Nikolai1

Oh come on. Why did it confirm your viewpoint?

Hi BES, Sorry I can't get that link to work. Go to conscious.tv website, then click 'transcripts' then click fourth on list: Anita Moorjani. You can also watch the interview on the same site. Let me know what you think!

Hi all, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150210-can-you-think-yourself-to-death Here's an interesting article from the BBC today on just how subtle the placebo / nocebo effect really is. It also includes a discussion on the role of nocebo in creating real side effects. What it doesn't mention is that these side effects then go on to generate their own placebo healing. Its a consistent phenomenon, but medicine has never really dealt with it, says Ted Kaptchuk at Harvard Medical School. Well thankfully the TaoBums are! Here's the transcript of an interview with a woman who went through a near death experience followed by an amazing recovery from cancer. Her comments on the attitudes to health in society at the end are pretty thought provoking. conscious.tv/text/27.htm Best wishes, Nikolai

Yes I definitely get you. Great post!

Hi FmAm, As we awaken, what happens is that the categories of body and mind become increasingly interchangeable. We never lose the sense of selfhood, of identity. Never. Rather our sense of selfhood expands beyond the usual confines of the individual body. We can look at something previously impersonal like the the tree in the garden and feel the sense of personal recognition in exactly the same way as we get when we look in the mirror. In the egoic state we have no choice but to view a stone as inert, lifeless matter in contradistinction to that which is animate. in the awakened state a stone has exactly the same mind-body duality as the egoic self does in the unawakened state. What you call the 'whole' therefore has two aspects - body and mind, just like the ego. You are right to call it impersonal, meaningless and non-volitional but you forget to call it also personal, meaningful and purposive. Now it is true that in order to see the cosmos in this sense we must adopt the standpoint of the so-called witness, which is a thoroughly non-dual and therefore quite empty standpoint, but this standpoint cannot be talked about nor debated so it can be safely left out of this thread. Yes this is true, but only if the I is the unawakened egoic I. When the I has been awakened the laws of causality become much wider and fuller because of the increase in volitional consciousness. Causal chains that once seemed made out of iron necessity are now opened up and become more shapeable by the expanded self's will power. If strange uncanny things are starting to happen then its a sure sign your self is expanding. Earlier in the thread Blue Eyed Snake talked about removing a beetle infestation simply by psychologically reclaiming the house - its a good example of this. I think you mean that they are simply effects of physical causes. This statement is the polar opposite of what I've been presenting in this thread and therefore marks a very important phase in our intellectual development. It is of equal value to what I've been presenting here: which is that mind is always the cause and matter always the effect. Illness is always a part of life, even to the awakened 'whole' person. The difference is that to the awakened person there is far more conscious control over the progression of the illness. Illness kills even the saint, but it is with their consent and very often prior knowledge. No saint has gone to his deathbed 'raging against the dying of the light'. It would be totally impossible. Those who fall ill and wish not to succomb simply decide not to give the illness any conscious attention. Then the illness simply withers away. An unawakened person believes that the illness strikes that part of them over which they have virtually no control - the body. They then resort to external methods to treat what they believe is an external illness - medicine, magic, qigong. This is a very long and convoluted way of doing things. The placebo effect demonstrates that is unnecessary, but only the awakened person can see the unnecessity and then act on it. The next step for you is to start to feel the I operating in ways that contradict the known laws of matter. Next feel the I-ness in the stone in your garden! All the best, Nikolai

FmAm - where did your post go? I need it to reply!

Hello VonK I couldn't agree more! I've only been able to allude so far to the true healing, which is nothing other than the realisation that who we are is neither body nor mind. NOT body and mind which is the usual way. When it comes to medical science there is a strong need, for those that are ready, to deconstruct the illusion that our bodies are the location for our illness. There is no better way to deconstruct the belief in our embodiment than to recognise the placebo effect and to see that ALL our illness can also be understood as mental belief. So, we are left in a situation where we are kind of paralysed. We try to understand our illness physically, then, we realise that the paradigm is open to contradiction by the mind cure paradigm. We are stuck, stuck, stuck! Intellectual equipoise! And there is no better condition for insight and true healing than to realise we are stuck. We shy away from this stuckness by taking what I've called the inauthentic approach, whereby we accept that mind are body cures are somehow both true. Brian has been particularly guilty in this regard, but in fairness, this is the position of most people. In my own mind, i've been fully aware that my advocation of the mind-healing has been ironic. I've needed people to see the validity of the approach - that't to say - the equal validity of the approach to the biochemical cure, before they can realise that neither of them gets to the heart of the matter. Getting to the heart of the matter - understanding that our selves are neither body nor mind - is itself the healing! Phew, ! feel like you've hauled me out the closet!

