The Holographic Universe (15 page)

Tumors That Melt
Like Snowballs on a Hot Stove

Understanding the role
such factors play in a placebo's effectiveness is important, for it shows how
our ability to control the body holographic is molded by our beliefs. Our minds
have the power to get rid of warts, to clear our bronchial tubes, and to mimic
the painkilling ability of morphine, but because we are unaware that we possess
the power, we must be fooled into using it. This might almost be comic if it were
not for the tragedies that often result from our ignorance of our own power.

No incident better
illustrates this than a now famous case reported by psychologist Bruno Klopfer.
Klopfer was treating a man named Wright who had advanced cancer of the lymph nodes.
All standard treatments had been exhausted, and Wright appeared to have little
time left. His neck, armpits, chest, abdomen, and groin were filled with tumors
the size of oranges, and his spleen and liver were so enlarged that two quarts
of milky fluid had to be drained out of his chest every day.

But Wright did not want
to die. He had heard about an exciting new drug called Krebiozen, and he begged
his doctor to let him try it. At first his doctor refused because the drug was
only being tried on people with a life expectancy of at least three months. But
Wright was so unrelenting in his entreaties, his doctor finally gave in. He
gave Wright an injection of Krebiozen on Friday, but in his heart of hearts he
did not expect Wright to last the weekend. Then the doctor went home.

To his surprise, on the
following Monday he found Wright out of bed and walking around. Klopfer
reported that his tumors had “melted like snowballs on a hot stove” and were
half their original size. This was a far more rapid decrease in size than even
the strongest X-ray treatments could have accomplished. Ten days after Wright's
first Krebiozen treatment, he left the hospital and was, as far as his doctors
could tell, cancer free. When he had entered the hospital he had needed an oxygen
mask to breathe, but when he left he was well enough to fly his own plane at
12,000 feet with no discomfort.

Wright remained well for
about two months, but then articles began to appear asserting that Krebiozen
actually had no effect on cancer of the lymph nodes. Wright, who was rigidly
logical and scientific in his thinking, became very depressed, suffered a
relapse, and was readmitted to the hospital. This time his physician decided to
try an experiment. He told Wright that Krebiozen was every bit as effective as
it had seemed, but that some of the initial supplies of the drug had
deteriorated during shipping. He explained, however, that he had a new highly
concentrated version of the drug and could treat Wright with this. Of course
the physician did not have a new version of the drug and intended to inject
Wright with plain water. To create the proper atmosphere he even went through
an elaborate procedure before injecting Wright with the placebo.

Again the results were
dramatic. Tumor masses melted, chest fluid vanished, and Wright was quickly
back on his feet and feeling great. He remained symptom-free for another two
months, but then the American Medical Association announced that a nationwide
study of Krebiozen had found the drug worthless in the treatment of cancer.
This time Wright's faith was completely shattered. His cancer blossomed anew
and he died two days later.

Wright's story is
tragic, but it contains a powerful message: When we are fortunate enough to
bypass our disbelief and tap the healing forces within us, we can cause tumors
to melt away overnight

In the case of Krebiozen
only one person was involved, but there are similar cases involving many more
people. Take a chemotherapeutic agent called cis-platinum. When cis-platinum
first became available it, too, was touted as a wonder drug, and 75 percent of
the people who received it benefited from the treatment But after the initial
wave of excitement and the use of cis-platinum became more routine, its rate of
effectiveness dropped to about 25 to 30 percent. Apparently most of the benefit
obtained from cis-platinum was due to the placebo effect.

Do Any Drugs
Really Work?

Such incidents raise an
important question. If drugs such as Krebiozen and cis-platinum work when we
believe in them and stop working when we stop believing in them, what does this
imply about the nature of drugs in general? This is a difficult question to
answer, but we do have some clues. For instance, physician Herbert Benson of
Harvard Medical School points out that the vast majority of treatments
prescribed prior to this century, from leeching to consuming lizard's blood,
were useless, but because of the placebo effect they were no doubt helpful at
least some of the time.

