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As the driver of your attention, the subconscious helps create your narrative and your reality. This means that when you participate in and believe in healing rites for any kind of well-being, you encourage your subconscious to help achieve the desired result.
Medical journals, history, and literature are full of examples, the most prominent being that of the placebo. Study after study tells us that if we believe a treatment is going to help us—even if it’s actually a sugar pill—it often does (Price et al., 2008; Kaptchuk & Miller, 2018).
For as long as there have been civilizations, we’ve had healing rites and rituals that appeal to the subconscious for help. If we become quiet in prayer, for example, we don’t just seek help and guidance from a higher power; we also become calm, slow our breathing, think of the outcomes we want, and engage the subconscious to help us on our way.
If we pray in a more spirited way, we can feel joy and euphoria. Similarly, sometimes we go to great lengths to visit sacred spaces to find healing environments. It’s why people around the world make treks to pray and bathe at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes, to meditate and practice qigong at the Buddhist Shaolin Temple in China, to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, or to balance their energy at the New Age vortex sites in Arizona.
In the Gospel of Matthew, there is a story about Jesus healing a paralyzed man. Before his physical recovery, the man receives the Lord’s forgiveness. On its surface, the miracle of the story appears to be his regaining the ability to walk. But what if the power in this interaction arose from having his sins forgiven? What if being freed of the burden of his inner torment allowed the man to overcome a psychological burden?
In the Torah book of Leviticus, physical maladies such as leprosy were often understood as signs of spiritual disorder, much as subconscious distress can aggravate physical illness. That is why priests were charged with carrying out rituals meant to support healing.
I believe it’s likely that even our most ancient and revered stories of healing involved the subconscious in the process. I’ve seen similar scenarios happen in my own medical practice.
For instance, I have been asked to consult on cases of adolescents who were hospitalized for a mysterious inability to walk. After ruling out a medical cause, I worked with the patients’ subconscious to help them move past their trauma or fear, which allowed them to regain their ability to use their legs (Anbar, 2008).
My experiences in these cases and similar ones demonstrate that remarkable healings can be achieved through work with the subconscious.
Takeaway
The relationship between the subconscious and well-being is one of the most underappreciated associations in medicine. Whether through prayer, ritual, community, or the therapeutic encounter, the meaning we attach to healing experiences shapes how our bodies respond. This isn’t mysticism, but rather it’s neuroscience. Acknowledging these pathways expands what medicine can offer.
