The Biology of Belief

The Biology of Belief

Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D.

We are made in the image of God, and we need to put Spirit back into the equation when we want to improve our physical and our mental health. Because we are not powerless biochemical machines, popping a pill every time we are mentally or physically out of tune is not the answer.

Drugs and surgery are powerful tools when they are not overused, but the notion of simple drug fixes is fundamentally flawed. Every time a drug is introduced into the body to correct function A, it inevitably throws off function B, C, or D.

It is not gene-directed hormones and neurotransmitters that control our bodies and our minds; our beliefs control our bodies, our minds, and thus our lives … Oh ye of little belief!

Positive thoughts have a profound effect on behavior and genes but only when they are in harmony with subconscious programming. And negative thoughts have an equally powerful effect. When we recognize how these positive and negative beliefs control our biology, we can use this knowledge to create lives filled with health and happiness.

We have been taught to wage war against microorganisms with everything from antibacterial soap to antibiotics. But that simplistic message ignores the fact that many bacteria are essential to our health. The classic example of how humans get help from microorganisms is the bacteria in our digestive system, which are essential to our survival. The bacteria in our stomach and intestinal tract help digest food and also enable the absorption of life-sustaining vitamins. This microbe-human cooperation is the reason that the rampant use of antibiotics is detrimental to our survival. Antibiotics are indiscriminate killers; they kill bacteria that are required for our survival as efficiently as they kill harmful bacteria.

Now that we are aware of this inter- and intra-species gene transfer mechanism, the dangers of genetic engineering become apparent. For example, tinkering with the genes of a tomato may not stop at that tomato but could alter the entire biosphere in ways that we cannot foresee. Already there is a study that shows that when humans digest genetically modified foods, the artificially created genes transfer into and alter the character of the beneficial bacteria in the intestine.

Similarly, gene transfer among genetically engineered agricultural crops and surrounding native species has given rise to highly resistant species deemed superweeds.

So many of us are leading limited lives not because we have to but because we think we have to.

Since the dawning of the Age of Genetics, we have been programmed to accept that we are subservient to the power of our genes. The world is filled with people who live in constant fear that, on some unsuspecting day, their genes are going to turn on them. Consider the masses of people who think they are ticking time bombs; they wait for cancer to explode in their lives as it exploded in the life of their mother or brother or sister or aunt or uncle.

Millions of others attribute their failing health not to a combination of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual causes but simply to the inadequacies of their body’s biochemical mechanics. Are your kids unruly? Increasingly the first choice is to medicate these children to correct their “chemical imbalances” rather than fully grappling with what is going on in their bodies, minds, and spirits.

The science of epigenetics, which literally means “control above genetics,” profoundly changes our understanding of how life is controlled.

DNA blueprints passed down through genes are not set in concrete at birth. Genes are not destiny! Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress, and emotions, can modify those genes without changing their basic blueprint. And those modifications, epigeneticists have discovered, can be passed on to future generations.

Biological behavior can be controlled by invisible forces, including thought, as well as it can be controlled by physical molecules like penicillin, a fact that provides the scientific underpinning for pharmaceutical-free energy medicine.

Logically, genes cannot preprogram a cell or organism’s life because cell survival depends on the ability to dynamically adjust to an ever-changing environment.

Discovery after discovery about the mechanics of chemical signals, including hormones, cytokines (hormones that control the immune system), growth factors, and tumor suppressors, cannot explain paranormal phenomena.

Spontaneous healings, psychic phenomena, amazing feats of strength and endurance, the ability to walk across hot coals without getting burned, acupuncture’s ability to diminish pain by moving “chi” around the body, and many other paranormal phenomena defy Newtonian biology.

Adverse drug effects, like those contributing to the HRT controversy, are a primary reason why a leading cause of death is iatrogenic illness, i.e., illness resulting from medical treatment.

Iatrogenic illness is actually the leading cause of death in the United States and that adverse reactions to prescription drugs are responsible for more than 300,000 deaths a year.

These are dismaying statistics, especially for a healing profession that has arrogantly dismissed three thousand years of effective Eastern medicine as unscientific, even though it is based on a deeper understanding of the universe. For thousands of years, long before Western scientists discovered the laws of quantum physics, Asians have honored energy as the principal factor contributing to health and wellbeing.

In Eastern medicine, the body is defined by an elaborate array of energy pathways called meridians. In Chinese physiologic charts of the human body, these energy networks resemble electronic wiring diagrams. Using aids like acupuncture needles, Chinese physicians test their patient’s energy circuits in exactly the same manner that electrical engineers “troubleshoot” a printed-circuit board, searching for electrical “pathologies.”

The trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry puts its research money into the search for magic bullets in the form of chemicals because pills mean money. If energy healing could be made into tablet form, drug manufacturers would get interested quickly.

Pharmaceutical drugs suppress the body’s symptoms but most never address the cause of the problem.

There are no serious research funds available for studying energy medicine. The rub is that without supportive research, energy-based healing modalities are officially labeled “unscientific.”

Have you ever walked down a dark street at night and instantly felt drained of energy? What were you experiencing? Destructive interference, just like out-of-sync pebbles thrown into a pond, or, in popular jargon, bad vibes!

Remember unexpectedly meeting that special someone in your life and becoming so energized you felt “high”? You were experiencing constructive interference, or good vibes.

However, our new understanding of the universe’s mechanics shows us how the physical body can be affected by the immaterial mind. Thoughts, the mind’s energy, directly influence how the physical brain controls the body’s physiology. Thought “energy” can activate or inhibit the cell’s function-producing proteins via the mechanics of constructive and destructive interference,

The fact is that harnessing the power of your mind can be more effective than the drugs you have been programmed to believe you need. Energy is a more efficient means of affecting matter than chemicals.

Seemingly “separate” subdivisions of the mind, the conscious and the subconscious are interdependent. The conscious mind is the creative one, the one that can conjure up “positive thoughts.” In contrast, the subconscious mind is a repository of stimulus-response tapes derived from instincts and learned experiences. The subconscious mind is strictly habitual; it will play the same behavioral responses to life’s signals over and over again, much to our chagrin.

When it comes to sheer neurological processing abilities, the subconscious mind is millions of times more powerful than the conscious mind. If the desires of the conscious mind conflict with the programs in the subconscious mind, which “mind” do you think will win out? You can repeat the positive affirmation that you are lovable over and over or that your cancer tumor will shrink. But if, as a child, you heard over and over that you are worthless and sickly, those messages programmed in your subconscious mind will undermine your best conscious efforts to change your life.

Be aware that there is hope even for those of you who used positive thinking and failed miserably.

Emotions were not only derived through a feedback of the body’s environmental information. Through self-consciousness, the mind can use the brain to generate “molecules of emotion” and override the system. While proper use of consciousness can bring health to an ailing body, inappropriate unconscious control of emotions can easily make a healthy body diseased,

Endowed with the ability to be self-reflective, the self-conscious mind is extremely powerful. It can observe any programmed behavior we are engaged in, evaluate the behavior, and consciously decide to change the program. We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals and whether we even want to respond at all. The conscious mind’s capacity to override the subconscious mind’s preprogrammed behaviors is the foundation of free will.

Beliefs control biology! Ponder the significance of this information. We have the capacity to consciously evaluate our responses to environmental stimuli and change old responses any time we desire … once we deal with the powerful subconscious mind. We are not stuck with our genes or our self-defeating behaviors!