Hi Edward, I think there's a few perspectives that you might find useful: There is no such thing as 'real spiritual phenomena', nor 'unreal delusions'. All experience is the same, ALL experience. It is neither unreal nor real. Just a fleeting moment soon gone forever. Believe in nothing - neither your psychotic delusions nor the lucid reality you share with others. All of it is unreal to the wise right seeing mind. Just stay firmly in the present. The women did not 'forcefully persuade' you to drink the energy drink. They were just promo girls doing their job. The language you are using, and the way you are remembering the event is paranoid and itself psychotic. The way you tell the story to yourself is causing you grave problems. All the wisdom traditions must become psychotic if they are to share the message. This image, of the kundalini channel and the chakras, is nothing more than a story you have read somewhere and which has then presented itslef to you as a reality. It is not real! The only real thing is the NOW! Nothing else! Existential crisis like this is extremely common, particularly prior to times of personal growth. You will find many people here who relate to it as being one of those episode of life. Please do not relate this current state to the energy drink. By doing so you isolate yourself uniquely. You view it as something that has happened only to you, by malevolent forces, and is perhaps irreversible. The notion of kundalini energy retreating and going dormant for a period is nothing other than a clever metaphor for the state of mind that you are going through and which is common to the spiritual search. But thats all it is - a metaphor. You have a very strong tendency to reify what is unreal. This is the tendency of psychosis and all human beings have it to a greater or lesser extent. The great worldviews: Big bangs, gardens of Edens, chakra systems are shared psychotic delusions and the task of the spiritual seeker is to transcend these and become whole. It isn't easy, but the method and the solution are the same. Stay present, and allow thoughts to be nothing other than meaningless passing wisps of nothingness. For yourself, be the immense presence that witnesses all this nonsense. Best wishes, Nikolai

Hi Marblehead, This is only true for people who think there is a difference between the waking and dreaming states. For me, the first step was the realisation that even broad waking reality has no intrinsic reality and is indistinguishable from a dream world. Then I realised quite directly in my own life the Chuang-tzu question about the butterfly - which was no longer a thought experiment but an actual reality. Both dream and waking states are contained within this higher consciousness. Then I no longer needed to 'wake up' to know that a dream is a dream. I am always aware of myself dreaming now. To dream for me is no different than being at the movies staring at a screen. The only difference between a dream and waking state for me now is that the waking scenes are longer and filmed on better quality film. I confess you a mystery to me Marblehead. You're not exactly an occasional visitor to these forums. Everyday you read people discussing just what I've written above, based on direct experience usually, and still you consider the fact that the distinction between dream and waking is 'the truth'. My point is: misunderstanding the true nature of consciousness is a serious business. if you are to understand your true spiritual nature, it is necessary that there are some serious changes in how we perceive reality. The everyday notion that there are grades of consciousness requires a fixed reality against which we can measure the clarity of our perceptions. Thus, a dream is considered unreal when compared to waking. But there is no fixed reality!! The only reality is our own Selfhood. Discovering this is liberation itself. The repetition of terms like unconscious vs conscious blocks this insight and is therefore spiritually harmful. Everything pops into our conscious mind. We can not consciously bring anything forth. Everything arises on its own which is why everything in reality is like a dream, or a dream is like reality. When you see this is the case your heart opens up and embraces it all. Nothing is real, nothing unreal...nothing is private and nothing is shared. Its so liberating...and then we are free to love and enjoy it all as if we did consciously bring it forth - because that's exactly how it feels! In waking and dream we have clues to the two aspects of the awakened consciousness we eventually reach. But you must stop considering them as qualitatively different states to get there. The brain is just a part of the dream. A pretty metaphor for the self. Enjoy it as a dream but don't take it too seriously outside of the dream. In the dream I feed my child dream food, and take care not to bang my head and damage my brain. Why mix up dreams? If in one dream you don't believe you can fly then don't try. The next dream, less than 24 hours later, will have a different storyline, different rules apply. If you believe you can fly, go fly! As for yourself - just be the guy who enjoys ALL the dreams! Best wishes, Nikolai

