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Clap Your Hands If You Believe
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alt title(s): The Power Of Imagination "He replied, 'If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it will obey you.'" — Jesus addressing his disciples in Luke 17:5-6 from The Bible
"No army is big enough to conquer the galaxy. But faith alone can overturn the universe." — Ecclesiarch Deacis IX, Warhammer 40000
An old trope that indicates that enough belief in something will actually cause things to happen. This isn't a Magic Feather where "confidence" merely allow one to use their own abilities to the fullest; this actually physically changes the universe. Sometimes the gods themselves depend on your belief, in which case the Gods Need Prayer Badly.
This creates a vicious cycle for non-believers, as magical events are "disproved" in their presence because they don't believe in the first place, thus cementing their disbelief. Particular savvy characters may take advantage of this.
One question that never seems to be asked: Why does the universe work that way if most people believe that it doesn't?
(In fairness, Jesus wasn't advocating the power of belief as such, but describing a response that God would have to belief)
The lead quote from The Bible makes this Older Than Feudalism.
Not to be confused with Your Mind Makes It Real, which has more to do with characters getting physically hurt with The Power Of Imagination. For those who don't even need to clap, see Reality Warper. See also Puff Of Logic, Psychoactive Powers, All Myths Are True, and The Treachery Of Images.
Examples:
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Gods and Belief
- There's a somewhat post-modern take on divine pantheons that's becoming increasingly common in popular fiction, where gods are the product of (or severely dependent upon) their believers. Take away their believers, and a god "fades away."
- The gods in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series work like this. The climax of Monstrous Regiment involved a beloved leader who had died and was being tormented by the prayers of those who put her on a godlike pedestal. In Hogfather, when the Big Bad was magically preventing people from believing in the local equivalent of Santa Claus, the extra, unused belief-energy made any imaginary creature that was even slightly plausible (like a creature that eats odd socks, and a bird that eats pencil stubs) come into existence. Small Gods describes in detail how gods come into existence and become powerful. More generally, "Belief" is stated as a very powerful force on the Discworld - if enough people believe something to be true, it will become true.
- Within reason. The rules have never been fully stated, but it appears there needs to be a "space" that makes it somewhat reasonable such a thing could be true (hence the non-existance of the Give-The-Dean-A-Big-Bag-Of-Money goblin). The mess of multiple combined mythologies that made up the religion of Djelibeybi, much of which was self-contradictory, and a lot of which could be contradicted by simple observation, only became true when the kingdom was pushed into an alternate reality with an even lower reality threshhold than the Disc.
- Star Trek The Original Series does this. The crew find a pulled-from-myth planet of Ancient Greece, presided over by Apollo, who laments that the rest of the gods perished, more or less, from a lack of followers.
- The gods in many of Neil Gaiman's works (including, of course, American Gods) work the same way.
- The Old Gods in American Gods are shown in the end to be just copies of the originals, which are still alive and well in the countries their believers emigrated from. Whether the originals are similarly dependent on believers for their existence is left open, but it's implied they are — especially by Shadow meeting the "real" Odin not in Northern Europe (where Norse paganism originated, but has largely fallen to Christianity) but in Iceland (where it remains strong to this day).
- The concept was added to the Dungeons And Dragons Forgotten Realms setting in the "Avatar trilogy" of novels. The later Planescape setting claimed that the Outer Planes the gods resided on had always been controlled by belief. As of Third Edition, this is actually considered the default handling of gods in the default setting (Greyhawk, though they don't call it that) and Forgotten Realms; in Dragonlance, suiting the role of its gods, although belief is important to them, it's not directly necessary for their existence. In Eberron, the gods exist independent of mortals entirely, but their power in the material world seems to be dependent on their worshippers - as in, the stronger churches are better able to carry out what they divine as the will of their god... though different religions don't even agree on whether or not that is even necessary.
- Of course, in Eberron, it isn't strictly made clear that the gods even exist, or whether the manifestations and abilities of priests and so forth are just a (local) result of their faith. And some of the things that are worshipped as gods (such as the Dreaming Dark) don't really fit any conventional use of the term...
- The exception being the Traveler, the sixth Ranger of the evil gods, who isn't actually evil. According to mythology, he created the Changelings (or rather, allowed Doppelgangers to bread with other creatures and thus make Changelings). More recently, some of his devoted followers recieved a message from him, predicting The Last War, and cautioning them to prepare for the next struggle, which would truly put the world at danger.
- The book Faiths of Eberron makes this trope even more evident. Followers of the Lord of Blades (A warforged of considerable might, but who is mortal) have access to divine magic from their belief/faith in his divinity and his cause.
- We can't overlook the fact that in the 3.5 core rules, clerics were able to gain power by revering a cause. Eberron actually had attempts to train clerics of nationalism (although it failed).
- The 2E AD&D supplement Shaman used this trope extensively, with the twist that any spirits generated by such power of belief weren't considered "real" by deities, or at least, not as "real" as the deities themselves.
- Planescape: Torment has a lecturer who tells you about this, and in particular how removing a god's worshippers will kill the god.
- Ravenloft, like Eberron prefers to keep its gods' legitimacy subject to doubt. At least one of the major deities of the Land of Mists, Zhakata, is expressly stated to be the figment of a crazy darklord's twisted imagination. This doesn't prevent clerics of Zhakata from receiving divine spells when they pray.
- Also used in David Eddings's Elenium and Tamuli series - gods can be destroyed by killing all their worshippers. This is actually used as an offensive technique by Zalasta, after he's been outed as a Mole.
- Shows up in the video game Okami, whose main character is a severely weakened god reincarnated as a wolf. She gains experience points in the form of "faith" and grows stronger as she helps people and performs miracles. The final battle actually sees her stripped of all her powers a second time, and it's only because of her left-behind ally spreading her name and leading the people of Nippon to pray to her that she's able to regain them all and save the day.
- Subverted by Walt Simonson in Orion #24:
You've read too much fiction, Arnicus. Gods are not dependent on their worshippers; worshippers are dependent on their gods.
And the New Gods? We're as old as time, constantly remade, constantly reborn with each turning of the wheel.
No worshippers? Fool!!! Look about you! Each time a mortal turns on a computer, puts a piece of bread in the toaster, opens a door, strikes a match, or wonders at the stars...
...he worships at the altar of the New Gods.
- Some gods in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book Of The Fallen are formed from the belief of their adherents and die if they are forgotten. Others are independently existing beings whose divine powers are powered by worship.
- An early example: In A. E. Van Vogt's Book of Pthah gods and goddesses are ordinary humans who have immortality and supernatural powers by the virtue of being worshipped by great numbers of the opposite sex.
