Michelle: A study gave people decaf coffee but told them it was fully caffeinated. Their heart rates went up and their performance improved. The suggestion wasn't just in their heads; it was in their bodies. Mark: Wow. That’s incredible. It’s like the story was more potent than the substance. What if the most powerful drug we have is simply a convincing story? Michelle: That is the central, electrifying question at the heart of The Suggestible Brain by Amir Raz. Mark: And Raz is the perfect person to ask it. He's not just a top-tier cognitive neuroscientist; he started his career as a professional magician and hypnotist. Michelle: Exactly. He's spent his life on both sides of the curtain—creating illusions and then studying the brain's wiring that makes us fall for them. He bridges the gap between magic and medicine, and the stories he tells are absolutely mind-bending. Mark: It’s a fascinating combination. It seems like he’s uniquely positioned to understand how we get tricked, both on a stage and in our own daily lives. Michelle: And his research reveals that this "trick" is far more than just a momentary illusion. It's a fundamental force that can shape our health, our memories, and our entire reality. It goes way beyond a simple cup of coffee. Raz shares a personal story that's almost unbelievable.

Mark: I’m ready. Let’s hear it. Michelle: It’s about his son, Glenn, when he was in middle school. Glenn was in the lab kitchen trying to open a can of beans with a big knife—a classic bad idea. The tip of the knife snapped off. He ate the beans anyway, but then a horrifying thought occurred to him: what if he’d swallowed the metal tip? Mark: Oh no. Every parent’s nightmare. Michelle: Instantly, Glenn starts developing symptoms. He says his throat hurts, he can't swallow properly. The panic escalates. Raz is skeptical, but Glenn is in genuine distress. The pain is real to him. So they rush him to the emergency room. Mark: And what did they find? Michelle: They do a full set of x-rays. The doctor comes back into the room, looks at them, and says, "The x-rays are negative. There's nothing in there." And in that exact moment, Glenn turns to his dad and says, "You know what, my throat—the pain’s gone. I can swallow smoothly!" It just… vanished. Mark: Whoa. So the pain was real, but the cause was entirely imaginary? The suggestion that he was hurt was powerful enough to create a physical sensation of pain. Michelle: Precisely. His brain created a reality that matched the story he was telling himself. This is what scientists call a psychosomatic or top-down response. Our beliefs and expectations—the "top" level of our mind—can directly influence our physical body, the "bottom" level. It’s not just in our heads; it’s in our throats, our stomachs, our skin. Mark: That makes me think of those experiments where people are touched with a harmless leaf but told it's poison ivy, and they actually develop a rash. Michelle: Exactly the same principle. The brain anticipates a threat and triggers a real, physical, inflammatory response. But this power isn't just about creating phantom problems; it can also create very real cures. This is where the book gets into the almost mystical power of the placebo effect. Mark: Right, the sugar pill. We all know it works, but I’ve always wondered how. Michelle: Raz tells one of the most famous and astonishing stories in medical history, about a patient in the 1950s known as Mr. Wright. He was dying of lymphosarcoma. His body was riddled with tumors the size of oranges. He was out of options, but he’d heard about a new miracle drug called Krebiozen. Mark: He was desperate for hope. Michelle: He begged his doctor for it. The doctor was skeptical—the drug was unproven—but he decided to give Mr. Wright an injection on a Friday, telling him it was Krebiozen. But it was just saline solution. A placebo. Mark: And what happened? Michelle: The doctor expected nothing. But when he came back on Monday, he was stunned. Mr. Wright was out of bed, walking around, joking with the nurses. His tumors, the doctor reported, had "melted like snowballs on a hot stove." They had shrunk to half their original size. Mark: That’s impossible. From saltwater? Michelle: From the suggestion. From his unwavering belief that he was receiving a miracle cure. But here’s where the story takes a tragic turn. A few weeks later, official reports came out declaring that Krebiozen was a worthless drug. Mr. Wright read the news, lost all faith, and his cancer immediately came roaring back. Mark: Oh, that's heartbreaking. His belief giveth, and his disbelief taketh away. Michelle: The doctor, seeing this, decided to try one last, daring deception. He told Mr. Wright that the original Krebiozen had degraded, but that he had a new, ultra-pure, double-strength version just for him. He gave him another injection of plain water. Mark: And…? Michelle: The tumors started shrinking again. The fluid in his chest disappeared. He was healthy for another two months, until the American Medical Association published a definitive, nationwide report that Krebiozen was completely ineffective. Mr. Wright's faith was shattered for good. He died two days later. Mark: Wow. That story is just… it’s a rollercoaster of hope and despair. But it raises a huge ethical question, one that I’m sure readers of the book grapple with. If placebos work this powerfully, should doctors be using deception to heal people? It feels deeply unethical. Michelle: That's the million-dollar question, and it's where the science of suggestion gets really complicated and even dangerous. Raz dedicates a significant part of the book to this ethical minefield, because once you accept that suggestion can rewrite physiology, you have to ask: who gets to be the author of that suggestion? And what happens when that power is used not to heal, but to manipulate?

