Bruce Lipton, PhD – Science Behind Beliefs and Healing

This becomes profoundly important for very simple reason. The conventional story I was teaching is based on what is called genetic determinism. Genetic determinism is belief that genes turn on and off and control the characters of our lives. This belief system is actually what causes us to become victims of our heredity. And the reason for simply this is that it says your genes are controlling the character of your life. As far as we know, we didn’t pick these genes. And if we don’t like the character, we can’t change the genes and the genes are turning on and off. By definition, that makes us a victim of heredity. The new science which now has a name called epigenetics, was a science showed how the environment was really controlling the genetic activity. And the significance of this is empowerment because we’re the ones that can regulate the environment. And since we can control the environment, and by definition, we control our genetics. 

Genetic science, genetic determinism victim, the new science epigenetics reveals we are masters because we can control our genetic activity. You have to understand that the concept called Physics is a science of mechanisms. So we can say Quantum Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Newtonian Physics and Newtonian Mechanics, mechanisms of how the universe works. Well, no matter what science you’re in, whether it’s Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, it’s all based on universal mechanisms. So a principle that underlies all of the sciences and understanding of physics. The difference between the Physics of Newtonian Physics and Quantum Physics is profound. Newtonian physics separates the universe into two realms, a physical and an energetic realm, and generally says that they don’t interact very well so that there are two separate realms of the universe. This is the belief of a mind and a body separation. A mind being of the energy realm wouldn’t have any influence of the body being in a physical realm and this is why mind has been left out of conventional medicine for years. 

Quantum Physics changes the game because the mechanics of quantum physics reveals that everything is energy. There is no duality, that everything is in the universe, whether it appears physical or not, is comprised of energy. The relevance of that is energy does not have hard borders like physical things. I say, “Oh, here’s the physical body, and at the edge of my skin is outside, not the inside, and the skin is this border.” Quantum Physics says, this is an illusion. That energy, my energy, is not focused in my skin, my energy is an aura around me. By definition, energy cannot be separated from each other. They mix. Waves of energy mix. The point that becomes very important and separate from Newtonian physics is that in a Newtonian world, physical particles can be separated from each other and studies as studied as individual elements.

In a quantum mechanical world, it says that’s an illusion. Everything is connected by energy. There’s no disconnect of everything. We’re connected to energy here on this planet that is part of the universe light years away from here. Everything is energy, because there is no separation. So we come from a duality of Newtonian physics into a unity of Quantum Physics. And then the principles become very important because it recognizes that the physical experience that we perceive is controlled by the invisible realm which involves things such as consciousness and spirituality, those invisible things are shaping our material world. And then look at the world when in the Newtonian basis where we separate those energies from the physical that disconnected spirituality and energy waves from affecting us as biological beings. 

Quantum Physics says that’s an illusion. All of it comes from the energy. An understanding of genetics on the old story is called genetic determinism. The idea that a gene which is a blueprint to make the parts of the body. That a gene activates itself. So we talked about a gene turning on and a gene turning off and controlling our physical experience on this planet. The new science epigenetics reveals a completely different story. It says that the truth, genes are simply blueprints just like in an architect’s office. Go into an architect’s office and she’s working on a blueprint you ask her, “Is your blueprint on or off?” And she would look at you like, “What? You’re crazy. It’s a blueprint. There’s no on and off.” Then I go profoundly important. A gene is a blueprint. We’ve given it the character, the ability of turning on and off self-actualization. This is completely untrue, a gene is strictly a blueprint and acts in that same manner. A gene doesn’t know what it is, why it is, what it does, and therefore it’s not in a situation to make decisions. 

The new science epigenetics is based on the fact that the field in which we live, the energy in which we live, is primarily the character that activates or inactivates a gene. My research led to an understanding of epigenetics back in 1967. Although epigenetics as a formal science wasn’t actually named until 1990. What did I see that was different? The answer was this: I was growing stem cells, which are embryonic cells, and I was cloning them. And cloning means I take one stem cell and put it in a petri dish all by itself. It divides every 10 or 12 hours. So first is 1 cell then 2, 4, 8, 16, doubling and doubling and after a week, 30,000 cells are in the petri dish. But the important part of cloning is all those cells came from one parent. Therefore, all the cells are genetically identical. So I start with 30,000 genetically identical cells, put them into three petri dishes. 

We grow cells in something called culture medium, and I say, “What is culture medium?” I say, “That’s a laboratory version of blood.” So if I’m going to grow human cells, I create human culture medium by looking at the composition of human blood and creating a laboratory version of that. If I grow mouse cells, I look at the composition of mouse blood to grow cells from the mouse lineage. So the important point is this, cells live in an environment. The environment they live in is in tissue culture called culture medium. And, what my research reveal very simply was this, by changing the chemistry of the culture medium, and feeding these identical cells, genetically identical cells, with three different versions of culturing medium in three different petri plates, then petri plate one is cells for muscle and petri plate two is the cells form bone, and in a third petri plate, the cells form fat cells because each one had a different culture media, but they were all genetically identical. The point is very critical because what it revealed was, the control of behavior was not in the genes, all the cells had the same genes.

 The control was mediated by the environment in which the cells are living. So it wasn’t genetic control, it was environmental control. And then you say, “So well, that’s nice. That’s a laboratory experience of working with stem cells.” And I then stand back and give a very important point. When we look in the mirror and see ourselves as individuals, it’s an illusion. Because a human is made out of about 50 trillion cells, the cells of the living entity, so a human in a humorous sense is a skin covered petri dish with 50 trillion cells inside. And I say “Yeah, but now we have the original culture medium called blood.” And the chemistry of the culture medium is what is controlling the fate of the cells. So the chemistry of the blood in our body is what controls the character behavior of our 50 trillion cells. 

Then the next important question is then what controls the chemistry? And that’s when all of a sudden it gets interesting because the brain is the chemistry that controls the composition of the culture medium, which in turn controls the behavior in genetics. And then the next and most important factors, well, then what chemistry should the brain release into the blood? And then the answer is amazing because it says, the mind creates an image. The brain translates that image into chemistry, complimentary chemistry, and then releases that chemistry in the body. The result is the body becomes a physical compliment to the image in the mind. And as you change your mind, you change your chemistry. And therefore, the control of your behavior and genetics is not in the genes, but is in the mind which sets up an image and then the brain translates that into chemistry in the culture medium, which in turn controls the genetics and the behavior. 

