Bodies, Beliefs, And Perceptions

Tom Wright

First of all, why is making the distinction between belief and perception so important? Let's take the example of walking over twelve-hundred degree hot coals, something I have direct experience with by having done so myself. If our human ability to perceive what's out there and then the effect on our bodies of what's out there, was consistent for all of us, and at all times, then that hot fire would have the same effect on every single person who walked over it, bar none. (It would be perceived as being the same only with perfect perception, or to perceive purely like a mirror reflecting. Which by the way, is an act that no one who I know of, has ever done consistently, except at transcendental moments.)

In a Newtonian mechanistic world view, this effect of the fire on our physical bodies would be noted, cataloged and then religiously held as being "the truth." And yet, in reality, in demonstration of walking over fire, there are some people who get burned. And then there's the majority of people who don't get burned, walking over the same fire. What then, is affecting the effects upon the very skin of those people, if it's not the Newtonian reality of the hot fire, which changes for no one. There can be only one answer to this: it's us. And the part of us that it is, the operating mechanism for burn or nor burn, is our belief system. Because for every single one of those people the fire is still the fire (or if any one of them purely perceived phenomena in the physical world, a hot, twelve hundred degree bed of coals) then it has to be their individual beliefs that affect the outcome in effect of what they're perceiving. It has to be, because in the perceive/believe paradigm, only beliefs change. And as beliefs change, what you believe you are perceiving then changes its effect on you, not necessarily the thing in and of itself!

And that's the hardest argument to get people to see that they're having with themselves. They will stand in front of you arguing that "the fire it hot" or "the fire's not really hot" or all and any manner of ludicrous statements defending their beliefs, not their perceptions of the fire! If any one of them put their hand over that fire, they would soon see that indeed, and in fact, that fire is very hot. Twelve hundred degrees hot, as a matter of fact. Just get the thermometer out! And while feet will remain unscathed, pants cuffs, which are not energetic beings whose outcomes are affected by beliefs, often char right up. With the interesting point being how hard we fight for the "rightness" of our belief systems, which have no basis in reality! We fight for our "beliefs" even to the point of going to war to fight and kill the "bad guys" when there are none of those particular bad guys out there and there never have been. Yes, of course, there's the guy who blew this or that up, and yes, his actions were not good, and he should pay for his crimes. Do that. But all those other people fighting and dying for the crimes of one man? Or as is the case in many cases, for the actions of a very extraordinarily small group of men? And in that group, certainly the soldiers who die from our side, were not the ones who originally blew that stuff up, and yet when they die, in our Newtonian world, they are most certainly dead. Are they paying for the original group's crimes too? Why is that?

Why is that, is because we are willing to fight, kill, argue, and die, for our beliefs in order to "prove" them right, even over our actual perceptions. And yet, as in the case of the twelve hundred degree fire, we can change our beliefs at any time! And we do this all the time. Just look into your own history, at something that you once held as being true, and then as you grew up, you realized that indeed, something else other than what you originally believed was actually true. I can even recall how much of the information in our "history" books (belief manuals, really) has changed over the years. Even to the point of vilifying people who were once held as heroes. Vaunted or vilified, were they really either? No, but people certainly don't believe that. Nor do they customarily rely upon their pure perceptual abilities to make distinctions, some of which have the potential to affect their lives, even to the degree of determining the outcome called "live or die." In the field of medicine, such distinctions are just beginning to be made, despite the fact that the outcomes of those distinctions has always been our very well being. Our life.

Case in point in the misuse of allopathic medicine, regarding the distinction between belief and perception, which is a slippery slope at best given our entrenched belief system about the efficacy of pills. Most pills, do not for the most part, cure anything. Yes, antibiotics kill bacteria. But they have no effect on viruses. And yet antibiotics are commonly prescribed for viral infections, such as shingles, with the "reasoning" being that the pain and duration of the shingles "attack" will probably be reduced by doing so. What will be increased through the prescription process, always and without fail, will be the coffers of the drug companies, of that I am perceptually certain! Perhaps in the patient, what is happening is more due to the nature of believing in the ritual of drilling them with a painful needle, and then injecting them with the magic formula. And in following that ritual, they will then develop the belief that the "cure" will be effective. In the same way as walking across fire where some will burn and some will not, this "cure" will allopathically work with some people, and with others it will not. Many studies have indeed proven, that it is the attitude of the patient that is the most essential ingredient in the cure. You would think that if indeed modern medicine actually worked the way we hope it will work, that this would not be the case. And yet, it is.