- Appeared in Star Trek's Expanded Universe with "the Beings" in Peter David's Star Trek New Frontier series, who gained power from worship and fear, and somewhat subverted when it turned out the most powerful among them was so because he gained power from peoples' belief in themselves.
- In South Park, the Imaginationland storyline revealed this to be the case (technically Doing In The Wizard in doing so). Everything and everyone ever imagined by someone on Earth is real in Imaginationland, including all religious figures (even including real people believed to be gods and prophets, such as Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith). Presumably, religious figures have the power to leave Imaginationland at will (and have their own realms, such as Heaven and Hell, where applicable) because of the fact that so many people believe in them so much. However, it seems that when gods cease to be believed in, rather than ceasing to exist, they simply lose their ability to leave Imaginationland (as evidenced by the presence of ancient gods such as Anubis and Zeus there).
- In Christopher Moore's book Coyote Blue, this will happen to Coyote, and did happen to his brother Anubis, if people stop believing in him and telling his stories. Coyote fears this so much that he allows Sam's girlfriend Calliope to die so that people will still talk about him.
- All Myths Are True in Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently novel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul because of this effect. The old gods, like Odin, are languishing but a new God of Guilt is created, possibly from society as a whole, but also possibly from the eccentricities of Dirk Gently alone.
- The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy has a theory on God's non-existance as a guide entry. Shortly it goes like this: Since nothing can as useful as the Babelfish can be born through coincidence. This proofs God's existance, but with knowledge, there isn't faith, and without faith, God is nothing. This seems to follow the same logic.
- The Touhou game Mountain of Faith works around this concept, as the Big Bad is forced to flee to the game's setting of Gensokyo after the normal world loses faith in her, making her powerless. To gain power she steals believers from the shrine of the main character, which later proves to be a bad idea.
- Also, you can collect star-shaped Faith items, which serves as the scoring gimmick for the game.
- Furthermore, the setting of Touhou as a whole somewhat inverts it: active disbelief in something in the outside world may cause it to appear in Gensokyo. For instance, in the manga Silent Sinner in Blue, Rinnosuke is able to easily acquire information on the moon landing, because enough people in the outside world have started to believe that it was faked; later on, a character comments that if a Gensokyo had oceans, it would have to be filled with sea monsters and krakkens, etc. In another story, Rinnosuke deduces that a species of bird has become endangered or extinct in the outside world because of a sudden proliferation within Gensokyo.
- In Erik The Viking, the Christian missionary who accompanies the Vikings on their quest staunchly refuses to believe in Ragnarok and any of the Viking myths. Eventually, the Vikings make their way to Valhalla, where they triumphantly demand that the missionary accept that they were right all along - only to discover that because he doesn't believe in it, he can't actually see it. This causes a certain amount of frustration.
- Somewhat related: Santa Claus is often depicted as "real for those who believe."
- In an episode of Futurama, Bender attempts to directly invoke this trope example, trying to rally his friends to stop the evil Robot Santa from killing them by refusing to believe in him anymore. Robot Santa swiftly and painfully disabuses him of the notion.
- Played with in this
 Mac Hall strip.
- Used in Marvel Comics. In Thor #301, it was revealed that, while the gods themselves could exist long after they had no more worshipers, those who STILL have some had greater amounts of power. Also, a god is stronger in his home plane than gods from another.
- Also somewhat related: An episode of "Tiny Toon Adventures" revealed that laughter (or, perhaps more correctly, the Power Of Fandom) helped cartoon characters stay young.
- In "Thor Meets Captain America" by David Brin, this trope is used by the hero. His actual words are "I don't believe in you". Really. [http://davidbrin.com/thor1.htm Go look it up].
Vampires
- By the time Dracula was written, vampire lore included an aversion to a cross. This, in different series, can be either the product of the vampire's belief in the cross, or the product of the wielder's belief in the cross. Often, it also works with another strong symbol of belief - for example, a rabbi using a Star of David to hold a vampire at bay. See: Our Vampires Are Different.
- In the Buffyverse, faith does not enter into it: crosses work whoever wields them, other holy symbols do not. This has been explained offscreen as due not to Christianity being more "right" than any other faith, but being the one most committed through history to destroying vampires.
- In the Buffy season 8 comic, Buffy leads a raid on a demon-infested church, and picks up the large cross attached to the altar. The huge demon she is fighting says "Sssstupid human, I am no vampire. You think I fear the cross?". Buffy then impales the demon through the head with said cross, and comments, "Might wanna start".
- In The Matrix the red pill humans are able to perform seemingly superhuman feats by believing that they can do it. Justified, since its basically a giant virtual reality. As Spoon Boy elaborates: "There is no spoon."
- In Doctor Who: "The Curse of Fenric", a cross works only if the bearer has faith in it, and other objects of faith work equally well: a WWII Russian soldier fends off vampires with a soviet badge, and both the Doctor and Ace are able to hold them at bay with no physical object, through their faith in each other. The priest who doubts his faith however...
- Similarly, a cross does not work on a vampire in Stephen King's Salem's Lot because its owner has lost his faith. When that character faces vampires again in a later King book, he has recovered his faith and is able to (briefly) drive them off.
- Even after he puts the cross aside - it's only a symbol, after all...
- Film example: In The Fearless Vampire Killers (or Pardon Me But Your Teeth are in My Neck), a cross fails to work on a Jewish vampire.
- In the mock documentary at the end of the film, an expert on vampires notes that the effectiveness of the religious symbol depends not on the human wielding it, but the vampire itself. Crosses work on Christians, Stars of Davids work on Jews - but the expert warns that using a Star of David on an Arab vampire will only make it angry. It was the sixties.
- Parodied in the 1999 remake of The Mummy - Imhotep's soon-to-be Renfield tries to fend him off with a cross and a murmured Lord's Prayer, which is utterly useless. He then runs through a keychain of similar holy symbols and their matching incantations, none of which have any effect until he yanks out a Star of David and starts babbling in Hebrew - which the undead priest recognizes as "the language of slaves." Discussion of the actual use of Hebrew slaves in ancient Egypt is reserved for other places...
- In the Tabletop Games setting of The World Of Darkness game Vampire The Masquerade, vampires aren't normally averted by crosses or other holy symbols, unless the weilder's faith is particularly strong (IE, a measurable trait with its own abilities, albeit rare in the World of Darkness as one can imagine).
- In addition, a vampire character may purchase a number of supernatural flaws (to get more points to spend on useful abilities) that are common to vampire lore, even though Our Vampires Are Different : be it being repulsed by crosses, being unable to cross running water, being unable to enter a house uninvited... Depending on the DM and player's interpretation, those flaws are either factual problems caused by the character's particular bloodline (after all, someone must have given rise to those myths, and that someone probably sired other vampires) or this trope : the vampire fears garlic, because he's convinced vampires do.