Mark: It’s a slippery slope. If a doctor can convince you you’re healed, what’s to stop a politician from convincing you of a lie, or an interrogator from implanting a false memory? Michelle: Exactly. The same mechanisms are at play. And to understand the risks, Raz looks at some of the most infamous experiments in the history of psychology. The most chilling, of course, is the Milgram experiment. Mark: The one with the electric shocks. I’ve heard of it, but refresh my memory. Michelle: In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram wanted to understand how ordinary people could commit atrocities, like those in the Holocaust. He set up an experiment where a volunteer—the real subject—was told to act as a "teacher" and administer electric shocks to a "learner" in another room every time the learner got a question wrong. Mark: But the learner was an actor, right? The shocks weren't real. Michelle: Correct. The learner was an actor who would scream in pain, complain of a heart condition, and eventually fall silent as the shocks got stronger. The real test was on the teacher. Would they continue to administer shocks just because an authority figure in a white lab coat told them to? Mark: And the results were terrifying. Michelle: Terrifying. A staggering number of participants, ordinary people, went all the way to the maximum, potentially lethal, 450-volt shock, even while they were sweating, trembling, and begging to stop. The suggestion of authority—the calm, firm voice of the scientist saying "The experiment requires that you continue"—was enough to override their own moral compass. Mark: That's frightening. And it’s not just a lab coat anymore, is it? Today, that authority figure could be the 'expert' on a podcast, the confident tone of a news anchor, or even a social media algorithm feeding you information that feels authoritative. Michelle: You’ve hit on the exact point Raz makes. The "white lab coat" of our era is often the veneer of science and technology itself. He tested this with a brilliant, and frankly hilarious, modern experiment in his own lab. Mark: What did he do? Michelle: He and his team built something they called a "Spintronics Scanner." They told participants it was a revolutionary new machine that could read their thoughts directly from their brain activity. In reality, it was a pile of medical scrap, an old hair dryer, and some flashing lights. It was a complete fake. Mark: A high-tech magic trick, basically. Michelle: Exactly. They’d have a participant think of a number, and then a magician, hidden from view, would use subtle tricks to figure out the number and feed it to the machine. The machine would then "reveal" the person's thought. The question was, who would fall for it? Mark: I’m guessing most people were skeptical. Michelle: That’s the shocking part. Almost everyone believed it. Not just undergraduate students, but even some of his own colleagues—fellow cognitive neuroscientists! They were so enchanted by the idea of a brain scanner, by the context of a university lab, that they suspended their critical thinking. They were suggestible because the deception was wrapped in the authority of neuroscience. Mark: That is wild. So it’s the same core principle at work. Whether it's a sugar pill for Mr. Wright, a lab coat for the Milgram participants, or a fake machine for a modern scientist, if the suggestion is powerful enough—coming from a trusted source, wrapped in the right context—it can rewrite our reality, for good or for ill. Michelle: And this has massive implications for our current information landscape. The book talks about how suggestion can be used to create entirely false memories. The researcher Elizabeth Loftus, a pioneer in this field, has shown you can convince people they have vivid memories of being lost in a mall as a child, even if it never happened. Mark: And if you can do that with a personal memory, you can do it with a political one. You can create a false memory of a scandal that never occurred. Michelle: Which is exactly what happens with "push polls" and fake news. The book mentions the 2018 Irish abortion referendum, where researchers circulated fake news stories about scandals on both sides of the campaign. They found that about half the participants later reported a false memory of at least one of the fabricated events. Their political bias made them highly suggestible to information that confirmed what they already wanted to believe. Mark: So our brains aren't just suggestible; they're suggestible in a way that reinforces our existing tribes and beliefs. That feels like the recipe for the polarized world we're living in. Michelle: It is. And it’s happening on a mass scale. The book touches on modern phenomena like the sudden outbreak of tic-like behaviors among teenagers on TikTok. It’s not that they're faking it; it's a form of mass psychogenic illness, a social contagion of symptoms spread through the suggestion of social media. Mark: It’s like the digital version of the Salem witch trials. A collective belief that manifests in the real world. This is all pretty bleak. Does the book offer any hope? Any way to fight back against negative suggestion? Michelle: It does. The final part of the book is about turning the tables—using suggestion for good. For example, research shows that exposing people to positive images of marginalized groups can reduce their implicit bias. Or using virtual reality to let someone "swap bodies" and experience life from another person's perspective has been shown to increase empathy. Mark: So we can consciously create positive suggestions to counteract the negative ones we’re bombarded with. Michelle: Yes. It’s about becoming aware of the process. Understanding that you are constantly being fed suggestions, and then consciously choosing which ones to accept and which to reject. It's about developing a kind of mental immune system.

Michelle: And that's the book's ultimate, unsettling, but also empowering message. We tend to think of reality as this solid, objective thing out there. But Raz shows us it's more like a story we're constantly being told—by our doctors, by our leaders, by social media, and most powerfully, by our own minds. Mark: It really makes you realize that the most important skill today might be learning to question the storyteller. To pause and ask, "Is this real, or is this just a very convincing suggestion?" That applies to everything from a health claim online to a political headline that makes you angry. Michelle: The book doesn't give you a simple five-step plan, because the process is too complex. But it gives you a new lens through which to see the world. It’s a call for critical thinking, for a healthy dose of skepticism, and for an appreciation of just how malleable our minds truly are. Mark: It’s a powerful reminder that we are the co-authors of our own reality, whether we realize it or not. The question is whether we’re doing it consciously or letting others write the script for us. Michelle: It really leaves you wondering: which of your own firmly held beliefs might just be a story you've been told? A suggestion you accepted so long ago you forgot it was ever a choice. Mark: A profound and slightly unnerving thought to end on. A fantastic exploration of a topic that couldn't be more relevant. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.