25 THINGS WE USED TO BELIEVE WERE

TRUE...and maybe you still do.

Chris Walton MSc

The majority of this E-book came from a chapter that didn’t make it into the final draft of my book:

Gamma HealingCreate the Peak Brain State and Eliminate Subconscious Limiting Beliefs, Anxiety,

Fear and Doubt in Less Than 5 Minutes

My editor thought some people may find that challenging some of the deep seated beliefs may ‘rub people up the wrong way’. I guess if you are a dogmatic religious fanatic then yes they may do.

Your beliefs are the most powerful force in your mind and body. Beliefs are our filters of perception and govern the way we view every aspect of our life from who we think we are to what we think we deserve and are capable of. Here are two quotes from my book Gamma Healing that sum up the power of belief:

“As we ride the river of life, the great consciousness adventure, we perceive events occurring around us but, more often than not, we do not perceive the true reality in those events. This is so because what we take as the reality of the observation is actually a convolution between what is actually there and our mind-set or belief structure”

Professor William Tiller PhD, Physicist and Author

“To a very large extent men and women are a product of how they define themselves. As a result of a combination of innate ideas and the intimate influence of the culture and the environment we grow up in, we come to have beliefs about the nature of being human. These beliefs penetrate to a very deep level of our psychosomatic systems, our minds and brains, our nervous systems, our endocrine systems, and even our blood and sinews. We act, speak, and think according to these deeply held beliefs and beliefs systems”

Dr. Jeremy W. Hayward PhD, Physicist and Author

So what exactly are beliefs?

Our beliefs, when integrated, make up our perceptions of the world and determine the choices we make, the relationships we have, the creations we manifest, the behaviours we demonstrate an ultimately the life we live. Our beliefs help or hinder us; taking action, accomplishing our goals, socialising with others, healing our body and mind, making sense of ourselves and making meaning of our world.

So with that in mind as you review the 25 things we used to believe and maybe still do, reflect on whether you still believe some of these, and if you do whether holding these beliefs as true is helping or hindering your life. Some of these beliefs today seem just plain silly, but others may push your buttons and get you to think about what you do believe about yourself, your potential and what life is all about. Or maybe just have an amusing laugh, enjoy…

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25 THINGS WE USED TO BELIEVE AND

PERHAPS STILL DO:

We start off with a 3 basic ones that really no one believes today

1. Many people in the dark ages thought the earth was flat.

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2. That the earth was the centre of the universe and it was orbited by the sun

3. In 1543 Nicolas Copernicus declared that the sun, not the earth, was the centre of the solar system. In Copernicus’ day this was heresy and went against the rigid belief system of the church that said the earth was the centre of God’s creation. Copernicus was a shrewd man and believed that the inquisition would kill him for his beliefs so he waited until his death bed before he announced his work. 57 years later a Dominican monk Giordano Bruno defended and agreed with Copernicus’ cosmology only to be burned at the stake for heresy!

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Often a Point of Contention - Religious Beliefs

4. Western religions believe the earth was created by an old “man” called God who created all of life in 6 days and relaxed on day 7 admiring his work. As silly as this may sound to some, a similar view still remains popular today as the “theory of creationism” which was proposed in a religious doctrine by James usher, an Anglican Bishop, in 1701. Based on his calculations he suggested that the earth “began” on Sunday October 23rd 4004 BC which says the earth is about 6000 years old. Usher dated significant biblical events including saying that Adam and Eve were banned from the Garden of Eden on Monday, November 4th 4004 BC. His beliefs were printed in authorised versions of the bible and were accepted without question!

5. Religion has convinced people mainly on a very subconscious level that god lives in the heavens and has TEN rules which must be obeyed.

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This god is monitoring every move taken by each of us and is judging and scoring us individually based on “his” rules of right and wrong. At the end of a person’s life if they have accumulated more positive points then they get sent up to heaven however if they have been bad and have amassed more mi-nus points then they get sent down to that special place full of fire called hell where they meet some strange red creature with pointy ears called the Devil with a Trident who lives in a fire pit. There they would stay suffering with guilt for the rest of eternity.

(As a side note there have been more wars and people killed due to religious based belief systems than anything else. I have heard first hand from hundreds of people in my workshops how their inherited religious beliefs around guilt, sin, lust, good and bad, wrong and right, judgement, sex and so on that still hold them back in their ability to live a rich life filled with joy, satisfaction and peace.)