- The demons in the Old World Of Darkness game Demon: The Fallen power their abilities through the harvesting of faith from humans. This can be done quickly, through "reaping" (kind or cruel as the demon wishes), or on a long-term basis by making a pact with a human.
- Deconstructed in the New World Of Darkness sourcebook Second Sight which essentually asks one Logic Bomb question after another before saying the important thing is to have fun so decide for yourself if this applies.
- Discredited in the Blade movies and its television version Blade The Series where crosses don't do anything. This also often occurs in anime - not surprising, as Christianity is not prevalent in Japan.
- In the webcomic Sluggy Freelance, the following exchange takes place during the first clash with vampires:
"You'll also need a holy symbol to drive him back in case he's too strong for you!"
"Will this can of beer work?"
"Is it light beer?"
"Nope."
"That should do the trick."
- In one vampire movie (anyone who knows the title, feel free to add it), a yuppie was able to repel a vampire using his wallet, thanks to his faith in the almighty dollar.
- In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum, one family of vampires have developed the ability to resist religious symbols (as well as most things that vampires are traditionally vulnerable to) through extensive psychological conditioning. This later backfires when their conditioning wears off under the influence of a witch, but the study that went into it leads to them being able to recognize - and as a result be affected by - "hundreds of the damned holy things! They're everywhere! Every religion has a different one!"
- The book also contains a pretty Bad Ass reversal when Mightily Oats, a visiting Omnian priest, takes on a vampire with a double-headed axe. "That's not a holy symbol!" "Oh. *pause* Let's make it one." [thwack]
- The New Discworld Companion has as Watch standard gear, "One holy symbol of recruit's choice, vampires, for the discouragement of. One Critique of Pure Reason, vampires, for the discouragement of (Freethinker's option)."
- In the webcomic Fans!, the "crosses are only effective in the hands of those who believe" rule is used as an indication that a particular character's faith is wavering. In desperation, one of the fans (Rikk, a Christian whose faith had been weakening at the time) instead tries a symbol he does believe in: the Vulcan salute. It works, but not really; the vampire was faking it.
- Subverted in the novel Blindsight; the vampires and crosses thing is not because of anything religious or mystical but because their brains go into seizure when exposed to straight vertical and horizontal objects in their visual field forming a 90 degree angle (not as dumb as it sounds: there are people who have similar types of problems due to head trauma). That sort of thing is not that common in nature, it wasn't much of a problem until their food source went and invented architecture and drove them into extinction.
- A classic joke has a beautiful woman trying to drive a vampire away by brandishing her crucifix; the vampire's response is an amused, "Sorry, lady, 'svet gornisht helfen" (Yiddish for "It won't help a bit").
- Wes Craven's Dracula 2000 does this pretty well (if I remember). Jonny Lee Miller's vampire hunter takes on Omar Epps' vampire in a Virgin Megastore basement, and Miller pulls out a cross at one point - to which Epps shrugs and says, "Sorry, I'm an atheist". Miller then proceeds to drive the cross into Epps' eye, telling him "God loves you anyway".
- It's better: The cross was metal, and had a retractable spike that popped out at the push of a button.
- In one cartoon, an Indian vampire was driven back by showing him a picture of a cow.
- The Card Game "Munchkin Bites" has an item The Yarmulk of Religious Armifcation which gives the wearer an extra bonus against The vampire Hunter and The Meddling Cleric.
- Played straight when the X-Men faced off with Dracula: Kitty Pryde tries using a crucifix against Dracula and achieves nothing. It is later shown that he suffered burn wounds where her Star of David necklace touched him. No points for guessing Kitty's religion, folks !
- Another example has cynical Wolverine unable to repel Dracula with a cross, but when devout Nightcrawler takes up the symbol, Drac is driven back.
- Somewhat subverted in Christopher Golden's Shadow Saga in that the effects of the cross on vampires is purely psychosomatic because the Roman Catholic Church captured a bunch of vampires during the dark ages and brainwashed them into believing in a number of myths.
- Justified in the movie Fright Night
Peter Vincent: [brandishing a crucifix] Back, spawn of Satan!
Jerry Dandrige: [chuckles] Oh, really?
[Dandridge grabs the cross, crushes it, and throws it aside]
Jerry Dandrige: You have to have faith for this to work on me.
- In Being Human, vampires recoil from George's Star of David pendant. But George's affection for his best friend Mitchell (who is a vampire) makes Mitchell immune to its deleterious effects. Mitchell even keeps the necklace safe when George transforms.
- This troper once read a short story, Wearwolf, in a gaming magazine. The protagonist is attacked by a vampire, which sneers at his failure to wear a cross for protection. Cackling evilly, it drinks some of his blood ... then makes a horrified face and keels over, dead. The protagonist grumbles that this sort of thing wouldn't have happened if he'd remembered to don his Star of David pendant this morning: in his world, not only are vampires only affected by Christian symbols, but they can only consume Christian blood.
Other Examples
Anime & Manga
- In "The Land of the Will, Cephiro" in Magic Knight Rayearth, the "heart that believes" shapes the world around them.
- The Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga has the Purple Harp, which loses its strings when Lucia fears that she'll fail, and regains them when Hanon and Rina tell her to believe in herself.
- The most recent chapter of Berserk People's desire....Fantasia
- In Kanon, the comatose Ayu still believed enough in her promise to Yuuichi and the wishes that she made on a simple crane machine doll that she was able to spiritually project herself as a solid living being even seven years later.
- A key point in the Shin Megami Tensei series, where entities from virtually every mythology ever exist, specifically because people believe in them.
- The spinoff series Persona takes this to far greater extremes, where rumors you start actually become true.
- In Welcome To The NHK, a large number of the episodes are spent with the protagonist Tatsuhiro Sato having hallucinations of characters, scenarios, and people are members of an organization out to ruin his life. Near the end of the series, he asks one of the other cast members to see one of these creatures, where it is revealed to her. He then imagines his cell phone is a bomb and jumps off a cliff to blow up with it in a suicide attempt.
- In the Nasuverse, the Gods of old were willed into existence because people believed they exist. This also explains their downfall, as the number of believers declined... or because their believers think they all died in some massive slugfest (like Ragnarök). Other examples from Nasu include the summoned spirits of dead heroes, who become stronger if their legend is better known, and a weapon designed by the Catholic church for defeating a reincarnating vampire by shoving their belief that reincarnation doesn't exist forcibly down his throat. Or through his liver. Whatever works.
- Another notable particular case is Wallachia's Reality Marble - basically, any rumour people believe in enough, is materialized inside the field. Being that this was manifested in a town where there had been repeated vampire stealth attacks that caused a lot of panic (and death), things go straight to hell really quickly.
