What the Bleep Do We Know?!:


Paradigm Shift

The word “paradigm” refers to the conceptual framework, belief system, and overall perspective through which we
see and interpret the world.  It holds our experience together and creates a coherent picture of reality—a
worldview.  Our worldview implies a way of knowing.  

Ever since humans first developed the capacity to think and wonder, we have been awed by the magnificence,
beauty, and sometimes terrifying forces of nature. Witnessing the journey of life from the miracle of birth to the
finality of death, our ancestors wondered: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?
Like us, they wanted to know how we fit into the world around us.

To make sense of these mysteries we create stories. Some cultures create stories about earth spirits embedded
in nature; others about a single sky god who rules from above, still others tell us we are alone in an indifferent
universe.  Indeed, the history of science can be viewed as an evolution of ideas that reveal that reality is not as it
appears, nor are we precisely who we think we are.

Our paradigm determines what we are able to see, how we think, and what we do. We do not question its
accuracy because we’re usually unaware of its existence. Trying to reflect on our own worldview is like trying to
study the color blue while wearing blue-colored glasses. We cannot distance ourselves enough from it to see how
much it affects our perception. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are. Our
paradigms are usually all we know and only become perceptible to us when we encounter ones that are different
from our own.

A scientific paradigm is more like a hypothesis which “normal science” elaborates upon by accumulating more and
more data. As such, scientists tend to seek consistency and avoid novelty. They frequently overlook anomalies
that challenge the existing paradigm until those anomalies become too disruptive to ignore.  Any scientific
paradigm takes place within a cultural context that supports the project of science. While paradigms can exist on
many scales—personal, family, community—they flow out from the headwaters of a deeper cultural paradigm that
is the context within which our understanding of science or religion exists.

    WORLD AS BATTLEFIELD
Many people see the world as a battlefield, where good and evil are pitted against each other and the forces of
light battle the forces of darkness.  This ancient tradition goes back to the Zoroastrians and the Manicheans.  
There is the sense that you are fighting God’s battle and that ultimately you will win.  William Irwin Thompson
called this kind of certainty and self-righteousness ‘the apartheid of good’.

    WORLD AS CLASSROOM
A more innocuous version of the battlefield image is the image of the world as a classroom, a kind of moral
gymnasium where you are put through certain tests which would prove your mettle and teach you certain lessons,
so you can graduate to other arenas and rewards. Whether a battlefield or a classroom, the world is a proving
ground, with little worth beyond that.  What counts are our immortal souls, which are being tested here on Earth.  
For the sake of your soul, you are ready to destroy.  These two views are strong among monotheistic religions.
But agnostics can also fall prey to this way of thinking when they become militant or self-righteous.  
Fundamentalism has both religious and secular adherents.

    WORLD AS TRAP
Here the view is not to engage in struggle or vanquish the foe, but to disentangle ourselves and escape from this
messy world.  We try to extricate ourselves and ascend to a higher, supra-phenomenal plane.  This stance is
based on a hierarchical view of reality, where mind is seen as higher than matter and spirit is set over and above
nature.  This view encourages contempt for the material plane.  The Western worldview was based on this
metaphor, with the trap being the illusion that the phenomenal world is real.  To know truth one must directly
apprehend the eternal, transcendent Platonic ideas or forms.  These perfect forms are unchanging, a welcome
relief from the overwhelming flux and chaos of the world.

Elements of this worldview have entered all major religions of the last 3,000 years, regardless of their
metaphysics.  Many of us on spiritual paths fall for this view.  Wanting to affirm a transcendent reality distinct from
a society that appears very materialistic, we place it on a supra-phenomenal level removed from confusion and
suffering.  The tranquility that spiritual practices can provide, we imagine, belongs to a place aloof from our world
and to which we can ascend and be safe and serene.  For those not engaged in spiritual pursuits, another
version of this worldview is the idea that we need to get healed from all our neuroses and hang-ups first and then
we can participate in the world.  In this view the self and the world are seen as essentially separate, so we believe
we can heal one without healing the other.

    WORLD AS MACHINE
Also known as modernity, the world is viewed as a collection of inanimate objects that interact in predictable,
mechanistic ways based on mathematical laws (developed principally by Isaac Newton and thus known as
Newtonian, or classical physics).  Introduced in the seventeenth century by Descartes, Newton, Bacon, and
others, modernity established a discontinuity between mind and matter, the subjective and objective, and
ultimately between science and religion. Over centuries of struggle between a rising tide of empiricists who battled
against an entrenched theology, an uneasy truce developed. Science claimed the domain of the physical world;
religion claimed the domain of the mental world.