Extensive research by Professors of Psychology Bob Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger show that children who grow up in fundamentalist religious families follow rules and authority well, but are also self-righ-teous, prejudicial and condemn people outside their group. They have an us vs. them mentality which they carry with them into later life.

In 1993 I worked on a children’s summer camp in North Carolina in the USA teaching swimming and sports. I looked after a group of about twenty 12 – 13 year olds of which most of the group were in fun-damental Christian families. When one of them found out I had not been baptised he cursed me and told me I would go to hell!

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6. Many people believe that to have a relationship with “God” you need a middle man called a Priest.

7. The field of Astrotheology believes that all of the world's religions, including Christianity, are nothing more than rewritten versions of an older story held dear by the earliest sages and priests of mankind that can be found on this planet; namely, the story of the birth, death, and rebirth of the Sun as it makes it circuit through the sky and the constellations of the Zodiac once a year. Now I don’t know much about astrology or astronomy but just consider this:

• In 3000BC The Egyptian Sun God Horus was born by a virgin birth on Dec 25th to the virgin Isis. His birth was accompanied by a star in the East. At his birth he was graced by three kings. At 30yrs of age he was baptised and began his ministry. He had 12 disciples and performed miracles like healing the sick and walking on water. Horus was betrayed, crucified, buried for three days and resurrected.

Does that sound familiar? Interestingly this same story seems to permeate many cultures throughout the world;

• In 1200BC Attis of Greece was born of a virgin birth on Dec 25th, was crucified and buried for three days and then resurrected.

• In 1200BC Mithra of Persia was born of a virgin birth on Dec 25th, had 12 disciples, performed mira-cles and upon his death was buried for three days and then resurrected.

• In 900BC Krishna was born of a virgin birth with a star in the east, performed miracles and on his death was resurrected.

• In 500BC Dionysus of Greece was born of a virgin birth on Dec 25th, performed miracles and upon his death was resurrected.

And some time after:

• Jesus was born the son of God on Dec 25th from a virgin birth during which time there was a bright star shining in the East. He had three wise men visit him, he had 12 disciples, was baptised when he was thirty, performed miracles such as healing the sick, was crucified, buried for three days and then resurrected

There are actually over 16 pre Christian traditions that have this general mythological structure!

Next beliefs from science…

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Beliefs from Science

8. Evolutionary Psychology believes that the universe was created by a cosmological big bang where life began and human beings appeared billions of years later and created the idea of God from their minds.

9. In Medieval times surgeons roamed the countryside offering a surgery for removing the "stone of madness” which supposedly existed inside the skulls of mentally deranged people. Holes were bored into the skulls of living subjects to supposedly release suspected demons or evil spirits.

10. In the 17th century people believed that everything about anatomy was already known from the Greeks. The heart was believed to be a heater and the brain a cooling device!

11. In 1628 William Harvey a British physician suggested the heart was a pump that pumped blood around the body. When Harvey proposed his idea he was shunned by his medical colleagues for the notion of being preposterous. They did not support his proposal because they could not hear the heart beating like he suggested. Emilio Parisano a top medical doctor said about Harvey’s idea:

“That a pulse should arise in the breast that can be heard, when the blood is transported from the veins to the arteries, this we cannot perceive and do not believe that this will ever happen”

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Of course we know today that the heart does pump blood around the body. However many believe that the heart is just a pump but leading edge science shows it is much more. In 1991 one of the early experts in this field Dr. J. Andrew Armour of Dalhousie University in Canada showed evidence that the heart has its own independent nervous system which has been termed “a brain in the heart” . Dr.Armour’s work-showed that the heart can act independently of the brain. It can learn, remember, feel and sense and is able to sense future events before the brain. (I review this amazing information in chapter 6 of Gamma Healing)

12. We used to believe that the smallest particle is the atom and that the world was made of purely physical matter and physical parts. The belief was that the solar system was a great big mechanical clockwork machine made of just physical particles that could be measured and predicted.

As pioneering cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton tells us;

In 1893, the chairman of physics at Harvard University warned students that there was no more need for additional PhD's in the field of physics. He boasted that science had established the fact that the universe was a matter machine, comprised of physical, indivisible atoms that fully obeyed the laws of Newtonian Mechanics. Since all the descriptive laws of physics were "known," the future of physics would be relegat-ed to making finer and finer measurements.