- Who could forget Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's Spiral Power? It's given several different Techno Babble explanations over the course of the series, but the effective result is that if you believe you can win, you will win. (Possibly by virtue of a Humongous Mecha the size of a galaxy forming itself out of pure willpower.) Conversely, pilots afflicted with sudden pangs of doubt are apt to find their robots powering down.
- To Aru Majutsu No Index: Aureolus Izzard's incredible powers are limited by what he thinks his limits are; if he loses confidence in his power and stops believing in its effectiveness, reality obliges.
- All espers derive their powers from having radically different internal realities from the standard. The process involves little kids, experimental drugs and brainwashing. Lots of parents seem to have no problems volunteering their kids for the process. Since the process is repeatable, it's Scientific, as opposed to the methods of the magicians... Waitaminute!
- In The Slayers, Shinzoku are dependent on the prayers of the mortal races, to the point where their counterparts, Mazoku, tactically destroyed temples to reduce the power of Shinzoku. Mazoku have their own form, feeding off of any negative emotions the mortal races have.
- Full Metal Panic: the Lambda Driver reacts to the user's mental state. The first time Sousuke uses it, Kaname instructs him that he must believe in it for it to work.
- Lack... of... Umineko No Naku Koro Ni disturbs me greatly. The point of Battler's game with the witch Beatrice is that, should he accept her existence and the existence of magic, magic will exist in retrospect as the cause of the murders that drive the whole mystery. Since he refuses to accept her existence, though, Beatrice must prove her existence with new unsolvable murders.
- A not-so-nice version is a major plot point in Paranoia Agent. Belief in the Urban Legend of Shonen Bat led to him becoming real, and unpleasant, freaky, and completely incomprehensible things ensued.
Comic Books
- Not quite a clap-your-hands situation, but the living myths in Fables are made stronger by those who believe in them. This is used to explain why some lesser-known fables are killed, but Snow White can take a rifle shot to the head and survive, albeit with long-term consequences.
- This is turned into a plot point later, when Jack Horner (of "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Jack The Giant Killer", and several other stories) decides to increase his personal power by releasing a series of Hollywood blockbusters about himself.
- Brutally subverted by the death of Little Boy Blue in #82.
- The DC Comics character Dr. Thirteen was a skeptic who disproved hauntings. Since he was established as existing in The DCU, and eventually encountered the Phantom Stranger, the fact he was always right in his own stories seemed strange, until Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic explained that his complete dismissal of magic meant he lived in a personal world where there was none.
- Excalibur member Meggan is an empathic adaptive shapeshifter — she looks like what people expect her to look like, and consequently spent her entire childhood as an increasingly hideous monster until she learned that this could also extended to what she wanted to look like.
- Another example from the Marvel Universe is the Shi'ar Imperial Guard commander Gladiator: His strength is based on his own belief in his power. Shake his confidence and he can be beaten easily, rev it up and he crushes stars with his fists.
- In the August 1966 issue of The Flash, Barry Allen starts to fade away from existence once a villain unleashes a ray that causes everyone to not believe he exists. Everyone except a little orphan girl he had helped before forgets that he really exists until he and the orphan girl start a massive letter writing campaign to force people to remember The Flash.
- This issue is somewhat prescient considering that the DCU contains an actual comic book limbo where characters (often those who haven't appeared in books for quite some time in the real world) go to when people start to forget their stories.
- This is central to one of Warren Ellis' stories for Hellblazer. An occult writer "acquires" a magical item called The Crib, and sets about killing people with it. The thing is, there's no such artifact, and it only works because both he and his victims believed in it. John Constantine, being more knowledgeable about the truth of the occult world, knows there's no such item, so it has no effect on him, and he's able to reveal what the person actually had — an old cereal box with a dead mouse in it. It's discussed in earlier stories that magic in general works on this principle, but this is the first one where it really takes center stage and we see just how far it goes.
Film
- In Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose Yogi gets his friends out of the cargo hold of the titular mentioned airplace by having them believe a set of doors into existence.
Booboo: "This is the part where he goes Tinkerbell on us."
- In Freddy vs. Jason, Freddy Krueger's weakness is that he only has power so long as people believe in him, so he has to bring Jason back to remind them. This hearkens back to the original ending for Nightmare on Elm Street, where he's defeated by Nancy refusing to believe in and fear him any longer, robbing him of his powers - in the theatrical release, this only appears to work.
- In Candyman the titular character was actually created by the people's belief. The sequels, though, are a different story...
- Interestingly enough, after Candyman dies in the climax of the film, the people's belief shifts to Helen: as a result, she becomes a murderous spirit like Candyman.
- In the horror movie The Skeleton Key, it is claimed the African witchcraft of Hoodoo can only be used on those who believe it. The plot plays with the notion that this means it's only psychology and suggestion (if you believe you were witchcrafted, you'll just act as if you did). However, the scientific approach is eventually abandoned. Once the antagonists finally manage to get the protagonist convinced that it's real, they can perform supernatural witchcraft on her. They then proclaim it's getting tougher for them to use witchcraft on new victims, as it's getting harder and harder to convince modern people that it's real.
- Parodied in Woody Allen's Whats Up Tiger Lily.
Phil Moskowitz: "No bullets? Ah, but if all of you in the audience who believe in fairies will clap your hands, then my gun will be magically filled with bullets."
- A woman in Feast II: Sloppy Seconds tries to believe her way out of terrible situation after terrible situation.
- Andrei Tarkovsky is fond of this one: STALKER (not STALKER), Solaris (not Solaris).
Literature
- Trope namer comes from a famous scene from Peter Pan. In this verse, a fairy is mortally wounded any time a child says "I don't believe in fairies"; in the scene in question, Peter uses the effect in reverse to save the fairy Tinker Bell's life by calling on children everywhere to indicate that they do believe in fairies. (In the original stage version - which predates the novel, not to mention the various film and television adaptations - this was an audience participation bit...and, in case you're wondering, if the audience is a bunch of heartless bastards who won't clap the orchestra is instructed to begin the applause.)
- Tom Holt spoofed this scene in Open Sesame; a fairy provides medical care by shouting "I do believe in humans!"
- And again in Paint Your Dragon:
There's an urban folk-myth that every time a human says he doesn't believe in dragons, a dragon dies. This is unlikely, because if it were true, we'd spend half our lives shovelling thirty-foot corpses out of the highways with dumper trucks and the smell would be intolerable.
Theres an old saying among dragons that every time a human says he doesn't believe in dragons, a human dies, and serve the cheeky bugger right.
- C. S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy features a substance called fae which responds to brain activity and can basically do anything. This is used as a justification for Functional Magic as well as Clap Your Hands If You Believe. A clever fae hack involved spreading a made-up religion in order to change the natural laws.
