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We have learned from our research that compassion, which we define as
new and incremental love, is primarily responsible for making changes in
fields correlated with incremental love, like unity, happiness, healing,
health, longevity, creativity, productivity, and other positive things we
want.
To start, we would like to share with you what our minds
are capable of
doing in the field of healing, as an example. We will offer our analysis
and what we have learned about the placebo, a fake medicine.
Since the placebo is “fake” but something real and positive is
happening, it will be easy to see from this example what our minds
are capable of doing. Then we will review what we have learned about
compassion so we can begin to project the infinite possibilities to
other fields. |
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The word
placebo comes from Latin and means, “I shall please.” The
patient’s intent is to please the self and doctor -- the doctor’s intent
is to please the patient and self. Both intentions have been proven to
have a positive effect on the patient, and they are additive.
We would define the placebo effect as the incremental
healing taking place when you believe and expect you are going to get
better from medicine or procedure, fake or real.
To determine the effect of the placebo a researcher would need a random
group receiving the placebo pill (or procedure) and a random group
receiving no placebo pill (or procedure). Then, the no-placebo group’s
overall health would be subtracted from the placebo group’s overall
health to determine the incremental overall health due to the placebo
effect alone. |
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Now I will synthesize, analyze and summarize some of the placebo’s
research. The placebos will be arranged from their smaller to larger
effects, showing the relationships of the variables and the size of
their effects.
Assume we have access to one very large group of people, all with the
same problem for which they might see their doctor and take a pill. Then
we randomly divide the very large group into several large subgroups,
alike in every way. |
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Synthesis, Analysis & Summary.
Group 1. A control group is used in experiments to show what
would have happened in a random group when no drug or placebo was given.
In this case we let it be 0%.
Group 2. When people are given a placebo (fake medicine or
procedure) and everyone is told what they are getting is a fake, there
still is a positive effect of around +10%, versus the control group.
Group 3. When people are given a placebo and everyone is told
they are getting either a fake or real drug, the average placebo effect
is now well over 30%.
Group 4. When people are given a starch pill containing all the
inactive ingredients contained in the real drug pill, its effect is
greater than when the ingredient is just the starch. Is it possible that
each new ingredient adds new meaning to a placebo, making a few more
people believe they have the real thing, thus enhancing the effect of
the placebo?
Group 5. When an effective herb is added to a placebo with
inactive ingredients, the effect is greater than without it. Does the
consumer know the difference in an “inactive” or “active” ingredient, or
is it really just the addition of more meaning to more people?
Group 6. A pill with an “active” ingredient tested significantly
better than the control but was later removed from the market for being
ineffective. It likely was reacted to as a placebo pill with just one
more ingredient in the mind of the consumer. This looks like a
validation of the one-more-ingredient placebo effect theory.
Group 7. I had two clients from different drug companies, who
volunteered they had to stop testing their pills with their traditional
samples of people because the placebo had grown from around 40% to now
approaching 90%, making it impossible for their new drugs to beat the
placebo. They now test within different contexts, where the placebo
effect is much lower.
Group 8. The ideal pill, not represented here, would have
the optimum number of ingredients, each contributing incremental,
inexpensive and minor irritants, so the maximum number of people believe
and anticipate they are getting the real thing. This would maximize the
placebo effect, do no harm and be inexpensive. |
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How do people use a fake drug to enhance their
healing rate from +10% to +80%? How can people within one context have a
higher healing rate than people in another context, given they
are all taking the same fake drug? And finally, how can different
people through time increase the healing rate within the same
context from perhaps +10% all the way up to +80%, using the same
fake medicine? |
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The placebo effect seems to be telling us that things may not be as they
seem in modern medicine. The placebo is doing the heavy lifting of
healing versus drugs. What, then, distinguishes drugs in the market from
placebos in the market? Maybe it is not the R&D or chemistry but the
authority of the M. D. and pharmacist, the brand name and the
advertising. But maybe there is no difference in the marketplace
between placebos and drugs, other things being equal, except for the
toxic effects of the drugs. |
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As all consumers learn what some consumers are doing with their minds,
there soon may be no need for "real" drugs.
