The Biology of Belief Book : Reviews
“Bruce Lipton’s book is the definitive summary of the new biology and all it implies. It is magnificent, profound beyond words, and a delight to read. It synthesizes an encyclopedia of critical new information into a brilliant yet simple package. These pages contain a genuine revolution in thought and understanding, one so radical that it can change the world.”
Joseph Chilton Pearce, Ph.D.
Author of Magical Child; The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality; Evolution’s End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence among others.
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“Bruce Lipton’s delightfully-written The Biology of Belief is a much needed antidote to the “bottom-up” materialism of today’s society. The idea that DNA encodes all of life’s development is being successfully employed in genetic engineering. At the same time, the shortfall of this approach is becoming evident. The Biology of Belief is a review of a quarter-century of pioneering results in Epigenetics, heralded by The Wall Street Science Journal in mid-2004 as an important new field. Its personal style makes it eminently readable and enjoyable.”
Karl H. Pribram, M.D., PhD., (Hon, Multi)
Professor Emeritus, Stanford University; Distinguished Research Professor, Cognitive Neuroscience at Georgetown University, Dept of Psychology and George Mason University, School of Computational Sciences
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“History will record The Biology of Belief as one of the most important writings of our times. Bruce Lipton has delivered the missing link between the understandings of biomedicine of the past and the essentials of energetic healing of the future. His complex insights are expressed in a readily understandable fashion with a style that welcomes the scientist and the non-scientist on an equal footing. For anyone interested in health, the well-being of the species and the future of human life. The implications of the perspectives outlined have the potential to change the world as we know it. Bruce Lipton\‘s understandings and his concise expression of them are sheer genius.”
Gerard W. Clum, D.C.
President, Life Chiropractic College West
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“Powerful! Elegant! Simple! In a style that is as accessible as it is meaningful, Dr. Bruce Lipton offers nothing less that the long sought-after “missing link” between life and consciousness. In doing so, he answers the oldest questions, and solves the deepest mysteries, of our past. I have no doubt that The Biology of Belief will become a cornerstone for the science of the new millennium.”
Gregg Braden
_New York Times best selling author of The God Code and The Isaiah Effect _
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“In this paradigm-busting book, Bruce Lipton delivers a TKO to Old Biology. With a left to Darwinian dogma and a right to allopathic medicine, he breaks out of the physicalist box into enlightenment on the mind/body (belief/biology) system. Must read, much fun.”
Ralph Abraham, Ph.D.
Professor of Mathematics, University of California at Santa Cruz. Author of Foundations of Mechanics; Dynamics, the Geometry of Behavior; and Chaos, Gaia, Eros.
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“The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles “ is a milestone for evolving humanity. What Dr. Bruce Lipton has provided through his amazing research and this inspiring book is a new, more awakened science of human growth and transformation. Instead of being limited by the genetic or biological constraints that humanity has been programmed to live by, humanity now has before it a way of unleashing its true spiritual potential with the help of simply transformed beliefs guided by the gentle and loving hand of God. A definite must read for those dedicated to the mind/body movement and to the true essence of healing.”
John F. Demartini, D.C.
Best selling author of Count Your Blessings: The Healing Power of Gratitude and Love and The Breakthrough Experience: A Revolutionary New Approach to Personal Transformation
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“Finally, a compelling and easy-to-understand explanation of how your emotions regulate your genetic expression! You need to read this book to truly appreciate that you are not a victim to your genes but instead have unlimited capacity to live a life overflowing with peace, happiness and love.”
Joseph Mercola, O.D.
Founder of www.mercola.com the world’s most visited natural health web site.
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“Dr. Lipton is a genius – his breakthrough discoveries give us tools for regaining the sovereignty over our lives. I recommend this book to anyone who is ready and willing to take full responsibility for themselves and the destiny of our planet.”
LeVar Burton
Actor/Director
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“This book is an absolute must read if you want to know, from a scientific view point, that your lifestyle is in control of your health rather than your genetics. From a scientific viewpoint, Lipton demonstrates that the mind is more powerful than drugs to regain our health. The information reveals that your health is more your responsibility than just being a victim of your genes. When I started reading this book, I could not stop until it was finished.”
M.T. Morter, Jr., D.C.
Founder of Morter Health System and developer B.E.S.T. Technique
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“This is a courageous and visionary book that provides solid evidence from quantum biology to dispel the myth of genetic determinismand implicitly, victimhood. Dr. Bruce Lipton brings a solid scientific mind to not only inform but to transform and empower the reader with the realization that our beliefs create every aspect of our personal reality. A provocative and inspiring read!”