And relevance about this is profoundly important because if genes controlled our lives as we’ve been told, and they turned on and off by themselves, we have no control. But with epigenetics, it reveals that the chemistry of the blood is what controls the fate of the cells. Since that’s connected to our mind and our consciousness, then all of a sudden you realize, “Oh, my goodness, if I change my consciousness, I change my biology.” And I go, “Precisely”, and therefore, we’re not victims, because we’re the ones that control that consciousness. The new understanding of biology is that our cells are not controlling their own fate, and what they become, healthy cells are sick cells. But, the control of the cells is actually due to how we experience life. And if we change our experiences about life and our beliefs about life, we then change our biology. Then when we look at our biology, whether its health or disease, we have to recognize this was not controlled below our consciousness. 

This was not controlled by genes, but was actually controlled by our thoughts and our beliefs. So the relevance is simply this, since we control our thoughts and our beliefs, we can change them. And if we change them, then we can change our biology. And all of a sudden it says, then we’re not victims in life, because our thoughts and our consciousness are changing our biology. To understand how powerful our beliefs are, we actually don’t look at biology, but we have to look at Quantum Physics. Quantum Physics is the most valid truthful science on the planet and the principles of Quantum Physics have more truth than the principles of any other science. So what is the principle? The primary principle in Quantum Physics is that consciousness is creating our life experiences. Well, this is profoundly important because it says if we change our consciousness, then we change our life experiences.

And with that simple understanding it says, then the power of our consciousness is what is creating our life experiences and the way we live on this planet. And that we are powerful, because we can change that consciousness, and in the process, change the character of our lives. When we have a belief, we hold a picture in our mind and these pictures represent anything between like growth and protection. And the relevance about that is whatever the picture is, it’s going to be translated into chemistry by the brain and that chemistry is going to be given to the cells via the blood and control behavior. So what it really says is, there’s different chemistry for each different kind of vision that we have. So we can materialize a vision. For example, when we open our eyes and see someone we love, the brain releases some very specific chemistry of love dopamine for pleasure, vasopressin, which makes each partner more attractive, which keeps them together. 

Oxytocin is released in love because that’s the bonding chemical and growth hormone is a characteristic of love which explains why when people fall in love, they’re so healthy and vibrant, they glow in love. But if you actually open your eyes and see something that scares you, then the love chemistry is not going to be released by the brain. Protection chemistry is going to be released which includes stress hormones and factors that influence our immune system and our consciousness. There are different chemicals that come out such as norepinephrine, cortisol, histamine, cytokines, these are different chemicals that are released by love. So basically, it says whatever image we’re holding in our mind, the function of the brain is to translate that image into complimentary chemistry so the body becomes a compliment to the image in our mind. The chemicals have a function of creating the experience of life on this planet. 

 If there was no consciousness there would be no life experiences. But then you have to translate consciousness into the physical plane that we observe and therefore there’s an interface between a thought and a physical chemistry that represents that thought. And so consciousness is the step of creating the chemistry which in turn creates our physical experience. There are two protection systems within the human body, a protection system that protects us from threats on the outside of the body, such as Saber-toothed tigers, that’s called the adrenal system, also in school, fight or flight system. But if we have invasive organisms that start to mess up our biology on the inside, there’s another protection system called the immune system whose function is to look at the terrain or the environment inside the body and keep it healthy and harmony. So the two protection systems are either protect me from an outside threaten or protect me from an inside threat. 

The relevance about that is there are priorities in this and that is for example, if I’m being chased by a Saber-toothed tiger, the protection system I want to engage is the adrenal system fight or flight. The immune system has no influence on a Sabertoothed tiger and yet the immune system uses a lot of energy. The answer is very simple. As people get sick, they have so little energy, many of them can’t get out of bed. So we’re talking about a system that uses a lot of energy. And why this is relevant is if, for example, we are being chased by a Saber-toothed tiger, where do you want your energy to go? And that’s important because if I’m being chased, I want my arms and legs for me to get that flight so I can get out of there. So I want the energy to go to my arms and legs using the adrenal system as a distributor of the energy. In contrast, if I have an infection inside my system, I want the energy to be redirected to the inside to deal with whatever the problem is. 

So all of a sudden says, well, which system should I be putting my effort on? And I say, “Where are your threats coming from?” If your threats are external, then by definition, you’re going to put all your energy into the fight or flight system. And they say, “Well, how do you do that?” And here’s the most important part is that when we need to distribute the energy, we distribute it to where we need it. Since the immune system will not be necessary to protect me from a Saber-toothed tiger, I want to shut off the energy to the immune system because it’s going to take away from available energy for survival. So it turns out interesting enough, when stress hormones are released into the body, the kind that are released when a Sabertoothed tiger is chasing us, stress hormones actually shut off the immune system and simultaneously redirect the blood of the body where the energy is to feed arms and legs for fighter flight.

So basically it says, when we are threatened by outside threats, the adrenal system will shut down the immune system to conserve energy. This is profoundly important. It’s a hierarchy. In other words, simple point, let’s say you have a bacterial infection and could have a bad case of diarrhea, and you’re being chased by a Saber-toothed tiger, where would you redirect your energy? Which one’s obvious? The heck with the bacteria, I need to get away from the tiger. So therefore, adrenal response will shut off the immune system and encourage fight or flight behavior. If you want to enhance the immune system, and deliver energy to it, then you really have to focus on where are you putting your energy. If we keep looking outside and watching the TV and reading the news, our energy is always going toward self-protection of fear, of what’s going on in a world that’s changing out there. So we keep pushing our energy on the outside. 

