The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles

by Bruce H. Lipton

When I fully understood this relationship I realized that my identity, my “self,” exists in the environment whether my body is here or not.

My identity is a complex signature contained within the vast information that collectively comprises the environment.

Don’t humans possess an inborn inclination to violence? The logic goes: animals are violent, humans are animals, and therefore humans are violent. No! Humans are not “stuck” with an innate, viciously competitive nature any more than we are stuck with genes that make us sick or make us violent. Chimps, who are the closest to humans genetically, offer evidence that violence is not a necessary part of our biology. One species of chimps, the bonobos, create peaceful communities with co-dominant males and females in charge. Unlike other chimps, the community of bonobos operates not with a violence-driven ethic but an ethic that can be described as “make love, not war.” When the chimps in this society become agitated, they don’t engage in bloody fights; they diffuse their divisive energy by having sex.

Human violence is more often associated with the acquisition of material possessions beyond what is necessary for sustenance or the distribution and purchase of drugs to escape the nightmare world we have created or child and spousal abuse passed down generation after generation.

Dr. Harold G. Koenig, Professor of Medicine at Duke University, reviewed over 600 of these research studies and concluded that people who hold more spiritual beliefs fare significantly better in mental health and adapt more quickly to health problems than those who are less spiritual. The benefits to mental health and well-being provided by spirituality have physiological consequences that impact physical health, reduce the risk of disease, and influence the healing outcomes of treatment. Spiritual beliefs have a direct, positive influence on the activity of the immune and endocrine systems that are critical for health maintenance and disease prevention. Spiritual patients exhibit significantly better indicators of immune functions, such as higher white blood cell counts and antibody levels and experience significantly lower infection rates. They also exhibit lower levels of adrenal stress hormones, such as cortisol and epinephrine (secretions that directly repress the activity of the immune system) than nonspiritual patients. (Koenig 2012)

The conscious mind might be blissfully unaware of the subconscious mind’s hyper-vigilant activities, but the body’s cells, tissues, and organs are unfortunately influenced by the imperative’s sustained release of stress hormones. But an individual who truly owns his or her spiritual nature is no longer burdened by the fear of death, a consciousness that creates an unperceived weight on our lives.

Albert Einstein, wrote the following to a family member of his recently deceased friend Michele Besso: “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us . . . know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Einstein is referring to our illusion of time, a concept he elaborated on in his theory of relativity, which holds that there is no single, special “present” moment and that all moments in time are equally real. If there’s no distinction between past, present, and future, then, by definition, death is an illusion. For Einstein, immortality doesn’t mean a perpetual existence in time without end, but instead, existence resides outside of time altogether. (Hoffman and Dukas 1972)

Instead, the return of Dr. Alexander’s memory after the regeneration of his cortical brain tissue suggests that, in the manner that programs are received by radios, memories are not built into the brain’s structure, but are “downloaded” by a functioning brain.