I can't stop seeing religious belief as a placebo

So, I'm reading along this morning in David Robson's book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change the World, enjoying the "Faster, Stronger, Fitter" chapter, which is about athletic performance, not anything spiritual, and I come to a passage about how a bicycle racer benefitted from an injection of sugar water, which got me to thinking about how religious belief also is a placebo.

(I've boldfaced the concluding sentence that struck me most strongly.)

This new theory of exhaustion, one that rightly places the brain as controller of what the body can do, helps us to understand the influences of placebo treatments in sport. If we consider Virenque's amazing time trial in the 1997 Tour de France, the injection of the "magic potion" increased his perception of what he could achieve.

His brain calculated that it could devote more of the body's resources to the race without risking injury, allowing his muscles to work harder on the track. The fact that it was only sugar water didn't matter: because of its effects on the prediction machine, the injection still increased the amount of energy that Virenque was able to expend.

We may describe the substance as "inert," but in terms of its effects on performance, it was anything but. Virenque's belief and the sense of ritual accompanying the injection imbued the substance with power. 

I only have direct experience of two religious systems, Catholicism (which I left behind as a child after First Communion) and Radha Soami Satsang Beas (an India-based faith headed up by a guru that I embraced for 35 years).

In my brief exposure to Catholicism, I learned that after you confess your sins to a priest -- I was so young, the only sin I could come up with was not going to church very often -- you're told how many Our  Father and Hail Mary prayers to recite, and bingo, your sin has been absolved. At least that's my understanding. 

Since I deeply doubt that prayers do anything for the person praying, given that God almost certainly doesn't exist, those prayers are a religious placebo. They make someone feel better without having any active ingredient in them. 

With Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a new disciple is given Five Holy Names to repeat in an initiation ceremony. Those names are to be kept secret, though they're the same for all initiates. They're believed to be imbued with the guru's power, a big deal, since the guru is considered to be God in Human Form.

In 1970, when I was going to RSSB meetings in preparation for applying for initiation, I recall a man in the Palo Alto group (his name might be Milton Monasch) telling a story about the power of the Five Holy Names.

He said that he was in a business meeting that wasn't going very well. Some sort of contract negotiation was being discussed, as I recall. The man said that he got up from the table, walked over to a window, and started to repeat the Five Holy Names, which serve as a mantra. 

As soon as he sat down again, the negotiation turned the way he wanted it to. Monasch, or whatever his name was, ascribed this to the Five Holy Names. 

Well, obviously there's no way to prove that. It could have been that his getting up caused a pause in the negotiation, and this allowed the side he was dealing with to reconsider the wisdom of their current position.

That's much more likely than the RSSB guru (God in Human Form) controlling the minds of the people Monasch was working out a contract with, making them decide to take a position more advantageous for Monasch because he repeated the Five Holy Names.

This would be as crazy as God determining the outcome of a football game, even though players on both sides prayed for victory. Just really hard for me to believe that God intervenes in sporting events. Or in contract negotiations. 

But people who believe in religious rituals feel a power within them, just as the Tour de France rider felt power in the sugar water he was given that improved his performance. Such is the power of placebos. It's all in the mind, but the mind is a powerful force.

Comments

[um]

Well, reading this contribution I wonder if any body has ever heard the late MCS say that doing simran was a great help for hammering a nail in the wall

Simran, the whole practice was NOT intended to be of ANY help in this world, be it practical or mental .. it was intended as the name of the practice says to connect the soul with the shabd and in doing so reach the source of eternal existence.

As I wrote several times ... disciples, like in any other religious school and practice .. tend to create their own teachings, teachings that suit them and in general tend to leave an practice if they do not manage to change the teachings and practices according their wishes.

That is how the get divorced too ... hahaha

They never marry a person but they marry their expectations, their desires and seek the most suited person to fulfill it and if the person is not willing of able to deliver will be discarded from ... hahaha

Humans are funny

[sant64]

TREASURE BEYOND MEASURE IX

The chapter on Simran:

Sethi relates a story of a female initiate who was also a social friend of Charan Singh. As Sethi's story goes, Charan advised the woman to do a half hour of Simran a day. The woman scoffed at this and thought Charan was joking. In any case she didn't follow his advice and practiced the half hour of Simran. Shortly thereafter it came to pass that her house was burgled. Moral of the story, the Simran would have prevented the burglary.

Also in the story, Charan supposedly wrote to the woman that he knew the burglary happened before she told him about it. Guru's divine precognition.

The problem with the story is obvious: If Charan knew her house was to be robbed, why didn't he simply tell her to lock up her belongings? And so, the narrative of events in the story seems very suspect to me. As with many guru miracle stories, something happens and people then take the guru's offhand remarks as an unneeded portent from the fount of the guru's omniscience. "If only i'd listened to Charan my house wouldn't have been robbed!" But more likely people reverse engineer the stories and tell them to another devotee, who then modifies the story still more so that it is miraculous.

Elsewhere in the chapter, Charan tells of how he was in a car accident where metal pipes crashed into the vehicle but stopped an inch from his head. Charan implies that this was a miracle brought about by his Simran. About this incident, Charan remarks that he's not afraid of anything thanks to his guru's protection.

In the 1980s Charan had a security detail armed with machine guns and wouldn't venture from the safety of the Dera.

So much for Simran's unlimited protection. Even Gurus opt for Smith and Wesson.