Hi FmAm, Your post is excellent because it speaks of unity between mind and matter, and unity is actually all I hope for. If I'm getting unity I couldn't care less whether you call it mind or matter. You are showing analysis at the level it is required. So it is found that saltwater kills pain when painkiller compound X is absent! Excellent news! So now how would you take this new data and improve on your compound X? what are the ingredients you wish to incorporate?

Hi Everyone's mind reels at the placebo. To accept it and understand requires nothing more than a complete revolution of the mind. It requires the adoption of a worldview that only the cream of humanity's intellects have been capable - Buddha, Hegel, Dogen spring to mind but not many more. Any medical cure is undermined by it. Every time, I mean every time, we must realise: 'but maybe it was my beliefs that did it. The science is just the attempt to convince - there's no truth beyond my own suggestibility. This is a very scary phase in our development. We feel called to make an attempt at synthesis that seems so big and far-reaching that it is beyond us. Denial is self-protection. If you go into denial against what I'm saying then that is by far the best and safest place for you to be. But if you try and discuss it with me then it shows you are strong enough to understand what I'm saying and have the conversation. Now see that magic and medical science operate according to the same principles. Both use methods to inculcate belief. Magic uses the methods that are 'too rare and powerful for the masses'. Medicine 'uses the methods that are supposedly so wide and universal that even the masses can take a pill. Both convince in their own way...

Hi Vonkrankenhaus There are two ways of conceptualising what is happening: 1) A healing belief heals the mind, and this then shapes and directs the chemicals and hormones until the mind healing is reflected physically. 2) the only reality is mind and there is no interaction between mind and matter. Biochemical changes are a 'story' told by mind. They are a kind of metaphor for mental processes but essentially just more of the same mind stuff. Both recognise the primary of mind, which is the important thing. The first translates it into the language of time, cause and effect but encounters the hard problem of mind-matter interaction. This problem is only soluble to those capable of understanding, living and being the position 2. The downside of 2 is that it is beyond time and space, therefore beyond the realm of multiplicity and therefore beyond language. Everything I write is from position 2 but there are severe problems in translation for anyone who is not hearing at the same level.

