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I'm really getting into that sort of thing. The other day someone published a study that found that depressed people showed the same increases in brain function whether they were given anti-depressant drugs or whether they were just given placebos.
Is it possible that the placebo patients improved <i>because they thought they would?</i> In other words... could their conscious beliefs change their unconscious brain activity?
This, too explains (to non-believers like myself) why prayer is positive for people. Studies showed that people who were being prayed for had higher than average recovery rates. Other studies were then done where the patient being prayed for was not *told* they were being prayed for. That set of patients only had average recovery rates.
It is chillingly simple: <i>believe that you will get well, and you improve your chances of getting well.</i>
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