THE POWER OF BELIEF
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
-Henry Ford
One of my clinical supervisors during graduate school was herself a fully recovered multiple-personality disorder (MPD) patient. MPD, now known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), often involves horrific experiences of childhood sexual abuse, torture, or trauma where the only recourse for escape involves dissociating from the experience and going somewhere else in the mind. Oftentimes, these individuals develop multiple different personalities, usually with their own separate speech patterns, writing styles and health issues.8 I will never forget my supervisor explaining the research study she was involved with, where she and other participants were given a full medical workup and diagnostic while under one personality, during which they would test positive for things such as cancer, heart disease, allergies or diabetes. Then, when she and other individuals switched to another “identity,” they would no longer test positive for those medical diagnoses! How could this be?
The answer may lie in a concept called quantum superposition, which theorizes that the same object can exist in many different places at the same time. This has actually been proven and demonstrated in multiple labs across the United States where an object big enough to be seen with the naked eye is in multiple different places at the same time.9 Could this be what is happening in these individuals diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder? If the observer determines where matter exists and how it behaves, is it possible that our minds and consciousness can change matter and our physiological makeup through deeply-held thoughts and beliefs?
What this and so many other studies tell us is that the mind is the most important thing when it comes to our brain and body’s functioning. As long as you believe something fully and completely, your brain and body will produce the neurological and physiological chemistry to make it a reality. The best part is that we are #nding this concept supported and reinforced in many new and exciting #elds of science and medicine (quantum physics, psychoneuroimmunology, epigenetics, placebo research, etc), which we will get into and explore more fully later in this book.
While this may seem like an entirely novel idea, it has surfaced in the traditional sphere of knowledge. Most of you have probably heard of the placebo effect, which is when a person experiences a response based on mere expectation. After being told that a new pill or procedure shows great promise in treating an illness, the individual is given a saline injection or a fake surgical procedure. Then, the symptoms go away on their own as a result of the individual believing in the efficacy of the treatment. The opposite is true of the nocebo e2ect, which is when an individual is told that a certain treatment will likely cause negative symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and other side effects. The individual ends up experiencing these negative symptoms before the treatment has had time to take effect in the body.
So what is going on here exactly? The placebo effect has been known about for thousands of years; however, only recently has modern science begun to get a clear idea of how this effect manifests in the body. Research on the placebo effect targets a person’s psychosocial context. That includes what is occurring within a person’s mind — beliefs, values, expectations, and social context. At its core, placebo research is about studying how the context of beliefs and values shape brain processes related to perception and emotion, thereby influencing mental and physical health.10 Modern neuroscience is discovering that the placebo effect functions as a type of psychobiological phenomenon. Mechanisms such as expectancy and Pavlovian conditioning interact with different neuronal systems to produce internally-driven chemical and biological changes in the brain and body. This topic is gaining more attention due to its promise of increased self-control and self-healing by the individual. This, of course, would minimize our reliance on external pills and procedures with potentially serious side effects. This research has made the biggest impact in the fields of pain and analgesia, immune system functioning, motor disorders, and depression.11
Dr. Joe Dispenza has brought increased attention, awareness, and research to these areas in his book, You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter (2014). Dr. Dispenza presents a number of peer-reviewed, scientific studies, along with his own rigorous research, advancing the idea that if our thoughts can make us sick, they can also make us better.
The scientific evidence suggests that if we firmly believe something to be true (i.e., that a pill or surgery or something else will heal us), our brain and body will create the neuro‐ chemicals and neurohormones to make it a reality. This has been shown with serious and complicated maladies such as Parkinson’s disease, as well as with autoimmune disorders, where patients mysteriously heal by cultivating heart-brain coherence through meditation and intention-setting.12
The power of belief extends well beyond the body’s ability to heal. It opens the door to incredible achievements and miraculous feats. Just think, for example, how nobody believed that it was possible to break a four-minute mile...that is, until Roger Bannister did it in 1954. Shortly thereafter, many other runners achieved this feat, simply because they believed it was possible. Since then, over 1400 athletes have performed this once “impossible” task. As soon as we believe that something can be accomplished, we pave the way to making it a reality.
