Chris Berdik - Mind Over Mind: The Surprising Power of Expectations

THE SURPRISING
POWER OF
EXPECTATIONS

CHRIS
BERDIK

CURRENT

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First published in the United States of America by Current, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012

This paperback edition published 2013

Copyright Chris Berdik, 2012

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Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint an excerpt from he died April 9, 1553 from The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps by Charles Bukowski. Copyright 2001 by Linda Lee Bukowski. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Berdik, Chris, author.

Mind over mind: the surprising power of expectations / Chris Berdik.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-59527-5

1. Expectation (Psychology). 2. Thought and thinking. 3. Cognitive psychology. I. Title.

BF323.E8B47 2012

153.4dc23

2012019144

Designed by Carla Bolte

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Version_1

To

ISABEL AND OLIVER

for whom expectations

were invented

life is not all that

we think it

is, its only what we

imagine it to

be and for us

what we imagine

becomes

mostly so.

Charles Bukowski, he died April 9, 1553

I n the summer of 1784, the most learned men in Paris warned King Louis XVI of a gathering threat to his government and the moral fiber of his subjects. It was an ominous, mysterious force, impossible to see, touch, taste, or smell, even though its effects were everywhere and terrifying to behold. The name of this menace? Imagination.

They had seen imaginations power firsthand while investigating a healer named Franz Anton Mesmer, whose unique treatments had become a sensation in Paris. Mesmer cured people of nearly every malady by moving his hands around them to rebalance their animal magnetism, which he said was an all-connecting, cosmic energy. A German by birth, Mesmer began his healing practice in Vienna and then moved on to Paris in 1778. Soon, well-to-do Parisians flocked to his clinic to be mesmerized. Some of his most ardent followers were in the royal court, including Marie Antoinette. The demand for Mesmers services became so great that he trained a cadre of new magnetic healers who either assisted him or started their own healing practices.

A visitor to Mesmers Parisian clinic would enter a large hall darkened with thick purple curtains and filled with tall mirrors meant to reflect and intensify the invisible energy. The eerie tones of a glass harmonica filtered in from an adjoining room.

In the middle of the hall stood the baquet, a large circular oaken tub about a foot high, filled with water, powdered glass, and iron shavings. Dozens of patients seated themselves around it. Those closest to the baquet would hold one of several jointed iron bars that pierced its lid. Others would connect to them by grasping a long rope passed from patient to patient, or by holding hands.

After everyone was arranged in a silent circuit, Mesmer would enter the room wearing a long flowing cloak of lilac silk embroidered with celestial symbols. He would approach his patients and stare into their eyes. Occasionally, he would tap them with an iron wand or gently lay his hands on them. He would make sweeping gestures to channel the magnetism wherever it was needed.

As Mesmer worked his way through the crowd, patients would cough, spit, or cry out. Suddenly, one of the patients would begin to convulse. This was the crisis that presaged a cure, and it was contagious. As one witness described it, the hall eventually became a jumble of flailing limbs, wildness in the eyes, shrieks, tears, hiccupings, and immoderate laughter. Some coughed up blood. Others vomited. Many fainted. Mesmers attendants would quietly escort those with the most violent symptoms into a well-padded side room. Yet once the crises faded, the patients were at ease and seemingly refreshed. Usually, they reported feeling much better.