Apparently ordinary people believe strange, irrational, harmful things. Why? Why on earth would Jake and Josie let somebody they don’t know put black goop that hurts like hell on their faces as they lie on a stranger’s carpet? Some thoughts:
- Fear. They think they have cancer and are afraid to find out.
- Suspicion. They don’t trust doctors.
- People they hang with tell them to. Some groups harbor a suspicious, even hostile stance toward conventional medicine, convinced that its principles are unnatural and its practitioners are more concerned with profit and prestige than with the good of their patients.
Those who hold such beliefs, like various conspiracy theorists, span the political and social spectrum, from left to right, and they’ve been around forever.