Article by Anthony Tyler

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Last year, a study was released by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. It was but one of the many efforts conducted in a partnership between BIDMC and Harvard Medical School, through their “Program in Placebo Studies & Therapeutic Encounter“ (PiPS), which was established in 2011. Their official statement and analysis can be read here.

The longstanding theory behind the so-called “placebo effect” is that this effect only can take place when a patient is unaware of the placebo’s true efficacy (i.e. that it does not work). However, theologians, metaphysicists and philosophers throughout history have long considered the deeper implications behind the observable mechanisms of the placebo. The learned man has understood for quite some time that the subtle line between placebo “trickery” and conscious extra-senses is abstracted by a mere metaphorical curtain — and all a person need do is pull on this curtain to find this two-way street.

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