- Fae is also nasty. It doesn't just make for "proactive" magic; things based entirely on natural laws DON'T work if their user has any fear they might malfunction. Hear a bump in the night, and the fae will play on your instinctive fear to fill in what might have made it... The vicious cycle goes straight down into scenarios that approach Lovecraftian Fiction.
- It gets worse. Thanks to fae, even the slightest belief that a device such as a gun could backfire will make it backfire. The fae makes Murphy's Law even worse: If you believe something can go wrong, it will go wrong - horribly. This is why the setting has been stuck in Medieval Stasis for 1000 years at the series start.
- This trope is used in The Dresden Files. The main character (Harry Dresden) has little or no faith in the Almighty, so crosses don't ward off vampires for him. However, Dresden has loads of faith in magic, and so his silver pentacle charm (a symbol of magic) works very well in putting aforementioned fang-faces in their place.
- In addition, his sometime ally Michael is a devout believer, so the Cross works just fine, as does his named sword.
- It's worth noting that since Michael is a Knight of the Cross his bare hands work equally well. He's not called the Fist of God as a pet name, folks!
- A good indication of the strength of Michael's faith is when a Red Court vampire (who are not as vulnerable to faith as the Black Court) mocks the idea that Michael's faith in the cross will defend him, then lightly places a finger on one of the crosses stitched into his cloak. She instantly bursts into white flames.
- Worth pointing out that faith in GOD himself is not necessary for a Knight of the Cross. Of the three knights presented so far, only Michael is particularly religious. Shiro was confused when he was being converted (though he tries his best to be a good Baptist regardless) and Sanya is Agnostic. It's their belief in defending the common man against evil that gives the knights their powers. It just happens that in Michael's case, this belief manifest itself as Christian Faith.
- Dresden, being the Firstperson Smartass he is, goes on to mock this trope during the climax of the fourth book, Summer Knight, by charging into a Fae battle screaming "I don't believe in faeries!!" Doesn't help him kill any Fae any better, but certainly is good for the adrenaline.
- It's worth noting that in the Dresdenverse, in order to work magic, you have to believe in whatever you're doing. A caster cannot produce a spell if they do not, deep down, believe in the reasons behind why they are casting the spell. This is actually a small but critical plot point in Turn Coat, where Lafortier's murder involved no magic being slung. It is eventually revealed that Luccio was being mind-controlled into being the killer, but deep down she understood that she shouldn't be doing it, so she couldn't use magic against Lafortier.
- In Stephen King's It, the titular shapeshifting monster takes the form of a werewolf, making it vulnerable to silver simply because the child heroes of the book firmly believe that werewolves have to be vulnerable to silver.
- The page quote isn't the only example from The Bible: e.g., in the Gospels, Simon Peter walks on water until he starts to doubt.
- Stephen Colbert (apparently sincerely) believes this to be an instance of comic relief in the Bible, saying Jesus wouldn't be truly human if he could witness that without laughing.
- In I Am Legend, vampires fear the holy symbol of what they believed in before they became vampires. The Protagonist's archenemy is terrified by the Star of David.
- In Christopher Stasheff's Warlock series, the planet Gramarye has a native fungus known as "witch-moss" which can assume animated forms based on the thoughts of those with latent Psychic Powers. Since five centuries of inbreeding has spread those genes to half the population, a lot of fairy tale creatures have since become real; if they become too real, and there's some of both genders, they can even mate and have fixed-form offspring, essentially creating a whole new species. The Wee Folk were born this way and can somehow interbreed with humans, producing fully fertile offspring.
- This appears to be the driving force behind mythological beings in the Logical Magician series of books by Robert Weinberg. In the second book, an Amazon (naturally, exceedingly beautiful) serving as a weapons instructor is explicitly confronted by the main character with theories regarding the rather hideous appearance of historical amazon women; he's rebuffed with "Maybe the real ones were. We aren't." Applies to myths both old and new; one of the most feared mythological beings around is 'The Man'. Also given an interesting inversion; Nergal, the Babylonian god of disease, has been hauled into the modern world. With no believers to get rid of, he seems invincible, until the main character gets an article about him published in several supermarket tabloids. Since people automatically disbelieve what they read in those, this does Nergal in.
- I'd mention Michael Crichton's The Sphere but that would spoil that plot.
- A variant occurs in the Harold Shea stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, in which it's possible to travel to another world by believing in the logical principles that govern that world. The place you're going was real to begin with (even though they're all based on mythology or literature), but believing the right things makes it accessible to your senses.
- Lord Dunsany uses this. To say where would spoil an excellent short story.
- Goes horribly, horribly wrong in regard to the "Stuff" in The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. It becomes not what you believe, but what you're thinking of—and if you're thinking of ten things at once, it'll become a splice of all ten things. This gets even worse if you get covered in Stuff
- In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, what happens to people after they die is determined by what they believe. Not necessarily what they want, but what they believe. In Small Gods, there is a character who believes in Om, but after he dies, he thinks about what he believes and it's implied that he has a slightly different outcome than other Om believers. He has a different outlook on life than other Om believers, and therefore, something different would happen to him.
- That your afterlife is dependent on your belief is played with in The Truth. The two villains Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin have a brief discussion outside the newspaper's offices, just before a climactic battle, where Mr. Tulip claims to "be safe as long as I have my potato." Tulip explains that if you have your potato and you're sorry for everything you've done, everything will work out okay. Pin steals the potato and kills Tulip for an island to stand on in the molten lead as the newspaper office burns down. When Death comes for Tulip, Tulip finds he still has his potato, and when asked if he's sorry, he responds, "How will I know?" Pin, on the other hand, bounds up to Death holding the potato and proudly declaring he's sorry for everything. Rather telling about how their afterlives turn out: Mr. Tulip is reincarnated as a wormwood, and Mr. Pin is reincarnated as a particularly evil looking potato, which is brought into the offices of the new paper as a running gag finale (a farmer has been bringing in obscenely shaped vegetables to get his name in the paper).
- What happens to people after they die is what they believe will happen. The people who go to hell are the ones who believe, deep down in their hearts, that they deserve it. However, if you've never heard of hell before, it's impossible to believe in it. That is why it is important to kill missionaries on sight.
- Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords series had this as a plot development. The gods, including such familiar names as the war god Mars and Vulcan the smith, are bored. To entertain themselves, they play a game with humanity: 12 highly powerful magic swords are created, and spread throughout the lands purely to incite wars amongst the various nations. The plan backfires when, thanks to the highly visible power of the various swords, mankind's belief in the gods wane and is replaced by belief in the swords. Consequently, the gods rapidly weaken. Their ultimate fate is left unclear, except that they become usurped by their own creations.