But if you start to get sick, what you really need to do is redirect the energy on the inside. So we have to let go of the stressors that are causing the inhibition of the immune system. Therefore, we really have to focus on happiness and harmony in our worldview so that our internal energy can be directed toward dealing with an internal problem rather than being used to save our lives from an external threat. When we see our world outside as not supporting us, and our life is in threat, there’s a built-in behavior into every living organism called the biological imperative. Now, biologists don’t know exactly where it is, but biologists recognize the simple fact, every organism will try to stay alive. That’s the function of the imperative. And the significance about that is whether it’s a bacterium or a human, if it is threatened and its life. It will make me maneuver to stay alive.

Okay? So what we have to start recognizing is this, where do we feel threatened? And are these threats real? Because if they’re not real, but we believe in them, then they might as well be real because belief will carry out the same behavior if it was real or not. Okay? So the important understanding is this, when we look at the world, to stay alive, there are important things that we need to do. Eat, have air, water, food, etc., all these things keep us alive, and we have to avoid the threats. Now the problem is, if we manifest threats that are not real, then by definition, we keep putting energy into warding off the threats. But by warding off those threats, we are compromising the internal homeostasis of the body, and that the immune system will actually be inhibited by the more threats we perceive in the outer world. This is why illnesses associated with stress, the more stress we’re under, the body is going to allocate as energy resources for fight or flight to escape the threat. 

I say, yes, but we need these energy resources. For example, the immune system, which uses a lot of energy needs these resources to maintain health and the body. Additionally, stress causes another problem as well. We’re made out of 50 trillion cells, but every day hundreds of billions of our cells are dying. Normal attrition skin cells are sloughing off, hair cells are coming up, and the entire lining of the digestive tract is replaced every three days. Now, what does this mean? This is massive amount of growth that is required every day. The stem cells have to replace hundreds of billions of cells, that’s growth. But if you’re being chased by a Sabertoothed tiger and you’re going to try to allocate all the energy you need, not only do you shut off the immune system, which uses a lot of energy, but by definition, you shut off maintenance of the body because I use a lot of energy as well. 

So the consequence of having a stressor in our world, it actually shuts off two of the two fundamental things that keep us healthy and alive, the immune system and the normal growth and maintenance of the body because the energy for those are redirected to protect us from the threat. So the more stress a person is under, the more the body starts to lose the power of its control. If I’m not replacing the dying cells, there’s a point where then a system is going to be faulty because it’s lost a lot of the cells that make it work. If I’m not taking care of the immune system, then I’m open to infection. And it’s interesting because people think that, “Oh, I just got under stress and then like caught a disease or I caught an infection.” I really want people to understand this. Almost everybody out there is already affected with almost all the normal pathogens that a human can have. 

The point of that is simply this, if you’re living in health and harmony, your immune system will restrict the growth of these organisms and will stay healthy. But the moment you start to get under stress, and you inhibit the function of the immune system, these organisms which have a name called opportunistic organisms, will take the opportunity when the immune system is compromised to take over. This is why people at work that get stressed or students at a school around exam time as stress start to manifest, they start to get sick. And the reason for that is stress shuts down the growth mechanisms and engages protection mechanisms and they’re mutually exclusive. You can’t be in growth and in protection at the same time. So the more fear we hold in our lives, the more we redirect our biology into protection at the expense of growth. 

The biological imperative is a built-in behavioral system from every organism on this planet that really directs us to stay alive. While staying alive has many different activities to it. I mean, first, just the nutritional aspect. But then of course, there’s controlling the environment. If you live in the Arctic, you basically like to have a heated environment which to live so we have to take care of that environment as well. Then we live in a world where money is a relevant portion of what energy represents money allows us to buy food, to get a home, and do all these things. So anything that can affect our economy, by definition, can threaten our lives as well. So threats come from all different levels in the world. Will there be water? Will there be food? Will there be money? These are very important things. Stress is activated by anything that will threaten your survival and the consequences all the same. When threatened, we will shift from growth and maintenance into protection. 

While stress can inhibit the immune system and inhibit growth, which causes great problems, another factor of stress is that it causes us to lose consciousness. Meaning what? Our forebrain is where the conscious mind is, that’s the creative mind with our wishes and desires in it. The relevance about a threat is a conscious mind is a slow processor and the subconscious mind is the most powerful immediate processor for reaction reflex behavior. So it turns out when we’re under stress, the blood vessels in the forebrain become constricted to shut down the blood flow in the forebrain. And remember, blood is where the energy is, but redirects the blood flow to the hindbrain where we have reactive reflexive behavior. The point is very critical when under stress, we lose our conscious capabilities in exchange for reaction behaviors. 

And so when we lose consciousness, we lose intelligence in our response. So people that are in threat or afraid, are not using their consciousness as much as they’re depending on reflex reactive behavior to survive. The reason is very simple. Conscious processing is very slow. It’s creative, but it’s very slow compared to reactive reactionary behavior of the subconscious mind. In my lectures, I always say, look, if you’re driving a car, and it’s going out of control and sliding on the road, I say what if you stay in your conscious mind? I go, “Then it’d be like this. Oh, boom!” I say, “Yeah, but what happens the moment the car is out of control?” The stress hormones shut off the conscious mind by squeezing the blood vessels forcing the blood to the hindbrain because that reaction mind is so fast. 

That you’ll be hitting the brakes, turning the wheels, and total control faster than the conscious mind can think. So conscious mind is one of the first things that drops out when a person is under threat because it’s too slow. When I use the terms brain and mind, I’m not talking about the same thing. Brain is a physical mechanism. Let’s make it analogous to a radio. The brain is the radio but the mind is the program. The program is not physical, it’s playing through the radio. So a brain creates the opportunity to express consciousness and mind. But the mind is only a program that uses the apparatus of the brain to engage the system. So brain physical, mind not physical. The big misunderstanding about the concept called the mind is that there’s not a single entity called the mind. 

There are two major subdivisions. One is called the conscious mind and one is called the subconscious mind. They are interdependent. They have different functions and they learn in different ways. So, when you use the word ‘mind’, that’s not distinguishing apples from oranges. Okay? When you say conscious and subconscious, now you’re saying, “Oh, now I have two different aspects.” The conscious mind connected to my personal identity. My spirituality is the creative mind, which has wishes and desires and the things that we would love to create on the planet. The subconscious mind is not really a creative mind. It’s a program. It’s a memory database with programs in it. And so they’re completely different functions, creativity versus habituation. And then it depends on what you’re trying to do, which mind will you use. If I’m going to be creative, I’m not going to depend on my subconscious mind. That’s just got some databases which I can use and being creative but the subconscious mind itself is not going to be very creative. 

