Sparkle Revolution Newsletter

For today’s newsletter, I wanted to share an experiment I saw recently on a TV program. There is a series created by a magician named Justin Willman, which is meant to amaze and entertain. One particular experiment he performed tells a very meaningful story about the incredible power of the human mind.

Mr. Willman set up an “experiment” where he had people come into a lab and act as subjects. Each subject was told to sit at a table with both arms lying on the table. Justin placed a monitor in front of the subjects’ left arm and put a fake rubber arm on the table in front of them. He then laid a sheet over the monitor and their shoulder so the subject could no longer see their actual arm and the rubber arm appeared to connect with their body (since the sheet covered the space between the fake arm and their body).

He then “trained” the subject by touching the fake and the real left arm with a feather at the same time. The subjects indicated they could feel the feather. Eventually he stopped touching their real arm, but as the subjects watched him stroke the rubber hand, they claimed they could still feel the feather. He then proceeded to explore this disconnect. He started by placing an ice cube on the fake arm, at which time the subjects all said “yes, I can feel that.” However, when he placed the ice cube on their actual left arm, the subjects felt nothing.

He continued with the tests, first holding a small flame near the rubber and then the real fingers and next poking them with a pin. In all cases, the subjects expressed feeling pain when the rubber arm (that they could see) was manipulated, but felt nothing when the magician did the same to their actual hand (which they could not see). As a final act, he took out a hammer and pounded the fake arm, which caused the subject to scream and back away from the table. After this, Justin quickly removed the sheet and soothed the subject by showing them their real, unharmed arm.

I found this experiment so much more than entertaining! First of all, this has incredible ramifications for pain management. It shows clear evidence that if your mind doesn’t believe you should feel pain, then you don’t! And conversely, if your mind perceives something painful is occurring, it manufactures a pain response even when your body is completely untouched. “Mind over matter,” as they say.

Even more importantly, I think this speaks to the nature of reality. We are taught that what is “real” is what we experience with our five senses. But in this case, we saw that the mind made up its own reality, which was in direct contrast to what was happening on a physical level of touch. In our app, we talk about how we are creating our reality with our thoughts, but sometimes that concept can feel esoteric if you are new to it. This experiment demonstrates undeniable evidence of the power of our minds!