And many people chose a spiritual phrase. And it struck me as being rather peculiar that a physician would be teaching prayer, so with the support of Mr Lawrence Rockefeller, we were able to hold clergy conferences where we brought ministers and rabbis, priests and nuns, and taught them which prayers in their own tradition would evoke this. So we are now paying more attention to the belief of the patient and working that into his or her own therapy. But Benson's interests grew much broader than that. He came to see patients' belief in prayer as a powerful resource that might enhance the healing power of a wide range of medical treatments.
Belief is very important in healing.
We in medicine have made fun of belief, calling it the placebo effect, it's all in your head, it's a dummy pill, and what have you. Let's assume there's a new drug there that you wish to test. To test it appropriately, you have to test it against a placebo. The so-called new drug will be dropped because it's no better than a placebo. So you see there's an enormous literature that one can draw upon as to the power of belief in healing, in this case it's the belief in a placebo, belief in an inactive drug.