In a worldview where the physical and the mental have split allegiances, what happens to powerful religious and
spiritual impulses, which address the essential role of meaning in our lives?  Integral theorist Ken Wilber argues
that when driven underground the basic human need for transcendence comes out ‘sideways’, through
compulsions to accumulate possessions and stroke the ego.

    WORLD AS LOVER
The world is beheld as a most intimate and gratifying partner.  In Hinduism we find some of the richest expressions
of our erotic relationship with the world.  Desire plays a creative, world-manifesting role here and its charge in
Hinduism pulses onward into Krishna worship, where devotional songs, or bhajans, draw on the erotic yearnings
of body and soul.  You feel yourself embraced in the primal erotic play of life. This erotic affirmation of the
phenomenal world is not limited to Hinduism.  Ancient Goddess religions, now being explored, carry it too, as do
strains of Sufism and the Kabbalah, and Christianity has its tradition of bridal mysticism.  Nineteenth-century
Romantic poets like Blake, Wordsworth, and Shelley felt this erotic affinity with the world, as did Walt Whitman in
his ‘body electric’.  The American Transcendentalist Movement, with Emerson and Thoreau, also communed
deeply with the natural world to discover that in doing so they became more fully human.

    WORLD AS SELF
The world as lover is a complement to the world as self.  The subject (the lover) and object (the beloved) are no
longer separate.  The world is an interconnected whole and each individual a node in a living web of life.  The
Hindu tradition offers the image of Indra’s net, in which each node is a jewel that shimmers with the reflection of all
the other nodes.  In Buddhist thought we find this idea expressed in the concept of ‘dependent origination’, or
mutual causality.  Today this perception also arises in the realms of science—in general systems theory,
complexity science, and quantum physics.  We are discovering that Mind is immanent in nature, extending far
beyond the spans of our individual conscious purpose.


A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW

Classical Paradigm — Age of Gods and Oracles
Ancient Greek worldview.  Knowledge is delivered from the gods via oracles.  Meaning was bestowed by the gods.
Beginning with the pre-Socratic philosophers and followed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Greek philosophy
turns away from gods and oracles and increasingly looks to nature and the power of reason to reveal the nature
of reality.

Pre-Modern Paradigm — Age of Faith/Superstition
Medieval worldview.  Knowledge is derived from authority; meaning is derived from sympathies between things, as
in the Hermetic doctrine of “as above, so below.”

Modern Paradigm — Age of Reason/Empiricism/Science
Beginning in the seventeenth century through today.  Age of analysis, reductionism, individualism, and
mechanism.  Meaning is projected by the human mind onto nature. Mechanical causality is the only way things
move or change.  The guiding metaphor is the machine.  Time is linear.

Today
Three primary subcultures exist today: the Traditionalists, the Modernists, and the Cultural Creatives.

Traditionalists are cultural conservatives who wish to preserve the pre-modern simplicity of life.  Otherwise known
‘Heartlanders’, they believe in a nostalgic image of return to small town, religious America, corresponding to the
period 1890 to 1930.  What they believe are the good-old traditional American ways.

Modernists are an extension of the Enlightenment.  This group promotes aggressive change, material progress,
and big-city ways.  What is most distinctive about this group is their belief in a technological economy that is
reshaping the globe.

Cultural Creatives are called that because they prefer to operate on the leading edge of cultural change.  They
have both person-centered and green (ecological) values.  They are concerned with psychology, spiritual life, self-
actualization, and self-expression.  They like things foreign and exotic, enjoy mastering new ideas, advocate for
women’s and minority issues, and support the notion of ecological sustainability.

Bearers of the culture of Traditionalism, or the Heartlanders, make up 29 percent of today’s population in the
United States, or about 56 million adults.  Modernists comprise 47 percent of the population, or 88 million adults,
and Cultural Creatives comprise 24 percent of the adult population, or 44 million adults.


Philosopher Duane Elgin expresses the shifting of world-views of many people in recent years in this way:

"I believe that the most far-reaching trend of our times is an emerging shift in our shared view of the universe—
from thinking of it as dead to experiencing it as alive.  In regarding the universe as alive and ourselves as
continuously sustained within that aliveness, we see that we are intimately related to everything that exists.  This
insight ... represents a new way of looking at and relating to the world and overcomes the profound separation
that has marked our lives.”