- In John C Wright's Chronicles Of Chaos, this is one technique of Functional Magic, where the character can make true what he wants to be true. Its weakness is that he really has to want it; if you do not actually feel the malice necessary, you can not curse someone, for instance.
- Subverted in F. Paul Wilson's The Keep, in which a vampire pretends to be affected by a Star of David to trick a Jewish archeologist into thinking he's controllable. Later the vampire appears to be affected by a Christian cross and cause the Jewish professor to question is faith. Later it's revealed that the vampire is actually affected by the symbol of a magical sword, and the Christian cross just happens to be very similar to this sword symbol.
- In The Haunting Of Alaizabel Cray, there's an interesting case: when humanity believed that disaster was God's anger, everything was fine. Then came the beginning of the Age of Reason, and we outgrew such silly superstitions... or so we thought. Because we had no-one left to blame, but lacked the emotional maturity to take responsibility for our actions, our subconcious minds started to blame every fairy-tale-style monster ever, at which point they appeared and began to terrorise the world's cities.
Live Action TV
- Power Rangers Mystic Force: The key component to being able to use magic is, it seems, believing in magic. In the premiere, Nick is unable to use magic because he doesn't believe - even after he's seen others using it (and despite considerable effort 'trying' to believe). He gains the ability to cast spells only after announcing that he really does, after all, believe in magic. In the finale, the entire city's belief is used as a Spirit Bomb.
- This was key to Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais", wherein the last surviving Greek god, Apollo, is a Sufficiently Advanced Alien who needs worship to survive.
- An Expanded Universe Star Trek novel, Gods Above, features more Beings like Apollo, who not only thrive on worship, but on fear and doubt as well. The only way for the crew to defeat them is to be truly fearless.
- An early Star Trek The Next Generation episode had a Sufficiently Advanced Alien known as The Traveler strengthened by the entire Enterprise crew concentrating on making him better. (Granted, they were in an area of the universe where thoughts become reality, but it still fits the trope).
- The Stargate SG-1 Big Bad of seasons 9 and 10, the Ori, are, again, ascended beings who thrive on worship. And not in a good way.
- And lose their powers when not worshiped. That's how The Ark Of Truth beat Adria. It forced the Priors to realize that the Ori, and by extension, Adria herself, were not gods. A fitting end, if you ask me.
- The finale of the Doctor Who new series third season came under some fire for relying on this, albeit with a Hand Wave involving a Phlebotinum assisted telepathic field that focused the belief causeing, funnily enough, what fans call Tinker Bell or Fairy Doctor.
- An episode of Supernatural focused on a spirit that was created (and maintained) by people's belief in it. Unfortunately, getting people to stop believing was not an option.
- In the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Out of Sight, Out of Mind", a girl is actually invisible because no one ever noticed her.
- In fairness, the explanation given in the show is less "The power of belief" than the power of the school where it all happened being right on top of a convergence of all kinds of primeval magical hoodoo.
- Toyed with in Dead Like Me. The recently deceased will cross-over with the gateways to the next world taking a form that appeals to them. In the pilot, a little girl sees a huge spectral carnival; in a later episode, the soul of an old yet feisty man of indeterminate UK origin leaps from the precipice of a chalk cliff.
- Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards 2008 has a character called the Rocktopus (a rock and roll octopus who wears shades) and during the end where Jack Black and Orlando Bloom are doing the final slime stunt - there's no slime coming out at first because the machine requires someone with 8 arms to operate it, and the Rocktopus happens to be the one that fits that - the only problem is that he needs encouragement from the audience - so the audience give him encouragement by shouting... "Slime! Slime! Slime! Slime! Slime! Slime!".
- In one episode of Bottom, Richie and Eddie are saved from a Ferris Wheel by the hand of God. When they remember that they don't believe in God, the hand vanishes and they fall to their doom.
- In the TV miniseries Merlin, Merlin finally defeats the evil Queen Mab by encouraging everyone to forget about her. This causes her to simply disappear.
- One episode of Fraggle Rock introduced a one-off character named Skinfred, a small monster whose transformations were based upon this Trope. His physical appearance depended on what other people thought about him (it's impressive how upbeat his personality was given how very definitely Blessed With Suck he was). Red and Wembly like him, think he's very cute and friendly... and that he sports goofy pigtails. Ma Gorge does not like him, thinks he's creepy and scary for living in her flooded basement, and wonders if he's actually a giant, fanged, two-headed monster. Guess what happens next. (Skinfred: "Aw, I hate having to be a monster!")
- A similar creature appeared in the Fraggle Rock comic book. The cast had to deal with a considerably less friendly monster who was also exactly as tough as an opponent believed it to be, resulting into hilarious scenes of our heroes making things worse and worse. "I don't care if you're fifty feet tall..." *Poof! Monster is now fifty feet tall*
Tabletop Games
- In the Old World Of Darkness Mage roleplaying game, reality is the result of consensus belief; normal humans who haven't pierced the Masquerade can literally disrupt magic through disbelief. "That can't happen," they think, and their belief is strong enough to make it unhappen, make them forget it ever happened, and punish the mage for his attempt. Conversely, mages have carefully-constructed belief systems that allow them to impose their wills upon reality and reshape it as they see fit.
- In an unusual variation, much of the magic of the Technocracy and its forebears is actual science and technology. The earth never used to orbit the sun, steam power never used to be possible, until they managed to make most of humanity believe in it.
- The New World Of Darkness Mage game does this differently; the disbelief of normal humans can still unravel magic, but only because their souls bear a fragment of the nothingness which stands between the sources of magic and reality.
- This also appears to varying degrees in some other old and new World of Darkness products. In Hunter: The Reckoning, from the old World of Darkness the collective force of human belief makes supernatural phenomena simply invisible to most people, while in nWoD Changeling, a magical effect preys on the beliefs and psychological expectations of mortals and other supernaturals to make Changelings and Fae Tokens appear as mundane people and objects, rather than the (sometimes flagrantly) magical things they are. The earlier game Changeling: the Dreaming had this as a central element of the story; since humanity considers fairy tales to be, well, fairy tales, changelings consider themselves to be an endangered species, and the discouragement of freedom and the imagination (known as Banality) is actually toxic to them.
- Similarly, in the RPG In Nomine, the Marches, the land of dreams separating the corporeal realm (Earth and the rest of the physical universe) from the celestial realm {Heaven and Hell) is populated by the power of human imagination with pagan gods and creatures of myth.
- The Dungeons And Dragons campaign setting Planescape revolves around the idea that belief shapes the planes. Exploited several times in the video game Planescape: Torment; for example, the player at one point unlocks a memory of a previous incarnation who had just debated a man into the conclusion that he did not exist, which caused him to vanish.
