Sunday, April 30, 2006

The Way Toward Health


"Remind yourself constantly that the most favorable solution to a problem is at least as probable as the most unfortunate solution. Remind yourselves also that despite all of your worrying, the spirit of life itself is continually within your experience, and forms your physical body."

Session 5/31, Page 241

Saturday, April 29, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 4

"The conscious mind, the ego, must be momentarily diverted, so that the intuitive self is allowed freedom."

Session 186, Page 251

Friday, April 28, 2006

Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume 1

"Thoughts of such magnificent vigor began to think their own thoughts-and their thoughts thought thoughts. As if in divine astonishment and surprise, All That Is began to listen, and began to respond to these generations of thoughts and dreams, for the thoughts and dreams related to each other also."

Session 883, Page 128

Thursday, April 27, 2006

The Nature of Personal Reality

"This bouncing back of energy into itself is the meaning of the dream state, in which experience that is basically nonphysical is embarked upon, and is then interpreted as a dream through the brain. Your deepest dreams involve nonmaterial comprehensions, however."

Session 668, Page 378

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Nature of Personal Reality

"Your present beliefs structure the memories which will parade before you now."

Session 657, Page 297

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The Nature of Personal Reality

"The most rejuvenating idea of all, and the greatest step to any true illumination, is the realization that your exterior life springs from the invisible world of your reality through your conscious thoughts and beliefs, for then you realize the power of your individuality and identity. You are immediately presented with choices. You can no longer see yourself as a victim of circumstances. Yet the conscious mind arose precisely to open up choices, to free you from a one-road experience, to let you use your creativity to form diversified, varied comprehensions. Let us make a clear distinction here: Your conscious beliefs direct the flow of unconscious processes which bring your ideas into physical reality, so while your thoughts cause your experience, you are not consciously aware of how this takes place."

Session 640, Page 188

Monday, April 24, 2006

The Nature of Personal Reality

"If you have physical problems, concentrate instead upon the healthy portions of your body and the unimpeded functions that you have. In the healthy areas, your beliefs are working for you. As I mentioned, inner sounds are extremely important. Each of the atoms and molecules that compose your body has its own reality in sound values that you do not hear physically."

Session 624, Page 89

Sunday, April 23, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 4

"The expression of joy also makes the ego more resilient, less fearful, less resentful of diverse conditions when they occur. The emotion itself is an automatic signal that unites the conscious and subconscious is shared experience."

Session 152, Page 21

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Vibrational Medicine: The #1 Handbook of Subtle-Energy Therapies, Dr. Richard Gerber

Present day Newtonian models of medical thinking see human physiological and psychological behavior as dependent upon the structural hardware of the brain and body. The heart is a mechanical pump which delivers oxygen and nutrient rich blood to the organ systems of the body and the brain. Doctors think they understand the heart so well that they have invented mechanical replacements to take over the function of the failing natural heart. Many physicians see the primary role of the kidney as an automatic filtration and exchange mechanism. Doctors have mechanically duplicated the kidney's ability to filter out impurities and toxins by creating hemodialysis machines. Although advancements in biomedical technology have given doctors a wider variety of spare parts to replace diseased organs and blood vessels, the greater knowledge of how to reverse or prevent many diseases is still (sadly) lacking.

Mechanical analogies have offered great utility in explaining the behavior of the physical world since the time of Isaac Newton. The Newtonian thinkers saw the universe as an orderly, predictable, yet divine mechanism. It would follow that human beings, like their Creator, would also be constructed in a similar fashion. During Newton's era, it was easier to think of human anatomy in terms of intricate biological machinery. So prevalent was this mechanistic viewpoint that thinkers of Newton's day saw the entire universe as a grand clockwork. Doctors' perspectives on the inner workings of human beings have changed very little in the evolution of scientific thought over the ages. Present day physicians still see the human body as a complex machine. They have merely become more sophisticated in studying biological clockwork mechanisms at the molecular level.

The first Newtonian medical approaches were surgical. Early surgeons worked under the basic premise of the human body as a complex plumbing system. The present day surgeon may be seen as a specialized "bioplumber" who knows how to isolate and remove a "diseased" component and how to reconnect a system so that it may again function properly. More recent developments in drug treatments have provided newer ways to "fix" the failing body. Although different in philosophy, drug therapy is still Newtonian in that it operates from the perspective of the body as a complex biomechanism. Instead of using knives, as in surgery, doctors use drugs to deliver magic bullets to the appropriately targeted tissue of the body. Different drugs are employed to strengthen or destroy the aberrantly functioning cells, depending upon the medical need. Advances in molecular biology have allowed magic bullets to be targeted with improved specificity, in hopes of creating drugs with greater efficacy and less overall toxicity to the body. Although both pharmacologic and surgical approaches have provided significant strides in the diagnosis and treatment of human illness, both subscribe to the Newtonian view of the human body as an intricate clockwork mechanism of physical organs, chemicals, enzymes, and membrane receptors.

The Newtonian mechanistic viewpoint of life is only an approximation of reality. Pharmacologic and surgical approaches are incomplete because they ignore the vital forces which animate and breathe life into the biomachinery of living systems. In a machine, the underlying principle is that the function of the whole can be predicted by the sum of its parts. However humans, unlike machines, are more than the summation of a pile of combined chemicals. All organisms are dependent upon a subtle vital force which creates synergism via a unique structural organization of molecular components. Because of this synergism, the living whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The vital force creates order in living systems and constantly rebuilds and renews its cellular vehicle of expression. When the lifeforce leaves the body at death, the physical mechanism is slowly degraded into a disorganized collection of chemicals. This is one of the unique principles which distinguishes living from nonliving systems, and people from machines.

This animating life force is an energy which is currently unaddressed by today's Newtonian mechanistic thinkers, whose opinions predominate orthodox medicine. These subtle forces are not dealt with nor discussed by physicians because there are no currently acceptable scientific models which explain their existence and function. Science's current inability to deal with the vital forces animating the human frame is partly due to the conflict between Eastern and Western belief systems that occurred many ages ago. This difference in worldviews is actually a deeper sign of the schism between religion and science that took place thousands of years ago. The application of the Newtonian model to explain the workings of the human body was a reflection of scientists' attempts to take human function out of the realm of the divine and into the mechanistic world that they could understand and manipulate. The mechanization of the human body represented a further movement away from religious explanations of the mystical forces that moved humans through life and, just as mysteriously, into sickness and death.

Present day medical views are deeply entrenched within a Newtonian worldview which is hundreds of years old. The Newtonian model had been important in assisting mechanical and theoretical advancements in the era of the Industrial Revolution. However, this model was eventually found to be plagued with many shortcomings as physicists gained more experience with the phenomena of electricity and magnetism. The Newtonian worldview similarly lacks an adequate explanation for the role of the vital forces in living systems. Although vitalism was popular at one time in medicine's past, overconfidence with technology and science has tossed aside such philosophies in favor of mechanistic models of organic life.

