Hold on to your hats - we are in for an amazing ride. Civilization is perched on the threshold of a radical paradigm shift. Paradigms represent "idea-blueprints," the core beliefs upon which society is fashioned. Changes in "core" beliefs result in a restructuring of human civilization. The recent results of the Human Genome Project has shattered one of Science's fundamental core beliefs, the concept of genetic determinism. This profundity of this change in awareness is vast, it will rewrite the nature of human civilization.

We have all been indoctrinated with the neo-Darwinian notion that our lives are "controlled" by genes. Everyday we are exposed to the news that some new gene was identified that "controls" some aspect of our physiology and behavior. Cancer genes, Alzheimer genes, "happiness" genes and addiction genes among many others, "control" the character and quality of our lives. Conventional science embraces the concept of "random mutation," which means that changes in the genetic code cannot be "controlled." Since we do not choose our genes, and since we cannot change them, we perceive of ourselves as "victims" of heredity. Our health, behavior and fate are out of our control, we are powerless in the unfoldment of our lives.

Unfortunately, being powerless leads to irresponsibility and a quest to find help from outside sources, especially from the pharmaceutical companies. The United States has become a drug-addicted nation whose citizens depend upon the chemicals of the pharmaceutical giants to put them to sleep, wake them up, avoid the messages from their guiding emotions and symptoms and to take away the pain of their inevitable depression.

However, in the face of the mechanistic perception of life, the frontiers of science are revealing another reality. A reality that is not all that unfamiliar, for we have been apprised of it for thousands of years of human history. There is a mind and there is a body. The new science reveals that they are not only integrated and entangled, but that the mind has the power to control and create the life we experience. I have personally experienced the reality of this awareness, first through my profession as a biomedical researcher and subsequently as a 'practitioner' of the new science.

My career as a biomedical research scientist began in 1967 when I started cloning stem cells, years before conventional science was aware of their importance in human health. While a tenured member of the University of Wisconsin's Medical School faculty, I was involved with teaching each new crop of medical students the basic science of how cells work. In my lectures in cell biology, histology and embryology, I faithfully passed on the knowledge of the Central Dogma, a foundational assumption underlying modern medicine. First defined by Francis Crick, co-discoverer with James Watson of the DNA genetic code, the 'dogma,' describes the flow of information that 'controls' biology. Accordingly, information flows in a unidirectional path, starting from the source-DNA, it is translated into an intermediate molecular form-RNA and finally the code is used to make Protein. The DNA represents the genes and the proteins provide for the physical body and its functions (behavior). The 'dogma' of science is that the character of our life is defined by our heredity. Genes rule!

As 'victims' of heredity, we easily attribute our limitations to less than 'satisfactory' genes and their consequent effects upon the body's physical and behavioral mechanisms. An expected behavior derived from the Central Dogma, the notion that shapes the world's current perception of health and healing. If we are 'sick,' it is because our mechanism is inherently defective or weak. Medicine's solution is to provide...medicines, physical drugs that interfere with the molecular mechanisms of the body, in an effort 'adjust' the malfunctioning machinery of physiology and behavior.

While I was teaching the Dogma in class, my cloned human cells began to reveal a completely different story. Rather than genes, the experiments revealed that it was the environment that was 'controlling' the cells. By changing the environmental conditions within the culture dish, the same cells could be transformed to reveal radically different expressions. Every cell contains a complete set of genes, enough information to make a whole human, so every cell is capable of expressing a full range of developmental potentials. However, the ultimate character expressed by a cell is NOT preprogrammed in the genes. The fate of a cell is determined by its response to the environment it finds itself in. The experiments revealed that cells dynamically adapt their structure (genes) and behavior to conform to their awareness or perception of the environment. The expression of life represents an adaptation to our perceptions, it is not defined by our genes. What did the cells teach me: Change your perception...change your life.

By the late 70's, my curiosity led me on a trail to identify the mechanism by which environmental perception 'controlled' gene expression. Embarking on this quest ultimately alienated me from my scientific peers. Why? Because I was challenging the Central Dogma whose fundamental premise is that life is 'controlled' by the genes. Here is an interesting realization, the term 'dogma' is not even a scientific word, it is specifically a religious concept where you accept that something is true based upon faith. Think of it...the entire foundation of biomedicine is built upon a religious belief! And by my questioning the Dogma of gene-control, I was labeled a heretic and actually shunned by my colleagues.

Religious belief aside, there is a fundamental question that must be asked, "Do genes really control biology?" The answer to that question is unambiguously, NO. This fact was scientifically established by the late 1980's, when a new awareness arose in molecular biology. That awareness provided for one of today's most active areas of scientific research, the field of epigenetic. Epigenetics is a study of the molecular mechanisms by which environment controls gene activity.