No single way of knowing is adequate for this complex universe.  Each has its own domain of expertise.  But it
takes all of our ways of knowing, all working in concert—rational empiricism, intuition, mystical awareness, and
receptive spirit—to open us to the universe.

Worldviews emerge to solve problems.  For an emerging new worldview to take hold, the majority of the
population has to deeply understand, beyond abstract intellect, that its current way of thinking is inadequate to
solve the problems it faces.  A new worldview cannot take hold simply by suppressing the voices of those who
disagree, or through impassioned arguments.

We are being challenged to cultivate our capacities to combine rational and non-rational ways of knowing.  This
means there is no instruction manual for changing paradigms and no blueprint to follow.  Needing absolute
answers may well be an artifact from outdated worldviews, while becoming comfortable with uncertainty may be
our path to a new one.



Quantum Physics

Quantum mechanics, the latest development in the scientific quest to understand the nature of physical reality, is
a precise mathematical description of the behavior of fundamental particles. It has remained the preeminent
scientific description of physical reality for 70 years. So far all of its experimental predictions have been confirmed
to astounding degrees of accuracy.

Today the Newtonian view of physics is referred to as classical physics; in essence, classical physics is a
mathematical formalism of common sense. It makes four basic assumptions about the fabric of reality that
correspond more or less to how the world appears to our senses. These assumptions are reality, locality,
causality, and continuity.  Reality refers to the assumption that the physical world is objectively real. That is, the
world exists independently of whether anyone is observing it, and it takes as self-evident that space and time exist
in a fixed, absolute way. Locality refers to the idea that the only way that objects can be influenced is through
direct contact. In other words, unmediated action at a distance is prohibited. Causality assumes that the arrow of
time points only in one direction, thus fixing cause-and-effect sequences to occur only in that order. Continuity
assumes that there are no discontinuous jumps in nature, that space and time are smooth.  Classical physics
developed rapidly with these assumptions, and classical ways of regarding the world are still sufficient to explain
large segments of the observable world, including chemistry, biology, and the neurosciences. Classical physics
got us to the moon and back. It works for most things at the human scale. It is common sense.

But it does not describe the behavior of all observable outcomes, especially the way that light—and, in general,
electromagnetism—works.  As waves, electrons have no precise location but exist as “probability fields.” As
particles, the probability field collapses into a solid object in a particular place and time. Unmeasured or
unobserved electrons behave in a different manner from measured ones. When they are not measured, electrons
are waves. When they are observed, they become particles. The world is ultimately constructed out of elementary
particles that behave in this curious way.  As waves, electrons have no precise location but exist as “probability
fields.” As particles, the probability field collapses into a solid object in a particular place and time. Unmeasured or
unobserved electrons behave in a different manner from measured ones. When they are not measured, electrons
are waves. When they are observed, they become particles. The world is ultimately constructed out of elementary
particles that behave in this curious way.  Quantum Mechanics was developed to account for the wave-particle
nature of light and matter.  This theory was not just applicable to describing elementary particles in exotic
conditions, but provided a better way of describing the nature of physical reality itself.  Einstein’s Theory of
Relativity also altered the Newtonian view of the fabric of reality, by showing how basic concepts like mass,
energy, space, and time are related.  Relativity is not just applicable to cosmological domains or to objects at
close to light-speeds, but refers to the basic structure of the fabric of reality.  In sum, modern physics tells us that
the world of common sense reveals only a special, limited portion of a much larger and stranger fabric of reality.

You can measure a single electron’s properties accurately, but not without producing imprecision in some other
quantum attribute.  Quantum properties always come in “conjugate” pairs. When two properties have this special
relationship, it is impossible to know about both of them at the same time with complete precision. Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty (also know as the Indeterminacy) Principle says that if you measure a particle’s position accurately,
you must sacrifice an accurate knowledge of its momentum, and vice versa. A relationship of the Heisenberg kind
holds for all dynamic properties of elementary particles and it guarantees that any experiment (involving the
microscopic world) will contain some unknowns.

Local reality is the reality that is governed by the laws of classical physics. In a local reality, influences cannot
travel faster than the speed of light. In 1964 Irish physicist John Stewart Bell showed that any model of reality
compatible with quantum theory must be non-local. For quantum physics to work, information must travel not just
faster than light, but instantaneously. Non-locality suggests that everything in the universe is connected by
information that can appear anywhere else, instantaneously.

