* regarding the placebo effect: my own body will react to what I believe, correct. Someone else’s body will not react to what I believe. The thing with placebos, they work temporarily, like any other kind of magical belief. Over time reality wins as it will not be denied. So placebos stop working and people get their meds adjusted, again and again. Coming to think about it, let’s say person X believes a placebo is helping and the relationship with person Y improves as a result and they have a baby- what a difference a belief has made. Beliefs are very powerful in prompting people to act, or not to act. True.

Problem is you can’t choose beliefs by will. When a person takes a placebo and believes it is working, it is because the person doesn’t know it is a placebo, so the person was tricked into such belief or without awareness believed it. But you can’t choose beliefs with awareness and by the power of the will, choose to believe something. Can’t trick yourself on purpose.

And those “mental laws” are about tricking yourself to believe what could help you if you authentically believed in, only you can’t authentically believe in something by choice.

anita