The Newtonian view is based upon early models of mechanistic behavior that were derived from observation of nature. Acceleration and gravity were analyzed by Newton from his observations of a falling apple. He applied mathematics to his observations and deduced various laws of motion which described what he had seen. These early Newtonian laws enabled scientists to make predictions on the way mechanical systems would behave. For its time, the Newtonian model was quite advanced. Through his development of calculus, Newton gave scientists a tool for probing the observable universe. This led to new directions in scientific discovery and enabled the creation of many inventions which have since benefited humanity. But Newton's laws dealt primarily with the force of gravity as it acted upon moving bodies in the Earth's gravitational field. His models were unable to explain the behavior of electricity and magnetism in later years. Eventually, new models of the universe had to be invented to accommodate these curious energetic phenomena.

Scientists are again beginning to discover forces that do not fit into the conventional Newtonian model of reality. Although not acknowledged as such by orthodox scientists, the energies of the life force are being studied by various researchers who recognize their vital importance to living systems. Unfortunately, the majority of biological researchers and physicians are still working from a Newtonian model of living systems in which the human body is seen as a cellular mechanism. Researchers do not yet recognize the primary role of vital life energies that animate the body. Although medicine has increased its sophistication by focusing on cellular interactions at the molecular level, physiologic models are based strictly upon the behavior of dense physical matter. These models exclude the contributions of bioenergetic fields which influence cellular patterns of growth and physical expression.

There is a new breed of physician/ healer that is evolving today who seeks to understand the functioning of human beings from the revolutionary view of matter as energy. These spiritual scientists look to the human body as an instructional model by which we can begin to understand, not only ourselves, but also the inner workings of nature and the secrets of the universe. By realizing that humans are beings of energy, one can begin to comprehend new ways of viewing health and illness. This new Einsteinian viewpoint will not only give future doctors a unique perspective on the causes of disease, but also more effective ways by which human beings can be healed of their suffering.

Instead of conventional drug and surgical approaches, vibrational medicine attempts to treat people with pure energy. This theoretical perspective is based upon the understanding that the molecular arrangement of the physical body is actually a complex network of interwoven energy fields. The energetic network, which represents the physical/ cellular framework, is organized and nourished by "subtle" energetic systems which coordinate the life force with the body. There is a hierarchy of subtle energetic systems that coordinate electrophysiologic and hormonal function as well as cellular structure within the physical body. It is primarily from these subtle levels that health and illness originate. These unique energy systems are powerfully affected by our emotions and level of spiritual balance as well as by nutritional and environmental factors. These subtle energies influence cellular patterns of growth in both positive and negative directions.

Conventional medical wisdom is misguided by the notion that one can cure all illness by physically repairing or eliminating abnormal cellular systems. Through drugs and surgery, doctors try to reroute dysfunctional components, such as atheromatous arteries, much as a high¬-tech plumber might try to fix a clogged drain. They use chemicals to increase blood flow past cholesterol blockages, and when that fails, they use a balloon plunger or even a laser beam to blast away the dysfunctional debris. More commonly, a new pipe is carefully stitched in place to bypass the old clogged artery. The key to treating such recurring conditions of disease may not lie in simple, "quick¬-fix" physical solutions, but in the realm of repatterning the organizing energy fields which direct the cellular expression of dysfunction.

There is an aspect of human physiology that physicians have not yet understood and only reluctantly acknowledge. This dimension of human physiology is the domain of Spirit as it relates to the physical body. The spiritual dimension is the energetic basis of all life, because it is the energy of spirit which animates the physical framework. The unseen connection between the physical body and the subtle forces of spirit holds the key to understanding the inner relationship between matter and energy. When scientists begin to comprehend the true relationship between matter and energy, they will come closer to understanding the relationship between humanity and God.

The evolving field of science which will bring humankind to this new level of understanding is vibrational medicine. Vibrational medicine attempts to heal illness and transform human consciousness by working with the energetic patterns that guide the physical expression of life. We will eventually discover that consciousness itself is a kind of energy that is integrally related to the cellular expression of the physical body. As such, consciousness participates in the continuous creation of either health or illness. Vibrational medicine, as the science of the future, may contain clues which will help doctors solve the mystery of why some people remain healthy while others are continually in a state of dis ease.

When physicians come to better understand the deeper interrelationship between body, mind, and spirit, and the natural laws guiding their manifestation upon our planet, then there will be a truly holistic medicine. We are indeed a microcosm within a macrocosm, as oriental philosophers have long understood. The principles seen within the microcosm often reflect larger principles governing the behavior of the macrocosm. Patterns of order within nature repeat themselves on many hierarchical levels. If one can make sense of universal laws as they are expressed in matter at the micro level, then it becomes easier to make sense of the cosmic whole. When humans truly understand the physical and energetic structures of their minds and bodies, they will be that much closer to comprehending the nature of the universe and the forces of creation which link them with God.

The Biology of Belief, by Dr. Bruce Lipton

[The only reason I'm posting this on what is normally a Jane Roberts/Seth quote and image blog, is that this is the first time I have come across a book that explains the science behind spirituality to me. I was told in a channeling session one time years and years ago that if scientists, in general, and Steven Hawking specifically would allow some spirituality into their scientific work, that he would close the gap from 98% "correctness to near 100%. Prior to this book, the last book I came across that allowed spirit into science, (medicine actually), was Dr. Richard Gerber's book called, "Vibrational Medicine."..]
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Download mp3's of the Biology of Belief lecture by Dr. Bruce Lipton

CHAPTER 1

Lessons From The Petri Dish: In Praise of Smart Cells and Smart Students
Trouble in Paradise

On my second day in the Caribbean, as I stood in front of over a hundred visibly on-edge medical students, I suddenly realized that not everyone viewed the island as a laid-back refuge. For these nervous students, Montserrat was not a peaceful escape but a last-ditch chance to realize their dreams of becoming doctors.

My class was geographically homogenous, mostly American students from the East Coast, but there were all races and ages, including a 67-year-old retiree who was anxious to do more with his life. Their backgrounds were equally varied—former elementary school teachers, accountants, musicians, a nun and even a drug smuggler.

Despite all the differences, the students shared two characteristics. One, they had failed to succeed in the highly competitive selection process that filled the limited number of positions in American medical schools. Two, they were “strivers” intent on becoming doctors—they were not about to be denied the opportunity to prove their qualifications. Most had spent their life savings or indentured themselves to cover the tuition and extra costs of living out of the country. Many found themselves completely alone for the first time in their lives, having left their families and friends and loved ones behind. They put up with the most intolerable living conditions on that campus. Yet with all the drawbacks and the odds stacked against them, they were never deterred from their quest for a medical degree.