Two years later, the Newtonian concept of a matter-only universe was toppled by the discovery of sub-atomic particles, X-rays and radioactivity. Within ten years, physicists had to discard their fundamental belief in a material universe for it was recognized that the universe was actually made of energy whose mechanics obeyed the laws of Quantum Physics. That little piece of Universal humour profoundly altered the course of civilization, taking us from steam engines to rocket ships, from telegraphs to computers.

This has had astonishing implications on all areas of life and particularly to the understanding of our body-mind architecture and how its functioning and abilities can be expanded and enhanced. One of the most powerful beliefs you can change today is making sure your view of your body and mind and how it works and heals is constant with the latest science. This is probably the most important and powerful belief you will ever change and is covered in depth in chapters 7 and 8 of Gamma Healing.

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13. There has been an unquestioned belief in science for over 50 yrs. called Genetic Determinism. This the belief that your genes control your characteristics and traits and determine the quality of life you will lead. This lies deeply at a subconscious level and is the second most important and powerful belief you need to change. When we are conceived we get a set of genes from our mother and a set from our father. It was believed that if we “good set” we would live a happy and prosperous life but if we got a “bad set” then we would struggle and find life more challenging. Unfortunately today many people believe this is true. This has never ever been a scientific fact. It was a hypothesis and belief that remained unquestioned for many years and today the leading edge of science shows us this is not true. The media report very inaccurate and incomplete information on genes and people have been led to believe things like, if they are not living a happy life it is because their “happy gene” is “faulty”, if people believe that they are lazy or cannot achieve success because their fathers and grandfather were that way then this is of course what they will get. If people believe that they will get cancer because their father and grandfather got cancer in their 50’s then they are more likely to due to the belief itself rather than anything to do with the genes. This leads into the nature vs. nurture debate and it is quite clear today when you look at the leading edge scientific evidence that it is the mind and how the mind has been programmed that is the all-powerful component not hereditary factors passed on by genes.

14. In a few decades scientists have gone from a conviction that there is no such thing as energy fields in and around the human body to an absolute certainty they exist.

15. For years psychologists believed that emotions were purely mental expressions generated by the brain alone. We now know this is not true and that emotions have as much to do with the heart and the rest of the body as they do the brain. Today the idea of separating the brain and body has become out of date. Scientists now see the emotional systems as a network distributed throughout the whole body with the heart as a central player in this network.

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16. People have been deeply conditioned to believe that they need a Doctor and pharmaceutical drugs to heal themselves. Think about the deep early behavioural conditioning most people go through from birth. The majority are born in a hospital surrounded by doctors and nurses and from then on told that they need doctors and drugs to heal themselves anytime they are ill. This belief system is based on science that is out of date by over 80 years. It is known today that over 33% of all healing from pharmaceutical drugs is from the placebo effect! As Dr. Lipton says “you all have the innate ability to heal yourselves if you believe you can”

17. Many people believe that the human race is the only civilisation in the universe. This belief has changed over the years as our technology has advanced. In the 1960’s Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics Frank Drake came up with a famous equation based on a suggested 7 factors required for intelligent life. He suggested there were approximately 10,000 intelligent civilisations in our universe.

In July 2008 in an interview on a British radio station former NASA astronaut and the 6th man to walk on the moon Dr.Edgar Mitchell expressed that UFO’s are real and that planet Earth has been visited by extra-terrestrials. In his interview Dr.Mitchell said;

• There is other intelligent life in the Universe, it is a real phenomena• He says we have been visited, and that UFOs have been covered up by the government for a long time.• He says he’s been inside military circles and they know we’ve been visited and talk about it behind closed doors.• He says he’s been involved in certain research committees and knows people who know the real story.• There is quite a bit of contact going on and alien intent is not hostile.• The Roswell crash was real.• Public acceptance is increasing.• Not all UFOs are of ET origin. Some are home-grown.• He’s not concerned about his safety talking about it openly anymore.• Some others involved in the Moon landing also know the truth. Former NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper also admitted that the UFO / extra-terrestrial phenomena are real

You can view the interview with Dr.Mitchell on www.YouTube.com

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18. Science used to believe that the brain was “hardwired” and fixed for life by the time you were in late adolescence. We now know through what is known as neuroplasticity, that the brain is constantly learning and rewiring itself throughout life. Professor of Physics John Hagelin says, “Thinking that our growth stops at adolescence is a barbaric view of human potential” Imagine the difference in your attitude to life if you grew up believing your brain was fixed and set for life by the time you were 18. Compare that to one where you grow up being told your brain is constantly learning and growing throughout life. To me that’s a big change in what I think my potential is and my ability to grow, experience and expand. That could be the belief you need to have the confidence to move on in life.