Hi Brian, I've finally got time to reply to your long post. You had many objections so i'll have to be quite brief with each one: I deny that biochemistry is playing the causal role in a healing. Biochemistry is one of many valid paradigms within which to view the effects of Belief, but to view it as cause is untenable. The power of belief is demonstrated in the placebo condition, and it is also present in the active condition. Parsimony requires that we select one overarching cause, rather than take the belief that Belief for some reason falls into abeyance when the active pill is used. Trickery is deliberate deception. I've never asserted that. The belief that the medical/pharmocological industry has in their approach is sincere. I merely point out that there is a higher, truer perspective that few are aware of. I've never said this. There is a difference when the active is introduced, but this is because the active pill has greater power to influence the beliefs of the patient. They are different in colour, taste etc and these factors affect the patients state of mind. Most importantly, somebody somewhere believes in the active, and has negative belief in the placebo. Double and triple blinding has been proved necessary to reduce this, but it is impossible to eradicate it altogether. Yes that is my understanding, but tell me if I'm wrong. In the real world deliberate efforts are made to design the drug. Research has shown that giving a drug a name with a Z or an X in it makes it more effective, because these letters are associated with science and the future and progress. In the R&D phase the side effects of a drug are systematically scrutinised. Any hint of a side effect is seized upon, and these are then believed in more and more until there become part of the profile of the drug. Ethics require that these side effects are then presented as possible to the trial participants before participation. Although placebo produces side effects, they will more likely to appear in the active group because of the beliefs of the research team. These side effects will then enhance the active agent in the participant because they will feel the effects of the compound and this will produce the belief that they have taken something powerful. The concordance between their feelings and the warning before the trial will keep the participants believing that the scientists know what they are doing. The side effects therefore play a shared role in the healing. And they are not discovered after the fact but are investigated even at the animal trial phase. They are well known before the clinical trials which is the last phase and are basically about demonstrating costs against benefits for the sake of the consumer. Nowadays, the side effects for chemically related compounds are believed possible and so are in everyone mindset from the start. I addressed this is my last post. I am not calling for the end of medical science! I would happily donate to any research fund, I broadly speaking support the pharmaceutical companies. If they appear a bit cut throat i am sympathetic to the imaginable costs that go into R&D and just how astronomically difficult it is to get a drug to market. Pharmaceuticals are for the masses, and it is on behalf of the masses that I support them. But, when it comes to healing there is a better way for those few who are capable of it. But first they need to understand the deep processes that underlie medical science so as to loosen their belief. This is hard and requires traits that completely transcend intelligence, and are spiritual in nature. No, when we are unaware of something we become passive to somebody who is consciously aware of something. The beliefs of the guy who planted the LSD created the effects in the coffee drinkers. The LSD was incidental to the story, or worked only becuase the guy believed in LSD. Likewise, the could have got people tripping out, without the LSD but simply by saying 'OMG, did you drink that coffee cos I accidentally dropped acid into it'. If he was a good actor he could have got many people tripping out. Before self-realisation our knowledge is split up into conscious and unconscious. What is conscious we have 'ourselves', what is unconscious is had by 'other people'. When we become conscious of knowledge then it is ours to use to shape reality, and it gives us the power to shape that which is unconscious. This is how the LSD man gained power over the unwitting coffee drinkers. The people who were poisoned knew the presence of the CO unconsciously and were therefore vulnerable to all those who consciously declare CO to be toxic. The process of self-healing is therefore the process of raising all our unconscious knowlegde to the level of consciousness. This isn't as hard as it sounds because all the knowledge in the world is in fact pure ignorance and we can dispel it all, root and branch, by getting to the very false predicates of all this knowledge and raising it to consciosness. A self-healed person would not have been poisoned in this manner. They simply would have left the room, or known not to be there. Or, if forced, they would have tackled the widespread belief in CO toxicity and reversed it for themselves. Transmuted the warning conditions into safe ones. OK, I think that's pretty much it. I quite enjoyed your worldview speech and thought it had a certain amount of poetic power. But it didn't answer my question at all. I asked how the placebo works and you merely said that everything is connected energetically, and then something quite vague about how an electron is both a thing and a potential. i think you're on the right lines, but now actually bring it to the real world. All that you talk about is directly and concretely observable to the rightly orientated mind. You don't need to read lots of science books, you don't need to learn hard maths. You don't need to build microscopes or particle collliders. We don't need any further experiments to confirm anything. This science stuff is nice but you're following a lesser road. You're talking in tropes, metaphors. Realise it yourslef and you wouldn't dream of talking about Unity in such convoluted terms. You would not dream of being so abstract when you could use the everyday language of human experience. The intimate and direct fact that is reality is the thing you will emphasise first because it is the most obvious and the most helpful. But first, face up to the placebo! It is seriously difficult to make sense of it, but you must make the effort. Help me! Stop falling back on half-useful dogmas like laws of biochemsitry. Even if placebo cured only one in 100, then that should be enough to rouse the sincere seeker of truth from their dogmas.

Hi Dawei Yes, there's no need to go round in circles... Its a fool's game trying to discuss consciousness because its the one thing that can't and won't be conceptualised. Plus all the words mean different things to different people. The notion of an individuated unconscious, as Freud conceived it, is not only empirically untenable, but a belief that will present a major obstacle to self-realisation. Concsciousness is One and it is everything. It is not shared, because all the entities supposed to share it are themselves IT. It is not something 'we all have', because all the people supposed to be conscious are themselves just fleeting shimmers of IT - consciousness. If you say, as Marblehead did, that the unconscious is the place where dreams and inspirations come from then this is an extremely misguided and spiritually harmful view...unless you recognise that all objects, facts and perceptions come also from the unconscious. If you can do this then you have achieved the unity required and you can call it what you want, conscious, unconscious, the void or God. Just do not break up consciousness, nor subject it to any gradations whatsoever. To do so is sin itself, and ignorance. I can get quite passionate on this point...