Causality has dissolved because the fixed arrow of time is now known to be a persistent illusion, a
misapprehension sustained by the classical assumptions of an absolute space and time. We now know that
sequences of events depend on the perspectives (technically called the frame of reference) of the observers.  
Continuity has faded away because we now know that there are some discontinuities in the fabric of reality. Space
and time are neither smooth nor contiguous.

The portrait of reality painted by relativity and quantum mechanics is so far from common sense that it raises
problems of interpretation. The mathematics of the theories is precise, and the predictions work fantastically well.
But translating mathematics into human terms, especially for quantum mechanics, has remained exceedingly
difficult.  Most people assume it has no relevance to our particular real life interests. This is understandable and
in most cases perfectly fine for practical purposes.  But when it comes to understanding the nature of reality, it is
useful to keep in mind that quantum mechanics describes the fundamental building blocks of nature, and the
classical world is composed of those blocks too, whether we observe them or not.  There is a variety of theories
on what quantum mechanics means:

Copenhagen Interpretation – This is the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics, promoted by Danish
physicist Niels Bohr (thus the reference to Copenhagen, where Bohr’s institute is located). In an overly simplified
form, it asserts that there is no ultimately knowable reality. In a sense, this interpretation may be thought of as a
“don’t ask–don’t tell” approach that allows quantum mechanics to be used without having to care about what it
means. According to Bohr, it means nothing, at least not in ordinary human terms.

Wholeness – Einstein’s protégé David Bohm maintained that quantum mechanics reveals that reality is an
undivided whole in which everything is connected in a deep way, transcending the ordinary limits of space and
time.

Many Worlds – Physicist Hugh Everett proposed that when a quantum measurement is performed, every
possible outcome will actualize. But in the process of actualizing, the
Universe will split into as many versions of itself as needed to accommodate all possible measurement results.
Then each of the resulting universes is actually a separate universe.

Quantum Logic – This interpretation says that perhaps quantum mechanics is puzzling because our common
sense assumptions about logic break down in the quantum realm.
Mathematician John von Neumann developed a “wave logic” that could account for some of the puzzles of
quantum theory without completely abandoning classical concepts.  Concepts in quantum logic have been
vigorously pursued by philosophers.

NeoRealism – This was the position led by Einstein, who refused to accept any interpretation, including the
Copenhagen Interpretation, asserting that common sense reality does not exist. The neorealists propose that
reality consists of objects familiar to classical physics, and thus the paradoxes of quantum mechanics reveal the
presence of flaws in the theory. This view is also known as the “hidden variable” interpretation of quantum
mechanics, which assumes that once we discover all the missing factors the paradoxes will go away.

Consciousness Creates Reality – This interpretation pushes to the extreme the idea that the act of
measurement, or possibly even human consciousness, is associated with the formation of reality. This provides
the act of observation an especially privileged role of collapsing the possible into the actual. Many mainstream
physicists regard this interpretation as little more than wishful New Age thinking, but not all. A few physicists have
embraced this view and have developed descriptive variations of quantum theory that do accommodate such
ideas.


Psychic and mystical experiences have been reported throughout history and in all cultures.  Bohm’s “wholeness”
interpretation, in which everything is ultimately interconnected with everything else, seems particularly compatible
with psychic phenomena. Imagine that at some deep level of reality, our brains are in intimate communion with the
entire universe as Bohm’s interpretation proposes.  You might occasionally get glimpses of information about
other people’s minds, distant objects, the future, or the past. You would gain this information not through ordinary
senses and not because signals from other minds and objects somehow traveled to your brain, but because your
brain is already coexistent with other minds, distant objects, and everything else. To navigate this psychic space,
you would focus your attention inward rather than outward. This proposal is supported by the role of attentional
focusing in meditation practice, which has long been associated with the development of spontaneous psychic
and mystical experiences. From this perspective psychic experiences may be reinterpreted not as mysterious
powers of the mind but as momentary glimpses of quantum wholeness, the fabric of reality itself.



Mind Over Matter

More and more professional competitors and weekend jocks alike are entertaining the possibility that the mind is
the playing field on which the real game takes places. There is a growing consensus that the next breakthroughs
in athletic performance will come not so much from more muscle bulk and skeletal strength as from a skillful
combination of physical training and the use of such largely neglected “powers of the mind” as concentration,
meditation, visualization, and inner sensing.

