Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (364 page)

sites. In fact, the subconscious (or 'automatic conscious') introduces electrochemical functions into the brain. 'When the nerve impulses ... enter the brain, they set off various chemical reactions' (Campbell).

Clinical tests of new drugs have proved time and again that belief in the efficacy of a medicine can effect a cure. People are split into two control groups. One is given the new drug, the other a placebo (a harmless imitation of the new medicine, generally 'scented' sugar-coated pills of the same size and colour). Leslie M. LeCron describes the result: 'It is observed that a large part of the control group given the placebo reacts in exactly the same way as the group which has taken the real drug. This effect is attributable to suggestion.'

That which Yogananda Paramahamsa calls faith, will-power and concentration in connection with the healing effect, the doctor calls exactly what it is: suggestion. Yogi and doctor are far away from the highfalutin Christian talk about miracles but they know how 'miracles' happen.

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Theophratus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1494-1541), known as Paracelsus, was the founder of a new science of healing. He emphasized the primacy of the 'soul' (today we would use the word 'psyche') in normal life and illness, and was the first to recognize the previously overlooked pathological connections and new types of illness, such as neuroses and psychoses. In the centre he placed man as microcosm. Healing to Paracelsus was the work of the life force and the will to live. Quotations from his treatise on Imaginatio [33] shows how modern his views were: Man is subject to imagination, and the imagination although invisible and inconceivable works corporeally in a substance.

The imagination can cause disease, terrible disease, and it can cause happiness and health.

Hence it follows that the imagination is more than nature and governs it. It removes innate qualities so that it knows neither heaven nor earthly nature.

Hence it follows that a great deal is impossible for the doctor, and the more powerful the imagination, the weaker the effect of the doctor.

Consequently many people get well through the belief of the imagination, but many people get sick also.

By such imagining (arises) belief both in the miracles of the saints and in the medicines... that makes them well and is attributed by them to saints and miracles... although it is all the results of belief in the imagination.

Whether the belief is right or wrong, depends solely on the strength of the imagination.