Lee Pulos, Ph.D., ABPP
Author of Miracles and Other Realities and Beyond Hypnosis
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“Dr. Lipton’s revolutionary research has uncovered the missing connections between biology, psychology and spirituality. If you want to understand the deepest mysteries of life, this is one of the most important books you will ever read.
Dennis Perman, D.C.
Co-Founder, The Master’s Circle
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“In a world of chaos, Dr. Lipton brings clarity to mankind. His work is thought provoking, insightful and will hopefully lead people to ask better quality questions in their lives, and to make better decisions. One of the most exciting books I have read, this is a must read.”
Brian Kelly, D.C.
President, New Zealand College of Chiropractic President, Australian Spinal Research Foundation
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Book reveals link between genes, environment and you
By: Solvej Jordahl, Rockford Register Star
How many times have you heard that your destiny is determined by your genes? Probably more than you care to count, and unless you are the child of Michael Jordan or Bill Gates, it’s rather depressing. But don’t despair — according to “The Biology of Belief,” by Dr. Bruce Lipton, that “central dogma” of modern science is on the ropes.
Lipton, a noted researcher and professor of cell biology who has worked at Stanford University, is a pioneer in the field of Epigenetics, the study of how the environment affects gene activity. In this book, he gives an excellent overview of new, widely accepted scientific research that actually leads to sensible explanations of things people have believed in for centuries without “scientific proof” — things like energy healing, telepathy and God.
Lipton brings it all together beautifully as he outlines a new paradigm for the lives of cells and with it, mind-bending implications for the lives of human beings. He describes in detail his theory that the cell membrane, not DNA, is the true “brain” of the cell. He describes the electrical processes of cells and the complex ways they are affected by energy from the environment, also touching on the meaning of new discoveries in quantum physics. He covers a lot of scientific material, but his down-to-earth, engaging style makes complicated concepts easy to understand.
Lipton also weaves in a humorous and touching account of his personal journey, from age seven, when he discovered his passion for unlocking the mysteries of cells, through his years as a frustrated professor, who hit a professional and personal low and then had the breakthrough that allowed him to tie together all that had fascinated him about the nature of life. He makes his points with humor and humanity — his excitement about these new discoveries is contagious.
This is absolutely not a new-agey, “happy thoughts will solve all your problems” book. Lipton backs his assertions with serious research, and his conclusions are nothing short of astonishing. His refusal to let accepted scientific dogma blind him to the implications of what he found is awesome and inspiring. Though Lipton goes into detail about cell biology, this is no dry scientific tome it’s a radical look at the leading edge of what one might call the marriage of science and spirit.
If you’re an intellectual, but your conscience recoils from Darwinism’s insistence that “might makes right,” this book is for you. If you are deeply religious and feel you have to reject science because it rejects what you believe about God, this book is also for you. In the fog of the today’s “war” between science and religion, this book lights the way on a new path that science and spirituality can travel together — where the truth of one does not destroy the truth of the other. Now that’s an exciting possibility!
By: Solvej Jordahl, Rockford Register Star
Published: November 5, 2005
The book
“The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,” by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., Mountain of Love/Elite Books,
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CD Review of The Biology of Belief
By Reg Little
3 CDs, 3¼ hours
The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton’s three-hour audio CDs based on his book of the same name, offers the layman a charming and enchanted introduction into some profound and advanced scientific insights.
In the process it demolishes many false certainties that have harmed greatly the quality of much contemporary food, medicine and science and replaces them with a world of interacting consciousness, matter and miracles. Of particular importance, it explains that how we see life determines how our biology responds.
The CD cover announces it is about to change both science textbooks and revolutionise the way we live. This is not an exaggeration. It quotes Lipton to the effect that, “In the past, we’ve been taught that living beings are like machines run by bio-chemicals and DNA.” It continues, “What we now know is that our entire biology is shaped by the intelligence of each of our more than fifty trillion calls.”
Each of these cells is contained within a membrane, as is each and every cell of every living system. These membranes, or skins of the cell, are so thin they could not be seen until the discovery of electron microscopes. They have oil and water based components, which use a layered structure to separate the cell’s inside and outside.
IMPs or Integral Membrane Proteins penetrate these membranes and provide communication between the world outside and the cell’s inner workings, shaping biological responses within the cell. Lipton makes it clear that genes are not in control of life. Genes only provide the blueprints that guide the production and replacement of proteins. Through penetrating the membranes of cell walls and communicating received perceptions from outside, these proteins effect and guide reactions within the cell that are critical in putting to use the genetic blueprint.