Social creativity researchers suggest that we are not exclusively responsible for the outcome of our intentions, but
we are part of a larger chorus of creativity that is constantly exerting influences on what manifests around us. We
are participants in a creative process that is both originating within our own consciousness and interrelated to the
whole universe. Interestingly, studies done on placebos may support this view. Traditionally, researchers use
placebos in clinical tests to investigate the effects of a drug. As an inert substance, the placebo is not intended to
have any benefit, but instead to provide a baseline by which to measure the effectiveness of the active drug.
However, placebos do prove to have beneficial effects.  Every interaction between healthcare providers and their
clients has at least some component of suggestion built in. Whether we know it or not, we are “listening” to and
interpreting the messages our healthcare provider unconsciously conveys through every gesture and vocal tone,
facial expression and innuendo. In other words, we pick up on the practitioner’s unconscious messages. These
signals affect our own beliefs about our health, and our beliefs inform our healing as we have already seen.  This
“placebo effect,” the powerful influence of a healer’s intentions on the patient puzzles and disturbs many
researchers. After all, it seems to prevent them from collecting reliable data on “real” medicine. But, these
placebos may in fact turn out to be a key to our understanding the connection between intention, belief,
expectation and bodily responses.  While more research needs to be done to examine the nature of factors like
rapport, anticipation and hope in everyday life, there is research showing that long-term states of distress,
hopelessness and despair can cause serious disruptions to the healing process.

Laboratory studies have been conducted to determine whether intention might influence the growth of cell
cultures, the structure of water, the rate of wound healing in mice, the swimming activity of fish, activity in the
human autonomic nervous system, and the course of illness in human disease. The literature on these studies is
massive and uneven in quality, but overall it suggests that intention can affect living systems to some degree. A
cautious assessment is that intention appears to weakly correlate (but perhaps not influence in the physical sense
of applying force) with changes in the behavior of a wide range of living systems.  For example, a meta-analysis
published in the British Journal of Psychology in 2004 revealed that in independently replicated, rigorously
controlled, double blind laboratory experiments, the thoughts of one person had a measurable effect on the
physiological state of another person. The two people in these distant healing experiments were isolated in
soundproof and electromagnetically shielded chambers to exclude any ordinary signals from passing between
them. And yet, when a “sending” person directed calming or activating thoughts at a “receiving” person, the
receiver’s body complied in the desired direction. There are as yet no well-accepted theoretical explanations for
why this occurs, but evidence that it does happen is becoming increasingly persuasive.

In 1998, a worldwide collaboration among 75 researchers, to create the Global Consciousness Project (GCP) was
initiated.  The goal of the GCP is to determine whether world events that tend to focus mass consciousness, like
international sports events, natural disasters and acts of terrorism, might influence devices that randomly
generate numbers based on quantum noise. The results of this experiment to date show strong overall evidence
for some form of mass mind-matter interaction. For example, during and immediately after the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and after the Russian school hostages in September 2004 in the
city of Beslan, the random numbers being generated world-wide became unusually orderly. (Electronic random
number generators are a kind of electronic coin-flipper.) On days with nothing particularly interesting was
happening, the random numbers reverted back to their expected random behavior. The scientists are
hypothesizing that events that cause “mass mind” to become coherent affect physical matter itself.  Scientists are
beginning to catch up with philosophers and mystics in acknowledging that the data does seem to show that mind
and matter are somehow linked in fundamental ways, and that maybe thought does affect the world in subtle ways.

By far, the two largest databases of mind-matter interaction experiments have examined whether intention can
influence random physical systems. These experiments have focused on the fall of tossed dice and the behavior
of electronic random number generators. The former involves tossing a die and wishing or intending for a certain
die face to land up. The latter involves wishing for streams of random bits (zeros and ones) to become biased so
as to produce more ones than zeros, or vice versa. In both cases, analyses of all known experiments, numbering
in the hundreds indicates that under well-controlled laboratory conditions intention does weakly correlate with
predictable changes in the behavior of these random systems.  In one of the better-known, long-term studies at
Princeton University’s Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR for short), an individual presses a
button, which causes an electronic circuit to generate 200 random bits. The person first tries to “aim high,”
meaning to get more 1’s than 0’s. On the second button press, the person “aims low,” and on a third, has no aim
to act as a control. After 12 years and hundreds of thousands of such button pressing by hundreds of
participants, the results were clear: The mind makes random numbers comply (weakly, and observed so far only
in statistical form) with its will. Whether this is due to an energetic effect, or a more abstract probabilistic shift in
the random numbers, or an even more exotic explanation, is not yet certain. But the evidence that something
interesting is going on is exceedingly strong.