Discreet

Hi all, I've been away for a few days, but been following the conversation on my phone. I'll just reiterate where we are so far and then hopefully I'll have time to deal with some of your comments. Let's Imagine there is tremendous excitement about a new painkilling Compound and it's efficacy is trialled experimentally against a placebo condition. The active compound is comprised of molecules A, B and X and is 60% effective. The placebo compound is comprised of molecules X, Y and Z and is 30% effective. Now some scientists may be so invested in the active compound that in their excitement they overlook the calls from other scientists to investigate molecule X on its own. Molecules A, B, Y and Z, they say, may have been inhibiting the effects of X - the molecule that was present in 100% of cases that led to a healing. Now in the above example, the active and placebo share molecule X. In real life, great care is taken to ensure that the placebo shares none of its biochemical properties with the active. And yet still they do share one very important property. The property they share is the mental attitude of the patient. All agree - doctors, drugs companies, research scientists - that the beliefs are capable of playing a causal role, but inexplicably they consider belief to be the exclusive role only in the case of the placebo. This is not only obviously unjustified, but a breathtakingly illogical example of circular thinking. So why does it happen? Why do we ignore that mental molecule that is undeniably present in every known healing? That mental molecule which heals whether the active compound is there or not there? Firstly, a state of belief is wholly mental in nature and cannot be conceptualised in biochemical terms. The effects of a belief may be, and often are, seen at the biochemical level, but the belief as a causative agent cannot be. There is a profound epistemological disconnect between the mental cause and the material effect and science has no option but to accept defeat in the face of the 'hard problem' and leave the placebo as an unexplainable. When we insist that the only biochemical remedies are explainable, it takes only one short step further to say that explainable remedies are those that work best. What cannot be considered is that the so called active condition is simply that which most effectively engenders the belief state. The second problem for science is that thoughts are not amenable to conscious manipulation in the same way as matter. Indeed it seem that thoughts and beliefs must remain unconscious if they are to operate to full efficacy. In other word, there is no understanding as to how belief states can be consciously manipulated to effect a physical healing and so suggestion that they might be sounds profoundly unethical. These two problems taken together lead many to believe that a belief has such a precarious state of material reality that it cannot be the subject of either conceptualisation nor technological implementation. Is this true? Well, for the vast majority of mankind, yes it is. It takes considerable intelligence and application to do the inner work required to transcend our beliefs and achieve an internal healing. (Where external healing means that which requires the expertise and technology of an outsider - whether it be a medical doctor, a faith healer, a voodoo practitioner and so on.) I say therefore that it is most ethical for the status quo to be maintained. All should seek healing where they believe they shall be healed and this is the position I have maintained throughout and why I've been careful not to sanction an attack on Big Pharma. The drugs companies and the profession they serve perform a vital role and should be left to continue. Hopefully my ethical stance is sufficiently clear by now. In another post I'll detail the cosmogony of my system, and this will provide the rationale for actual self-healing for those rare beings capable of such. Before that I'll try and clear up some of your objections point by point maybe tomorrow Best wishes, Nikolai

Really helpful thanks, and I agree with everything you're saying but no time now to say more!

Hi Donald, The scholarship you show in your posts is seriously impressive. You often talk about the fact that the adoption of the materialistic scientific worldview does not constitute progress from former worldviews and here you quote Kuhn to that effect. Do you consider that recognising the value of the older worldviews will lead to technological capabilities that we have forgotten about because they have no place in the modern scheme? Or is the value of Kuhn's words more about liberating us from the modern constraints? Or perhaps you feel that there are ancient worldviews that are 'higher' or more comprehensive and you would wish to see a return to them - a paradigm shift back in that direction? Very interested to know your thoughts Nikolai

Some good advice. I would suggest as well that you rest the urge to push away your Christianity. It is a full and perfect spiritual path - no other is needed - although I applaud your courage to explore other paths. Cycle round. Touch base every now and then with the gospels. The letters of saint Paul are chocked full of wisdom, and show very graphically the difficulties that come when ascensions in understanding clash with the orthodoxy. You talked at the beginning about welcoming the contents of your consciousness like passing guests - staying with you a while then passing on. Can a better spiritual practice than this be imagined? You have deep wisdom, but no confidence. But the wisdom will win out. If you abandon this thread, please don't abondon the whole forum. Best wishes, Nikolai