Well, at least that was true up to the time of our first class together. Prior to my arrival, the students had had three different histology/cell biology professors. The first lecturer left the students in the lurch when he responded to some personal issue by bolting from the island three weeks into the semester. In short order, the school found a suitable replacement who tried to pick up the pieces; unfortunately he bailed three weeks later because he got sick. For the preceding two weeks a faculty member, responsible for another field of study, had been reading chapters out of a textbook to the class. This obviously bored the students to death, but the school was fulfilling a directive to provide a specified number of lecture hours for the course. Academic prerequisites set by American medical examiners have to be met in order for the school’s graduates to practice in the States.

For the fourth time that semester, the weary students listened to a new professor. I briefed them on my background and my expectations for the course. I made it clear that even though we were in a foreign country, I was not going to expect any less from them than what was expected from my Wisconsin students. Nor should they want me to, because to be certified, all doctors have to pass the same Medical Boards, no matter where they go to medical school. Then I pulled a sheaf of exams out of my briefcase and told the students that I was giving them a self-assessment quiz. The middle of the semester had just passed and I expected them to be familiar with half of the required course material. The test I handed out on that first day of the course consisted of 20 questions taken directly from the University of Wisconsin histology midterm exam.

The classroom was deadly silent for the first ten minutes of the testing period. Then nervous fidgeting felled the students one by one, faster than the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. By the time the twenty minutes allotted for the quiz were over, wide-eyed panic had gripped the class. When I said, “Stop,” the pent-up nervous anxiety erupted into the din of a hundred excited conversations. I quieted the class down and began to read them the answers. The first five or six answers were met with subdued sighs. After I reached the tenth question, each subsequent answer was followed by agonizing groans. The highest score in the class was ten correct answers, followed by several students who answered seven correctly; with guesswork, most of the rest scored at least one or two correct answers.

When I looked up at the class, I was greeted with frozen, shell-shocked faces. The “strivers” found themselves behind the big eight ball. With more than half a semester behind them, they had to start the course all over again. A dark gloom overcame the students, most of whom were already treading water in their other, very demanding medical school courses. Within moments, their gloom had turned into quiet despair. In profound silence, I looked out over the students and they looked back at me. I experienced an internal ache—the class collectively resembled one of those Greenpeace pictures of wide-eyed baby seals just before heartless fur traders club them to death.

My heart welled. Perhaps the salt air and sweet scents had already made me more magnanimous. In any case, unexpectedly, I found myself announcing that I would make it my personal commitment to see that every student was fully prepared for the final exam, if they would commit to providing matching efforts. When they realized I was truly committed to their success, I could see the lights flash on in their previously panicked eyes.

Feeling like an embattled coach revving up the team for the Big Game, I told them I thought they were every bit as intelligent as the students I taught in the States. I told them I believed their State-side peers were simply more proficient at rote memorization, the quality that enabled them to score better in the medical college admissions tests. I also tried very hard to convince them that histology and cell biology are not intellectually difficult courses. I explained that in all of its elegance, nature employs very simple operating principles. Rather than just memorizing facts and figures, I promised they were going to gain an understanding of cells because I would present simple principles on top of simple principles. I offered to provide additional night lectures, which would tax their stamina after their already long lecture and lab-packed days. The students were pumped up after my ten-minute pep talk. When the period ended they bolted from that classroom snorting fire, determined they would not be beaten by the system.

After the students left, the enormity of the commitment I had made sank in. I started having doubts. I knew that a significant number of the students were truly unqualified to be attending medical school. Many others were capable students whose backgrounds had not prepared them for the challenge. I was afraid that my island idyll would degenerate into a frenetic, time-consuming academic scrimmage that would end in failure for my students and for me as their teacher. I started thinking about my job at Wisconsin, and suddenly it was beginning to look easy. At Wisconsin, I gave only eight lectures out of the approximately 50 that made up the histology/cell biology course. There were five members of the Anatomy Department who shared the lecturing load. Of course I was responsible for the material in all of the lectures because I was involved in their accompanying laboratory sessions. I was supposed to be available to answer all course-related questions asked by the students. But knowing the material and presenting lectures on the material are not the same thing!

I had a three-day weekend to wrestle with the situation I had created for myself. Had I faced a crisis such as this back home, my type A personality would have had me swinging from the proverbial chandeliers. Interestingly, as I sat by the pool, watching the sun set into the Caribbean, the potential angst simply morphed into an exciting adventure. I began to get excited about the fact that for the first time in my teaching career, I was solely responsible for this major course and free from having to conform to the style and content restrictions of team-taught programs.
Cells As Miniature Humans

As it turned out, that histology course was the most exhilarating and intellectually profound period of my academic career. Free to teach the course the way I wanted to teach it, I ventured into a new way of covering the material, an approach that had been roiling in my brain for several years. I had been fascinated by the idea that considering cells as “miniature humans” would make it easier to understand their physiology and behavior. As I contemplated a new structure for the course, I got excited. The idea of overlapping cell and human biology rekindled the inspiration for science I had felt as a child. I still experienced that enthusiasm in my research laboratory, though not when I was mired in the administrative details of being a tenured faculty member, including endless meetings and what for me were tortuous faculty parties.

I was prone to thinking of cells as human-like because, after years behind a microscope, I had become humbled by the complexity and power of what at first appear to be anatomically simple, moving blobs in a Petri dish. In school you may learned the basic components of a cell: the nucleus that contains genetic material, the energy-producing mitochondria, the protective membrane at the outside rim, and the cytoplasm in between. But within these anatomically simple-looking cells is a complex world; these smart cells employ technologies that scientists have yet to fully fathom.

The notion of cells as miniature humans that I was mulling over would be considered heresy by most biologists. Trying to explain the nature of anything not human by relating it to human behavior is called anthropomorphism. “True” scientists consider anthropomorphism to be something of a mortal sin and ostracize scientists who knowingly employ it in their work.

However, I believed though that I was breaking out of orthodoxy for a good reason. Biologists try to gain scientific understanding by observing nature and conjuring up a hypothesis of how things work. Then they design experiments to test their ideas. By necessity, deriving the hypothesis and designing the experiments require the scientist to “think” how a cell or another living organism carries out its life. Applying these “human” solutions, i.e. a human view of resolving biology’s mysteries, automatically makes these scientists guilty of anthropomorphizing. No matter how you cut it, biological science is based to some degree on humanizing the subject matter.

Actually, I believe that the unwritten ban on anthropomorphism is an outmoded remnant of the Dark Ages when religious authorities denied any direct relationship existed between humans and any of God’s other creations. While I can see the value of the concept when people try to anthropomorphize a light bulb, a radio or a pocketknife, I do not see it as a valid criticism when it is applied to living organisms. Human beings are multicellular organisms—we must inherently share basic behavioral patterns with our own cells.

