placebo surgery?

March 30, 2017 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

 

Placebo surgery?

Yes.  Not just sugar pills but actual fake operations that result in the same positive outcomes as real surgery.

“The patients didn’t know which procedures they got—real surgery or sham surgery.  Both groups had equivalent results.  A year later, approximately 80% of patients in both groups said their knees felt better.”

Wow.

This was the report from Dr. Teppo Jarvinen, the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation Clinical Professor of Orthopedics and Traumatology at the University of Helsinki, who led a rigorous study of placebo-controlled knee surgery.

The placebo effect also isn’t limited to those who don’t know they’re getting a placebo.  Even when informed that their medicine is made of inert ingredients yet is beneficial, patients still experience positive outcomes.

This all points to how powerful our expectations are!  What we believe in can have a profound physical effect.  You could even call it “mental medicine.”

But surgery?

It’s one thing to take a pill that disappears into the system and expect positive results.  Perhaps it’s even understandable that someone can trust in mysterious benefits of a known placebo.

But surgery is so concrete, so hands on.  In surgery, there’s a definite adjustment.  Someone went in and did something.  How can that be faked?

In the study above, “all received anesthesia and incisions.” For some, the rest was mental.  Just believing that surgery had been done and seeing a confirming incision, was enough to produce lasting physical correction.

Doesn’t that impel the next logical question:  Is it possible for such correction to occur even without fake surgery – completely mentally?

Yes, it can.  From the expectancy that comes through faith.  And I’m not talking about blind faith.

I’m referring to an expectation of good results based on a spiritual understanding, which can bring needed physical change. That’s the kind of understanding I’ve learned to strive for and cultivate in my practice of Christian Science.

Here’s an example of what might be called, “mental surgery.”

“…as I fell, I heard two loud popping sounds coming from my leg….The doctor diagnosed the injury as a severed anterior cruciate ligament, and a torn posterior cruciate ligament….He said I had only two options: one, to have surgery; or two, to undergo several months, if not more, of rehabilitation.  But either way, I would never have full mobility in my leg, and my knee would never be the same or heal properly on its own.

…I was constantly tuning in to God—listening for Him and for the assurance that as His loved and well-constructed idea, I was never for an instant outside of His care or separated from Him.  Within less than a month of the skiing accident, I was fully recovered without any medical assistance.”

Obviously, there’s more going on there than can be fully discussed here.  But this account, and others like it, offer thought-provoking evidence of what’s possible through a purely spiritual approach.

The success of placebo surgery takes us to the cutting edge of mental medicine – pun intended.   I’d say the next level requires no scalpel.

(photo ©Glowimages – model for illustrative purposes only)

The evidence of love

March 17, 2016 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

©Glowimages

While the “evidence” of Valentine’s Day has mostly come and gone, the love still remains.

Flowers have wilted, romantic meals have been eaten and sweets enjoyed. Perhaps there are still cards displayed and gifts of jewelry being worn and cherished.  But was the love those things were meant to express ever actually in the things themselves?  

No.  The love that is motivated to give gifts is a powerful presence in our hearts, even after the gift has been given, and even though science is unable to measure it.

So does that mean our experience of Valentine’s Day love can’t be classified as “evidence-based”?

We can describe the love and how it made us feel.  We could maybe even point to a transforming effect it had on us to give or receive it.  And science can measure responses and reactions to love in the brain and body. Yet, because the love itself cannot be objectively measured, our “evidence” may not be considered proof of the power of love.

But as you and I know, the power and presence of love can be as tangible and distinct to us as the keys I’m tapping to write this.  So why can’t we prove it?Continue Reading

How Christmas relates to healing

December 17, 2014 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

@Glowimages MCG02393.
© GLOW IMAGES

I grew up not knowing the real origin of Christmas.  Our family still celebrated Christmas (and Hanukkah) with presents and decorations, food and fun.  But I wasn’t familiar with the story of Jesus’ birth, which as the saying goes is “the reason for the season.”

Fast forward to early adulthood, where I’d begun to read the Bible and practice spiritual healing through Christian Science.  I experienced quick healing of a wound – in a way that would be considered physically impossible.

One evening, I was trimming my mustache and slipped.  The scissor blade went deep into my upper lip.  At that moment, along with pain and surprise, I had another response that came from my spiritual study.