Talk of genetic control or determinism has been misguided because the gene depends on the perceptions of the protein to read and interpret the environment and instruct life within the cell.
For fifty years it was not properly realised that chromosomes are half DNA and half protein, with many theories developed on a mistaken interpretation that ignored the role of the protein half of the chromosome.
Accordingly, the determining role played in all life by perceptions of the environment communicated to our fifty trillion cells by proteins has been neglected.
Lipton explores and explains the nature of this epigenetic control. The word epigenetic itself only dates from 1995 and many scientists remain ignorant of what it illuminates about the control exercised over the response of genes. Epigenetic control – prompted by the stimulus of perceptions – can use a single gene to provide over 2,000 proteins and can cover for missing genes. This helps explain how the genes of humans, monkeys and rats can be almost the same but through epigenetic processes produce very different animals.
The CDs set out to illuminate a variety of mysteries:
• The science of epigenetics: why biologists must look further than DNA to find out what shapes life – and how that affects all of us;
• Bridging the gap between quantum mechanics and biology – the key to knowing how our cells ‘listen’ to the energy of our thoughts;
• The chemistry of stress and love – how our body, mind and immune systems change with each emotional state;
• Turning the immense power of our subconscious minds into our most valuable tool for health and well-being, and much more. Lipton identifies three categories of perceptions:
• growth perceptions that raise possibilities and generate love;
• toxic perceptions that repel, seek protection and generate fear;
• neutral perceptions that prompt little or no response.
He notes that the response of the adrenal gland when under stress sends blood to the arms and legs and takes it from the viscera, thereby reducing the capacity for growth and immune protection. This explains why lives lived under stressful conditions are weakened and inhibited from developing their full potential as the nourishing role of the viscera is constrained. The last of the three CDs provides substantial guidance in learning to understand and shape the role of the subconscious in determining behaviour. It notes that as much as 95 percent or more of human activity, including many basic life functions, is directed subconsciously. It reminds that the practice of yoga has demonstrated the ability to raise awareness and extend conscious influence into these areas as we better comprehend the perceptions of our trillions of cells.
The new biology helps explain why human beings are best not treated as machines to be mended by surgery, synthetic drugs or genetic engineering. Rather they are organic members of a living community that flourish best when closely attuned to their environment at instinctual, subconscious and conscious levels. It also invites reflection on the ancient Eastern practices of yoga, tai chi and chi gong that appear to have accessed this wisdom through other conceptual pathways several millennia before Western science. – Reg Little
REG LITTLE was an Australian diplomat for over 25 years in Japan, Laos, Bangladesh, the United Nations, Ireland, Hong Kong, China, Switzerland, and the Caribbean, obtaining advanced language qualifications in Japanese and Chinese. His latest book is A Confucian-Daoist Millennium? He can be contacted by email at reglittle@yahoo.com.
Published in New Dawn magazine No. 103 (July-August 2007)
www.newdawnmagazine.com
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Magical Mem-brains?
Cell biologist Bruce Lipton says our lives are not ruled by our genes but by our cell membranes — which respond to our thoughts. Has he found the key to mind–body healing? Listen to his remarkable conversation with veteran science writer Jill Neimark.
The mystic healer Edgar Cayce once said, “Remember that thoughts are things, and as their currents run, they can become crimes or miracles.” Now cell biologist Bruce Lipton, formerly at University of Wisconsin and Stanford medical schools, suggests that Cayce was right. Lipton, author of Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles, contends that our thoughts can activate changes in the activity of the cell membrane, and thus alter our health and life.
Genes, proteins, and hormones all are players at the gates of the cell’s membrane, says Lipton, where consciousness and matter interact. In fact, he states bluntly that by changing our subconscious programming we can influence membrane function, and therefore, “We are not victims of our genes, but masters of our fate.”
Though Lipton may be reaching too far in some of his claims, his book has sparked interest not only from hypnotherapists and energy healers, but from cell biologists working on cancer at places like the University of Illinois at Chicago, where researchers have already published findings consistent with his emphasis on the cell membrane.
— Jill Neimark
JN: Early in your book, you describe a kind of eureka! insight where you realize that the cell membrane is the equivalent of each cell’s brain. Later in your book, you write that interacting with the cell membrane will enable us to change our lives, health, maybe even the activity of our genes. By changing our deepest beliefs, you say, we can change the signals reaching the cell membrane, and thus our entire bodies from the cellular level on up. But before we get into all that, “brain” is a loaded word. What exactly do you mean by brain when you speak of the “magical mem-brain”?