How does the mind learn how to heal?
Intention, belief and expectation
seem to be variables of healing and creating a better reality. But maybe
there is more to it than that. |
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One well-respected medical researcher has said, |
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| “…The bigger and more dramatic the patient
perceives the intervention to be, the bigger the placebo effect. Big
pills have more than small pills, injections have more than pills and
surgery has the most of all."—Dr. Nelda Wray quoted by author Margaret
Talbot in her article, "The Placebo Prescription," NY Times Magazine,
25Apr99 |
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Dr. Walter A. Brown, professor of psychiatry said, |
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| “…when placebos are
given for pain management, the course of pain relief follows what you
would get with an active drug. The peak relief comes about an hour after
it's administered, as it does with the real drug, and so on. If placebo
analgesia was the equivalent of giving nothing, you'd expect a more
random pattern."—The Placebo Prescription |
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Maybe it is not that the placebo follows the drug but that the drug and
placebo are not perceived to be different in the mind of the consumer
and both act alike and according to consumer beliefs and expectations. |
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“At an outpatient psychiatric clinic in 1965, two researchers from John
Hopkins University gave 15 adult 'neurotics' an inert pill identified as
such. With straight faces, the doctors told them that 'many people with
your kind of condition have also been helped by what are sometimes
called sugar pills, and we feel that a so-called sugar pill may help
you, too. Do you know what a sugar pill is? A sugar pill is a pill with
no medicine in it at all. I think this pill will help you as it has
helped so many others. Are you willing to try this pill?' Fourteen of
the patients were convinced by this vaguely smarmy-sounding pitch (the
15th dropped out after her husband made fun of the idea), and after a
week all reported ameliorated symptoms. Some thought the pill definitely
was a placebo and some thought it must actually be an active drug, but
either way, they had faith that the doctor was trying to help them, and
they improved. At the least, then, Brown's idea deserves to be tested
out with a bigger, more reliable study.” —The Placebo Prescription
"’The secret of the care of the patient,’ wrote Dr. Francis W. Peabody
in a popular essay for doctors, ‘is in caring for the patient.’ It may
also be the secret of the placebo.”—The
Placebo Prescription
"’The placebo effect can occur,’ as the physician Herbert Spiegel once
put it, ‘when conditions are optimal for hope, faith, trust and
love.’”—The Placebo Prescription |
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So in addition to intention, belief and expectation, it may be that
compassion and love are involved in creating healing, health and perhaps
other things. |
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Could it be that we harness the same power as the placebo all the time
but do not know we do it? The above placebo information shows that it is
possible to affect our beliefs and expectations, which seem to relate to
an open mind, perhaps letting in compassion to do its work, all without
knowing it is happening. Let us investigate compassion’s role. |
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We have conducted proprietary experiments with compassion, finding it to
be a key to overall health and creating a better reality.
 First, we offer some definitions.
Resonance, quantum physicists would say, is a relationship of two or more entities vibrating on
the same frequency and becoming stronger because of it. We are
surrounded with resonating entities, all made up of energy and
information. Resonance may be the fastest growing force in the universe.
Love is the human form of resonance. Resonance to the scientist
is love to the poet.
Compassion is new, incremental love created by our mind’s intent.
Dissonance is the lack of resonance.
Here are some findings and conclusions. (For more detail of our
research and experiments, leading up to these findings and conclusions,
see our Compassion Experiments.)
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We discovered how to create and maintain the flow of information and successful
communications between people. These are necessary to create healing and
a better reality.
- In our research we discovered dissonance between most people. It
distorted their communications, disallowing the intent of their
information from transferring. It existed when senders and receivers
were different from one another in terms of their demographics of
income, race, gender and perhaps religion, politics and philosophy.