However, I know that it takes a shift in perception to acknowledge that parallel. Historically, our Judeo-Christian beliefs have led us to think that we are the intelligent creatures who were created in a separate and distinct process from all other plants and animals. This view has us looking down our noses at lesser creatures as non-intelligent life forms, especially those organisms on the lower evolutionary rungs of life.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. When we observe other humans as individual entities or see ourselves in the mirror as an individual organism, in one sense, we are correct, at least from the perspective of our level of observation. However, if I brought you down to the size of an individual cell so you could see your body from that perspective, it would offer a whole new view of the world. When you looked back at yourself from that perspective you would not see yourself as a single entity. You would see yourself as a bustling community of more than 50 trillion individual cells.

As I toyed with these ideas for my Histology class, the picture that kept recurring in my mind was a chart from an encyclopedia I had used as a child. Under the section on humans, there was an illustration with seven transparent plastic pages, each printed with an identical, overlapping outline of the human body. On the first page the outline was filled in with an image of a naked man. Turning the first page was like peeling off his skin and revealing his musculature, the image within the outline on the second page. When I turned the second page, the overlapping images of the remaining pages revealed a vivid dissection of the body. Flipping through the pages I could see in turn, the skeleton, the brain and nerves, blood vessels and organ systems.

For my Caribbean course, I mentally updated those transparencies with several additional, overlapping pages, each illustrated with cellular structures. Most of the cell’s structures are referred to as organelles, which are its “miniature organs” suspended within a jelly-like cytoplasm. Organelles are the functional equivalents of the tissues and organs of our own bodies. They include the nucleus, which is the largest organelle, the mitochondria, the Golgi body and vacuoles. The traditional way of teaching the course is to deal first with these cellular structures, then move on to the tissues and organs of the human body. Instead, I integrated the two parts of the course to reflect the overlapping nature of humans and cells.

I taught my students that the biochemical mechanisms employed by cellular organelle systems are essentially the same mechanisms employed by our human organ systems. Even though humans are made up of trillions of cells, I stressed that there is not one “new” function in our bodies that is not already expressed in the single cell. Each eukaryote (nucleus-containing cell) possesses the functional equivalent of our nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, muscle and skeletal systems, circulatory system, integument (skin), reproductive system and even a primitive immune system, which utilizes a family of antibody-like “ubiquitin” proteins.

I also made it clear to my students that each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture. As I knew intuitively when I was a child, these smart cells are imbued with intent and purpose; they actively seek environments that support their survival while simultaneously avoiding toxic or hostile ones. Like humans, single cells analyze thousands of stimuli from the microenvironment they inhabit. Through the analysis of this data, cells select appropriate behavioral responses to ensure their survival.

Single cells are also capable of learning through these environmental experiences and are able to create cellular memories, which they pass on to their offspring. For example, when a measles virus infects a child, an immature immune cell is called in to create a protective protein antibody against that virus. In the process, the cell must create a new gene to serve as a blueprint in manufacturing the measles antibody protein.

The first step in generating a specific measles antibody gene occurs in the nuclei of immature immune cells. Among their genes are a very large number of DNA segments that encode uniquely shaped snippets of proteins. By randomly assembling and recombining these DNA segments, immune cells create a vast array of different genes, each one providing for a uniquely shaped antibody protein. When an immature immune cell produces an antibody protein that is a “close” physical complement to the invading measles virus, that cell will be activated.

Activated cells employ an amazing mechanism called affinity maturation that enables the cell to perfectly “adjust” the final shape of its antibody protein, so that it will become a perfect complement to the invading measles virus. [Li, et al, 2003; Adams, et al, 2003] Using a process called somatic hypermutation, activated immune cells makes hundreds of copies of their original antibody gene. However, each new version of the gene is slightly mutated so that it will encode a slightly different shaped antibody protein. The cell selects the variant gene that makes the best fitting antibody. This selected version of the gene also goes through repeated rounds of somatic hypermutation to further sculpt the shape of the antibody to become a “perfect” physical complement of the measles virus. [Wu, et al, 2003; Blanden and Steele 1998; Diaz and Casali 2002; Gearhart 2002]

When the sculptured antibody locks on to the virus, it inactivates the invader and marks it for destruction, thus protecting the child from the ravages of measles. The cells retain the genetic “memory” of this antibody, so that in the future if the individual is again exposed to measles, the cells can immediately launch a protective immune response. The new antibody gene can also be passed on to all the cell’s progeny when it divides. In this process, not only did the cell “learn” about the measles virus, it also created a “memory” that will be inherited and propagated by its daughter cells. This amazing feat of genetic engineering is profoundly important because it represents an inherent “intelligence” mechanism by which cells evolve. [Steele, et al, 1998]
The Origins of Life: Smart Cells Get Smarter

It shouldn’t be surprising that cells are so smart. Single-celled organisms were the first life forms on this planet. Fossil evidence reveals they were here within 600 million years after the Earth was first formed. For the next 2.75 billion years of the Earth’s history, only free-living, single-celled organisms—bacteria, algae and amoeba-like protozoans, populated the world.

Around 750 million years ago, these smart cells figured out how to get smarter when the first multicellular organisms (plants and animals) appeared. Multicellular life forms were initially loose communities or “colonies,” of single-celled organisms. At first, cellular communities consisted of tens and hundreds of cells. But the evolutionary advantage of living in a community soon led to organizations comprised of millions, billions and even trillions of socially interactive single cells. Though each individual cell is of microscopic dimensions, the size of multicellular communities may range from the barely visible to the monolithic. Biologists have classified these organized communities based on their structure as observed by the human eye. While the cellular communities appear as single entities to the naked eye—a mouse, a dog, a human—they are, in fact, highly organized associations of millions and trillions of cells.

The evolutionary push for ever-bigger communities is simply a reflection of the biological imperative to survive. The more awareness an organism has of its environment, the better its chances for survival. When cells band together they increase their awareness exponentially. If each cell were to be arbitrarily assigned an awareness value of X, then each colonial organism would collectively have a potential awareness value of at least X times the number of cells in the colony.

In order to survive at such high densities, the cells created structured environments. These sophisticated communities subdivided the workload with more precision and effectiveness than the ever-changing organizational charts that are a fact of life in big corporations. It proved more efficient for the community to have individual cells assigned to specialized tasks. In the development of animals and plants, cells begin to acquire these specialized functions in the embryo. A process of cytological specialization enables the cells to form the specific tissues and organs of the body. Over time, this pattern of differentiation, i.e. the distribution of the workload among the members of the community, became embedded in the genes of every cell in the community, significantly increasing the organism’s efficiency and its ability to survive.

In larger organisms, for example, only a small percentage of cells are concerned with reading and responding to environmental stimuli. That is the role of groups of specialized cells that form the tissues and organs of the nervous system. The function of the nervous system is to perceive the environment and coordinate the behavior of all the other cells in the vast cellular community.