It’s not going to understand how the pieces of different things can come together and make a conscious thought out of it. But if it all the details and all the pieces, but not necessarily ability to put them together. So all of a sudden it says, “Yeah, when I’m using my mind, well which mind am I using? The conscious mind or the subconscious mind?” Why? Profoundly different biological consequences. First, we have to understand what is the belief in the first place. We have beliefs about things. And I say we have beliefs because we have programming, we have understanding about, “Oh, this is an apple, this is a banana. Okay, from now on. Now that I’ve said that, every time I see this one, I already know it’s an apple.” That’s a program and it has a different color and structure and everything from a banana, which is a different thing. So I have programs that they helped me get off the ground. 

The most important analogy that I can give you simply this, I go to the Apple Store, I buy a brand new iPod. On the front of the iPod is called the touchscreen, that’s creative. I can make a playlist, adjust the queue, fast forward, I can do all the adjustments, okay? So I get a brand new iPod, and I take it out of the box and I push play and nothing happens. And then of course, being an old dinosaur, I get upset. Oh, they sold me a faulty iPod. And some seven year old kid comes up and said, “Hey, mister, did you download any programs?” I go, “What do you mean?” He says, “Well, if you didn’t download any music, you can’t play any music.” And I go “Oh!” all the hard drive in the iPod is subconscious programs. The touch screen is conscious creative. The point is very simple. If there are no programs you cannot be creative. There’s nothing to create from. So in human biology, the mind first generates programs before consciousness creativity can engage those programs. 

So for the first seven years of a child’s life, the main function is to download programs into the hard drive. Behaviors done through hypnosis primarily, and repetition in the first seven years. The significance about that is then I had to put programs in the system before I can become creative with my conscious mind. And now the issue is, well, what about the programs that I put in there? I go, “Well, there are good programs and there are bad programs.” I say, “Why is it relevant?” Well, if I’m engaging a good program, by that definition, would be a behavior that will enhance the character of my life. But if I engage a bad program, I can compromise my whole life. I can even actually die from a bad program. And all of a sudden, then the emphasis is what’s the nature of the programming we’re operating from? And then, as Quantum Physics says, its consciousness the programming that is manifesting our life experiences. 

Fasting or life experiences, then all of a sudden you can say then, “What is the benefit of a positive program versus a negative program?” The answer is health versus disease. What’s the difference between a positive and a negative programming is experienced, for example, in the concept called the placebo effect. The placebo effect is let’s say I’m sick and a doctor says, “Here’s the greatest new medication for you and this is going to heal you and it’s just right off the factory floor. It’s the greatest thing.” You take that pill and you get well, but only later find out it was a sugar pill. Then the most important question to ask is what heals you? Well not the sugar pill. It was the positive belief of healing generated by the belief in that sugar pill. And everyone goes, “Yes, yeah.” What is the result of positive thinking? Well, you could have any disease in the world and heal yourself from that disease using the constant currents of a placebo or positive thought. 

Okay? What about negative thinking? I go, “Oh, this has been left out of the equation far too long and that is this.” It’s the power of thinking that determines the character of our lives. We focused on positive thinking as a reflection of what placebo is all about. But nobody said what about the negative thinking? And the issue is profoundly important. Negative thinking is equally powerful and controlling our lives as is positive thinking, except that it works in the opposite direction. A negative thought can cause any disease on this planet. A negative thought can kill you, even if there’s nothing wrong with you, but you believe you’re going to die. You can die from this. So all of a sudden it says the power of thought, positive or negative, are influencing our lives but in totally different directions. Consciousness is what’s creating our reality but during our developmental program as children, we are given programs as to who is the professional and who’s not the professional

When it comes to health, most families don’t have a program, “Oh, take care of yourself. You can heal yourself. You can do all this by yourself.” Most programming is if you’re sick, you go to the doctor, and then we give the doctor extra power because we say the doctor being the professional knows things that we do not know. So the doctor’s consciousness is picked up by us and used as our consciousness. So if you go to the doctor and you get a prognosis that you have two months left to live, then the consciousness of the doctor now becomes your consciousness and your own programming says, “The doctor’s right. They’re the professional and they say I’m going to die in two months.” And since consciousness is creating our life experiences, a two-month limitation turns out to be a reality and you’ll die in two months because you believe the programming. This is why it’s necessary for us at this time in our world to take power back. Because if we buy other people’s beliefs, then their beliefs will control our lives and not us. 

We have to recognize truth is just what you believe in. It could be totally false. But if you believe that it’s true for you, if you believe you’re going to die in two months, which is a simple point. A doctor reads your prognosis and says you’re going to die in two months. You buy that because you believe the doctor is professional and you’re not a professional and they know so now I’m going to die in two months. Guess what? You find out later that the doctor read the wrong diagnosis. Somebody else’s sheet but you bought it as true. It’s true for you. And guess what? You’ll likely die in two months because you bought a truth. It’s not a real truth. It’s your truth. And this is where all of a sudden, why people with different opinions, they each have their own truth that will manifest their own reality. Well, in the world of science, when it’s working right, science is a search for truth, which recognizes truth is what it is at this moment, but future research can change that truth. 

And as we keep accommodating the truth, we get more and more focused and more and more what’s true. Okay, so what is true? Well, in our world we have chosen science as endeavored to reveal truth to us. Is it scientific? Or is it not scientific? That automatically says whether I should believe in it or I shouldn’t believe in it. But unfortunately, science like every other endeavor, gets caught in its own belief systems and has trouble changing these belief systems, even though that’s the essence of what science is about. As new truth comes in, we change. And sometimes it’s very difficult to make these changes especially about how much effort and how much money was put into create the so called truth. And you put in so much effort and so much money and somebody comes up and says your truth is incorrect, there’s going to be a resistance from the people who bought that truth.

