Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

by Kurt Andersen

Arguments for harnessing placebo power are like arguments that it doesn’t matter if the premises of Mormonism and conversations with Jesus and paranormal experiences are “real.” They’re like the arguments of Donald Trump’s defenders who say it doesn’t matter if he lies as long as what he says feels true. It’s what the author of The Secret explained about her fundamental “law of attraction”—the life-changing fantasy that definitely isn’t a fantasy, but if it is, so what: “The placebo effect is an example of the law of attraction in action. When a patient truly believes the tablet is a cure, he receives what he believes and is cured.” Maybe most of the millions of Americans who spend billions of dollars a year on homeopathic remedies for their asthma, depression, migraines, allergies, arthritis, or hypertension—six of the ten illnesses most commonly treated—do experience placebo effects and feel better. But some of them are failing to get diagnoses and take medicines that would actually treat their illnesses.