Division of labor among the cells in the community offered an additional survival advantage. The efficiency it offered enabled more cells to live on less. Consider the old adage, “Two can live as cheaply as one.” Or consider the construction costs of building a two-bedroom, single home versus the cost of building a two-bedroom apartment in a hundred-apartment complex. To survive, each cell is required to expend a certain amount of energy. The amount of energy conserved by individuals living in a community contributes to both an increased survival advantage and a better quality of life.

In American capitalism, Henry Ford saw the tactical advantage in the differentiated form of communal effort and employed it in creating his assembly line system of manufacturing cars. Before Ford, a small team of multi-skilled workers would require a week or two to build a single automobile. Ford organized his shop so that every worker was responsible for only one specialized job. He stationed a large number of these differentiated workers along a single row, the assembly line, and passed the developing car from one specialist to the next. The efficiency of job specialization enabled Ford to produce a new automobile in 90 minutes rather than weeks.

Unfortunately, we conveniently “forgot” about the cooperation necessary for evolution when Charles Darwin emphasized a radically different theory about the emergence of life. He concluded 150 years ago that living organisms are perpetually embroiled in a “struggle for existence.” For Darwin, struggle and violence are not only a part of animal (human) nature, but the principal “forces” behind evolutionary advancement. In the final chapter of The Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection, Or, The Preservation Of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life. Darwin wrote of an inevitable “struggle for life” and that evolution was driven by “the war of nature, from famine and death.” Couple that with Darwin’s notion that evolution is random and you have a world, as poetically described by Tennyson that can be characterized as “red in tooth and claw,” a series of meaningless, bloody battles for survival.

Evolution Without the Bloody Claws

Though Darwin is by far the most famous evolutionist, the first scientist to establish evolution as a scientific fact was the distinguished French biologist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. [Lamarck 1809, 1914, 1963] Even Ernst Mayr, the leading architect of “neo Darwinism,” a modernization of Darwin’s theory that incorporates twentieth-century molecular genetics, concedes that Lamarck was the pioneer. In his classic 1970 book Evolution and the Diversity of Life, [Mayer 1976, page 227] Mayr wrote: “It seems to me Lamarck has a much better claim to be designated the ‘founder of the theory of evolution,’ as indeed he has by several French historians…he was the first author to devote an entire book primarily to the presentation of a theory of organic evolution. He was the first to present the entire system of animals as a product of evolution.”

Not only did Lamarck present his theory fifty years before Darwin, he offered a much less harsh theory of the mechanisms of evolution. Lamarck’s theory suggested that evolution was based on an “instructive,” cooperative interaction among organisms and their environment that enables life forms to survive and evolve in a dynamic world. His notion was that organisms acquire and pass on adaptations necessary for their survival in a changing environment. Interestingly, Lamarck’s hypothesis about the mechanisms of evolution conform to modern cell biologists’ understanding of how immune systems adapt to their environment as described above.

Lamarck’s theory was an early target of the Church. The notion that humans evolved from lower life forms was denounced as heresy. Lamarck was also scorned by his fellow scientists, who, as creationists, ridiculed his theories. A German developmental biologist, August Weismann, helped propel Lamarck into obscurity when he tried to test Lamarck’s theory that organisms pass on survival-oriented traits acquired through their interaction with the environment. In one of Weismann’s experiments, he cut off the tails of male and female mice and mated them. Weismann argued that if Lamarck’s theory were correct, the parents should pass on their tail-less state to future generations. The first generation of mice was born with tails. Weismann repeated the experiment for 21 more generations, but not one tail-less mouse was born, leading Weismann to conclude that Lamarck’s notion of inheritance was wrong.

But Weismann’s experiment was not a true test of Lamarck’s theory. Lamarck suggested that such evolutionary changes could take “immense periods of time,” according to biographer L. J. Jordanova. In 1984, Jordanova wrote that Lamarck’s theory “rested on” a number of “propositions” including: “…the laws governing living things have produced increasingly complex forms over immense periods of time.” [Jordanova 1984, page 71] Weismann’s five-year experiment was clearly not long enough to test the theory. An even more fundamental flaw in his experiment is that Lamarck never argued that every change an organism experienced would take hold. Lamarck said organisms hang on to traits (like tails) when they need them to survive. Although Weismann didn’t think the mice needed their tails, no one asked the mice if they thought their tails were necessary for survival!

Despite its obvious flaws, the study of the tail-less mice helped destroy Lamarck’s reputation. In fact, Lamarck has been mostly ignored or vilified. Cornell University evolutionist C.H. Waddington, wrote in The Evolution of An Evolutionist [Waddington 1975, page 38]: “Lamarck is the only major figure in the history of biology whose name has become to all intents and purposes, a term of abuse. Most scientists’ contributions are fated to be outgrown, but very few authors have written works, which, two centuries later, are still rejected with indignation so intense that the skeptic may suspect something akin to an uneasy conscience. In point of fact, Lamarck has, I think, been somewhat unfairly judged.”

Waddington wrote those prescient words thirty years ago. Today Lamarck’s theories are being reevaluated under the weight of a body of new science that suggests that the oft-denounced biologist was not entirely wrong and the oft-lauded Darwin not entirely correct. The title of an article in the prestigious journal Science in 2000 was one sign of glasnost: “Was Lamarck Just a Little Bit Right?” [Balter 2000]

One reason some scientists are taking another look at Lamarck is that evolutionists are reminding us of the invaluable role cooperation plays in sustaining life in the biosphere. Scientists have long noted symbiotic relationships in nature. In Darwin’s Blind Spot [Ryan 2002, page 16], British physician Frank Ryan chronicles a number of such relationships, including a yellow shrimp that gathers food while its partner gobi fish protects it from predators, and a species of hermit crab that carries a pink anemone on top of its shell. “Fish and octopuses like to feed on hermit crabs, but when they approach this species, the anemone shoots out its brilliantly colored tentacles, with their microscopic batteries of poisoned darts, and sting the potential predator, encouraging it to look elsewhere for its meal.” The warrior anemone gets something out of the relationship as well because it eats the crab’s leftover food.

But today’s understanding of cooperation in nature goes much deeper than the easily observable ones. “Biologists are becoming increasingly aware that animals have coevolved, and continue to coexist, with diverse assemblages of microorganisms that are required for normal health and development,” according to a recent article in Science called “We Get By With A Little Help From Our (Little) Friends.” [Ruby et al, 2004] The study of these relationships is now a rapidly growing field called “Systems Biology.”

Ironically, in recent decades, we have been taught to wage war against microorganisms with everything from anti-bacterial 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.