I recalled an account I’d read that day about a woman working in a restaurant.  While using an electric appliance with one hand, she reached out with the other to turn off a dripping faucet – causing a huge electric shock to grip her.Continue Reading

#GratitudeChallenge: From the Trivial to the Transformational

November 26, 2014 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

@Glowimages MEE00810.
© GLOW IMAGES

My Massachusetts colleague, Ingrid Peschke, examines current gratitude fads.  She drills down to the profound, healing impact that true thanksgiving can have on our health and happiness.

She observes, “I’ve found that gratitude can be most beneficial when it feels as though there’s nothing to be grateful for.  In those dark moments, I’ve gotten better at detecting a deceptive view of my circumstances and focusing on the good instead.”  Here’s Ingrid…

My Facebook feed this summer included a steady stream of lists from friends who accepted one of the numerous gratitude challenges circulating social media spheres.  I read their posts with curious interest, but I secretly hoped I wouldn’t be asked to take on the challenge, too!

Sharing gratitude in an open forum can sometimes come off as trite.  Besides, people seem to be popping gratitude like it’s the latest wonder drug.  A recent Salon.com article addresses the current Western trend toward gratitude and mindfulness as a kind of “spiritual meritocracy,” or spirituality lite.  The author writes:

Please click here to read the rest in its original context…

Is spiritual-based healing weird?

October 2, 2014 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

prayer-booth-580 jpg
Photo courtesy Zach Alexander, licensed under Creative Commons

My Texas colleague, Keith Wommack, uses a simple analogy to explain how spiritualizing our thinking to heal our body can go from new and strange, to natural and effective.  Here’s Keith…

While in a meeting, a newspaper editor, after learning that I practiced spiritual-based healing, said, “Since Christian Science is weird, it … “

The editor stopped mid-sentence, looked at me, and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to say weird. I’m so sorry.”

After the editor apologized several more times, I said, “Forget about it. It’s okay,” and we went back to our pleasant discussion.

The editor’s “Weird” comment reminded me of ’73.  In 1973, I was in Brad Shearer‘s kitchen.  Brad and I attended high school together.  He was a star football player who went on to play for the Texas Longhorns and the Chicago Bears.

While in Brad’s kitchen, I watched as he took a large glass measuring cup and cracked eight eggs into it.  After whipping the eggs, he opened the door of a small machine, placed the measuring cup inside, closed the door, and turned a dial.  A minute or so later, he opened the door, took out the cup, and began eating the eggs with a fork.  Weird!

Weird, because in ’73 I had never heard of, much less, seen a microwave oven.  How did those eggs cook in just a minute?

Just as the microwave seemed weird to me in ’73, the thought of providing prayer for illness or pain can seem the same to you when you first encounter it.  However, both are effective.  Both utilize laws.  The microwave transforms food. Spiritual treatments can transform people.  Both accomplish this from the inside out.

please click here to read the rest in its original context

 

I Was Addicted To Gambling — Here’s How I Overcame It

April 30, 2014 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

© GLOW IMAGES
© GLOW IMAGES

My London colleague, Tony Lobl, gives a heartfelt account of how spiritual growth enabled him to gain control over his thoughts and actions.  He was permanently cured of the disease called, addiction.  Here’s Tony…

When did I cross the line and become “an addict”?  Perhaps during my final year at high school.  Day after day, I’d play hooky from class to join a covert clan of gamblers playing card games in the seniors’ common room.

It didn’t seem like an addiction at the time — as a good bluffer, I’d regularly turn a healthy profit.  But it wasn’t the money that drew me; it was the buzz of pitting my wits against my peers’.  However, the fact remained that the writing was on the wall.  On days when luck ran out, I’d still carry on until I lost everything, including my bus fare home.  Thankfully my father never asked why he had to pick me up.

Despite my lax approach to classes, I got into University.  For a few years, an array of extracurricular activities kept the gambler at bay, hidden within.  So did a couple of cash-light years following graduation, as I pursued a vain dream to be Britain’s answer to Bob Dylan.

But the desire to gamble remained and quickly resurfaced when I finally got a job at a video production company.  Instead of saving my money, I immediately began feeding it to voracious slot machines in London.

please click here to read the rest in its original context…

What stops you from being healthy?