To also keep it because of what they put into it. And the issue is, but truth change, and there’s a struggle, there’s always. Every time a new truth comes into science, it doesn’t just come in. And then the next day science goes, “Oh, well, here’s a whole new truth.” It has to be pushed and looked at and searched over, until there’s a consensus of opinion that this is a new truth. The idea is, knowledge is continuously expanding. If you stick with an old knowledge and don’t move into a new knowledge, then you are limiting your consciousness and your awareness and limitation is a kiss of death because knowledge is power. Lack of knowledge is a lack of power. And if the new knowledge is coming, and you stick with the old knowledge, then you’ve just been disempowered. And so we have to recognize that science is continuously expanding database of information, and that what was accepted as science and history changes as new science keeps coming forward.

The current big revolution is moving from a belief in genetics where genes control the character of our lives into a new science called epigenetics, which says the environment and our perception of the environment controls our genes. This is a transition period that I personally have experienced. I’ve seen the epigenetics in 1967 and had to wait 23 years before science, recognize the science of epigenetics. I have a problem with what is called the medical industry for a very simple reason, because the medical industry is a corporate system. A corporate system, the first principle of every corporate system, I don’t care whether they’re making widgets or artificial limbs, every corporate system, the first principle is that it must make a profit for the shareholder. Once you start to say medical industry then you start to see where the problem comes from. 

Because right away, you say, “Well, how do I make a profit for the shareholders in that medical industry?” Well, there’s only one conclusion and the answer is this, you charge more for your services than what you’re offering and the extra is called profit. Then I have to stop at this moment and say, “The word human, humane, humanity, there’s a core word that is represented is called compassion. That is the character.” And then I have to say, “A person is sick. They’re down and out and then you kick them to make a profit off of their sickness, is that compassionate?” I go, “No, it’s the complete opposite of compassionate.” It’s no compassion in a medical industry because it’s not focusing on the patient, now it’s focusing on the shareholders. 

Unfortunately, by definition, the medical industry inhumane, it is not compassionate. When 60% of American bankruptcies are based on the fact that people cannot afford a health care bill, and they have to lose their own life savings, their house, and all of this to pay a doctor, where’s the compassion? The idea of nonprofit is if you’re sick, why should I make a profit off of you? Inhumane. Therefore by definition, medicine should only be a nonprofit system. It’s supposed to be helping people, not hurting people. That’s what we need to do. Because the idea of putting profit based on someone’s illness is misery. You’re making misery for someone. If they have to give up their home to pay a hospital bill? Misery. 

When it comes to cancer, there are different ways to approach it. You can approach it using conventional medical procedures such as chemotherapy, radiation, therapy, surgery and all that or you can start to recognize, can I treat it without interfering with the function of the body? So the first question is where does the cancer come from? Then there’s the belief that a cancer is caused by a cancer gene. I say, “How did that come about?” The answer is in the Newtonian world of physical bodies are affected by physical things only. So when a person has a cancer, the source of that cancer must be something physical. And so they take apart the body looking for what is unique to the cancer, then they start to show they are something called oncogenes, cancer genes. Well, this has become the biggest problem in the world for a very simple point. There is no gene that causes cancer. It’s not caused by gene, it’s caused by not being in harmony with the world around you, and engaging a gene that can cause cancer. 

So for example, so many women are affected by the BRCA1 gene, the breast cancer gene, hearing they have that gene in their body immediately puts their consciousness on a track that says, “Oh, my God, I’m going to get cancer. I have the gene.” Well, this is starting off on a false belief, and that is that the gene causes cancer. There is no gene that does cause cancer. The BRCA1 gene, does it cause cancer? Well, let’s put it this way. 50% of the women that have the BRCA1 gene never got the cancer. Well, there’s an important conclusion right there. Possession of the gene does not cause cancer. It’s the gene in addition to a lifestyle that is not in harmony, that’s where the cancer comes from. So I say well, lifestyle is not in harmony. So what do I need to do? Kill the cells? Kill the cancer cells? Change the genetics? I go, “No, that was not where the problem came from.”

The problem came from environment and perception of the environment. So then trying to deal with the cancer, there’s two ways. The inefficient and incorrect way has been cut the cancer out because the cells are stupid. And if the cancer cells are gone, I’m going to be healthy. And the issue is, well, if genes actually cause the cancer that would be the way it would work. But genes don’t cause the cancer. So taking out the so-called stupid cells did not eliminate the nature of cancer. Well, temporarily, it removed the physical expression of that cancer. But since the cancer was not caused by the genes, it was caused by environment and consciousness, if the environment and consciousness is not changed, inevitably another cancer is going to come in and probably be worse than the first cancer. Why? The cancer is a symptom of not being in harmony. It is not a consequence of a gene. And all of a sudden I say, “Well then how do you treat this?” 

I say, “Not the way we’ve been treating it because when you keep blaming the cancer cells as a source of the problem, you’re really looking at the symptom.” The source of the problems not being in harmony. The symptom is an expression of cancer. Getting rid of the symptom doesn’t change the source of the problem. It’s the equivalent of the service engine light on your car’s dashboard showing up and you say, “I want to ignore that. I don’t care. I’m just gonna put masking tape over the light so I don’t see it.” Guess what? Now my car’s working because I don’t see that their service engine light is on and I feel really confident. I go, inevitably down the road, you’re going to have a problem bigger than the first one that you didn’t deal with. And cancer is a symptom, and therefore covering up the symptom is tantamount to putting the tape on the gauges. 

That’s not where the problem is. You’re just covering up the feasibility of the problem and this is why we have to change our understanding of how to deal with cancer. Start dealing with the patient, ask their consciousness, how they handle the environment, the world that they live in, the stressors that surround them. This is where the source of the cancer comes from, not the gene. When a person has a cancer and gets a conventional diagnosis that the cancer is running out of control and their life is being threatened, of course, when they leave that doctor’s office, they’re living in total fear now of a time bomb ticking in their own biology. This fear actually is in itself that can aggravate the cancer even more because the stress chemistry of fear is not going to stop the cancer but it actually promote its growth. So the most important understanding is to give people knowledge, knowledge of how things work. Why? Knowledge is power. A lack of knowledge is a lack of power. If we are programmed to believe that cancer is due to the genes in our system and we don’t control that and we’re just victims of it, we have disempowered the patient because it didn’t come from the genes. 