Recent advances in genome science have revealed an additional mechanism of cooperation among species. Living organisms, it turns out, actually integrate their cellular communities by sharing their genes. It had been thought that genes are passed on only to the progeny of an individual organism through reproduction. Now scientists realize that genes are shared not only among the individual members of a species, but also among members of different species. The sharing of genetic information via gene transfer speeds up evolution since organisms can acquire “learned” experiences from other organisms. [Nitz et al, 2004; Pennisi 2004; Boucher et al, 2003; Dutta, et al, 2002; Gogarten 2003] Given this sharing of genes, organisms can no longer be seen as disconnected entities; there is no wall between species. Daniel Drell, manager of the Department of Energy’s microbial genome program told Science in (2001 294:1634): “…we can no longer comfortably say what is a species anymore.” [Pennisi 2001]

This sharing of information is not an accident. It is nature’s method of enhancing the survival of the biosphere. As discussed earlier, genes are physical memories of an organism’s learned experiences. The recently recognized exchange of genes among individuals disperses those memories, thereby influencing the survival of all organisms that make up the community of life. 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. [Heritage 2004; Netherwood, et al, 2004] Similarly, gene transfer among genetically engineered agricultural crops and surrounding native species has given rise to highly resistant species deemed superweeds. [Milius 2003; Haygood, et al, 2003; Desplanque, et al, 2002; Spencer and Snow 2000] Genetic engineers have never taken the reality of gene transfer into consideration when they have introduced genetically modified organisms into the environment. We are now beginning to experience the dire consequences of this oversight as their engineered genes are spreading among, and altering other organisms in the environment. [Watrud, et al, 2004]

Genetic evolutionists warn that if we fail to apply the lessons of our shared genetic destiny, which should be teaching us the importance of cooperation among all species, we threaten human existence. We need to move beyond Darwinian theory, which stresses the importance of individuals, to one that stresses the importance of the community. British scientist Timothy Lenton provides evidence that evolution is more dependent on the interaction among species than it is on the interaction of individuals within a species. Evolution becomes a matter of the survival of the fittest groups rather than the survival of the fittest individuals. In a 1998 article in Nature, Lenton wrote that rather than focusing on individuals and their role in evolution, “…We must consider the totality of organisms and their material environment to fully understand which traits come to persist and dominate.” [Lenton 1998]

Lenton subscribes to James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis that holds that the Earth and all of its species constitute one interactive, living organism. Those who endorse the hypothesis argue that tampering with the balance of that super-organism called Gaia, whether it be by destroying the rainforest, depleting the ozone layer or altering organisms through genetic engineering, can threaten its survival and consequently ours.

Recent studies funded by Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council provide support for those concerns. [Thomas, et al, 2004; Stevens, et al, 2004] While there have been five mass extinctions in the history of our planet, they are all presumed to have been caused by extraterrestrial events, such as a comet smashing to earth. One of the new studies concludes that the “natural world is experiencing the sixth, major extinction event in its history.” [Lovell 2004] This time though, the cause of the extinctions is not extra terrestrial. According to one of the study’s authors, Jeremy Thomas: “As far as we can tell this one is caused by one animal organism—man.”
Walking the Talk of Cells

In my years of teaching in medical school, I had come to realize that medical students in an academic setting are more competitive and backbiting than a truckload of lawyers. They live out the Darwinian struggle in their quest to be one of the “fittest” who stagger to graduation after four grueling years in medical school. The single-minded pursuit of stellar medical school grades, without regard for the students surrounding you, no doubt follows a Darwinian model, but it always seemed to me an ironic pursuit for those who are striving to become compassionate healers.

But my stereotypes about medical students toppled during my stay on the island. After my call to arms, my class of misfits stopped acting like conventional medical students; they dropped their survival of the fittest mentality and amalgamated into a single force, a team that helped them survive the semester. The stronger students helped the weaker and in so doing, all became stronger. Their harmony was both surprising and beautiful to observe.

In the end, there was a bonus: a happy Hollywood ending. For their final exam, I gave my students exactly the same test the students in Wisconsin had to pass. There was virtually no difference in the performance of these “rejects” and their “elitist” counterparts in the States. Many students later reported that when they went home and met with their peers who attended American medical schools, they proudly found themselves more proficient in their understanding of the principles governing the life of cells and organisms.

I was of course thrilled that my students had pulled off an academic miracle. But it was years before I understood how they were able to do it. At the time, I thought the format of the course was key, and I still believe that overlapping human and cell biology is a better way to present the course material. But now that I’ve ventured into what I told you would be considered by some as wacky Dr. Dolittle territory, I think a good part of the reason for my students’ success was that they eschewed the behavior of their counterparts in the United States. Instead of mirroring smart American medical students, they mirrored the behavior of smart cells, banding together to become even smarter. I didn’t tell my students to pattern their lives after the lives of the cells, because I was still steeped in traditional, scientific training. But I like to think that they went in that direction intuitively, after listening to my praise of cells’ ability to group together cooperatively to form more complex and highly successful organisms.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I now believe that another reason for my students’ success was that I did not stop at praising cells. I praised the students as well. They needed to hear they were first-rate students in order to believe that they could perform as first-rate students. As I will detail in future chapters, so many of us are leading limited lives not because we have to, but because we THINK we have to. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Suffice it to say that after four months in paradise, teaching in a way that clarified my thinking about cells and the lessons they provide to humans, I was well on my way to an understanding of the New Biology, which leaves in the dust the defeatism of genetic and parental programming as well as survival-of-the-fittest Darwinism.

The Early Sessions, Book 2

"Emotional power behind your expectations powers your expectations into physical reality."

Session 76, Page 278

Friday, April 21, 2006

Seth Speaks

"The physical body is the materialization of the astral form."

Session 530, Page 89

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Exercise - Discover your conscious beliefs part 2

Give us a moment. Since your conscious beliefs determine those unconscious functions that bring about your personal experience, your first step is to enlarge those beliefs.

The concepts given in this book should have already helped you do that to some extent. Within your own subjective reality are traces of all those roads not taken, those abilities not used. You may think of yourself as primarily a parent, or mainly in terms of your job or profession. As much as possible, for now, forget the normal familiar light in which you see yourself, and consider your identity.

Write down or enumerate all of your known physical and mental abilities, whether they have been developed or not, and all of those inclinations toward particular activities - even those only remotely considered - as well as those that have come at all vividly to mind.

These represent the varied probable characteristics from which you have chosen to activate your particular main interest. Out of these attributes, therefore, you chose what you now consider to be your hard-bed reality.

Any of those directions, followed, can enrich the existence that you know, and in turn open up other probabilities that now escape you. The main image of yourself that you have held has, to a large extent, also closed your mind to these other probable interests and identifications. If you think in terms of a multidimensional self, then you win realize that you have many more avenues open to expression and fulfillment than you have been using. These probable achievements will lie latent unless you consciously decide to bring them into being.

Whatever talents you sense you have can be developed only if you determine to do so. The simple act of decision will then activate the unconscious mechanisms. You, as a personality, regardless of your health, wealth or circumstances, have a rich variety of probable experience from which to choose. Consciously you must realize this and seize the direction for your own life. Even if you say, 'I will go along with all life offers, ' you are making a conscious decision. If you say, 'I am powerless to direct my life,' you are also making a deliberate choice - and in that case a limiting one.