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 When senders and receivers shared the same demographics, there
was no dissonance and the intent of the information transferred.
- In our experiments we found that when senders of the information
first showed empathy and care, as in compassion, for their
receivers, the dissonance of their differences was replaced with the
resonance of their unity. Then, the intent of their information
manifested, creating successful communications.
- Interestingly, the dissonance between the people was due to
their perceptions of their differences but not the physical
differences because when senders/receivers replaced the dissonance
of their differences with the resonance of their unity, the physical
differences remained.
- Perhaps a rule for creating a better reality should be to first
create compassion as the context within which you create everything
else.
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We discovered how to create and maintain the flow of information and
successful communications within ourselves. This is necessary for
healing, creating and maximizing a better reality.
- Through time, dissonance occurs in our
internal communications. It interferes with the information
transference between cells necessary to keep us healthy, happy and
alive.
- Dissonance occurs when we do not create compassion and
feelings of love inside us for some period of time. A void of
compassion leads to the negative warning symptoms of depression,
pain, sickness and disease.
- We surmise what we wrote in b above because dissonance
is more inclined to result when we ignore ourselves for periods of
time. Then, when we create feelings of compassion and replace
dissonance with resonance, information is more likely to flow and
healing to occur.
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- In a compassion void, between and within people,
dissonance occurs in communications, preventing the intent of the
information to transfer. With no compassion, the correlates of
fear -- depression, pain, sickness, and disease result.
- With compassion and the feelings of love, dissonance is
replaced with resonance and the correlates of love -- enhanced unity,
healing, health, happiness, longevity, creativity and productivity
result.
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We discovered that compassion works as a tool on two levels to create a
better reality. It works locally through our senses within the context
of time and space and it works nonlocally, independently of our senses,
time and space.
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As an example of this, say a friend is sick in bed and you visit
her. She feels how you empathize with and care for her, you see her
gratitude for you, reflecting your compassion, and together you both
feel better, responding healthier and happier through your unity.
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As an example, let us say you cannot visit your sick friend so you
stop what you are doing for a moment and think a positive thought
about her, or you wish her well or send her a prayer. Our research
shows your compassionate intent alone can have a positive effect on
her, nonlocally. And it definitely has a positive effect on you,
locally. Here are some interesting articles about nonlocal,
distant healing.
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The local and nonlocal may work together. That is, while you are
visiting her and working through the senses, your compassionate
intent also may be working but not through the physical world.
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In addition to the above experiments on the positives of resonance and
compassion, we conducted research on the negatives without knowing we
were doing it, thinking in advance we were working on positives. (See
more detail at Compassion
Experiments.) Findings of negative information help us better
understand findings of positive information.
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In the past we worked for a number of drug company clients to help
them develop and test consumer communications for their branded
products. From experiments, we learned that drug company ads create
fear by mentioning or insinuating pain, sickness and disease. That
refocuses consumer attention from the positives of resonance and
unity, within and between, to the negatives of dissonance and
separation. This results in 1) distressing and depressing the
consumers’ overall health, 2) a never-ending search for relief and
3) more buyers buying the advertised brands for relief. These
results were consistent.
 When we refocus from the positives of love, contentment and unity to
the negatives of fear, stress and separation, we get less of
what we focus from and more of what we focus to. When focusing on negatives, they give us the
things correlated with negatives, like the symptoms of depression, pain,
sickness and disease. It seems the longer we focus on
the negatives of separation the more we create more separation and
negatives in our physical and mental reality. This may be how pain,
disease and conditions are created and get worse. Some time ago I
stopped saying, “I have the flu,” “I have a pain,” or “I have a
broken bone,” and started saying, “I am recovering from,” whatever
it is. After writing this I will start saying, “I am returning to
wholeness.”
When we focus on compassion's negative correlate of fear, we first create
separation from resonance and love, within and between us. Then we
create or reinforce the pain, sickness and disease we say we do not
want.
