Placebo effect

The Placebo Effect is at the core of any mental manipulation that causes physiological changes in the body.

In religion and spirituality, rituals are used to bring about the placebo effect intentionally, providing healing, happiness and other benefits to the practitioner.

In order to take advantage of rituals and reap their psychological rewards, it is not necessary to believe in any supernatural premise on which they may be based. It is enough to believe in the placebo effect itself.

Finding greater ways to enhance the placebo effect through ritual has enormous health improvement potential that would cost nothing. Unfortunately this perverse incentive makes their development unlikely under capitalist healthcare.