The path of experience is nowhere settled. There is no one road that does not have avenues to another. There are deep veins of probable actions ever available to you at any given time. Your imagination can be of great value, allowing you to open yourself to such courses; you can then use it to help you bring these into being.

If you are poor, you chose that reality from many probable ones that did not involve poverty - and that are still open. If you chose illness, again there is a probable reality ready for initiation in which you choose health. If you are lonely there are probable friends you refused to meet in the past, but who are readily available.

In your mind, therefore, see those probable abilities or events taking place. As you do, the intensity of your desire brings them into your experience. There are no boundaries, again, set about the self. There are literally many other probable yous. You can draw upon their abilities, as in their own way they call upon your own, for you are all intimately connected.


The Nature of Personal Reality
Session 655, Page 287

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

The Nature of Personal Reality

"All other emotions are based on love, and in one way or another they relate to it, and all are methods of returning to it and expanding its capabilities."

Session 674, Page 412

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Seth Speaks

"There are no real divisions between the perceiver and the thing seemingly perceived... Then the creator of the thought perceives the object, and he does not understand the connection between him and this seemingly separate thing."

Session 527, Page 79

Exercise - Discover your conscious beliefs part 1

It is true that habitual thoughts of love, optimism and self acceptance are better for you than their opposites; but again, your beliefs about yourself will automatically attract thoughts that are consistent with your ideas. There is as much natural aggressiveness in love as there is in hate. Hate is a distortion of such a normal force, the result of your beliefs.

As in the material that Ruburt received ahead of time for his own use, natural aggression is cleansing and highly creative - the thrust behind all emotions.

There are two ways to get at your own conscious beliefs. The most direct is to have a series of talks with yourself. Write down your beliefs in a variety of areas, and you will find that you believe different things at different times. Often there will be contradictions readily apparent. These represent opposing beliefs that regulate your emotions, your bodily condition and your physical experience. Examine the conflicts. Invisible beliefs will appear that unite those seemingly diverse attitudes. Invisible beliefs are simply those of which you are fully aware but prefer to ignore, because they represent areas of strife which you have not been willing to handle thus far. They are quite available once you are determined to examine the complete contents of your conscious mind.

If this strikes you as too intellectual a method, then you can also work backward from your emotions to your beliefs. In any case, regardless of which method you choose, one will lead you to the other. Both approaches require honesty with yourself, and a firm encounter with the mental, psychic and emotional aspects of your current reality.

As with Andrea, you must accept the validity of your feelings while realizing that they are about certain issues or conditions, and are not necessarily factual statements of your reality. 'I feel that I am a poor mother,' or, 'I feel that I am a failure.' These are emotional statements and should be accepted as such. You are to understand, however, that while the feelings have their own integrity as emotions, they may not be statements of fact. You might be an excellent mother while feeling that you are very inadequate. You may be most successful in reaching your goals while still thinking yourself a failure.

By recognizing these differences and honestly following the feelings through - in other words, by riding the emotions - you will be led to the beliefs behind them. A series of self-revelations will inevitably result, each leading you to further creative psychological activity. At each stage you will be closer to the reality of your experience than you have ever been.

The conscious mind will benefit greatly as it becomes more and more aware of its directing influence upon events. It will no longer fear the emotions, or the body, as threatening or unpredictable, but sense the greater unity in which it is involved.

The emotions will not feel like stepchildren, with only the best dressed being admitted. They will not need to cry out for expression, for they will be fully admitted as members of the family of the self. Now, again, some of you will say that your trouble is that you are too emotional, too sensitive. You may believe that you are too easily swayed. In such cases you are afraid of your emotions. You think their powers so strong that all reason can be drowned within them.

No matter how open it may seem that you are, you will nevertheless accept certain emotions that you think of as safe, and ignore others, or stop them at particular points, because you are afraid of following them further. This behavior will follow your beliefs, of course. If you are over forty, for instance, you may tell yourself that age is meaningless, that you enjoy much younger people, that you think young thoughts. You will accept only those emotions that appear to be in keeping with your ideas of youth. You become concerned with the problems of the young. You accept what you think of as optimistic health giving thoughts.

The Nature of Personal Reality
Session 644, Page 213

Monday, April 17, 2006

The Nature of the Psyche

"If you do not like your own physical experience, you can also change to another, more beneficial station - but only if you recognize the fact that you are the producer."

Session 756, Page 21

Sunday, April 16, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 2

"The ego and the outer senses reinforce the belief in a closed system, and therefore close it. The inner senses, when the physical body is relaxed, will carry you through the imaginary boundaries, but a conscious focus upon the boundaries to be passed through will tend to reinforce them. Concentrate upon the goal rather than the means of attaining it, and you will attain it."

Session 78, Page 290

Saturday, April 15, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 7

"There are several major root assumptions and many minor ones.

One: Energy and action are basically the same, although neither must necessarily apply to physical motion.

Two: All objects have their origin basically in mental action. Mental action is directed psychic energy.

Three: Permanence is not a matter of time. Existence has value in terms of intensities.

Four: Objects - this is four - are blocks of energy perceived in a highly specialized manner.

Five: Stability in time-sequence is not a prerequisite requirement for an object, except as a root assumption within the physical universe.

Six: Space as a barrier does not exist.

Seven: The spacious present is here more available to the perceptions.

Eight: The only barriers within inner reality are mental barriers, or psychic barriers."

Session 284, Page 27

Friday, April 14, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 3

"The focus of energy that organizes the physical body weakens, strays; the trance state, strongest at what you call early adulthood, begins to lose its hold even as in childhood it has not yet attained its full depth."

Session 99, Page 83

Exercise - Experiencing the Present Moment

Only by looking quietly within the self that you know can your own reality be experienced, with those connections that exist between the present or immediate self and the inner identity that is multidimensional.

There must be a willingness, an acquiescence, a desire. If you do not take the time to examine your own subjective states, then you cannot complain if so many answers seem to elude you. You cannot throw the burden of proof upon another, or expect a man or teacher to prove to you the validity of your own existence. Such a procedure is bound to lead you into one subjective trap after another.

As you sit reading this book, the doorways within are open. You have only to experience the moment as you know it as fully as possible - as it exists physically within the room, or outside in the streets of the city in which you live. Imagine the experience present in one moment of time over the globe, then try to appreciate the subjective experience of your own that exists in the moment and yet escapes it - and this multiplied by each living individual.

This exercise alone will open your perceptions, increase your awareness and automatically expand your appreciation of your own nature.