When we measured overall health associated with the ads, the average length of time after
receiving the advertising was ten weeks. The depressed health was
still present at that time. It is possible the depressed health from
the negative information of the advertising will continue
indefinitely, meaning that fear and its correlates may accumulate inside us.
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As we choose to focus more often on the feelings of love and
compassion, the positive correlates automatically self-select
into our lives. Deepak Chopra, M.D., and Wayne Dyer, Ph.D., call
it synchronicity. Directly correlated with incremental love are
happiness, healing, health, longevity, creativity, productivity
and many other positive values.
- You have heard the expression: Is your glass half full or
half empty? Well, it is easier to fill the half full glass of
water if you focus on more water and easier to fill the half
empty glass of air if you focus on more air. Everything is about
being positive.
- There is evidence that compassion accumulates inside us,
perhaps in a reservoir of love. And there is an indication that
fear accumulates inside us, perhaps in pain, disease and death.
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We define positive information as anything correlated with
compassion; negative information as dissonance, not correlated with
compassion. And we can turn negatives into positives, like the glass
above. Nevertheless, what we get is a result of our choices and if
we really want something positive we have to continue to focus on
and choose the positives, even as the negative information from
others and ourselves distract to attract us.
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Here is a six-step summary about how to create a better reality in
general. It is based on what we have learned from our experiments and
the research of compassion, healing and health. |
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It helps to believe and expect you will succeed. But perhaps it is
more about keeping our mind open to the possibility we create healing
and our own reality. The open mind may be necessary so the needed
information can move between and within to help
us. Physicists say that all the energy and information that has ever
existed or will ever exist is here now. That means we need an open mind
to let the energy and information flow between and within us.
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Use attention and compassion with others and yourself to replace
dissonance with resonance and communicate more successfully about
everything. Use gratitude as often as possible. It is a reflector,
creating more compassion, adding to the pool of love.
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Communicate compassion physically through your senses and mentally with
your intent to help others and yourself.
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Find something positive in everything and everybody and dwell on it so
it grows. Be optimistic and see the glass as half full and needing more
water, or half empty and needing more air. When others ask, “How are
you?” stop, think and tell them how you want to be, “Excellent!” You
will become excellent more of the time. When you are not excellent you
will know it because you will give some other flip answer like, “Fine.”
I interpret my less than “Excellent!” answers as me being under too much
stress to give the answer I want. In that case I immediately create the
feelings of compassion and love to remove the stress and its source.
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It is as if the data were indicating that everything wants to be
connected to everything else because everything that joins to resonate
seems to do better. Healing seems to be due to thinking about the whole,
i.e. the whole mind rather than mind, body, spirit, you, me, my knee, my
back, my headache. We are all “mind” and if we give the whole more
attention and compassion we will be whole more of the time and heal
faster, if and when needed.
Creating a better reality seems to result from thinking about the whole.
When, as a researcher, I select 1,000 people at random for my studies, I
now infer they are just different parts of the same mind, all free to
explore and experiment in how their whole mind works.
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Remember, it takes time to create enough compassion and accumulate
enough love for the positives to outweigh the negative and begin to see
progress. Use these steps 1-6 and the practices linked to the
Practices button on the left side of the GoodSamIAm.org homepage.
With practice it did not take me long before I noticed I was creating my
own reality. I have been happier in every way since.
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I wish you well and stay tuned for more new findings as our new research
is revealed.
As you or your loved ones benefit from our information, please make
commensurate donations. This is how we at Good Samaritans International
are able to conduct our research and pass it on. |
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Footnotes: |
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1. Kirsch, Irving, Ph.D., Sapirstein, Guy, Ph.D. "Listening
to Prozac but Hearing Placebo: A Meta-Analysis of Antidepressant
Medication," Discussion," Prevention & Treatment, Volume 1,
Article 0002a, posted June 26, 1998, Copyright 1998 by the American
Psychological Association |
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As we help you or your loved ones please consider commensurate
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