Hi Brian Whenever we try and put this is stuff into words it's duality galore, so I'm not sure which of my dualities you were referring to. But maybe it will clarify things if I outline the stages in the growth of knowledge. 1) We accept and hold as truth a particular state of affairs. We can call this the thesis and In this case it will be that illness has a biochemical cause and should therefore be treated biochemically. 2) We then come across an alternative perspective, which we call the antithesis. This may be expressed through the opinions of others or there might be some extremely compelling evidence for it. In this case the antithesis is the discovery of the placebo effect. Three possible reactions to the antithesis ensue, all at the same level of wisdom. 2A Outright denial that the placebo exists, and the dismissal of the idea on account of its obvious impossibility. Placebo is a myth. In this thread, none of us has reacted this way. 2B Outright acceptance of the placebo effect, or the power of the sugar pill ritual as the truth, and dismissing the evidence for biochemistry as outright nonsense - a conspiracy conjured up by Big Pharma. The overwhelming evidence is suppressed. None of us has taken this view, though some in this world do. 2C Accept the truth of both thesis and antithesis, but make no attempt at unifying them into a coherent scheme. Somewhat Inauthentically, this person will argue 1 against 2 one day, then 2 against 1 the next day and deny the contradiction they are living in. Their inauthenticity is evidenced by the fact they will feel real irritation at whatever their interlocutor happens to argue, and they feel like they are defending truth. Next we have the third stage: 3) Synthesis. This is the realisation that positions 1 and 2 are actually the same thing just viewed from different perspectives. Any apparent contradiction is an illusion. A variable has been discovered that unites the two positions. In this case, I call it the power of subjective consciousness to create reality. Biochemistry is a physical expression of this, and we shall see biochemical changes in the body whatever the healing method. Now, arguing position 3 to a person who has not for themselves made the synthetic breakthrough is extremely difficult. Whatever they hear, they interpret through the only categories they have access to - the binary of position 1 (where primacy of matter predominates) and 2 (where primacy of individual mind predominates). If the reader ofthis thread cannot conceive the difference between 2B and 3 then they are certainly doing this. Because the placebo question invokes one of the most fundamental binaries of the modern mind- mind and matter - the task is especially hard. This is why I've made the point throughout that the leap to level 3 is perhaps only possible through a dedicated spiritual practice that will reveal that their own identity transcends both their individual mind and the individual body and is actually neither. This insight allows mind and body to be equated, allows belief and biochemistry to be akin. The triune path applies to all progression in truth. The synthetic third allows us to understand that the coffee mug is somehow not either right or left handed, even though we only ever use one hand to grasp the handle. When we have gained self-realisation, that is, understanding and seeing that we are not individuals, the triune path ends abruptly. Truth is attained and there is no further synthesis required. Such a person no longer lives in duality,except when they open their mouth and utter words that are interpreted by those in duality. But it is their duality, not his. The main problem in this thread is that the synthesiser has transcended two of the fundamental ontological categories. Words do not operate at this level at all. To express himself he must use words from the lower level,and hope that his audience has the intellectual capacities to interpret them at the correct level. To help, he might use capital letters to highlight the level distinction, but even this can go overlooked. I'm sure I could have used Subjective Consciousness instead of subjective consciousness but its too late now. Brian, twice I asked you to explain the placebo effect in your own terms. How do you synthesise the thesis and the antithesis? This would have allowed me to know whether it was my lack of clarity or your lack of understanding that led to you disagreeing with me. I'm still curious to hear it and I won't bite your hand off - I know firsthand the challenge of synthesis.

Personally yes, because I see no evidence to the contrary that gets me thinking about it and thus challenging the belief. All I have is times in meditation when the breathing seems to stop but it's hardly the same thing. In order to challenge a held belief our scepticism needs to be provoked, either through circumstances or logically. The existence of the placebo effect provoked my scepticism, my experiments with higher consciousness provided alternative theories.