The phenomenon of coincidence has begun to yield new scientific insights. Researchers at the Institute of Noetic
Sciences have explored the hypothesis that people unconsciously know when they’re about to view upsetting
photos. Dean Radin has found that electrical resistance of viewers’ skin rises before they are about to view a
disturbing image, but not before a neutral image. This is not due to anticipation, because the effect is observed
even under double-blind conditions when the images are selected at random by a computer. Researchers at
other centers have successfully replicated this effect, using both skin conductance measures and heart rate
variability.

Intention seems to be able to influence the initial seed moments or decisions upon which events come into being
in the first place and then ultimately unfold. Thus, as we are making dozens of minor decisions throughout the
day, the possibility arises that our future self may be influencing those decisions.  Something very close to this
has been observed in repeated laboratory experiments by first blindly recording streams of random bits
generated by truly random number generators; that is, no one observes the bits while they are being recorded.
The next day, the bits are played back while a person is asked to try to influence them (to get more 1’s say, than 0’
s) according to instructions generated that day, i.e. after the bits were already recorded. These experiments
indicate that prerecorded random bits conformed to intentions produced in the future, or equivalently that the
unobserved bits in the past somehow conformed to intention generated in the present.  What is “really”
happening in these experiments is unknown, because the random bits are not observed until the experiment is
already underway in the “future,” but the results are consistent enough to suggest that the past, present and
future are, as Einstein showed, genuinely relative. And not just for objects moving close to light-speed, but also in
human experience.

As in most areas of frontier and pre-theoretic science, there are inklings that something interesting and probably
important is going on, and there is some scientifically valid data to support these ideas. But at this point in our
limited understanding, we should be wary of strong claims like “mind creates reality,” as the scientific evidence so
far does not support such interpretations without qualifications. Gaining a thorough education on controversial
topics requires an understanding of experimental and statistical methods, an appreciation of the epistemological
assumptions and limitations of science, and the ontological interpretations of reality from a modern physical
perspective.

As far as real life application goes, there are two ways in which we can think of creating our days. One is an
internal orientation—we adjust our perceptual and behavioral filters to act in ways that make our days seem
better, but in any objective sense, they haven’t really changed.  For example, a positive change in attitude can
make a day seem far better than a negative shift, but the events of the day itself aren’t really so different.  
Though, it should be noted that with a positive psychological shift, one may approach life much differently, making
different decisions that result in different outcomes and the world may respond to a more positive person
differently than one with a negative attitude.  The other view we can choose is an external orientation in which our
thoughts literally influence the world so that events that might have happened don’t, and others that wouldn’t
have, do. The former requires a psychological shift, while the latter requires a radical change in conventional
views of reality.  Overall, the present scientific evidence suggests that mind does matter in ways that the
neurosciences cannot yet adequately explain. This is not the majority opinion within mainstream science, yet it
seems fair to note that resistance to such ideas is often couched in theoretical objections rather than on the
experimental observations themselves. There is some theoretical support for mind-matter interactions within
quantum physics, and it suggests that mind and matter might be complementary in some fundamental way. But
there are many competing interpretations of what quantum theory actually means, so hitching one’s explanations
about mind and matter to one or another flavor of quantum reality is probably premature.



Healing the Past

One of the remarkable things about how the human brain works is that we are able to function at high levels of
complexity, react to numerous stimuli in our environment simultaneously, and make decisions on the fly about
what things mean and what should be done about them. We don’t have to make a new decision in each
circumstance because with repeated experience, we form associations. In other words, we learn from our
experiences, and what we learn colors our response to new situations.  The neural basis for this kind of learning
can be understood through a process called “long-term potentiation.” This means that connections between
nerve cells are strengthened when stimulated repeatedly. So if a bell is rung each time food is presented, you
learn to salivate each time you hear the bell, even without the food (remember Pavlov’s dogs?). A neuronal
pathway linking bell and food is established and strengthened through repetition.  This is classical conditioning.
But there are many other forms of associative learning.  Problems develop when this otherwise adaptive and
beneficial system is hijacked by negative responses to otherwise innocuous stimuli. It appears our brains can be
programmed not only by repeated experiences (this is how we learn) but also by extreme circumstances. For
example, a single dose of cocaine can prime a system to react with strong craving when cocaine is presented on
another occasion. Brain changes and associative learning can also result from traumatic experiences. Imaging
technology makes it possible to observe the brain in action, revealing how trauma actually changes the structure
and function of the brain. A significant finding is that brain scans of people with relationship, learning, and/or
social problems reveal structural and functional irregularities similar to those resulting from post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD).