February 11, 2014 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

@Glowimages 63044738.
© GLOW IMAGES

TV news anchors announced that a higher percentage of Minnesotans watched the Olympics’ opening weekend than in any other US state.  From our warm living room, with yet another sub zero night outside, my wife and I helped create that statistic.  It was inspiring, as we saw people break free of limits — sometimes in ways they’d never even tried before.  My Texas colleague, Keith Wommack, tells us how barrier breaking can also apply to our health.  Here’s Keith…

Will World-class competition and the medaling of champions keep you watching the 2014 Winter Olympics? Or will you watch in anticipation of barriers and limitations being shattered?

When it comes to breakthroughs and victories, though, you don’t just have to witness Shaun White pull off a Double McTwist 1260 (a snowboarding feat), you too can be an achiever, a champion.

Yes, your victories may start out smaller than Sochi gold, but in the long run, they may actually be more beneficial to you.

While practicing the guitar and learning languages, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that might help explain how you can shatter limiting expectations.

In order to master a guitar riff or learn a phrase, I sometimes struggle for days or weeks with no progress. Then, out of the blue, I experience a breakthrough. One minute I can’t, and then the next, I can. What couldn’t be done before now seems natural, as if I’d always had the know-how.

How does this happen? Well, I’m learning that each of us has conscious control over our experience; I was simply failing to recognize and use it.

Please click here to read the rest in its original context…

A healthier view of a negative test result

June 22, 2012 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

If your test comes back negative, you’re glad because as we commonly say, “They found nothing.”

Is that really true?  Was nothing found?

Yes, the diseased condition or the problem they were looking for isn’t there.  So then what is?  Health.  And health is not nothing, it’s something.  Something was found.

It’s popular to think of health just as the absence of disease.  I remember being struck by this phenomenon years ago while in a “health” food store.  As I looked around, I realized that every product was geared toward treating, preventing or warding off sickness.  There was barely anything about wellness.

Our health-care system is primarily a disease-care system.  The focus and the incentives are not on establishing and maintaining health but on paying for the treatment, management and occasionally the prevention of disease.

In recent years there have been efforts to promote healthy lifestyles as a path to wellness. Mostly the emphasis is on nutrition and exercise.  But there’s been very little shift in how we think of health.

Continue Reading

Expectation — the ultimate placebo effect

May 3, 2012 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

Everyone knows that the placebo effect depends on not knowing that it’s a placebo, right?  Wrong!!

Here’s the link to a 1/10/12 piece from, The Wall Street Journal, called “Why Placebos Work Wonders:  from weight loss to fertility, new legitimacy for ‘fake’ treatments”.

The author, Shirley S. Wang, gives several impressive examples of effective placebo treatments but also reports this:  “It doesn’t seem to matter whether people know they are getting a placebo and not a ‘real’ treatment.”  What?!

She mentions a study done by Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, director of Harvard’s Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter.   Patients were informed that what they were taking was made with inert ingredients and yet they still had beneficial results.

Continue Reading

Can forgiving and being forgiven improve your health?

April 26, 2012 By christianscienceminnesota Leave a Comment

During the last decade plus, there has been a growing number of studies showing the beneficial effects of forgiveness on the body.  As far back as 2004, a Harvard Medical School publication) was able to sum up:

“Reduced stress. Researchers found that mentally nursing a grudge puts your body through the same strains as a major stressful event: Muscles tense, blood pressure rises, and sweating increases. Better heart health. One study found a link between forgiving someone for a betrayal and improvements in blood pressure and heart rate, and a decreased workload for the heart…Reduced pain. A small study on people with chronic back pain found that those who practiced meditation focusing on converting anger to compassion felt less pain and anxiety than those who received regular care.”  (Also see 11/23/11 report by the Mayo Clinic staff)

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About Joel

Joel Magnes Hi, I’m Joel Magnes, writing about the connection between our thinking and our health -- focusing on how spirituality and prayer can have a positive impact on our well-being.   I'm a practitioner of Christian Science, with over 25 years of expertise and experience in prayer-based healing.  And I serve as the Christian Science Committee on Publication for Minnesota; the church's media and legislative liaison. Contact Joel HERE.

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