In Australia we know that if the singer of a tribe points the bone at another Aborigine, that man is likely to die. Of course, the bone doesn't kill him, his own belief system does.

The same happens in our so-called "sophisticated" society. If the singer of our tribe points the bone at us by saying: "You have a terminal disease and only 6 months to live", and we believe him, it become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we die.

When I was giving a Mind-power Workshop in Mackay last year, a man told me he had witnessed the effect of bone-pointing:

The same happens in our so-called "sophisticated" society. If the singer of our tribe points the bone at us by saying: "You have a terminal disease and only 6 months to live", and we believe him, it become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we die.

When I was giving a Mind-power Workshop in Mackay last year, a man told me he had witnessed the effect of bone-pointing:

"My mate had been holidaying on the coast here and invited me back to his cattle station out west," he said. "When we got there we were told that one of the Aboriginal stockmen had had the bone pointed at him and was dying. My mate took a spear-head which he owned and a sharp knife and cut the stockman's back, covered the spear-head in the man's blood and, making a big production of it, told him he was drawing out the evil spirit. The stockman was so amazed by the performance that he recovered."

Now that's what I call a pretty impressive placebo. We, being more gullible than our Aboriginal brothers need only sugar and milk tablets for our placebo. of course, the placebo doesn't cure us, our belief (trust, faith, confidence) does.

"Patterns of matter that we see in physics are reflections of mind" wrote Fritjof Capra (University of California). Cancer and other diseases of the body are patterns of matter. it is not yet fully understood that they are reflections of mind. We can, quite literally, worry ourselves to death.

That our belief can kill or cure has been known for thousands of years. St Paul quoting his enlightened Master writes:

"Nothing of itself is evil, but if you believe a thing to be evil, that thing becomes evil; and if you believe a thing to be good, that thing becomes good."

And that's about the worst case of self-denial I can think of.