It came from the patient’s way of life. So first of all, we have to educate the patient saying genes don’t control life. That program is completely false. Epigenetics. Then I say, “Yeah. But what controls our gene?” I say, “Consciousness controls epigenetics.” So since epigenetics causes cancer, and let me give you an important fact, outside of the fact that there is no gene that causes cancer. Less than 10% of cancer patients are connected by heredity to the cancer. 90% of patients with cancer don’t have any problem with their genetics or their history. They manifest the cancer and the character of the way they’re living. Well, right away, there’s the answer. If it’s the character of life that is promoting the cancer, if you want to change the cancer, you must change the character of life, not change the cells. They’re not responsible. They’re just reflecting, mirroring the expression of something out of harmony and now we see it in the cell. 

You can get rid of all the cancer cells you want but that doesn’t stop cancer because cancer wasn’t caused by the cells. There are several ways to change the beliefs. And interestingly enough, just the diagnosis of having a terminal cancer is for many people, an action that will actually cause them to change their way of life. They’ll be sitting in that chair in a doctor’s office, doctor tells them you got two months left to live. Guess what they’re thinking? “Oh, my God, my life is out of order. My life’s not in harmony. I’m having such a terrible time on this. Now this?” I say, “So what would be the relevance?” The answer is to these people, I can’t keep doing this anymore. I must change the character of my life. So they’re being provoked by the response of ‘you’re going to die’. That’s enough to kick them off. But if you want to change the programs, there are ways where you can actually control it because that last way is not controllable. 

The doctor gives you an opinion, boom! Your life changes. You can’t control that, okay? But if you want to control belief, then you want to change the beliefs, then you have to understand first, what are the beliefs that you hold? Since you were programmed from the last trimester of pregnancy through age seven as when the beliefs are installed, if I ask you so what belief did you get when you were zero? When you were one? Okay, two? Maybe even three? You might pick up something or an assumptive behavior. But what’s the point? You’ve been programmed from before you were born to age two, three, even in age four, without you even being aware? So the idea is this, what are your programs? He say, I don’t know my programs. I wasn’t conscious. I wasn’t aware when the programs are being installed. Now to help people, here’s the beautiful story. 95% of our life is coming from the programs and our subconscious mind. Consequently, a simple profound fact that our life is a printout of our subconscious programs, 95% coming from them.

So if you want to know what your programs are, the first thing is look at your life. It’s a printout. I say,so the easiest discrimination is this, the things that you like that come into your life, they come in because you have programs to bring them into your life. But this is the one that’s most critical. Whatever you desire or wish for, but you have to work real hard to make it happen. You have to put a lot of effort in it, you have to sweat over it. Why? Why are you working so hard to make these events real in your life? Inevitably, those conclusions are not supported by your program. So when you look at your life where you’re struggling, you’re not struggling because the universe won’t give you something. You’re struggling because your own subconscious below conscious behavior is sabotaging you. All you see is the sabotage but you didn’t see that you were actually engaged in manifesting the sabotage. 

That makes us believe we’re victims of forces outside of ourselves. I want to be healthy, I got a cancer. It’s not me, I wanted to be healthy. I go, that was a conscious decision that you want to be healthy. That works about 5% of the day but if your programming is out of harmony and not supporting you, 95% of the day your subconscious will actually start manifesting a cancer. Even though your conscious mind says I don’t want this. I go, “Yeah, but since it’s only working 5%, the conscious mind is not in charge of your health at this time.” The programs that people have when they manifest diseases is simply programs that are not in harmony with life. I’m a victim. These are out of my control. I can’t have any control over this or that and therefore I’m powerless. Powerless means I have no control, whether it’s over my own health, or whether it’s over what I’m doing in the world.

And when it comes to health, we bought powerless, because we bought the fact that we believe genes are going to control this. And therefore we gave our power to the genes and said, “Oh, the genes caused this, I’m just happened to be a victim.” And the reality is, you gave away your power to believe that is incorrect. Genes do not control this, you control this. And if people learn this, then for the first time, they can have a tool to manage their health by changing their understanding of what health is all about. Since it’s our subconscious that generally is creating 95% of our life, then the starting point about changing your subconscious is to first check and see where you’re struggling. Because the struggle in life reveals a difference between your conscious wishes and desires, and a subconscious programming. That’s what struggle is when the program doesn’t support the wishes and desires. Then you say, “Okay, here’s where my problems are, I have a problem in either relationship, I have a problem in health, I have a problem on a job.”

I go, “Oh, well, then what you really want to do is put a behavior in there that supports your wish and desire because obviously, the program behavior is not taking you there. So you want to reprogram.” I go, “Well, this has been a problem for the longest time because when we said ‘The Mind’ as if there was one, it was a belief that if the conscious mind would become aware of something would automatically change the subconscious program.” It’s completely false. The two minds don’t learn in the same way. You can educate the conscious mind, read the self-help book, go to the lectures, do all those things like that and get the smartest, conscious mind. 

I don’t care how smart it is. If it’s only working 5% of the time, your life is not expressing your conscious awareness. It’s expressing your subconscious program. So now you say, “Okay, educated conscious was easy. All the different aspects.” I say, “What about educating a subconscious mind?” I go, “That’s where the problem comes in.” Because the subconscious learns fundamentally by two basic mechanisms. It learned in the first seven years through a process of hypnosis because the brain was functioning in a vibration called theta, which is below consciousness. Okay? By age seven, you can still put new programs in but now you’re working on a level of consciousness. Your vibration and your brain is ramped up. I say, “Well, then I can put new programs in after seven but it’s different than putting programs in before seven.” What’s different? I say, “Before seven, hypnosis, I just have to observe the behavior is downloaded. After seven I can put new behaviors in but I have to do it through a process of habituation.” That is the character of the subconscious mind, the habit mind. I say, “How do you make a habit?” Well, repetition, practice, making a behavior that you follow like a script and when you keep following that script, and repeating that script, repetition leads to downloading the behavior.

