¶ … Mind and Body re: Chapter 11 of Phantoms in the Brain Many a patient with a tumor pronounced malignant has outlived his physician," notes V.S Ramachandran in his book Phantoms in the Brain, through the sheer mental force of the patient's will. To what extent can the mental powers of the human mind affect the body's ability to heal? The extraordinary cases chronicled by the physician hold hope in limiting the spread of cancer and also to treat affectations of the autoimmune system, such as lupus, for example.

But how to design an experiment from the extraordinary experiences of a few individuals? How to create a standard medical prescription from the extraordinary? One possible...

For instance, with a patient suffering in the early stages of lupus or MS (both ailments' sufferers typically have 'good days' and 'bad days'), one could ask the patient to wear a particular fabric against their skin, or to play a particular song when the patient was feeling relaxed and reasonably well and symptom-free. For the purposes of the experiment, this would have to be done with sufferers relatively new to the ailment, whose bodies had…