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Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology "In this popular work that Larry Dossey calls 'compelling and insightful,' poet and literary critic Lolette Kuby makes an intensely personal argument for the reality of the placebo effect and interprets that effect as the result of a 'self-healing' process initiated by one's faith. "Diagnosed with cancer on Jan 26, 1982, Kuby received a 'revelation' from God five days later that led to her 'self-healing.' Out of that powerful experinence emerged a conviction that modern medicine had simply missed the boat. Faith and the Placebo Effect is the author's campaign to correct that problem. "Kuby argues that conventional medicine imposes unrealistic standards on claims of phenomena like faith healing and telelpathy, essentially making it impossible for practitioners of those alternative activities to 'penetrate the obstinate materialism of biomedical thinking.' She suggests, using herself as a prime example, that there are countless examples of mysterious healings that, while not scientifically explicable, are certainly adequate grounds for serious consideration of the self-healing powers of the body. "Kuby explores the experiences of self-healing through faith in the context of Christian Science and other religious movements that take healing seriously. "Faith and the Placebo Effect is not a scientific work, and it will not bring the 'obstinate' medical community around to the author's position, but it is an articulate exploration of one person's meaningful experience with a mysterious healing and her search for the understanding of it." |