You want to ride a bicycle, you have to get on the bicycle and fall off the bicycle a number of times until you finally get the nuance of how to stay in balance. And once the system learns that now it’s permanently part of your subconscious, you can get on the bike after 30 years and never haven’t written one and take off like you just did it yesterday. So first level of putting in a program is hypnosis. The second level is repetition habituation. And there’s also a third level which I really want to encourage people to understand. It’s called energy psychology. I say, “What’s that?” I say, “It’s a new modality of psychology, and it’s based on super learning.” I say, “What super learning?” Maybe you’ve seen somebody in a bookstore read a book by moving their finger down the page, as fast as they move the finger down the page they’ve read every word on that page so they can stand in a bookstore in 10 minutes, flip through the pages and read the entire book. That’s a super learning character. 

If you would engage the super learning characteristic, you can therefore download new behaviors in minutes rather than days or weeks. And so on my website www.brucelipton.com under Resources, I’ve got 25 different versions or more of energy psychology. And this is really based on a concept called ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’. And the reason is this, the world is in a very severe state based on human behavior not being in harmony. For us to survive, we have to change human behavior very, very quickly. And so the necessity of change has brought us a new field of energy psychology, which can facilitate changes of behavior and minutes of a belief you may have had 50 years in your subconscious. 10 minutes later, you can change it. The first phase of learning in the subconscious mind is a brain state called theta, which is hypnosis.

As you get older after age seven, the vibrations get higher. Alpha, which is subconsciousness and then work consciousness, which is called beta which is even in a higher vibration of the brain. If you want to do hypnosis you have to really get back into theta. So, you might find a hypnotherapist that can induce you to relax your brain function to drop down in a theta. But a more effective way is that every night when you go to bed, you were at work, you’re a high vibration beta, that’s the focus consciousness, you come home you relax, the vibration slows down. Now it’s called alpha, the vibrations a little slow, a calm consciousness. But the moment consciousness disconnects, the moment the conscious disconnect, you were actually sleeping, the brain now is in theta for the next period of time. It’s dropping the vibration slowly. Beta is high, alpha little slower, theta even slower. 

The point is simply this, every night when you go to bed when alpha consciousness let’s go and you’re sleeping, the brain is now in theta. The point is simple. If you put earphones on with a program that you want to become a program in your subconscious, every night when you go to bed, you put the earphones on, the moment your conscious mind disconnects, whatever’s playing in the program is not going into the conscious mind. It’s going straight download into the subconscious, and you can reprogram using self-hypnosis. And trying to understand how to deal with health issues we can recognize there’s a couple of ways of doing this. One of them is through consciousness because that’s really direct. But then there are support mechanisms, support things like using a better diet, like having reducing stress, learning how to meditate. These are all support things that can enhance your health. A very interesting understanding is when you have no consciousness, then you really require every form of support to manifest health. 

But as your consciousness level starts to increase and you get greater and greater consciousness, you need to depend less on support. That if you become fully conscious, which we’re not at, you don’t need any support at all. You can walk on water, you’re the Creator, you can do all these things. So I say, “Well, what level of support do I need?” And I say, “Well, it’s proportional to the consciousness you have.” But then to make it simple, I would do it this way. I would just say, I would use every means of support possible no matter what my consciousness is because it will be helping me even if my consciousness is not supporting me, at least I’m making an effort. So diet is real important. Stress reduction is important. Meditation is important. Enjoying yourself. Looking for happiness and love and health. These are the things that enhance the vitality of the body. Stressors, fear, issues concerning your life where you seem to have no control, you feel victim. These are the things that take away your power. 

These are things that precipitate the illnesses on this planet. So therefore, I would use every means of support if it’s available. Okay, here’s a supplement, take that. Okay, here’s something that block electromagnetic fields on my cell phone. Okay, fine, do that as well. Here’s the diet. Here’s a technique. Everyone you use is going to enhance the vitality you have, whether your consciousness is supporting it or not at this point, but as you do become more conscious, there is a point where, for example, you don’t even have to eat food. And then you start to realize, wow, there’s a whole different world out there based on consciousness. But we have to transition from our emphasis on subconscious training and programming to move into a higher level of consciousness. So what we’re experiencing on the planet right now is a breakdown with the old programs are not supporting the system. The only way out is to create new consciousness, new awareness. So we’re in a process of moving from an old world which is actually creating problems. 

To give us an opportunity to create something different with our consciousness and move out of that into a healthy world. And a healthy world is also a reflection of a healthy body. Simple point, your body is a compliment to your perception of the world. If the world is scary, then you’re under stress. If the world is loving and supporting, you’re open for health and harmony. Simple. Remember that growth and protection are mutually exclusive behaviors. Growth, you move toward a stimulus open to take it in such as love. If there’s love, I’m going to go to it. I’m going to be open, I’m going to take it in. But if it’s a threat, I don’t go to it. I go away from it and I close myself down. What’s the difference? I say, you can’t go forward and backwards at the same time. You can’t be open and closed at the same time. So growth and protection are mutually exclusive.

The more you find the need for protection, the more you compromise the growth end of it. And the world has become stress. The original idea that stress should shut off my maintenance of my body and my immune system so I could run fight or flight was based on running away from a Saber-toothed tiger. I say, what was the relevance? When the system was designed, what did I have stress from Sabertoothed tiger. I say, why is it relevant? If I escaped the Saber-toothed tiger, stress is all gone. But in today’s world stress is 24/7, 365. We were never designed to be in prolonged stress. We were only supposed to use it for cue, run away from the tiger and get out. But in today’s world, stress is continuous all the time at every different level. The world that we’ve created as a stressful world, so the more stress in the world, the greater the sickness and illness. And it’s interesting because we used to think, “Well, money will solve everything.” Well the US throws more money into healthcare than any other country in the world and has some of the worst health statistics of any country in the world.

What was the point? Money doesn’t buy health. It’s the stress we have to eliminate. That’s where the health is going to come from. And this is why we need to wake up. We’re stressed 24/7. That’s an inevitable problem, you can’t get out of that. You have to eliminate the stress. And very interesting point about it is, would there be a reason to have stress in the world? And the answer is yes. Because original biologists perceived that stress would eliminate an overpopulation problem because everyone will be sick and die younger and so therefore, stress and even war was suggested as a biological necessity to do what? Stop the population from over growing. And this is what Darwinian Theory is predicated on actually. It’s Thomas Malthus, a philosopher from earlier times made a mistake, but it became principle. 