That said, I can't go so far as to reduce all spiritual practice as being nothing more than placebo. In the face of the lives I've seen changed by spiritual practice, "placebo" is too reductive for me. I believe there is a divinity that shapes our ends, a physics that is evident in its effects but escapes our grasp.

[um]

@Sant ^4

Please give the pages as my copy has no chapternumbers.

[777]

I can t repeat often enough as the answer on all chapters
The Strength of Love is that does IT

If it s a lot God will change the Big Bang for a lover
to arrive at a certain outcome
And nobody will be aware except the lover.
S/He will see it
as a miracle , a Serendipity,
something that is impossible to happen but it HAPPENS

These are frequent results of Simran and God(s greatest fun, better say Kindness

Of course at the start we can't help using Simran also for material ends - we just learn

777

Let me repeat that
"Coca Cola Rank Xerox CNN"
would have the same strength IF GIVEN BY A SAINT

[um]

@ 777

You can repeat it again and again.
In all these years, where I have met so many different characters ..nobody .. repeat nobody ..spoke like you or even had these experiences you speak of.

So against the background of your words ALL must have missed the boat.
and
you are the only one that understood and profited from sant mat.

[Vicente]

Hi. I have been reading many of your comments about Radha Soami. I would like to point out something. As many of you I have felt disappointed and have many doubts about the path. In any case after few years of not doing anything spiritually speaking for different reasons I would like to give some personal opinion. You see, as many of you I feel lost and dissapointed with the path after many years. Things are not like in the books. Anyway I would like to say that the main thing is love. If one is able to focus that love in someone who he believe is God or some spiritual teacher, even if he wasn, t, still it is a wonderful feeling and when you can focus that love in God, even through a master , in someone who you don, t have any relation like son, daughter, wife or husband, then it is possible that you can travel to another level. At this point of my life I have given up but I honestly believe in what I say. The important thing is an unconditional love, not an interested love. If you are able to do that it probably won, t matter which path you take. I can understand people dissapointment. I am in the same situation. But I don, t blame anyone. I don, t blame the path or the guru. It is true I don, t believe anymore in many of the things you can read and I question every point of it but if I am honest I would really would like to go back to the point I had that unconditional love. We analyse everything and everyone. The best if to analyse oneself and realise of the own shortcomings. The important thing are your love and your faith, and that is not intellect. It doesn, t matter which path you take , just do it with all your love. I don, t believe anymore that master is God and many other things but I take full responsability. If you don, t like the path change it but don, t waste time in critizising. Many people are helped by it. It really helped me to become a better man. I just wish I has the same faith as before. I send my understanding to everyone. I can understand the pain, the loneliness, the feeling of being lost but just remember how you felt when you found the path. Love is the key in whichever path you take. All the best to all of you

[um]

@ Carissimo Vicente

Remembering, grandma's pasta does not bring back the taste of the pasta nor the pasta you once had .....maybe only the feelings for grandma remain.

Otherwise you are right, without heart, I do not like to use the word love, nothing goes. Not even preparing a good meal as grandma did.

That said .. even without love, one can chose to meditate, just in honor of a promise once made

[Brian Hines]

Vicente, I agree with you that love is the key. To everything. Not just meditation and spirituality. Our wedding anniversary is St. Patrick's Day, March 17. The card my wife gave me a few days ago said on the front, "So, together, they built a life they loved." I, well, loved that message. I put the card on my bedside table and look at it every night before I go to sleep, and every morning upon awakening.

Love doesn't need a reason. Love doesn't need evidence. Love doesn't need rationality. I'm virtually 100% sure that the guru who initiated me in 1971, Charan Singh, isn't residing in my consciousness through his radiant or astral form. But I still talk to him from time to time. I talk to my mother and father also, and they're long dead. I talk to God too, though I don't believe in a personal god and view God as the totality of existence, not a conscious being.

So I thank God when I'm moved to feel thankful for something that happens in my life. It's very much like the placebo effect that I wrote about in this blog post. We can benefit from believing in something even if we don't believe that this thing has any power to affect us. We affect ourselves through our belief. And through our love, even if the object of our love doesn't really exist outside of our own mind.

[um]

@Vicente

IF .... IF you would have continue the way you "loved" etc, you certainly would have not the understanding you seem to have now.

You didn't lose a thing, I guess, but you gained a lot, if I I am right.

And .. I dear to say: "falling in love is different from love"
Maybe you have more of it today than ever before
Falling in love makes people blind .. blind for the reality.

[Kranvir]

Don't forget the 5 names given by gurinder singh dhillon and his satanic rssb cult are a satanic mantra. The first is Jot niranjan, which translates as light of the devil - the light devil. The other names are of the Lords/ demons of the various regions, and the last one is satnam = satan. Gurinder singh dhillon is Satan's child, and he enjoys the suffering of souls - just look at his greedy actions. He has no real insight of his own and regularly plagiarised other holy books and twists them for his rssb cults benefits - he literally wants to rule the world and be worshipped as a god. He gives false promises to sangat and tells lies on stage without any remorse. Gurinder singh dhillon, kaal, your days are numbered - it's GAME OVER , face your karma

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

"face your karma"

Posted by: Kranvir | May 03, 2024 at 02:21 PM

And what is this karma?

A gnostic definition you have?
My guess that's a part of God?