Benson, along with Dr.
David P. McCallie, Jr., of Harvard's Thorn-dike Laboratory, reviewed studies of
various treatments for angina pectoris that have been prescribed over the years
and discovered that although remedies have come and gone, the success
rates—even for treatments that are now discredited—have always remained high.
From these two observations it is evident that the placebo effect has played an
important role in medicine in the past, but does it still play a role today?
The answer, it seems, is yes. The federal Office of Technology Assessment estimates
that more than 75 percent of all current medical treatments have not been
subjected to sufficient scientific scrutiny, a figure that suggests that
doctors may still be giving placebos and not know it (Benson, for one, believes
that, at the very least, many over-the-counter medications act primarily as
placebos).

Given the evidence we
have looked at so far, one might almost wonder if all drugs are placebos.
Clearly the answer is no. Many drugs are effective whether we believe in them
or not: Vitamin C gets rid of scurvy, and insulin makes diabetics better even
when they are skeptical. But still the issue is not quite as clear-cut as it
may seem. Consider the following.

In a 1962 experiment
Drs. Harriet Linton and Robert Langs told test subjects they were going to
participate in a study of the effects of LSD, but then gave them a placebo
instead. Nonetheless, half an hour after taking the placebo, the subjects began
to experience the classic symptoms of the actual drug, loss of control,
supposed insight into the meaning of existence, and so on. These “placebo
trips” lasted several hours.

A few years later, in
1966, the now infamous Harvard psychologist Richard Alpert journeyed to the
East to look for holy men who could offer him insight into the LSD experience.
He found several who were willing to sample the drug and, interestingly,
received a variety of reactions. One pundit told him it was good, but not as
good as meditation. Another, a Tibetan lama, complained that it only gave him a
headache.

But the reaction that
fascinated Alpert most came from a wizened little holy man in the foothills of
the Himalayas. Because the man was over sixty, Alpert's first inclination was
to give him a gentle dose of 50 to 75 micrograms. But the man was much more
interested in one of the 305 microgram pills Alpert had brought with him, a
relatively sizable dose. Reluctantly, Alpert gave him one of the pills, but
still the man was not satisfied. With a twinkle in his eye he requested another
and then another and placed all 915 micrograms of LSD on his tongue, a massive
dose by any standard, and swallowed them (in comparison, the average dose Grof
used in his studies was about 200 micrograms).

Aghast, Alpert watched
intently, expecting the man to start waving his arms and whooping like a
banshee, but instead he behaved as if nothing had happened. He remained that
way for the rest of the day, his demeanor as serene and unperturbed as it
always was, save for the twinkling glances he occasionally tossed Alpert. The
LSD apparently had little or no effect on him. Alpert was so moved by the
experience he gave up LSD, changed his name to Ram Dass, and converted to
mysticism.

And so taking a placebo
may well produce the same effect as taking the real drug, and taking the real
drug might produce no effect. This topsy-turvy state of affairs has also been
demonstrated in experiments involving amphetamines. In one study, ten subjects
were placed in each of two rooms. In the first room, nine were given a
stimulating amphetamine and the tenth a sleep-producing barbiturate. In the
second room the situation was reversed. In both instances, the person singled
out behaved exactly as his companions did. In the first room instead of falling
asleep the lone barbiturate taker became animated and speedy, and in the second
room the lone amphetamine taker fell asleep. There is also a case on record of
a man addicted to the stimulant Ritalin, whose addiction is then transferred to
a placebo. In other words, the man's doctor enabled him to avoid all the usual
unpleasantries of Ritalin withdrawal by secretly replacing his prescription
with sugar pills. Unfortunately the man then went on to display an addiction to
the placebo!

