How Powerful Can Belief Be?

Personal Perspective: Is there a benefit to holding false beliefs?

Reviewed by Devon Frye

Key points

• Calming beliefs can help reduce anxiety.
• Placebos can improve symptoms even when patients are aware they are receiving a fake drug.
• Life experiences and furthering our knowledge shape our beliefs.

I believe that learning from our life experiences helps expand our knowledge base and serves as one of the main purposes of our lives. This was implied by Socrates, who purportedly said at his trial when he was sentenced to death, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Furthermore, using our knowledge to deal successfully with difficult times allows us to better appreciate subsequent happiness.

In contrast to Socrates, as English poet Thomas Gray suggested in a 1742 poem, “Ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.” Sometimes, our children’s ignorance of real-world facts can help them live with the apparently happy and safe beliefs in the realities of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. My son, who has dealt with permanent physical handicaps, was comforted a great deal during his elementary school years by his belief that he was a wizard from the Harry Potter world who would be able to learn how to overcome his challenges when he attended Hogwarts.

Many children feel let down when they grow older and find out that their beliefs are false. Nonetheless, in my opinion, such beliefs can serve the useful purpose of introducing more bliss into children's lives, at least as long as they continue to believe in them.

A child’s belief in the Tooth Fairy helps transform the potentially anxiety-provoking period of tooth loss into a time of joyful anticipation of a reward. A child’s belief in Santa Claus can promote happiness at a time of year in the Northern Hemisphere when days are short and there is a lot of darkness, which can be associated with increased sadness or fear. Further, children’s unbridled joy at that time of year can bring happiness to their entire family.

So is their attainment of knowledge and wisdom folly, as suggested by Gray? Doesn’t the Biblical story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden support the viewpoint that the attainment of knowledge can lead to one’s downfall?

Knowledge, Beliefs, and Healing

As we attain knowledge, we become more aware of the power of beliefs, irrespective of whether they are true.

The physical health of many patients improves because of the belief that a treatment will be beneficial, even when they are administered a placebo. Incredibly, this placebo effect has been shown to be beneficial in some instances when patients are told that they are being given an inactive drug that has helped others.

The efficacy of many nontraditional therapies, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, and hypnosis, is based on the belief that these treatments are beneficial. For instance, the use of metaphoric imagery in hypnosis has been demonstrated in multiple studies to lead to significant improvement in patients’ symptoms, even though both clinicians and patients recognize that the employed technique is imaginary.

Thus, the combination of knowledge and promotion of beliefs can be quite beneficial.

Beliefs Based on Experience

Life experiences and furthering our knowledge shape our beliefs. For instance, after witnessing multiple events in my life that were seemingly coincidental and yet apparently meaningfully related (a concept psychologist Carl Jung termed “synchronicity”), I became more convinced that there is a guiding force in the universe. The most dramatic of these events in my experience was when one of my patients reported seeing Hebrew in his mind, even though he had never studied this language, and yet by coincidence, I was able to interpret what he was seeing, as I am a native Hebrew speaker.

As I have developed a deeper personal belief in a guiding universal force, I have become calmer and happier, even in the face of difficult circumstances. Life’s tribulations can be seen in a different light based on a belief that there is a reason for them and that in the long run, there will be a better future that may encompass an existence beyond this life.

Takeaway

Beliefs based on folk tales, religion, expectations, and life experiences can all promote increased happiness. Personally, I believe that Thomas Gray’s statement—'tis folly to be wise—is valid only if people fail to use their acquired wisdom to gain further understanding.

Further, belief that develops because of personal experience, knowledge, and wisdom is more likely to persist than belief based on testimony related by others. I propose that such knowledge-based belief can lead to a profound sense of happiness.