BL: I mean the cell membrane functions as the active intelligence of the cell. At any given time, every cell membrane contains hundreds of thousands of switches, and the behavior of a cell can only be understood by considering the activities of all the switches. So I asked myself, Where does the cascade of activity for a cell start? And it starts at the membrane. In contrast, genes are remarkable molecules, but they are only blueprints that are activated by signals from the cell membrane. Genes are not our fate. Of course, a very small percentage of people actually arrived on this planet with defective genes, and in those rare cases the blueprint itself is inappropriate.
JN: Scientists have long known that genes are influenced by signals from their environment. There is the famous book The Beak of the Finch, which shows us that evolution is happening right before our eyes in just a few generations of birds on the Galapagos Islands. The length of the finch beak changes according to climate change, which affects the type of seeds that grow on the island and the type of beak a finch needs. So haven’t we known for a while that genes are flexible and responsive?
BL: I fully agree and do say in my book that if you’re a leading-edge scientist, this will not be news. But if you ask the average person on the street what controls life, they will tell you genes control life. It was Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick who suggested that genes are both the blueprint for the body’s proteins and that DNA controls its own replication. The first is true but the second is not. Genes are indeed blueprints. But a gene cannot cause or control its own expression. It is not self-regulatory. If genes don’t control life, then what is in charge of life? I say it’s the cell membrane. This is the “brain” equivalent. The membrane is the physical structure that interfaces internal “self” and external “not-self.” It is an interface that dynamically reads and interprets environmental cues and responds by generating signals that enable the cell to function and survive. And science supports this. One of the remarkable studies I mention in my book shows that a cell whose nucleus — with all its genes — is removed will keep functioning for as long as a month! This was a shock to me at rst, since I was trained as a nucleus-centered biologist as surely as Copernicus was trained as an Earth-centered astronomer. It was truly a jolt when I realized the nucleus does not program the cell. On the other hand, if the cell membrane is damaged, the cell will immediately become dysfunctional and, frequently, die very quickly.
JN: You sent me a very interesting article on stem cells from Nature, which you jokingly titled, “It’s the stem cells, stupid!” It describes how the body is like an ecosystem, and the activity of a cell depends on its ecological niche, or where it lives. Stem cells, which are the subject of so much hope and controversy today, are influenced by their environment to become a neuron or a blood cell or any other kind of cell. But all this fascinating new research actually reinforces my view that every molecule of the body is intelligent in its own way. Genes, receptors, stem cells, hormones, all are key players and intelligent. The synergy of our minds and bodies seems more like an Escher painting to me, where the beginning loops around to the end and around again to the beginning. I think you are overemphasizing the membrane. Just out of curiosity, how do you think life began — do you think it began with RNA, DNA, cell membranes, or something else?
BL: I think the membrane was a very important part of the beginning of biological life. If I take fats called phospholipids and shake them up in water, they spontaneously form membranes. And these membranes undergo fission — in other words, they separate into two. They seem to “grow” like cells. Now, lipids are nothing but a container, and that’s not life itself. But once we have a container we can define inside and outside and start to regulate the conditions inside. The ability to regulate our internal domain is required for life, since we must have very specific environmental conditions for certain biochemical responses. For instance, a cell needs to maintain a certain pH and salt balance. I believe that when ancient RNA and other proteins in the primeval soup became encapsulated within membranes, we had a breeding ground for life.
JN: You state that we’re mostly controlled by subconscious programming, and that if we can change this programming, we can actually change the signals the membrane sends into the cell. First, how are you defining subconscious? A lot of work has been done in recent years showing which specific brain structures are involved in states like fear, compassion, or the peaceful cosmic consciousness felt by experienced meditators. Are you using subconscious as a metaphor like Freud did, or are you referring to particular places in the brain?
BL: By conscious mind, I mean the part of the brain that is self-reflective and self-observing, which is governed by the more recently evolved prefrontal cortex of the brain. By subconscious, I mean the part of the brain that is more ancient and doesn’t necessarily require conscious attention. It’s the programmable “hard drive” into which our life experiences are downloaded. The programs are fundamentally hardwired stimulus-response behaviors. This is so automatic that people often refer to the fact that somebody has “pushed their buttons” — leading to an instinctive response.
JN: How does subconscious programming influence the cell membrane?