Attachment theory, first conceived by John Bowlby, suggests that infants, through their interactions with their
primary caregivers, develop “internal working models” that color their expectations of relationships and their
overall worldview for the rest of their lives. Early experiences with caregivers lead young children to develop
mental representations of caregivers’ sensitivity and responsiveness, as well as the degree to which they believe
themselves deserving of care. Over time these models become interpretive filters through which children
reconstruct new experiences and relationships in ways consistent with past experiences and expectations.  These
then create implicit internalized rules for relating to others. The theory predicts that children with secure or
insecure attachment histories will respond to others based on expectations of levels of warmth and intimacy. Such
expectations may cause them, for better or worse, to evoke the kinds of responses from others that conform to
their initial expectations. Sadly, if we are preparing for rejection and are well defended against it, it seems more
likely to occur. One way to put it is that we find what we are looking for.

But there is more to our emotional response than just wiring. According to neurobiologist Candace Pert, every
emotion we feel circulates through our bodies as chemicals called “neuropeptides,” short-chain amino acids or
proteins that talk to every cell of our body.  Pert’s research suggests that these molecules of emotion play a
significant role in guiding what we experience as perception and conscious choice. According to Pert, “Our
emotions decide what is worth paying attention to . . . The decision about what becomes a thought rising to
consciousness and what remains an undigested thought pattern buried at a deeper level in the body is mediated
by the receptors [of our bodywide, biochemical, information network].”  According to Pert, when receptor sites are
repeatedly bombarded with peptides, they become less sensitive and require more peptides to be stimulated.
Receptors actually begin to crave the neuropeptides they are designed to receive. In this sense, our bodies are
addicted to emotional states.  When we have repeated experiences that generate the same emotional response,
our bodies will develop an appetite for these types of experiences. Like addicts, we will draw experiences toward
us that give us a fix.

Considering how emotional patterns get locked in our brains, it is remarkable that we change as often as we do. A
near-death experience, the birth of a child, an epiphany, a new intimate relationship, or religious conversion can
catalyze profound changes of perception and identity. People’s lives can also be radically transformed through
meditation, diet, exercise, and repeated corrective experiences in relationship to loved ones or in psychotherapy.
Some are changed by taking medication, others by stopping the use of drugs. Some change for the better, and
others change for the worse.  While the brain was previously thought to stop developing in early childhood,
exciting new research shows that we continue to rearrange the connections between brain cells (neuroplasticity)
throughout our lives. More exciting research shows that we are able to produce new brain cells (neurogenesis)
throughout our lives as well. We can change because neurons are inherently flexible and regenerative.  
Receptors for molecules of emotion also change in both sensitivity and arrangement with other proteins in the cell
membrane.

New research suggests that various modalities of psychotherapy change not only one’s state of mind but also the
state of one’s brain, including increased blood flow to normalized metabolism in the parts of the brain that regulate
emotion, such as the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Exciting new research also shows that talk therapy
changes the brain in ways similar to antidepressant medication.  So it seems our wiring is less our destiny than
the initial conditions of our existence. In the body’s biochemical flow, there is an ocean of new patterns and
possibilities waiting to be relearned to support our new goals. We can take action to reduce preprogrammed,
mechanical responses to the world, increasing our capacity to meet the world as a fresh experience, moment to
moment.

Healing can only occur when the individual begins to remove the mental blocks that are built into the way they see
the world.  It helps to remember and be humbled by the fact that our habitual patterns of thought are not useful in
helping us get free of those patterns. As Einstein put it, “We cannot solve a problem from the same level in which
it was created.” The key is to be willing to engage the process.  Easier said than done, though. Willingness does
not come easily when we have spent a lifetime reinforcing our version of reality.  Sometimes we have to hit bottom
to fully appreciate how imprisoned we are. Or we might have a rude awakening, such as finding ourselves
behaving very much like our parents, which often happens when we become parents. We seldom change without
discomfort.  We change our minds with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance (an inconsistency between our
authentic beliefs and our actions).  We change our behaviors when we experience the discomfort of our desires
being thwarted. We change our hearts when they are shattered by grief or joy. Suffering may not be required, but
it is certainly a common impetus. We can also catch glimpses of our potential through peak experiences, an
inspiring film, book, piece of art, or person.  Myriad possibilities can open our imagination in ways we may least
expect.

