The Ultimate Guide to Crystals & Stones: A Practical Path to Personal Power, Self-Development, and Healing - Uma Silbey 2016

The Mind—Body Connection and the Placebo Effect
Basic Crystal and Stone Information

Though the relationship of the brain to consciousness remains somewhat elusive even in today’s science, the relationship between expectation and its fulfillment is not only scientifically validated, but obvious if we are observant. If someone expects us to fail, we often will. If we expect something to taste bad, it does. If we expect someone to respond to us in a certain way, they usually do. The importance of perception and its effect on brain activity suggests that if we change how we perceive something, not only will our associated thoughts, reactions, and actions most likely change, but in many cases even our actual physiology, the mind and body powerfully interacting to affect our health. Emotional stress, for example, can cause symptoms of muscle tension and pain, speed up our heart rate, and affect our blood pressure and sleeping patterns. The mental states of anxiety, depression, and fear, for example, can negatively affect our digestive system as well as our nervous system. Conversely, joy and happiness can bring us the increased vitality and sense of well-being that, more often than not, leads to better health.

Science and the Placebo Effect

Since our thoughts seem to determine our reality, if we change our thoughts, change what we expect, or shift our perception, even scientific study shows that our reality will change. There are tools we can use to positively shift our perception and expectancies so that we can experience positive outcomes, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise. The use of crystals, stones, rocks, and gems is one very powerful method. So is the use of sound, visualization, affirmation, hypnosis, and various forms of energy work. This is not to say that these other methods only rely on suggestion and perceptual shift, only that they are powerful on this level as well. The tool that science is using for this is known as the placebo effect or placebo response.

The placebo effect is known to science as a substance, procedure, or medically ineffectual treatment for the condition being treated that, nonetheless, successfully treats the condition based solely on the recipient’s expectation of its working. No matter what the substance or material used, the placebo effect is directly related to the perceptions of the person receiving it, their effects produced by the self-fulfilling nature of expectation. According to the placebo effect, the belief that we have received an active treatment can produce the same subjective and then physical changes in what would be a “real” treatment. Motivation may also contribute to the placebo effect in that because we expect a certain result we alter our focus to only be aware of what supports our expectations, this subjective awareness resulting in the changes we asked for. Because the placebo effect is dependent upon what we perceive and expect, various influences that change our perception can, in turn, increase the magnitude of the response that we experience. For example, with respect to placebo (fake) pills; if a larger pill is taken, the response is larger as well. A cool-colored pill works better as a depressant, while a red, or hot-colored, pill works better as a stimulant.

While science more often uses the placebo response as evidence that working with stones and crystals doesn’t really work or do anything, and that any healing or other changes are merely due to the placebo effect, such dismissal is misplaced. Instead of dismissing their work in this way, the use of crystals and stones is actually supported by the placebo effect. Though there are many other reasons why the use of crystals and stones are effective, one reason why they work is that by relying on the mind—body connection and the crystals or stones, we can modify perception and expectancy to skillfully modify the placebo effect. Whether anything else is happening or not, this alone is powerful work, as evidenced in its success. After all, if someone is healed, does it really matter how it happened? If someone feels more secure and calm, can we really say that the method they used was wrong? What is most important, after all, is the result.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE PLACEBO EFFECT.