The New Mind-Body Science Goes International
Bruce H Lipton’s The Biology of Belief has recently acquired wings! Three international versions are now carrying the book’s life-affirming message to audiences around the world. The German translation, Intelligente Zellen: Wie Erfahrungen unsere Gene steuern (Koha), the French adaptation, Biologie des Croyances: Comment affranchir la puissance de la conscience, de la matière (Ariane Éditions, inc), and the Italian version, laBiologia delle Credenze: Come il pensiero influenza il DNA e ogni cellula (Macro Edizioni) have just been released.
In each country, the publishers are encouraging the sale of the book through the release of articles and interviews in local media. While most of the information offered is concerned with the scientific principles of the ‘new’ biology, some articles focused upon the mind-body or spiritual aspects of the evolving science. As an example of the latter, a brief excerpt from an interview with a spirituality-based German publication is provided below.
Do you think that enlightenment is something that can be intentionally “exercised” and can it have an influence our genes?
In the early 1600’s, Rene Descartes established the concept of a mind-body. Newtonian physics subsequently emphasized that the Universe was “machine” made out of matter. Newtonian philosophy separated the action of the mind from the function of the body by acknowledging that an etheric, non-material force such as the “mind” could not influence the physical body, a “machine” made out of matter. Biomedical research scientists invoking the principles of Newtonian physics were subsequently forced to dismiss the influence of mind on health and life.
Nearly a hundred years ago, the Newtonian perspective on the nature of the Universe was dramatically revised with the adoption of quantum mechanics. Quantum physics revealed that the atom was not made out of matter, but in fact was comprised of immaterial energy vortices. It was also established that “field,” the invisible matrix in which all matter is suspended, was a hotbed of interacting invisible forces much of which consists of electromagnetic vibrations. Since matter and the field are both comprised of immaterial forces, quantum mechanics recognizes that matter is inextricably entangled with the surrounding field.
Not only does matter interact with the invisible field, it turns out the field is the most important factor controlling the expression of matter. Albert Einstein described the field’s powerful influence on matter when he wrote, “The field is the sole governing agency of the particle.” Since Einstein uses the term particle to represent “matter,” he is acknowledging that the field controls our physical reality. In fact, quantum physics has always recognized the powerful influence of mind over matter for one of its fundamental premises is “the observer creates the reality.” This conclusion is derived from the results of experiments designed to assess the fundamental composition of atoms. Such experiments revealed that atoms were either made out of particles (matter) or waves (energy), these divergent results were directly influenced by the observations and beliefs of the researcher. A recent article in the prestigious journal Nature by Richard Conn Henry, a professor of physicist at Johns Hopkins University, concluded, “ The Universe is immaterial, it’s mental and spiritual. Live and Enjoy!”
As demonstrated by electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography, the operation of the brain generates energy “fields,” the parameters of which can influence cell behavior and gene expression. Additionally, the mind’s field is responsible for the release and dissemination of neuropeptides and other neurotransmitters that control cell and gene activity. The influence of the mind’s field is most evident in the placebo effect, wherein healing is produced by the mind’s belief that a drug or medical procedure will be effective, even though the drug may only be sugar or chalk or the procedure has no medical value at all.
It should be noted that over 30% of all medical healings, including those attributable to surgery, are the result of the placebo effect and the role of the mind. Though the placebo effect reveals we have an innate ability to heal ourselves, it has been essentially ignored by allopathic medicine. Recent brain scan studies have revealed that the placebo effect is not just in our “minds,” for it has been revealed that it can profoundly impact the operation of physical neurons. Rather than ignoring the placebo effect as it has done, it would be highly relevant for medicine to study this effect so that we could leverage it in promoting optimum health.
While most people are familiar with the positive attributes of the placebo effect, far less are aware that there is an equally powerful, but opposite influence known as the nocebo effect. When a person is given a negative belief, such as they have a terminal or intractable disease, then even a very powerful drug or proven medical intervention may not have any positive impact upon their health. Perhaps an example of the most powerful nocebo effect is when someone is literally “scared to death.”
The new physics and new medicine clearly establish the important role of the mind in controlling our biology, psychology and genetic activity. With that knowledge, it becomes apparent that expanding our consciousness and awareness is an exercise that will have profound influence over both our inner and outer realities. Exercising “enlightenment” is an act of self-empowerment that has been shown to directly impact our biology and our genes; to the extent that over one third of illness can be resolved by the power of the mind alone.
Can our thinking can influence our genes?
Psychologists are very familiar with dissociation disorder, which is commonly known as multiple personality disorder. As these patients switch from one personality to another, each switch is accompanied with profound physiologic changes. An individual my have a life-threatening allergy in one personality and be completely free of it within a minute of switching to an alternate personality. A change in eye color or the appearance and disappearance of scars can occur as individuals switch between personalities.
However, there are much more common and rapid effects of how thinking can influence our genes. For example, within seconds of expressing a profound joy or fear, the brain’s neurons release signals that profoundly change the genetic readout of tissues and organs that mobilize the body’s growth and protection responses.
Interestingly, when identical twins are first born, the genes activated in both of their genomes are almost all the same. However, on a daily basis, their personal experiences and perceptions of life lead to profoundly different genes being activated in each of the siblings. The environment, and specifically, our perception of the environment, dynamically adjust the activity our genes…for the better or for the worse!
How long do you think will it take until your new research will influence traditional science?
My research was “new” back in the 70’s. I have been providing public lectures on the insights of how environment controls genes, the ‘new’ science of epigenetics, since 1985, years before the Human Genome Project was introduced. I was only one of many pioneers that were investigating alternative insights into how cells were controlled. Fortunately, most all of the “far-out” insights I was lecturing upon have now become today’s mainstream leading-edge research.
Consequently, many science-literate individuals remark, “So what’s new about what you have to say Lipton?” Essentially, it is the same information that I provided audiences twenty years ago, when I was indeed one of the first scientists to take these radical ideas and bring them to the public. Interestingly, even today there are still very few lecturers offering non-medical audiences the hard science of how their thoughts, beliefs and emotions control cell biology and gene activity.
I am truly glad the new science is echoing my research, for these insights will lead us away from considering ourselves to be “victims” of our genes and reveal that we are extremely powerful in selecting and rewriting our genomes. To heal ourselves and the world we live in, we need to move into understanding that we are personally responsible for our internal and external life experiences. With that information we will be better able to create Heaven here on Earth.
How has the ‘new’ science impacted your own life?
Before I ventured off the academic “deep end” in the late 1970’s, my life was a series of some ups and lots of downs, and it resembled what some might call an inhospitable purgatory. However, since I started to apply the new science I learned from my cultured stem cells to my life, I can joyously acknowledge that if there is a Heaven, it is truly here on Earth, right now.
Today, I sleep like a baby and wake up with the exuberance of a school child on summer vacation! I have not had medication or a need to have allopathic healthcare since the last time I saw a conventional doctor, which was in 1992. The people in my life today are beautiful, free-spirited individuals and all of them are young of heart, no matter how many years old they are. I am in love and have been on a honeymoon with my partner Margaret for over ten years. And most importantly, in spite of all the weirdness in the world, especially in the United States, I find that the successes and harmony I experience in my life are fully supported and encouraged by invisible forces of the spiritual world.
My life is too good to return back to the convention world I left behind!
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