Such events are not
limited to experimental situations. Placebos also play a role in our everyday
lives. Does caffeine keep you awake at night? Research has shown that even an
injection of caffeine won't keep caffeine-sensitive individuals awake if they
believe they are receiving a sedative. Has an antibiotic ever helped you get
over a cold or sore throat? If so, you were experiencing the placebo effect All
colds are caused by viruses, as are several types of sore throat, and
antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections, not viral
infections. Have you ever experienced an unpleasant side effect after taking a
medication? In a study of a tranquilizer called mephenesin, researchers found
that 10 to 20 percent of the test subjects experienced negative side
effects—including nausea, itchy rash, and heart palpitations—regardless of
whether they were given the actual drug or a placebo. Similarly, in a recent
study of a new kind of chemotherapy, 30 percent of the individuals in the
control
group, the group given placebos, lost their hair. So if you know someone who is
taking chemotherapy, tell them to try to be optimistic in their expectations.
The mind is a powerful thing.

In addition to offering
us a glimpse of this power, placebos also support a more holographic approach
to understanding the mind/body relationship. As health and nutrition columnist
Jane Brody observes in an article in the
New York Times
, “The
effectiveness of placebos provides dramatic support for a ‘holistic’ view of
the human organism, a view that is receiving increasing attention in medical
research. This view holds that the mind and body continually interact and are
too closely interwoven to be treated as independent entities.”

The placebo effect may
also be affecting us in far vaster ways than we realize, as is evidenced by a
recent and extremely puzzling medical mystery. If you have watched any
television at all in the last year or so, you have no doubt seen a blitzkrieg
of commercials promoting aspirin's ability to decrease the risk of heart
attack. There is a good deal of convincing evidence to back this up, otherwise
television censors, who are real sticklers for accuracy when it comes to
medical claims in commercials, wouldn't allow such copy on the air. This is all
well and good. The only problem is that aspirin doesn't seem to have the same
effect on people in England. A six-year study of 5,139 British doctors revealed
no evidence that aspirin reduces the risk of heart attack. Is there a flaw in
somebody's research, or is it possible that some kind of massive placebo effect
is to blame? Whatever the case, don't stop believing in the prophylactic
benefits of aspirin. It still may save your life.

The Health
Implications of Multiple Personality

Another condition that
graphically illustrates the mind's power to affect the body is Multiple
Personality Disorder (MPD). In addition to possessing different brain-wave
patterns, the subpersonalities of a multiple have a strong psychological
separation from one another. Each has his own name, age, memories, and
abilities. Often each also has his own style of handwriting, announced gender,
cultural and racial background, artistic talents, foreign language fluency, and
IQ.

Even more noteworthy are
the biological changes that take place in a multiple's body when they switch
personalities. Frequently a medical condition possessed by one personality will
mysteriously vanish when another personality takes over. Dr. Bennett Braun of
the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality, in Chicago,
has documented a case in which all of a patient's subpersonaiities were allergic
to orange juice, except one. If the man drank orange juice when one of his
allergic personalities was in control, he would break out in a terrible rash.
But if he switched to his nonallergic personality, the rash would instantly
start to fade and he could drink orange juice freely.

Dr. Francine Howland, a
Yale psychiatrist who specializes in treating multiples, relates an even more
striking incident concerning one multiple's reaction to a wasp sting. On the
occasion in question, the man showed up for his scheduled appointment with
Howland with his eye completely swollen shut from a wasp sting. Realizing he
needed medical attention, Howland called an ophthalmologist. Unfortunately, the
soonest the ophthalmologist could see the man was an hour later, and because
the man was in severe pain, Howland decided to try something. As it turned out,
one of the man's alternates was an “anesthetic personality” who felt absolutely
no pain. Howland had the anesthetic personality take control of the body, and
the pain ended. But something else also happened. By the time the man arrived
at his appointment with the ophthalmologist, the swelling was gone and his eye
had returned to normal. Seeing no need to treat him, the ophthalmologist sent
him home.