The first step to healing the past and transcending conditioning is often simply noticing that you are, in fact,
behaving in a way that is re-enacting past wounds.  As Deepak Chopra says: “Part of becoming more conscious
in life is noticing responses that used to be unconscious before. This recognition is the first step toward gaining
mastery of your reactions and transforming the old conditioning. As you become more and more aware of your
internal processes, you will come to recognize how your habits encourage you to favor old patterns, and you will
see how by not favoring the deeply worn ruts in your consciousness, you can instead choose fresh responses
and create different outcomes.” Cultivation of awareness is thus an essential aspect of healing. In fact, scientific
evidence suggests that training in contemplative practice can change your brain. Long-term meditators have
demonstrated an ability to self-induce peaceful brain states. Those who took just an eight-week course in
mindfulness meditation showed brain changes associated with greater positive emotion that remained six months
later— they even showed improved immune response to a flu shot.  Healing begins once we get to the root of our
wounding. Psychodynamic psychologists believe that our preprogrammed hard-wired responses to the world are
defenses against the actual pain of an original trauma, whether it was an overt single event, like an accident or
even birth itself, or subtle forms of abuse and deprivation that pervaded our childhood.

Contemporary science is moving towards an insight that parents have never doubted: Love heals.  Evidence from
such varied fields as cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary biology suggest that a primordial area of the brain,
far older than reason or thinking, creates both the capacity and the need for emotional intimacy that all humans
share.  The workings of this ancient, pivotal bond reveal that our nervous systems are not self-contained.  
Instead, our brains link together with those of the people close to us, in a silent rhythm that makes up the very life
force of the body. These wordless and powerful ties determine our moods, stabilize and maintain our health and
well-being, and change the structure of our brains. Consequently, who we are and who we become depend in
great part on those we love.

Many painful patterns from the past get locked into our system behind the bars of blame and shame. We might
assume that if we are in pain, somebody, whether ourselves or another, must have done something wrong.
Forgiveness is an essential key to healing the past.  Research shows that forgiveness can have beneficial health
effects. Fred Luskin, PhD, of the Forgiveness Project at Stanford University points out, “Research based on
controlled studies has recently shown that forgiveness training can be effective in reducing hurt and stress.”
Luskin focuses on forgiveness training as a way to alleviate the anger and distress involved in feeling hurt. This
could have important implications for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases.
The need for forgiveness emerges from a body of work demonstrating that unmanaged anger and hostility can be
harmful to health. Research has suggested that heart attack patients who act in a more forgiving way
demonstrated less anger and hostility and thus reduced disease. They also reported improved overall quality of
life.

Many experiences create instant changes in our state of mind and biochemistry.  Americans have a weakness for
quick-fix solutions—the crash diets, the ten easy steps to fitness, health, or enlightenment. We also love a good
rush—from extreme sports or psychotropic drugs to spiritual highs. But these temporarily exalted states do not
necessarily transform our level of consciousness. Once we come down from the high, we can be left at the same
level of consciousness we started with. Worse yet, our search for shortcuts and our relentless pursuit of climactic
moments can contribute not only to self-destructive, addictive behavior but also to disillusionment with the very
idea of positive human change. It is difficult for most of us to face the fact that long-term change often requires
long-term, diligent practice. The good news is that such practice can produce results that seem nothing less than
magical.

Research from the field of psychoneuroimmunology reveals some of the extent to which thoughts and emotional
patterns have physiological impacts. It is clear that our physical and emotional healing is thoroughly
interconnected. Although we can change our bodies by changing our minds, it is not always an easy process.
Putting new patterns in place requires us to dismantle old structures and to build new ones. It can be painful, but it
can also be filled with grace and the sense of being intimately engaged in a miraculous process. Whatever our
process, in the end we are fully capable of healing our past, changing our neural networks, recovering from
emotional addictions, and living healthy, happy lives. And more than at any other time in history, we have
abundant resources available to support us.

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