The 'you' who is capable of such expansion must be a far more creative and multidimensional personality than you earlier imagined. Many of the suggested small exercises given earlier in the book will also help you become acquainted with your own reality, will give you direct experience with the nature of your own soul or entity, and will put you in contact with those portions of your being from which your own vitality springs. You may or may not have your own encounters with past reincarnational selves or probable selves. You may or may not catch yourselves in the act of changing levels of consciousness. Certainly most of my readers, however, will have success with some of the suggested exercises. They are not difficult, and they are within the capabilities of all.

Each reader, however, should in one way or another sense his own vitality in a way quite new to him, and find avenues of expansion opening within himself of which he was earlier unaware. The very nature of this book, the method of its creation and delivery, in themselves should clearly point out the fact that human personality has far more abilities than those usually ascribed to it.

Seth Speaks
Session 591, Page 365

Thursday, April 13, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 5

"The ego attempts to break down action into smaller and smaller units. The intuitions try to perceive action as a whole. The ego breaks down for purposes of examination, the intuitions construct."

Session 215, Page 118

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 5

"There is a merging of selves into what you may call superconsciousness, a synthesis; and from then on, dear friends, there is a beginning toward something new"

Session 218, Page 145

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 9

"There is no reason, again, why you can't achieve out-of-body proficiency, and when you do, you will be able to experiment with thought creations, trying out, forming, using or discarding, thought paintings. In an out-of-body state you can reach rather easily those environments which thoughts become a sort of plastic pseudo material, almost instantaneously."

Session 497, Page 364

Monday, April 10, 2006

Excersise - Magically neutralizing cancer cells

Many cancer patients have martyrlike characteristics, often putting up with undesirable situations or conditions for years.

They feel powerless, unable to change, yet unwilling to stay in the same position. The most important point is to arouse such a person's beliefs in his or her strength and power. In many instances these persons symbolically shrug their shoulders, saying. 'What will happen, will happen,' but they do not physically struggle against their situation.

It is also vital that these patients are not overly medicated, for oftentimes the side effects of some cancer-eradicating drugs are dangerous in themselves. There has been some success with people who imagine that the cancer is instead some hated enemy or monster or foe, which is then banished through mental mock battles over a period of time. While the technique does have its advantages, it also pits one portion of the self against the other. It is much better to imagine, say, the cancer cells being neutralized by some imaginary wand.

Doctors might suggest that a patient relax and then ask himself or herself what kind of inner fantasy would best serve the healing process. Instant images may come to mind at once, but if success is not achieved immediately, have the patient try again, for in almost all cases some inner pictures will be perceived.

Behind the entire problem, however, is the fear of using one's full power or energy. Cancer patients most usually feel an inner impatience as they sense their own need for future expansion and development, only to feel it thwarted.

The fear that blocks that energy can indeed be dissipated if new beliefs are inserted for old ones - so again we return to those emotional attitudes and ideas that automatically promote health and healing. Each individual is a good person, an individualized portion of universal energy itself. Each person is meant to express his or her own characteristics and abilities. Life means energy, power, and expression.

Those beliefs, if taught early enough, would form the most effective system of preventative medicine ever known.

Again, we cannot generalize overmuch, but many persons know quite well that they are not sure whether they want to live or die. The overabundance of cancer cells represents nevertheless the need for expression and expansion - the only arena left open - or so it would seem.

Such a person must also contend with society's unfortunate ideas about the disease in general, so that many cancer patients end up isolated or alone. As in almost all cases of disease, however, if it were possible to have a kind of 'thought transplant' operation, the disease would quickly vanish.

Even in the most dire of instances, some patients suddenly fall in love, or something in their home environment changes, and the person also seems to change overnight - while again the disease is gone.

The Way Toward Health
Session 5/11, Page 273

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events

"Psychologically, your impulses are as vital to your being as your physical organs are. They are as altruistic, or unselfish, as your physical organs are (intently) and I would like that sentence read several times. And yet each impulse is suited and tailored directly to the individual who feels it. Ideally, by following your impulses you would feel the shape, the impulsive shape (as Ruburt says) of your life. You would not spend time wondering what your purpose was, for it would make itself known to you, as you perceived the direction in which your natural impulses led, and felt yourself exert power in the world through such actions. Again, impulses are doorways to action, satisfaction, the exertion of natural mental and physical power, the avenue for your private expression - the avenue where your private expression intersects the physical world and impresses it."

Session 857, Page 243

Sunday, April 09, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 9

"Many abortions, natural ones, are caused when the new personality is having difficulty constructing the new form, projects to others for advice, and is advised not to return."

Session 503, Page 411

Saturday, April 08, 2006

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events

"It is somewhat of a psychological trick, in your day and age, to come to the realization that you do in fact form your experience and your world, simply because the weight of evidence seems to be so loaded at the other end, because of your habits of perception. The realization is like one that comes at one time or another to many people in the dream state, when suddenly they awaken while still in the dream, realizing first of all that they are dreaming, and secondarily that they are themselves creating the experienced drama. To understand that you create your own reality requires that same kind of awakening from the normal awake state"

Session 830, Page 149

Friday, April 07, 2006

The Nature of Personal Reality

"So controls were needed lest the conscious mind, denied the full use of the animal’s innate taboos, run away with itself. Guilt, natural guilt, depends upon memory then. It does not carry with it any built-in connection with punishment as you think of it. Once more, it was meant as a preventative measure. Any violation against nature would being about feelings of guilt so that when a like situation was encountered in the future, man would in that moment of reflection, not repeat the same action."

Session 635, Page 145

Thursday, April 06, 2006

The Way Toward Health

"The natural world itself is a gateway to other realities. You do not have to try to blot out the physical world, or your ordinary consciousness, in order to achieve the necessary knowledge that leads to vibrant health or experiences."

Session 6/10, Page 269

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 6

"You are in control as long as you realize you are in control. There are indeed portions of dream reality that you yourself may not have constructed, but that are constructed by others. You recall that in physical reality you can only perceive your own constructions, as a rule. Now, my dear friends, this does not apply to dream reality."

Session 295, Page 165

The Nature of Personal Reality

"There are adults who quail when one of their children says, I hate you. Often children quickly learn not to be so honest. What the child is really saying is, I love you so. Why are you so mean to me? Or, What stands between us and the love for you that I feel?"

Session 673, Page 408

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events

"Despite all realistic pragmatic tales to the contrary, the natural state of life itself is one of joy, acquiescence with itself - a state in which action is effective, and the power to act is a natural right."

Session 802, Page 23

Monday, April 03, 2006

Seth Speaks


"God does not exist apart from or separate from physical reality, but exists within it and as a part of it"

Session 560, Page 204

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The Early Sessions, Book 3

"Action approximates as nearly as possible that portion of inner vitality or energy which cannot be completely materialized within any camouflage, within any plane."

Session 137, Page 283

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Seth Speaks

"Your bodies not only change completely every seven years, for example. They change constantly with each breath."

Session 520, Page 43