I would like to offer the story of the famous Milarepa Cave in Tibet as an example of how humanity’s ceiling may be much lower than we think. Milarepa was an 11th-century C.E. Tibetan yogi who was reportedly born into a family of means and educated in the mystical arts and yogic traditions. As a result of these early teachings, he developed powerful abilities, such as the power to use “psychic heat” to warm himself in the extreme Tibetan winters. Tragedy then befell Milarepa when most of his family and friends were killed by village rivals, leaving him as the sole survivor. Devastated and overcome with grief, anger, and vengeance, Milarepa used his yogic powers to exact revenge on those who murdered his family and friends in an attempt to #nd relief from his suffering. After accomplishing his goal of revenge, Milarepa was disgusted with himself, recognizing that he had misused his gifts in a destructive way. He decided to banish himself to the mountains as punishment and live an ascetic life in which he would develop his abilities in a way that would only be used for good.
Milarepa went to live in the mountains for years with nothing but the clothes on his back. Visitors to Milarepa’s cave, as well as his disciples, recorded that over time his clothes began to tear and fall from his body; he grew as thin as a skeleton; and he appeared like a green monster with dull green skin and hair. This was because the only food Milarepa ate all those years were small plants growing outside of his cave, leading to an overdose of chlorophyll and making his skin and hair appear green! One can only imagine the sight of this almost naked, green skeleton, with long, scraggly green hair and beard, living in a cave high up in the Himalayan Mountains around 14,000 feet. This image of him is immortalized by disciples of his who later wrote and drew about their encounters with him.
Milarepa lived for years like this, with hardly any human interaction and distraction from his task. Over the years, the story of Milarepa and his decision to live this way spread near and far, and disciples started to visit and learn from him. To demonstrate his mastery over himself and the physical world, Milarepa performed two feats which have yet to be replicated by skeptics. The #rst was his ability to move his hand through the air with such speed and force that it created a shock wave similar to a sonic boom, which reverberated through the cave. The second feat was performed to show his mastery over the physical world. Standing in the cave, Milarepa placed his open hand against the cold, hard rock wall and started to push against it. He continued to push farther into the rock, as if it were not there! As he did so, the rock beneath his hand became soft and malleable, leaving a deep impression of his hand for all to see.
The student who witnessed this miracle reportedly tried to imitate Milarepa’s feat immediately after. Much to his chagrin, he injured his hand against the hard rock surface. Milarepa died at the age of 84 and quickly became immortalized by his disciples as someone who had mastered both the inner and outer worlds. Many texts and paintings were made to celebrate his mastery of life. The handprints in solid rock are still there to this day — some of which go almost to one’s elbow. I encourage you to visit them in person, put your hand into the solid rock where his was, and to contemplate the implications of that feat.
Like all great masters and teachers throughout history, Milarepa did not perform these incredible feats for money, attention, or fame. Rather, he did it for others — to expand their ideas of what is possible. Just like breaking the four- minute mile created the belief necessary for others to follow suit, Milarepa putting his hand through solid rock challenges us to reconsider what is really possible and pursue mastery over our inner and outer worlds. All of us are born with powers that lie dormant, waiting to be brought forth and manifested into our reality. Imagine the possibilities that could be realized by schools and teachers who recognize these powers and know how to cultivate their expression in all of us. It would create new paradigms and conceptual frameworks of what is really possible.
Milarepa’s feat does not seem so crazy and outlandish when interpreted through the lens of quantum physics. We’ve already discussed how almost everything in the universe is empty space. We’ve also discussed how everything in the universe is connected at a deep, fundamental level. Therefore, it is not so far-fetched to believe we can connect with and merge our inner and outer worlds — becoming one with the solid rock in Milarepa’s case and then manipulating it — the way we might manipulate our breathing, bloodflow, or body temperature. As we’ll discuss later, there have been countless scientifically-documented cases of highly-trained meditators adjusting their core body temperatures and changing their pH levels at will. Why is it crazy to think, then, that we could have a similar effect on external reality around us?
As human beings, we feel the need to see something with our own eyes to really believe it. The irony is that we cannot see, comprehend, or explain most of the things we use on a daily basis. Look no further than electricity, cell phones, TV, radio, and Bluetooth wireless devices. Regardless, we trust in these miracles and know they exist.
Humanity will never know exactly what happened inside Milarepa’s cave. But it seems certain that our capabilities are far more powerful and vast than the traditional mode of thinking suggests. Why are we not spreading this concept on a mass scale to the world population, empowering people to take control of their lives and circumstances? Why are we not teaching it in our schools, empowering children to create the lives they want? Is it fear of what this knowledge and information would do to threaten the powers of those who want us to believe we need their help to take care of ourselves, thereby creating a dependency on services and products? Or do our fears block us from accepting that we could be this powerful? Because as Spiderman might say, with great power does come great responsibility — and if we do accept this truth, there is nobody else we can blame for where we find ourselves in life.