BL: When I have a thought, my mind sends out signals, in the form of growth factors, hormones, or other chemicals. Thoughts can also initiate rapid oscillations of nerve cells in unison, which creates a kind of field effect that influences other cells and neurons almost instantaneously. Now, what’s interesting, and what I found out in my research at Stanford, is that your brain can veto what’s going on in other places in your body. The signals sent out by your central nervous system actually override the function of cell membrane receptors that are responding to signals in their immediate environment. That means the brain can ultimately control the activity of tissues and organs. I believe that the most powerful information processing by the brain is in the domain of the subconscious and that it can shape tissue responses. These signals can actually influence the membrane to engage selected genes that then actively respond.
When part of the brain senses stress, for example, it initiates a complex signal cascade that directs the body’s cells to launch a protection response, particularly through a stress hormone called cortisol.
Now, let’s look at what happens to, say, a typical liver cell, which has receptors on its membrane that bind to cortisol. When it does this, the membrane sends information to the genes inside the nucleus of the cell to shut down their ability to break down a form of sugar called glycogen. The genes stop doing this, and extra sugar is released into the blood. That sugar is used as energy to counter the stress. This cascade could have been started by a real stress, or by a belief that causes stress even if it is a misperception.
I actually think this system explains how the placebo effect works. And a recent article on the placebo effect on pain in the Journal of Neuroscience confirms this. When researchers used sophisticated imaging of the brain, they found that placebos that were believed to quench pain activated parts of the brain that directly affected opioid membrane receptors. That’s how a “belief” results in the chemical cascade that results in the placebo effect — and in this case, a reduction in pain. For hundreds of years we’ve been discussing the mind–body duality. What I’m proposing is a mechanism for its power.
JN: The description is fascinating and makes sense, but I think our frameworks are very different. I still don’t see a top-down hierarchy from the brain to the membrane. I see us as a web that has no weaver, that weaves itself, and the act of weaving is us. Nobody has yet explained how physical processes give rise to conscious experience in the first place. We don’t know how a stimulus turns into the blueness of blue, the sweetness of sweet, the sentience of anything from a cell to a person. So it seems a leap to say that we now know how conscious experience modulates physical processes. What brought you to this work?
BL: My dad was an immigrant from Russia who came here at age 11, and by the time he was 16, he and his brother owned their rst supermarket in New York City. I was born in 1944, and shortly after that we moved up to Chappaqua, the town where the Clintons now live. My mother told me that at that time there was a
sign at the entrance to the town that read, “No Jews, no blacks, and no dogs.” We were Russian Jews and completely displaced into an environment that disapproved of us. I had one friend down the block, and that was it. That’s why the first time I looked into a microscope, in the second grade, I was so mesmerized. Here was another world with living creatures and it had nothing to do with my own troubled world. I remember spending an entire summer with an old Brownie camera trying to take a picture of cells in my microscope.
JN: How has your belief in belief changed your own life?
BL: My sense of humor has saved me. Years ago, after my divorce, I fell deeply in love with a woman and one day she said, “I think I need some space,” and what seemed like 10 minutes later, she moved in with a cardiac surgeon. I pined away for nearly a year. I’d come home from work and just be alone and have this imaginary conversation with Barbara. I missed her all the time. Then one night, I was alone in my dark living room in the typical cold, grey Wisconsin winter and missing Barbara and I yelled out, “Just leave me alone, Barbara!” And all of a sudden the pure absurd humor of it struck me. I said to myself, “Well, she has left you alone and that’s the problem.” The next time I started missing Barbara I thought about the absurd humor of it, and I started laughing.
Humor has had the same impact on the rest of my life. In a very similar way, I was berating myself one day for not being good enough. And right in the middle of all my negative self-talk it was as if a voice offstage said, “Isn’t there anything more fun to do than this?” It was like I was in a stand-up comedy routine and I laughed out loud then and there. I’d been willingly engaging in “not-good-enough” programming from my subconscious, and there was something different I could do and I did it right then. I went to a movie. And the next time I got into a negative spiral of self-talk, the humor struck me again, and it just transcended my self-talk. That laughter was almost like a switch. Eventually, over time, the negative self-talk just stopped.
JN: What’s the one take-home message from the biology of belief?
BL: That we’re not, as individuals or societies, the pawns of our genes, or stuck in a vicious cycle of violence and competition. You can reinvent your life. The global community can reinvent itself, too. A study last year by two biologists, Robert M. Sapolsky and Lisa J. Share, showed this in a troop of baboons. The aggressive males happened to die out from foraging contaminated meat from a garbage pit. In the wake of their deaths, the females in the troop helped steer the remaining, less aggressive males into a more peaceful, cooperative community. We are all spiritual beings who need love as much as we need food. We can use the intelligence of our own cells to change our lives.
Jill Neimark is a contributing editor of S&H. She is currently finishing a book on love and health with bioethicist Stephen Post.
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