Well written book that explains current understanding of cell governance. Author argues that the cell is primarely dependant upon external electro-magnetic fields for moment to moment operation. The nucleus is primarely concerned with re-production. It is the receptor and effector proteins embedded in the membrain of a cell that receive and transmit external data to the internal mechanisms of the cell including the protein sleves that control how the DNA functions. ( )

Really got into this book. Made me wish I'd gone for a science degree of some sort. Made me want to read more about quantum physics. ( )

Lipton concludes that genes and DNA do not control our biology. DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell including the energy from our thoughts.

Genes can be removed from a cell and it survives. But it cannot reproduce. The cell membrane is the brain of the cell.

Chapter 5, Biology and Belief, tells of Dr. Albert Mason who cured a boy of warts by hypnosis. Later he found out that the boy was suffering from a lethal genetic disease. At the time, Mason believed in the treatment.

Lipton states that the conscious and the subconscious are interdependent. The subconscious mind is habitual and millions of times more powerful than the conscious mind.

He states that the limbic system chemical communication signals into signals the we experience as emotions. Our self-conscious ability to reflect can allow us to develop misperceptions. Beliefs control biology

The placebo effect is very powerful. In one study those who got fake knee surgery improved just as much as those who had real surgery. Nocebos (negative beliefs) are also effective.

When your conscious mind has a belief in conflict with a "truth" stored in the subconscious, the body's muscles weaken. Pushing an outstretched arm provides a test.

In an Addendum, Lipton mentions PSYCH-K, Rob Williams, www,psych-k.com, as a program that can change long-standing limiting beliefs in a matter of minutes. It uses muscle testing. ( )

The biology of Belief: unleashing the power of consciousness, matter, and miracles
By Bruce Lipton

not really biology but more metaphysics and maybe odd ball spiritualism.

It's an odd book, hard to classify, even harder to grasp the big picture for which the author argues passionately and rather well. The genre is akin to such books as: The Tao of Physics, Dancing Wu-Li Masters, except the science being rewritten is biology rather than physics.The author uses the words: "new biology" consciously to refer to a new paradigm, a system that is more holistic, much less reductionist, more consciousness, less matter in motion. The author is best described, i think, as a teacher that learns his first and most important lessons from looking at himself, much of the book is prompted by inner turmoil, cognitive dissonance and his attempts to reconcile his experience and his scientific education. As such it makes the book not really about biology, although there is lots of it, but rather about how this man looks out from inside his head and sees the reflection of his consciousness in the world. And from there tries to explain what he has found in terms of modern molecular biochemistry but finds that this is just the beginning and so much more is left unexplored because modern science is blinded by a materialist paradigm that depreciates consciousness.

I think that the book is best read like a detective novel, from the 1st page to the last, with an occasional glance at the end of the chapter to see who-dun-it. The personal nature of the writing makes it difficult just to take a chapter out of context and read it for informational content, although one might be tempted to because of the extensiveness of the science. This would be a mistake because the science is not self contained but rather is being used by the author as an explantory way to unify what often appear to be spiritual issues and questions and finding their potential answer in biology.

For example, chapter 3: the magical membrane. The first paragraph is: "Now that we've looked at the protein assembly machinery of the cell, debunked the notion that the necleus is the brain of the cellular operation, and recognized that crucial role the environment plays in the operation of the cell, we're on to the good stuff-the stuff that can make sense of your life and give your insight into ways of changing it." pg75 This is one of the major themes of the book, the cell is not controlled and run exclusively by the nucleus and it's DNA but rather is a complex interaction of the environment and the cell, mediated by receptors in the membrane. Which is a microcosm of the theme of the book, which appears in the last paragraph of this chapter: "which put the control of our lives not in the genetic roll of the dice at conception, but in our own hands" pg 94 This is consistent with the book's theme that the mind-body division is fundamentally wrong, reflected in the division of physics into Newtonian and Quantum, and biology as fixing machinery versus straightening out mental or even spiritual issues, this is where the idea that the quantum revolution in physics needs to be carried out in modern biology and seeing the importance of energy vs matter.

I've stumbled trying to write this review for weeks. I finished the book the day after i checked it out of the library(it is a good read, the analogy to a mystery is true), but here it sits, the review unfinished weeks later. Why is it so hard to review? What makes it such an odd book?

It is my difficulty in separating the garbage of the new age movement from it's treasure. My problem of differentiating what is good in the book, what is worth pursuing and learning more about, from the general spiritualist, god is in everything pantheism that the author is heading towards (apparently).

I like the science he presents, i appreciate the goals of reducing the reductionism, dematerializing the gross materialism, and spiritualizing the sciences, but i am concerned that the content of his spirituality is very different and in competition with my orthodox conservative Christianity. It is this loggerheads that makes an analysis of the ideas in the book so hard. I am not a pan or a panentheist, God is not part of His creation but wholely other. And to deify creation, to find our consciousness, our imago dei in the physical universe is not the right way to go. But it is a useful thing to see how someone with this author's spiritual sensitivity walk us through his adventures and share with us his journey. This is a good thing and makes the book a high recommendation for me. I'm just afraid that anything i say about what the book is about will really be more about me and my reaction than that of the author, rats.

Biology has missed the crucial contribution of the environment. This is chapter 2, "It's the environment, stupid". As no man is an island, no cell in an organism, no organism in it's lifetime, no community, is an island, separated from the rest of life. The next chapter,"the magical membrane" is his scientific analysis of why DNA is not the king of the cell controlling everything and responsible for all, but he looks at the membrane as the communication center from the cell to it's environment. Here he is probably not only right but a good antidote to the nucleus-centric thinking that dominates cell and molecular biology. The 4th chapter, "the new physics" is a quick analysis of energy and quantum mechanics as a new physics paradigm that basically says something like: energy is all, matter is but energy in a different form. This chapter is the one most like the Tao of Physics and that genre. The next chapter, "biology and belief" makes the analogy of energy to spirit and matter to physical world and tries to drawn a new biology akin to the new physics. IF you can only read a few pages, pick this chapter, it is the key ideas of the book.

Is it true, does our mind control the physics around us? is it true that god is energy and spirit and accessible to the mind of man? how much of the new biology is the old pagan spirituality, the worship of mother earth and the forces of nature? i don't know. but i'm interesting in reading more. ( )