Hi Brian I've simply observed it, in the same way that I have observed that most people need pills when they are ill. I don't have access to the mindset of the plant, but I do have access to the mindset of another person. And I'm saying, the widespread placebo effect shows that your state of mind, you levels of expectation, determine your recovery. Learn therefore to rise above these spurious opinions about your illness. Do not attach yourself to opinions on the causes, learn to be sceptical. Do not attach yourself to your own pet healing, learn to be sceptical of that too. When we have cultivated this ability to be sceptical something remarkable happens. We cease to give the subject any more attention, knowing as we do that what happens is based on our own opinion nothing more. We see that analysis is futile and we naturally desist. This loss of interest is simultaneously a kind of surrender. We are no longer interested in our health and all the theories that surround it. What happens then? Do we still get ill? Actually, yes we do in a way. When there is a bug going round the house, we have moments when we can sense its presence in ourselves. A strange feeling in the throat perhaps. But because we don't give it any further thought whatsoever, we take no actions, no prophylactic hot toddies, nothing. And the illness simply disappears, as gently and as imperceptibly as it came. When you truly confront the significant truths contained in the placebo effect, what happens is that something that once took conscious attention now takes none. One might say that the illness is dealt with unconsciously. Just as we have no need to learn about the biology of our digestion, and then consciously channel all the thousands of enzymes where they are needed, we just simply let it carry on without us. This lesson can be applied to so much of our lives, hence the deep significance of this subject. Life can flow very smoothly if we let it. All the big upheavals could have been much smaller things if we hadn't made such a big deal of them in our minds. Medicine is the cause of so much illness, and I'm not talking iatrogenesis. Medicine is a healing art that has great prestige in our society, but there are higher levels of healing to be discovered.

OK, my two cents worth... Unconscious We can not be aware of the unconsciousness, because if we aware of it then it is already conscious. So from a purely empirical perspective the unconscious is devoid of any possible existence, or indeed meaning. We infer the unconscious because we see ourselves automatically behaving and responding to the world in meaningful and intelligent ways. We imagine that we must possess a storehouse of knowledge that we are unaware of. But our own body is an object in our subjective consciousness in a way that is no different to other objects: trees, stones and so forth. Nature is full of meaningful patterns. If we grant ourselves an unconscious intelligence, then we must for logical consistency, ascribe the whole cosmos with the same unconscious intelligence. The wind blows in autumn in order to remove the leaves from the trees. The concept of a private unconscious is therefore untenable whichever way you look at it. The concept of a private consciousness is also totally untenable for the same reasons - this is a hard statement but fact nevertheless. Law of Attraction When consciousness is discovered to be cosmic rather than individual and private, this does not remove our sense of being a creative agency but rather enhances it. Part of the same realisation is that any distinction between private thought and objective event is an illusion. Thought and form are of the same stuff - which we can call energy. Thought is like a seed and form the full grown tree - but both share the same identity. These thought seeds grow into eventual manifestation through immersion in this conscious consciousness. To immerse in consciousness is nothing other than giving it conscious attention. The law of attraction is a formulation of the highest principles of creation. To deny it outright is not only unintelligent, but a denial of the spiritual life in general. All creative acts are achieved in abidance by the law of attraction. But...and this is a very big BUT... The person who is trapped in the sense of being an individual consciousness has extremely puny powers of manifestation. Their erroneous beliefs constrict them at every turn. They privately doubt the power of their own little consciousness, and they are a maelstrom of conflicting desires. One moment they give attention to what they want; the next moment they are denying the same desire and doing what others want of them. Some people can be totally like this, and yet still able to identify the deep cosmic wisdom that is contained within the Law of attraction teachings. They therefore think they can use the laws and manifest themselves a Ferrari. In 99% of cases this shows deep ignorance of their own spiritual immaturity and scattered attention. But, as usual, there are rare exceptions that confuse everything. in some cases it is possible to have 100% faith in the LoA teachings, with no private feelings of their own puniness. Monstrously egotistical, they combine absolute confidence with all the commonplace desires of the average person. Its money they want more than anything, they have no doubt that they deserve it, and then they manifest themselves a real lottery win! What these people lack - and they must be pitied for it - they lack any doubt that a lottery win will make them happy. They have no conception at all that there is more to life. Most people do know this deep down, and this undermines their ability to manifest. But if they truly study the heart of the LoA teachings they will eventually gain much more in compensation. In summary, the LoA is true, but it will only work when you become worthy of it (or totally unworthy).

