Tag: science

Fabrizio Benedetti on the neurobiology of placebos

Here is Fabrizio Benedetti, professor of physiology and neuroscience at the University of Turin Medical School, giving an introduction to the neurobiology of placebo effects. This gets into technical details of chemical names and brain anatomy, but a lot of it is also stated in a more general, accessible way.

I was especially interested in their discussion of which conditions are more influenced by placebo effects (pain, anxiety, Parkinson’s), and Benedetti’s distinction between conscious/expectation effects and unconscious/conditioning effects. This is my first encounter with the idea that different kinds of rituals can affect different systems in the body.

This is also my first time thinking about Pavlovian conditioning as a type of placebo response, and it is giving me ideas about ritual magick. I mostly think about meaning and significance as things that give rituals power and have effects on my body, which would fall under Benedetti’s conscious, expectation-based effects. It makes a lot of sense to me that repeating rituals could make them more potent, both because of the conscious effect of familiarity and expectation, and perhaps  also because my body is being conditioned to respond in ways that I’m not conscious of.

Placebos as a science of rituals and spells

In exploring possible meanings of “critical magick”, I find myself collecting perspectives on magick from many different fields, many ways of knowing. Placebo researchers use the words “magic” and “ritual” more than you might expect from scientists. Here is Ted Kaptchuk, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, giving an introduction to placebo studies. He explains a definition of placebos not as fake treatments, but rather as the impact of all the cultural and relationship stuff that happens along with treatments.

‘Placebo effects’ is a way of quantifying and measuring everything that surrounds pills and procedures, mainstream or alternative. They’re about the rituals, the words, the engagements, the costumes, the diplomas, and those special things you get when you go to a healer.