The placebo effect is potent indeed. To explain the impact in terms we have available on Hack the Verse, let’s tie together placebos and permission slips.
None of this is medical advice. Always follow the advice of your doctors.
The placebo effect
The placebo effect is a beneficial outcome of a drug or procedure that cannot be attributed to either. We even know the placebo effect appears when the subject is told that they’re being given a placebo! Double-blinded placebo-controlled drug trials attempt to rule out the effect as much as possible. Why we don’t also try to amp up the placebo effect later at administration time is beyond our comprehension.
Surgeries also produce their own placebo effect! We know that a little pill gives a certain amount of placebo (on average) while a larger capsule gives a larger placebo effect. Given the difference in response between the pill sizes, it seems reasonable to conclude the effect is correlated to the drama associated with the drug or procedure given. A quick Google search makes it look like we don’t have any research hinting at whether this is true or not.
Placebo strength
We strongly suspect, but can’t justify, that the strength of the placebo effect (all else being equal) is proportional to the drama of the procedure. A wee little pill gives a wee little effect. Bigger pills have bigger effects. Regularly administered pills with horrible side effects probably have a substantially larger placebo effect. The horribly uncomfortable side effects are proof that it’s strong medicine, right?
The strength of the placebo effect is probably also proportional to the faith you have in the healthcare professional doing the prescribing or performing. The more we trust and believe, the stronger the effect.
Therefore, it’s reasonable to suspect the value of a given medication has as much to do with the side effects as anything else. You would expect that the placebo drug given to control group participants produces identical side effects, but this rarely ever happens in practice. Next time you hear the term “placebo-controlled,” in an efficacy study think, “yeah right.”
On the other hand, safety trials are a little different. If the active ingredient is benign compared to a relatively dangerous delivery system, often the safety trials give the full delivery system to the control group to make the product appear as safe as a placebo. Generalizing is difficult here as there are numerous ways to game the system.
Permission slips
Bashar uses the term “permission slip” often to describe anything that fosters an allowing. Seth often spoke of wholesale replacing beliefs, but a permission slip isn’t quite that. Abraham advocates for anything that causes a feeling of ease. We just heard Ramtha say something similar, that the goal is to foster a belief (i.e. to replace a disallowing belief with one that allows).
“When you ask, it is given, every single time, no exceptions. You are beloved, blessed Beings who deserve good things—but it takes a self-convincing before you will allow good things.”
Abraham, Excerpted from Boston, MA on 10/2/04
Both placebos and permission slips utilize your existing belief system. Like a key opening a lock, permission slips crack open some tenet of your limiting beliefs. When we believe we are incomplete on our own, then something else is required. Some of these things look a little ridiculous when listed together. This kind of thing wouldn’t normally be possible, but the power crystal focuses the universe’s energy. Whenever god sends someone downstairs, anything is possible. Just as soon as the doctor gives me this state-of-the-art medication, my body will suddenly remember how to heal itself. If I meditate long and hard enough on my belly button, then the spirit animal du jour will surely deliver.
All objects, all tools, all rituals, all techniques are ‘permission slips’ you attract yourself to because they are representative of something within your belief system that says that if you use this tool, ritual, or technique you will then be more likely to allow yourself to give yourself permission to be more of who you are.
Bashar
Unifying placebos and permission slips
The end result of the placebo effect is simply the usual law of attraction response to your desire for health. Nobody’s health is exempt from the law of attraction, not even yours.
The pill or procedure administered by a trusted healthcare professional was the permission slip our existing belief system needed. The law of attraction has already assembled all cooperative components, and your permission slip just brought you aboard.
The little bit of allowing fostered by the permission slip is perfectly analogous to a crack forming in a dam. The energy that creates worlds obeys your deepest-held beliefs but rushes through the crack of least resistance the moment you allow it.
Altering beliefs
Wouldn’t it be nice to experience perfect health without the need for occasional or constant placebos and permission slips? We’re now at a point where it’s relatively easy to say why and how.
Why
Permission slips are “necessary” because your current belief system requires them. It’s always possible to alter your beliefs, and Seth’s entire book The Nature of Personal Reality covers this in great detail.
“The first important step is to realize that your beliefs about reality are just that – beliefs about reality and not necessarily attributes of reality. You must make a clear distinction between you and your beliefs. You must then realize that your beliefs are physically materialized. What you believe to be true in your experience is true. To change the physical effect you must change the original belief – while being quite aware that for a time physical materializations of the old beliefs may still hold.”
Seth, The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 4
There it is. Our beliefs direct our thoughts, our imaginations, our conversations, our actions, and our responses. Then, the law of attraction will always give you more of that.
How
So it’s accurate to say our beliefs are based on what we experience every day. It’s also accurate to say what we experience every day is based on our beliefs. It’ll take conscious effort to break out of the cycle, but you first have to realize that what you experience daily is foremost a result of your existing beliefs. Thankfully, we can change our beliefs at any time. Talk to yourself as a child if need be. Now, I know this is what you believe, but there is a bigger picture.
Recognize there are people living with and without perfect health. Unless it’s congenital, people aren’t born into lemons. Align your beliefs to expect perfect health. Pay more attention to anything or anyone that already expresses perfect health. Talk more about perfect health. Avoid doing the opposite!
More than placebos and permission slips
This entire post is really a law of attraction post in disguise. Everything said would apply just as well to … fill in the blank. In those cases, the placebo effect would instead be called inspiration, timing, luck, synchronicity, opportunity, etc.
We believe it’s probably worth having several more articles on altering beliefs. This is where the rubber meets the road whenever we want intentional, sustained change.
Update: A recent Abraham-Hicks daily quote email had a very nice addition to this article.
“Is this pill really an effective pill? Is this process really an effective process?”
Anything that causes you to allow what you desire is the process of coming into alignment. And so, we’re not, in any way, validating or invalidating anything.
Many offer their “dog and pony show” as being the one that works. And good for all of them. We applaud anything that assists someone in allowing the Well-being, that they so much want and deserve, to flow.
Abraham, excerpted from Salt Lake City, UT on 9/9/00
