Now Hear Me Out... Sometimes It's Just A Placebo

 I went to church this past Sunday.

That sentence alone feels unusual for me to write. I’m not a church-going person in the traditional sense, but I’ve never been anti-spiritual either. If anything, I resist rigidity. I explore spaces—churches included—not to belong to them, but to experience their cultural and spiritual dynamics. To observe how people relate to God, to power, to belief, to each other.

For as long as I can remember, church has been a place where I felt… out of place. As a child, I didn’t have the language for it. As an adult, I do.

I grew up watching pastors preach with fire while congregants erupted—shouting, crying, shaking, speaking in tongues. People would say they were overtaken by the Holy Spirit. Bodies would collapse to the floor. Faith was loud, physical, dramatic. And every time, I wondered quietly: What does that feel like? And more painfully: Why don’t I feel it?

When sermons didn’t move me, when altar calls didn’t stir anything inside, I assumed something was wrong with me. I even tried to force it once—to speak in tongues. I remember feeling ridiculous, like I was performing rather than communing. That longing never left though: the desire for a personal relationship with God, one that didn’t require spectacle to feel real.

During my first real phase of healing, I questioned religion deeply. I questioned pastors, institutions, authority. That questioning hardened into ego at times, and that ego closed me off from the bigger picture. Recently, I’ve been softening again—teaching myself receptivity without surrendering discernment.

So there I was on Sunday, back in church.

The pastor is also a prophet. Toward the end of the service, he began prophesying over congregants. He placed his hands on people’s heads, blew air onto their faces, prayed—and people fell. One by one. Ushers hovered, ready to catch bodies mid-collapse.

When he reached me, I was curious. Honestly curious. Part of me wondered if this would be the moment. He placed his hand on me briefly while praying for the person next to me. Nothing happened.

Then he returned.

He blew air into my face and prayed directly over me. I looked him straight in the eye. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t sway. I didn’t fall.

He moved on. Then came back again.

Still nothing.

Eventually, he didn’t return.

Everyone else had fallen. Even the ushers glanced at me, almost expectantly. I was the only one standing.

For a brief moment, that old thought surfaced again: What’s wrong with me?

But this time, I grounded myself. I knew—deeply—that nothing was wrong.

Instead, a word rose quietly in my mind: placebo.

Before praying over someone, the pastor would announce that something was about to happen. He would describe the Holy Spirit surrounding them. Ushers would encircle the person, already preparing for a fall. The expectation was set before the touch ever happened.

And then—inevitably—the body responded.

One person fell. Then another. Then another. Reaction became reinforcement. Belief fed belief. The atmosphere did the rest.

I want to be clear: this is not a dismissal of anyone’s experience. Spiritual experiences are real because human experiences are real. But spirituality also teaches us about duality—that we are both spirit and body, mystic and human.

To deny logic is to deny half the lesson.

We are here on Earth to have a human experience. That experience includes psychology, neuroscience, suggestion, expectation, collective energy. Science doesn’t oppose spirituality; it explains its mechanisms. Psychology doesn’t invalidate faith; it contextualizes it.

Interestingly, the pastor is also a medical doctor. Which means he understands the mind-body connection intimately. He likely understands how belief, anticipation, authority, and environment can create physiological responses. Again—this isn’t accusation. It’s observation.

What stayed with me most was not that I didn’t fall.

It was that I didn’t need to.

My relationship with God, with spirit, with truth has never been loud. It doesn’t convulse. It doesn’t perform. It doesn’t collapse to be seen.

It stands.

And maybe that’s my lesson: that spirituality doesn’t always look like surrendering your body. Sometimes it looks like holding your ground. Sometimes reverence is quiet. Sometimes faith is not falling—but remaining upright in a room full of gravity.

I didn’t feel excluded this time.

I felt anchored.