- It can also, quite literally, move mountains, as the beliefs of the inhabitants of an area determines it's actual geographic location.
- In said setting, this is the axiomatic assumption of the philosophical faction the Sign of One. Incidentally, it was this group's beliefs that the man in the example above adhered to.
- To be a little more pedantic and accurate, everyone in the Outer Planes knows that belief defines reality. A member of the Sign of One simply believes that their belief is reality; everyone else just exists as a figment of their mind. It seems like simple solipsism - except that enemies of the Signers have this funny way of ceasing to exist...
- You know what this page needs? Another Tabletop RPG example! In Deadlands, this device works in both short and long term. When visiting the Spirit World of the setting, exactly what one sees is colored by exactly what one expects. A Protestant might see Mount Zion, with Heaven at the top and Hell at its base. A Native American might instead see a World Tree, again with pleasant things at the top and bad things at the bottom. Lest we forget, most of the "Abominations" in the game world are drawn straight from people's worst fears; sometimes, a house is haunted not because someone died horrifically there, but because people believe it is haunted.
- Beyond the Supernatural features a reversal of sorts with the nega-psychic class. Most character classes in this game have psychic and/or magical abilities. The nega-psychic has psychic powers, but is so convinced that supernatural phenomena are bunk that his power is used unconsciously to suppress all psychic and magical phenomena in his area. For example, a character who can normally lift things with telekinesis will find it difficult or impossible to do so around the nega-psychic, thus bolstering the nega-psychic's belief that there is no such thing as telekinesis.
- In Scion, the various deities (and their progeny, including the player characters) derive power from the number of people who are aware of their exploits. This is known as Legend. However, while the Gods make sure stories about them maintain circulation, they discourage outright worship, because Fate is a bastard when it comes to such strong connections. It's a dangerous balancing act.
- Similar to the Doctor Thirteen example mentioned above, one power available to players in GURPS IOU is a type of super-mundanity: magic and super-science not only fails to work in their presence, monsters aliens and assorted other non-normal entities actually change to have mundane explanations (a monster turns into someone wearing a monster costume, the alien invasion turns into a movie set) until the character leaves the area.
- The technology of the Orks of Warhammer 40000 simply works because they believe it to. This is because Orks possess a subconscious psychic ability that strengthens the more of them are together: they believe, as a culture, that red vehicles will go faster, so painting their "trukk" red will make it go faster. They believe that More Dakka makes a weapon more powerful, and in their hands, it actually does. Also evident in that most of their tech is rusted steel bolted together (and their guns' mechanisms are typically just a bunch of loose gears and springs), which they simply think will work... and they do.
- Just to hammer the point home, one Ork even stole an ship and flew off with it even though it didn't have any fuel.
- Don't forget the Battle Sisters, who gain advantages in battle from their faith, such as becoming faster or having their armour become stronger.
- And the best defense against daemons and Chaos in general is faith. Preferably backed up with some large guns.
- And given the psychic nature of the Warp, this pretty much applies to all beings on a race-wide scale.
- Don't forget how the psichic powers work in Warhammer 40,000: If you believe in it, it's going to exist. Eldar created a god of chaos this way.. and probably the Emperor actually became a god this way.
- Another Role Playing Game example comes from Over The Edge, where one NPC mentioned is a fairly obvious Expy of James Randi, who makes all the rampant weirdness of the setting shut down around him due to sheer power of disbelief.
- And on the topic of James Randi, a lot of Real World self-proclaimed psychics claim their powers won't work around disbelievers, like him. Penn And Teller have been known to cause the same effect.
- Yet another White Wolf example. In Exalted, the sustenance for gods, ghosts, demons, and most supernatural beings (and even the Exalted themselves, if they can get some) is coalesced prayer. Similarly, any Exalt can use the Cult background to gain expended essence faster (though, some factions in-game frown upon developing Cults).
- This is the basic principal in which magic in "Unknown Armies" works. An Adept's obsession warps their view of the world so much that he can bend reality with his will simply because he is absolutely sure that what he does is possible.
Video Games
- In Earthbound, the only way to beat the Big Bad Giygas is the liberal use of the "Pray" command... and the prayers of everyone who you met on your quest. These prayers actually do physical damage to him.
- The Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents series run entirely off this, in which members of a Japanese cheerleading squad (or secret government agency, in the case of EBA) show up and miraculously resolve random peoples' issues through, well, cheering and/or interpretive dance. This is taken to its logical extreme in each of their final story missions, where everyone's fighting spirit takes on a more, uh, tangible form.
- Ouendan's destroys an asteroid about to collide with Earth.
- EBA's crushes an alien invasion. Bonus points for featuring the cast actually clapping their hands because they believe.
- Ouendan 2's reignites the dying sun.
- Final Fantasy Tactics uses this as an actual game mechanic, where characters have a numeric stat called Faith between 0 and 100, and this is directly applied to damage amounts and success rates of magic that the character uses or is hit by. A character with a Faith stat of 0 is utterly immune to magic. Characters' Faith stat can be raised or lowered with certain abilities, though if you raise faith high enough, a character will become too pious to put up with your obsession over mundane trivia like trying to stop demons from taking over the world, and will wander off to worship God in peace.
- Used during the final boss battle of Viewtiful Joe 2. Joe and Silvia go into the real world to fight the Big Bad, but find out their powers don't work, yet his do. After getting thoroughly beaten, the crowd starts to chant their support, at which point, the two of them transform, and hand out a royal beating of their own.
- In the PC game Black And White, the various deities gain "faith points" when humans witness them doing things; one can convert villages by building up enough faith points. Also, godly powers are driven by belief, which is gained from getting villagers to worship at your temple.
- Sonic Adventure. After Chaos destroys several tall office buildings presumably killing thousands of people, the survivors still have enough faith and good spirits to enthusiastically chant "Sonic", unleashing the power his otherwise ineffective emeralds.
- I think that the sequel's Ret Con is that there was both positive and negative sides to the Emeralds, with Choas presumably taking the latter. Then again, it could be the original SA...I am not sure.
- The Eidolon Wall in Final Fantasy IX reveals that the eidolons are in fact created by the belief of humans. The creatures of myth and legend in effect become real by people believing them, and serve as guardians of the planet.
- In Age Of Mythology and the Titans expansion, all four civilizations need their followers to do something for them before they'll grant units and upgrades. However, simply advancing your civilization gives you one free God Power to use at your discression, so advance today!
- In City Of Heroes, the Clockwork King's robots shouldn't work at all, but because he believes they do – thus subconsciously animating them with his telekinetic powers – they do.
Web Comics
- In Elf Life, magic is portrayed as only having an effect on those who believe. Mind you, knowing this doesn't seem to help.