Just so that you will not think that I am pounding away at the misuse of our allopathic systems, keep this in mind. I am not. I am pounding away the misuse of any system, allopathic, herbal, or not. I have seen ridiculous claims about the efficacy about things that really did as little as most pills do, come from the herbal community and the Reiki community, as well as many incredible occurrences of healing from all these communities. Those misbeliefs in efficacy were by the way, all claims based on beliefs, not perceptions. And therein lay the danger, because a reliance on belief alone, especially when working with great doubt, or great fear, your own included, can kill you. Truth is, if the practitioner is gifted, then whatever modality they have chosen within which to express their Sourced healing powers, will be one that will be very effective. Effective regardless of the system you choose to aid you in your body healing itself (which is the only thing that ever heals you anyway, regardless of medicine of choice: your own body.) Again, it is widely known, no, ridiculously apparent, that the attitude, or beliefs of the recipient of the treatment are more profoundly important than the actual treatment. Hence, the efficacy in a lot of cases of the placebo, far beyond the medicine it was originally double blind administered to test!

And, it's an interesting fact that when Bruce Lipton put cells that were lactose intolerant in a pietri dish, with only lactose to feed upon, you would think that they would simply have died. Yet, instead of dying, they thrived. They thrived, because these single celled creatures changed their DNA to then become not only lactose tolerant, but so that they could live and do well! Just think about that for a moment. If single celled organisms, of which we are built of trillions of them, can somehow be intelligent enough to generate enough energy to literally, change their DNA, then how much more powerful can our combination of trillions of cells possibly be than one of them? This kind of alignment of our internal personal power has been called in shamanism the focusing of our intent. And, it has been used effectively for thousands of years further ago than allopathic medicine, and our current belief system, whatever it is, even existed. It's the reaching in and the aligning of all of our energy toward the fulfillment of one single purpose. Healing perhaps, or being happy, sometimes it's shape shifting. Regardless of the goal, this alignment occurs through our belief in its efficacy, and then manifests as a physical phenomenon we can then perceive in our Newtonian world. Since energy is all there is, you can imagine what is possible through the means of such shamanistic alignment.

As a shaman seeking to facilitate the healing process for his clients, this distinction between perception and belief becomes critical. Again, a lot of people who are aligned with "reasonableness" or at least, they believe they are, will argue that "but cancer is real" just as soon as you offer an "alternative" option for healing. They say this as if a fifty-thousand year old system of healing and energetic work was somehow less real, simply because of the fact that they don't believe in it. Well, if they don't believe in it, it certainly isn't real, but here's the kicker: only for them. And they also speak with the concomitant belief that if cancer is real, then you're going to have to do some pretty nasty "real stuff" in order to cure it. Slam it with some drugs, make your hair fall out, and pin down the body so it can't possibly rally enough strength to heal itself. And then watch as people die. And die they do.

What the real miracle is, is that the body and belief systems are so adaptable, that not because of, but in spite of this radical approach, people do heal. They heal because of their belief and trust in the system most of all. They want explosions, dramatic results, instant cures, and radical procedures, like watching Hollywood trained stunt men in our visually oriented and entertainment trained society. And no, they are not wrong at all. They're indoctrinated. Being right or wrong, that's not the point. The point is, perhaps there's a way to blend all modalities together, into one single system that does not preclude anything, and in so aligns all our focus, or energy, on what is effective (or can be seen as perceptually effective through both practice and testing) and so therefore best supports a patient in doing that which only the patient and their body can do, and that would be to cure themselves. Holistic Inclusive Medicine or HIM, might just be the word that people could use to describe this system. A system where perceptions are accurate, (yes, it's that particular disease) and then the prescriptions administered can then reflect what will work best with the patient (what do you believe will work?) so that a cure is actually affected. No, I did not say "mask of the symptoms" which allopathic medicine does so well, but I stated to "cure" because cures go to the root of the problem to begin with, and then work with healing that first. And what might we find when we reach that root the day when we finally allow ourselves to fully perceive the truth of what's going on with our own bodies? Might it just be then, our beliefs?

Tom is the coursework creator of A Course In Shamanism.