Voodoo Death: Some New Thoughts on an Old Phenomenon

Criticisms of the validity of the phenomenon of death by suggestion are reviewed and rebutted. Two theories of the mechanism of death by suggestion, proposed by Cannon and Richter, are described, and a new theory is proposed. The new theory is based on Engel's concept of the giving up‐given up complex in medically ill patients and is shown to be capable of generating testable predictions about the phenomenon of voodoo death.