Expectation effects are among the most replicated findings in medicine: Henry K. Beecher's 'The Powerful Placebo' (JAMA, 1955) launched modern placebo research, and open-label placebo trials (Kaptchuk et al., IBS study, PLOS ONE 2010) show benefit even when patients know the pill is inert. On the belief side, William James argued in The Will to Believe (1896) that some truths become actual only through prior commitment.
Contemporary chaos magicians and skeptics increasingly share a vocabulary: the sigil as goal-setting, the ritual as state-change, the chart as reflection prompt. Both camps get to keep their worldview as long as the practice 'works', which is exactly the ambiguity the practice exploits.
The chaos magic axiom, often compressed as 'belief is a tool', was stated flatly by Peter J. Carroll in Liber Null (1978): belief itself, not any particular belief, is the operative technology. On this reading the sigil, the chart, and the sugar pill are interchangeable mounts for the same rider.
If belief is a tool and not a truth claim, which of your beliefs have you never examined because they work?