- In Zebra Girl, magic works along these lines. As one character explains, Magic fundamentally doesn't work, but as long as you don't believe that it does. For example the main magic user tells a character to close his eyes as the magician heals him because as long as his eyes were open he wouldn't be able to accept the spell working. This same wizard then starts on a one man (but occasionally one werewolf) mission to bring back magic into the world through teaching people (mainly kids) to believe in it again. He does this as a really, really, really, good street magician.
- The Fae kingdom in Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures works on belief, while the laws of physics take a day off. Scientist-by-heart Jyrras, then proceeds to step right through a floating platform.
- This is the entire plot of Parallel Dementia.
- Art from Sequential Art loses the ability to use any piece of technology, once he's told that "artists radiate an anti-technology energy... and the effect gets 100 times worse when the artist knows of the energy's existence".
- Eventually, he has surgery to correct it, which involves hypnotic therapy, a computer chip, and a large drill. It's a placebo, but that doesn't stop it from working.
- Later, he tells Pip to whack him on the back of the head to disable the chip, bringing back his imaginary powers temporarily.
Web Original
- Tech Infantry borrows the explanation of the magic of Mages from the old World Of Darkness, so of course it follows this trope. One of the characters even tries to weaponize this fact of life, using a Mind Control Device to change what everyone believes about how the universe works, and thus change the way the universe actually works.
- In docfuture's hilarious "Lets Play Sonic 2: Special Edition", in Mystic Cave Zone, he points out that the game engine is belief-based, and consequently the graphics looked bad because not enough of the viewers believe that this game exists.
Western Animation
Other
- There is a joke about some Jews coming to a rabbi and asking him if he can pray for a rain. He says it won't work since they have no faith. How does he know they have no faith? They didn't bring umbrellas.
Real Life
- In real life, many of those that believe in the Veil see it as a manifestation of people's belief in mundaneity.
- This troper's friend once did a series of tarot readings for her group one evening. They all came out, if not accurate, at least reasonable — until she got to the staunch nonbeliever of the group, whose reading was basically nonsense. Apparently he'd 'broken' the deck.
- The effectiveness of divination just might be a result of the subject's credulity. This troper has always had a high accuracy in readings for other people, but never gotten anything relevant from any reading. My own sneaking skepticism doesn't seem to keep me from being good at tarot, even though it never works on me.
- This may be more a result of the typical reading of any sort of divination be it tea leaves, horoscopes, or what have you. Such answers are usually so vague and general while at the same time having just enough key words/points to seem like they're actually saying something. A reading that says something like "You will come across financial success today." could mean finding a penny or it could mean getting your paycheck. Which isn't to say that a little belief is incorrect just that too much dependency can really be debilitating.
- The human brain also has a remarkable ability to draw connections and create sensible interpretations. It's why you see shapes in clouds, among other things. Someone who is resolved not to see a pattern, or who is prepared to come up with an alternate explanation for one, will be less likely to see one.
- For the record, this is known as "the Forer effect".
- The placebo effect is the real life equivalent of this. (It is, of course, far more effective in fiction than in real life.)
- For that matter, most superstitions work this way too; believing something may encourage someone to try things and do things they might not otherwise. Of particular note are athletes who tend to have the most unusual and personalized superstitions.
- It's pretty strong in real life too. There is one instance of rats apparently being tricked into curing themselves of a certain type of cancer by a placebo. (they were given normal water, then the real stuff in flavored water long enough to cause, then normal water again long enough for the cancer to cease going into remission, then flavored water without the chemo)
- An argument similar to the Warhammer40000 example is used by a customer seeking a blue camera. No such item exists in stock, so the manager plays along in order to get the customer to buy a red one. Here.
- The stock market. Expectations of the future are one of the most powerful forces there, as evidenced by how stocks consistently rise/fall after optimistic/dour speeches, reports and addresses. So if the market tanks, it will come back to life if everyone just believes in it.
- Hardly just the stock market. The whole economy is an act of collective faith. Confidence is everything.
- As demonstrated after Franklin D Roosevelt came into office at the end of the Great Depression. The New Deal's net effects did not profoundly affect the average citizen; the Depression continued until the States entered the war. But FDR's election basically made the entire country more optimistic and willing to spend. This troper recalls hearing something on the radio about a letter someone had written. The writer said that his wife had left him and his dog had died, but now that Roosevelt had been elected, he was sure that everything would turn out right.
- A key political tactic in recent years has been "If you repeat something long enough, often enough, and loud enough for all publicity reasons it becomes true."
- The concept of "socially constructed reality" is a metaphorical version of this trope: a dollar has no intrinsic value - it's just a really fancy piece of paper - but, in context, it can be used to buy something more useful than a piece of paper.
- The indian deity Hanuman, the "monkey god", is so caught up in his devotion to Lord Rama that he needs his followers to remind him of his own divinity for his powers not to dwindle.
- This is how hypnotism works. You have to believe that you can be hypnotized in order for it to work. It is impossible to be hypnotized against your will.
- "The Law of Attraction" and "Universal Magnetism" and "Like Attracts Like" are concepts explored in at least two books The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles and Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting by Lynn Grabhorn, as well as at least two films: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (also a book) and What the Bleep by J.Z. Knight. Both films feature followers of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment in Washington State, which also teaches this concept. A lot of people consider these works to be non-fiction because Oprah commands it.
- This troper heard of a study that, if two people (subject A and subject B) had the same illness and were recieving the same treatment, and subject A's friends and family were praying for his/her recovery and subject B's friends and family were not, subject A would make a more positive recovery (positive meaning that both could recover, but A would recover faster or respond better ect.).
- This was the 'Great Prayer Experiment', where some congregations were given slips of paper with the name of a patient who was about to have an operation on some sort, and told to pray for a successful operation, no complications, and a speedy recovery. There were three groups - a control group, who weren't being prayed for and didn't know about it; Group A, who were being prayed for and didn't know about it; and finally Group B, who were being prayed for and did know about it, with a few hundred patients in each group. There was no significant difference between the control group and group A - but Group B actually suffered slightly more complications, had fewer successful operations, and took longer to recover than the control group. Apparently the pressure of knowing people were hoping for their recovery gave them a sort of 'stage fright'.
- This is generally how the occult practice of chaos magic works — if someone believes in it, you, too, can believe in it, and channel it for power. Grant Morrison, being delightfully wacky, has written articles on channeling the occult significance of everything from the Greek pantheon to the New Gods to James Bond.
- This is a common feature of New Age beliefs in general. In Wicca and some other Neo-Pagan religions, a variant is taught: you can perform magic(k) by visualizing the desired results and focusing your will upon them, but doubts in the efficacy of the technique will rob you of the necessary focus and prevent it from working.
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