We have probably all heard of the stories of people, often in less developed countries, who, once cursed with death by a local witch doctor, actually do die shortly after that, from no discernible physical cause.
The implication is that such people are so influenced by what they perceive as the indisputable accuracy of what the witch doctor says, and become so convinced that his curse is so powerful, and unavoidable, that they literally believe themselves to death.
The article linked below discusses this phenomenon, and suggests that a possible causation of such "voodoo deaths" may be "... cardiac alterations occurring after acute stressful events in patients even without coronary disease." That is, in some people stress can effect the heart to such a degree that arrhythmias and such may be triggered, possibly leading to cardiac failure.
But this is only a guess, the article says, and it ends by saying that "... they (voodoo deaths) constitute fascinating epitomes of the power of the mind and still elude sufficient scientific explanatory models."
But whatever the causes(s) of these events, is it just possible that the phenomenon occurs as well is our supposedly sophisticated Western medical system? Does it sometimes happen that some patients, who have been told by cancer specialists, for example, that they have only weeks to live, become so convinced of the infallibility of these specialists, that at some mental level they just give up all hope, perhaps at a subconscious level, resign themselves to dying, and then actually do so?
In the article linked below there is an account of a U.S. patient who, after receiving a
false diagnosis of liver cancer, and was otherwise healthy, died shortly afterwards for unknown reasons. Evidence of such a phenomenon?
https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/death-by-voodoo-truth-or-tale/ If this is a valid medical event, it runs quite counter to the notion that, presumably, most patients will hear their doctor's grim prognosis for them, but then resolve to marshal their strength and fight vigorously against whatever has been predicted to kill them.
It would seem disturbing that there may actually be people who have allowed themselves to become so convinced of some doctor's infaillibility, that they then resign themselves to die simply because he has told them that they will.