Psycho-neuro immunology – How people think affects not only how they feel but also the neurotransmitter systems in the body – so how you think really does affect your well-being and your health in a direct physical way. Stress from fear and anxiety has been shown to compromise the immune system, while the opposite is also true, in that relaxed social systems enhance the immune system. I have covered this in my Sustainable Living textbook, where stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine and happiness endorphin hormones like oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin work to create balance in our bodies. In the medical world, it is well known that many people can created illness by simply thinking that they ‘should’ be ill. While these psychosomatic illnesses are well documented, curing them is another thing. If the medical treatment does not address the underlying beliefs that created the illness, then drug intervention does not seem to work. This is also applicable to the placebo effect in that beliefs do indeed seem to create and or control disease in our bodies. In a mechanistic paradigm the beliefs affect the chemical makeup and hormonal control within the body. It is also well-documented that a stressful lifestyle induces illness and leads to specific diseases. Incredibly, we have now reached a level of knowledge that can actually begin predicting which diseases you might be prone to, not just from your genetic makeup, but also from the specific kinds of stress’s you incur in your daily life through the lifestyle and behaviors you manifest. This is also where the spiritual meets the scientific.
Cell biologist, Bruce Lipton, looked at broad environmental factors and beliefs held by people to inform him about how health is controlled by these factors on chemical mechanisms within the body. If we only believe in a mechanistic world then we believe that things happen to us because of chemicals interacting with bodily systems. If we, however, can believe in a world that links the higher spiritual realms directly with the physical realm we exist within, then a whole new story unfolds. We often hear about altered states of reality, and until recently for the most part, science had little way to directly ‘measure’ altered states with any conclusive statistical verification.
The sense organ are just sensors that feed information to the brain. It is the brain that analyzes the information and based on experiences and expectations derived from beliefs, builds a picture of what you will experience. What you perceive is literally your reality. Part of the problem is that if consciousness affects what we are observing then, like the physicist Heisenberg’s observations, what we are observing is what we expect to see, and thus what we actually see. This is a complex way of saying, what we see in the world is simply a consensus reality of our beliefs of what we expect to see. Our beliefs therefore become not only our reality, but also our constraints on what reality we live.
Altered States of consciousness used to be a part of life. Indigenous cultures did not obsess about their lives and their meaning within the universe – they knew it. We have been seduced by the scientific paradigm in which anything that cannot be measured is flimsy and woo-woo. As I have said several times, we are now able to measure this altered reality and while it still remains at the edges of mainstream science, there is much scientific evidence that links what our ancestors practiced with the brain, mind, and spirit sciences. John Chavez – Questions for the Lion Tamer – questions about the role of endogenous DMT in our bodies (see post The non-solid universe 3). How much of our bodies can we control directly through thoughts and actions? Once we break free of the seduction of consumerism and the hyper-consumer mindset and the illusion of the lives we lead, we open ourselves to a whole new way of thinking and doing.
We need to question our consensus reality. Most of us do not like the way the world currently operates, yet if keep our thinking confined within the existing paradigm it will not change. We have to let go and if necessary find reasons to do so. If we can accept that life is a deeply convincing illusion (simulation for learning) then we begin to lift the veil and see what it is all about. Who controls our simulation? Our higher selves do. All the religions, and especially in Christianity, we talk about the soul or spirit that exists after death, yet rarely consider that this soul is the essence of who we really are before and after this life we currently live. We like to think of ourselves as chemical and mechanical beings, but new science is showing that even as a ‘solid being’ we are really beings of energy and that solid matter is merely energy focused by consciousness. At this time the word ‘enlightenment’ is commonly heard. I find it amusing when people talk with me and brag about being ‘spiritually enlightened,’ which tells me that they know the idea of what it is but certainly do not currently experience what it is. If you find a need to tell people you are enlightened then you are expressing an ego need to impress people. That puts your ego in control of your behaviors. When you are in ego, you are controllable by outside forces and more than likely you will want to control situations in your life. That means manipulation, and that nearly always comes from a place of need. To address those needs, we use all manner of justifications to control our reality, and inadvertently allow others to control our thinking.
Why do we have so many debilitating needs? There are obvious essential needs like air, water, food, etc., that keep our bodies alive, but so many of our unfulfilled needs are psychological and take up inordinate amounts of our thinking that serve only to make us unhealthy in mind and body. Recognizing the consensus reality is a first step in moving away from it and creating a different consensus that works for us. TBC…….
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