Though this research represents a fundamental upheaval of our beliefs about 'how' life works, this new awareness has hardly dented conventional knowledge. The simple reason is that the 'dogma' concerning the role of genes represents a core belief, or basal paradigm, that shapes our civilization. The scientifically accepted view of life is that it represents the result of random evolution of genetic mechanisms competing for survival in an eternal struggle for existence. Kind of a gloomy perspective.

But, what if we can actually change the unfoldment of our lives by changing our perceptions (beliefs)? It would lead to a different way of thinking about our lives and our place in the environment. By definition, it would change a basal paradigmatic belief and that would result in a restructuring or upheaval of civilization. For example, consider the consequences of world changes that were brought about by civilization's last paradigm upheaval. That occurred around 1925, when physics left behind the dated concepts of a Newtonian material-based universe and recognized the energy-based reality revealed in Quantum Physics. This change of perception shook the world on its axis, literally, through the creation of atom-bomb. It wasn't all bad, for with the new science, we went from typewriters to computers, from crank phones to cell phones and, medically speaking, from stethoscopes to CAT scans. All from a change in 'belief.'

Well, brace yourselves, for we are in for a wild ride. Frontier research in cell biology has finally acknowledged the mechanisms by which perception controls behavior, selects genes and can even lead to a rewriting of the genome. Rather than being the victims of our genes, we have been the victims of our perceptions! The impact of this new awareness of living systems work will alter our experience of life as much as the recognition of quantum mechanics altered and advanced the world of technology. We are on the verge of a most radical, and most wonderful upheaval of human civilization.

We are beginning to realize that transforming our lives is a lot easier than rewriting our genetic code or addicting ourselves to drugs. Our abilities and limitations reflect our perceptions of life, the cumulative awareness of who we are and the required strategies to survive in the world. These life-shaping perceptions were acquired through our developmental experiences. Experiences generate learned 'stimulus-response' patterns that are stored in our subconscious memory. The next time a previously learned stimulus reappears, the body can make a rapid life-saving reactive response, without having to relearn the behavior.

Nature designed the development of the nervous system to facilitate the information-laden process of enculturation, the acquisition of language and interpersonal skills required to participate in society. Evolutionary adaptations wired the brain for accommodating an intensive burst of behavioral programming. The EEG activity of a child's brain is predominately in a hypnotic "trance" (delta and theta activity) through the first five years of its life. This specialized engineering feat of the nervous system enables the child to simply observe the societal patterns of its parents, siblings and peers and download them as behavioral programs into their own subconscious. Thus enabling a rapid process of acquiring the complex dynamics of social interaction so that we can become one with our culture.

During the first six years of life a child unconsciously acquires the behavioral repertoire needed to become a functional member of society. Our parents are not only models for structuring social behaviors, they also serve as the 'mirror' we use in characterizing a perception of our own personal individuality. While in the hypnogogic state, remarks that parents make about us in regard to personal traits such as our abilities or disabilities, worthiness, deservability, or our being good or being bad, are all 'downloaded' as perceptual facts. These acquired beliefs constitute the 'central voice' which controls the fate of the body's cellular community. While the conscious mind may hold one's self in high regard, the more powerful unconscious mind may simultaneously engage in self-destructive behavior.

The insidious part of the autopilot mechanism is that subconscious behaviors are programmed to engage without the control of, nor the observation by, the conscious self. Since most of our behaviors are under the control of the subconscious mind, we rarely observe them or much less know that they are even engaged. While your conscious mind perceives you are a good "driver," the unconscious mind, which has its hands on the wheel most of the time, may be driving you down the road to ruin.

As we become more conscious, and rely less on automated subconscious programs, we become the masters of our fates rather than the 'victims' of our programs. Conscious awareness can actively transform the character of our lives into ones filled with love, health and prosperity by its ability to rewrite limiting perceptions (beliefs) and self-sabotaging behaviors. A variety of highly effective new energy psychology modalities, such as Psych-K (see www.psych-k.com) now enable rapid and profound reprogramming of limiting subconscious beliefs. The use of these new modalities provides a key to personal growth and transformation
For more freely-downloadable and detailed information, including references, visit: www.brucelipton.com

[Author reserves first rights]

Montpelier Family Chiropractic  16603 Mountain Rd. Montpelier, Va. 23192 Ph1: 804-883-3000 Fax: 804-883-3060
email: DrNeiss@MontpelierChiro.com     website: www.MontpelierChiro.com