19. There has been a belief in exercise and fitness for ever and a day that cardiovascular exercise must be done 3 -5 times per week for a minimum of 20 minutes to gain improved cardiovascular fitness. This has been taught in thousands of universities and colleges worldwide for years, and still is. In the 1990’s I used to manage a health club and my team were all trained with this as the ideal prescription for cardiovascular exercise. Millions of people worldwide still use this format today. I bet if you ask 1000 fitness instructors what they recommend for improved cardiovascular fitness many would prescribe something similar to this.

The thing is this is based on research that was incorrectly interpreted. Dr. Wong, a leading naturopathic doctor with a PhD in Exercise Physiology explains this:

“The true Dean of cardiovascular exercise and father of cardiac stress testing was a Scandinavian exercise physiologist named Karvonen. His definitive work in the 50's and 60's showed that the heart began get-ting stronger i.e. more conditioned, after a mere 7 to 8 minutes worth of work. The idea that 20 minutes or more is needed in order to attain cardiovascular conditioning came from a misreading of research carried out by Dr. Tom Cureton, Jr. Ph.D. another giant in Exercise Science. That research found that the plaque in the arteries began to be worn down, and so the lipids (fats) therein started to be used as fuel at around the 16 to 20 minute mark of aerobic exercise. The research did not mean that the heart did not condition before 16-20 minutes. Many non-experts however in the exercise field i.e. medical doctors, personal trainers and television stars (with a workout videos to sell), understood it to mean just that”

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Dr Wong goes onto say “Do cardiovascular work - minimum 8 minutes, top off at 24 minutes… no more than 3 times a week - period.

20. There are so many beliefs about diet and nutrition that a whole book would be needed to list them. There are currently over 300,000 diet books in circulation. Here are just a few of the different beliefs around diet and nutrition;

No wheat, no dairy, no gluten, do not drink water while you are eating, don’t mix protein and carbo-hydrates, no carbohydrates, low carbohydrates, high protein diet, low fat diet, high fat diet, diet for your gene type, diet for your blood type, meal replacement diets, low calorie diets, vegetarian, vegan, the fat smash diet, the high fibre diet, the south beach diet and even a black book of Hollywood diet secrets, etc. etc. etc.

When writing this book I received an e mail newsletter from a well-known doctor which included an article explaining how ideally we should all eat at least 85% raw food. I consulted Dr.Wong on this and his reply was

“On the raw food diets, it’s good for some but not for all. Chinese medicine says that a raw food diet is too "cold" and it will eventually decrease metabolism and "life force".

Perhaps the best advice comes from a quote from Mark Twain;

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint”

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21. Before the 15th / 16th Century, boats were made out of wood. Not because metals were not available, but because of the belief that wood floats and metal sinks.

22. In the 19th and early 20th century many people believed going to the moon was impossible.

23. Less than a century ago most men and many women believed that women were thought not intelligent enough to make political decisions and were not granted voting rights until 1920 in the USA and a bill was introduced in the United Kingdom in March 1928 to give women the vote on the same terms as men.

24. In the early 20th century many believed and that smoking was trendy and stylish

25. For some reason various “powers that be” believe that toothpaste, or any liquid over 100ml, is a security threat on a plane. It is my belief that this is a tad paranoid!

And one more for luck…There are also many superstitions that still subconsciously influence people’s behaviour today, such as, walking under a ladder is bad luck, 13 is an unlucky number, throw salt over your shoulder is good luck, a black cat is good luck or is it bad luck…

So there we have it 25 ish things that we used to believe and maybe still do. Whilst this has been a semi humorous look at some of things we used to believe, belief in itself is the most powerful force in your mind and body.

Beliefs are not only abstract things that have an impact on you psychologically. They exist in the form of thought patterns in your physical being. They are very real electrochemical signals that are broad-cast throughout your body. They affect every aspect of your being, from your ‘happiness factor’ to the strength of your immune system, from your outlook on life to the cascade of your hormones, enzymes and overall body chemistry. Thoughts are things. And beliefs are the content and substance of those thoughts. To really change your life, you don’t have to change your thoughts. You have to change your beliefs.

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To find out how to remove your limiting subconscious beliefs and reprogram your mind

and body for improved health, happiness

go to:

Gamma-Healing.com.

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