Hi BES - really good post. Firstly, I accept that the term 'belief' is not good. It's confusing because for most people what they believe is contrasted with what they know. For me, believing and knowing have merged into the same thing, therefore expectation is maybe a better term for that state of mind that leads to healing. It all stands to reason that there is no such thing as an objective truth, against which the power of pseudo-truths can be measured. What we expect to happen will happen, period. In post #39 I said this: "Actually, and this brings me back to the central purpose of the OP, it doesn't really matter how you understand how carbon monoxide became toxic. All that is required is that whatever way you use is wholehearted. Either 1) believe totally in a deterministic universe where human belief (and therefore the placebo) is falsehood and an illusion 2) believe that beliefs create everything or 3) realise that these two perspectives are actually the same." There are very few modern Catholics whose theocentric worldview hasn't been confused by materialism, and the convincing laws of cause and effect that it has discovered. I'm sorry that they feel guilty about their failure, but that guilt comes from the dynamic of the religion. For myself, there is no moral reason to believe one thing over another - but if you want results try to be wholehearted. I have not suggested any split at all. I am arguing quite the opposite. All healings, under what ever name they occur, are successful because of the power of our inner expectation. Now, there might be different ways to explain the healing - biochemistry and Chi energy to name two - but these are just verbal alternatives to the same process. To quote a serpent we both know well: "There is only one truth, but it has many manifestations." I do believe you. I know the creative power of the mind. I know that it is the sovereign force of the cosmos and is God itself. And I know that you are part of that and possess the same power. And I know that when you try to renounce your own power and say "it was not me, it was the energies that healed me and I merely helped" then you strip yourself of your sovereign power and make yourself vulnerable to the negative energies that tomorrow you will think yourself too weak to fight. Old Dr Kooij, in the town centre, behind the car park, produces a similar field as he writes out his prescription. This raises the problem of cause and effect and the confusion between them which results when we fail to see them as the thing. When we take a placebo pill, the effects are identical to the active pill, as we see in the studies on morphine and natural endorphin. The biochemistry is merely the manifested effect of the true cause, which is the conscious power of expectation. Likewise with any other measurables, brain waves and so on. But when we insist on taking one of these many different types of manifested effects, and turn it into THE cause. This is where the confusion begins, and the interdisciplinary disputes and all the futile debates between mainstream and alternative medicine, and all the futile attempts at scientific credibility. As an aside, cognitive therapy is particularly obvious in the this regard. The therapy is nothing other than trying to get people to think and act and feel in a "healthy" way. Well if they could do that they wouldn't be ill!! Depression is nothing other than the absence of sufficient will power to lead a fully functional life. And yet the treatment requires and expects the Will to be fully operational and ready to implement all the so-called good advice! The way in which cognitive therapies then try to mimic the hard sciences in order to create an evidence base is actually laughable, but its a topic in its own right really. But broadly speaking the fact the cause and the effect are indistinguishable is the reason why all healing arts contain withim themselves the concept of illness. And when you accept that something heals you, you also accept that something will harm you. You don't have to spend long on this website to notice what I call the energetic hypochondriacs. People who can barely enter a room without first filling their dantien, and even then worrying about the negative energies coming their way. This, in spirit, is no different to those neurotic types who go shopping in face masks. True healing is not only healing of the symptoms, but healing of the very concept of illness. All I need to know is that my plants need water; it doesn't mean I'm not interested in how they take it from the soil. I can and do have conversations about health - I like to hear the ways they are described - they are like metaphors for me, poems in their own way. But, yes, fundamentally I am detached and glad that I'm not seriously invested in that stuff. Like you can enjoy a movie but at the same time not want to be caught up in the drama, in reality! best wishes to you , Nikolai

BES Yes you did. In our lives we are exposed to an almost infinite amount of beliefs and opinions about things. For the most part they are just other peoples stuff and have no active role in our lives. Those very few beliefs that we extract and actually use to guide our behaviour are very deeply held in comparison. The fact that you took your friend's advice shows that you believed it very much deep down. Any scepticism you had was purely surface level and probably based on those conventional attitudes that you have learned by being in the world. If you were truly sceptical you would have ignored the advice, and considering its highly unconventional nature, so would 99.9% of the population.