He said that plants don’t grow and reproduce as fast as animals. So if you’re a farmer and you’re growing wheat, this year you get one bushel and next year you work harder, you maybe get two bushels off the field. And if you work harder, maybe you’re going to get three bushels off the field. So it’s going 1,2,3,4 increase like this. But according to him, animals double the population. First, there’s two, then there’s four, then there’s eight. So while plants are growing at a slope like this, animals are crawling out a slope like this. What’s the point? There’s a point where there’s too many animals, not enough food. What does that cause? That causes competition, the survival of the fittest, whoever can get the food is going to be the winner, whoever doesn’t gets to be the loser. So we bought into a struggle for life. And they also recognize since the population is growing too fast, how can you eliminate it? And guess what? Thomas Malthus who came up with the idea which is incorrect, even came up and coined the word slum. 

He said, build housing for the poor people in slums, they’ll get sicker, faster, they’ll die younger, and we will slow the progression of the population by having these poor people die out faster. And then all of a sudden slum became a word. “Hey, that’s going to save us.” It’s like, wow. But that’s what Darwinian Theory is predicated upon. Survival of the fittest and a competition for life. And the simple reality is, Malthus was wrong. Animals don’t double their population. Two parents generally produce two offspring, it stays stable. And yet, if you buy the Malthus story, that’s where competition comes in and yet it’s false. We built a whole premise on a false belief system. And that premise is life is a struggle with competition, when in fact no, it’s not. 

It’s harmony and cooperation. Very simple fact is when you have harmony in your life, you see balance and nature and everything is wonderful. I’m singing a song of harmony. That vibration of harmony is going to create harmony in my system. It’s disharmony that makes dissonance. Harmony versus disharmony. Health versus disease. That’s what the two are. That’s all it is. And it basically says, if you’re not in harmony, then by definition, you’re compromising your biology. That’s all it basically says. And therefore there is one solution to all of this and the answer is love. Love is an expression of harmony. Harmony between people. Harmony between people and the environment. Harmony between animals and plants and people. What is a garden? 

It is love. And a lack of love is fear. Fear means protection. So, we live in a world where love has been losing to fear. And as a result, the consequence of fear is a breakdown of the system as we talked about with the stress hormones and factors affecting immune system. I think the most important understanding that a cancer patient should have is that genes did not cause this cancer. It had to do with lifestyle, behavior, and programming. The relevance of all those, every one of those characteristics are controllable by us. That we don’t need to kill the cells. That’s only an expression of the disharmony in the system. The cells are not our enemy. It was the consciousness that is the enemy. And I say, “What is the spontaneous remission of cancer?” 

The answer is simply this, a person changes their belief system behavior radically. It’s like, “Oh my god, I got cancer, my life is out of control. I need to bring harmony and I have to get rid of that job that is stressing me or the family that is causing all these problems and all these things to realize I must disconnect from those imbalances because the moment I disconnect from them, I have retained the power again.” So those that have a spontaneous remission are those that spontaneously recognize it’s not the cells that are the problem, it’s me and therefore it’s me that can fix the problem. That’s the most important powerful message in the world. A: we created problem. B: We can fix a problem. And I just want to add this, it’s really relevant. When people start to learn that their diseases such as cancer are really coming from their consciousness, they want to reject this belief for a simple reason.

It’s like because they feel shame. Guilty. I created my cancer? I wouldn’t have done that. It’s like you want to reject personal involvement. And so this is very important point. The words blame, shame, guilt, victim are all common to this. If you have knowledge how to do something, and in spite of that knowledge, use something else to do something totally different outside of that, knowing that there was a right way and choosing a wrong way, then blame, victim, guilt, and shame apply. But if you have no consciousness of this no awareness, no one gave you any training, no one gave you any knowledge, no one gave you a good programming, and then you end up with a cancer, I can’t blame you. You shouldn’t be ashamed. You didn’t know how it worked. And so those words drop out. 

But those are the words that limit people from moving forward because the moment they feel like, “Oh my god, I’m guilty of this cancer.” Then the tendency is not to own responsibility. And yet I have to tell people, “No. The words blame, guilt, victim and shame, have no application if you did not understand how to operate the system. And then as a result of not being informed, you misuse the system and express it. There’s the problem.” But it’s not your problem. It’s a lack of knowledge. Knowledge is power. You get the power, but guess what? Once you understand what we’re talking about, and if you continue to violate the harmony, then blame, shame, guilt and victim will apply. There’s a point when people recognize that they’re involved with their own illness, they have a choice. Change your way of life. Take Back the power and live that way. 

But some people won’t do that. And you say, but why wouldn’t they? They know they’re killing themselves and why won’t they change? And the answer is, there’s some others, insidious reasons and that is this. When people are looking for love, for example, and they go in their database of memory, when did I get love? When did I get it? Most people can turn to a time when they were very sick because then everyone gave them love. Everyone gave them hope. Everyone gave them wishes and hug them and love them and tried to nurture them and help them through. And so let’s say I was a kid and I had those issues, now I’m 60 years old, and it’s like, I don’t have any love. And so I have to go into my database and go, “When did I get love?” It’s like, oh, “When I was sick.” Now, this is not the conscious mind. This is subconscious programming, revealing what happened in history and how can I replace that love. The answers is, “Well, if I get sick, I’m going to get love again.”

That is one way of getting love but it’s a very costly way of doing it. But it worked when you were younger, and it may work when you’re older, or may not work when you’re older. But what was the point? You’re not operating from your conscious creative mind. You’re operating from programs and the program said when I was sick, I got love. And basically, unfortunately, because it only was working when I was five, six and seven, and eight years old, now that I’m 50 years old, if I try that same program, it may not work but it’s the only program my subconscious knows. And I will play that and I will kill myself and watch seeking love. 

Nathan Crane: 

It all comes back to love.

Bruce H. Lipton, PhD

Everything is love.