WELLNESS: 
                      JUST A STATE OF MIND?
         (An abridged version of the book by the same name.)

                               By
                       Eldon Taylor, Ph.D.

                             ******

copyright 1992 Eldon Taylor
Revised 2001 copyright by Eldon Taylor
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-55978-034-7

                             ******

                  I dedicate this book to Roy Bey, 
              in memory of my colleague, friend and
           business partner who left this earth plane
                        on June 4, 1991.

                              ******

          There's a story I can tell . . .
               about a time to feel swell.
          It's as simple as this:
               I expect to be well!

                             ******

                           Chapter One

                      The Adventure Begins

For centuries stories have proliferated about the incredible
powers of the mind, feats of mind over body that even to a child
seem impossible or absurd.  How, for example, can a human chew
glass or hot coals and not be injured?  How can a person lie on a
bed of needles and not have a single needle pierce the skin? 
What trick is involved in fire-walking?  What powers exist in the
spiritual healer's touch?  How do the masters of the East control
breathing, heartbeat, and skin temperature?  Like all the magical
stories of mind and body, there are many in the area of wellness
that have defied scientific inquiry, including many miraculous
healings, such as those reported as the result of following the
advice in the book of Matthew:

            If you had FAITH, even as small as a tiny
         mustard seed . . . nothing would be impossible.

What is the magical relationship between mind and body?  Is it
available to the scrutiny of science?  Does it really exist, and
if so, can we all learn to use it for our benefit?  Can each of
us enhance our health, our wellness, even perhaps our longevity
by using some process that the mind can control?  And how much
influence is really possible?  Everyone knows that managing
stress, a mental process, can enhance health; but can the mind
change something as physical as the twisted body of one suffering
from a severe bone or muscle disease?

It was questions such as these that sparked my life-long quest
for insight in matters of the mind-body connection and wellness.

                             ******

                           Chapter Two

                    The Basis for Our Beliefs

I started my investigation by examining the basis for our current
beliefs in health care.  It seems that as science developed, so
did the idea of a mechanical man.  The mind and body were
considered to be separate; they functioned independently and
should therefore be treated separately.  This is rather like
comparing the body to a machine, which depends upon the springs,
gears, and what-not for both function and identity.  

The body is made up of lots of cells that collectively form
organs, information systems, and so on.  These cells are often
assumed to work like computer microchips, each with its own
duties and tasks.  The cell is ahead of the microchip in that it
is a self-replicating system that processes the environment and
uses this information to organize behavior.  A cell is therefore
capable of reproducing itself but, according to most, it is not
conscious in the sense that it does not have an independent will. 
As we'll see later, this is an assumption based on purely
arbitrary definitions of consciousness.  After all, if the cells
had consciousness, who would be doing the thinking in each of us
anyway?  Still, it is this idea--of the body as a sophisticated
piece of machinery responding only to machine-like programming,
and of disease or illness as an invasion of the natural system--
that led to the current methods of health care.  These methods, I
might add, generally have nothing to do with maintaining wellness
but rather are aimed at treating disease, and there is a
significant difference between these two approaches. 
Nevertheless, of importance here, is the point that mind "stuff"
and body "stuff" have traditionally been viewed as different
"stuffs," and, further, that the body-brain was mechanical,
somehow like a machine, and it has been treated that way by
medicine for the past few hundred years.

As the idea of a separate mind and body developed, there was no
room, with few exceptions, for such matters as thought processes. 
Religious healings, placebo effects, techniques of curing the
self using the power of the mind, were ignored or relegated to
matters of the clergy.  Such happenings were not worth
investigating, and besides, they did not occur with "normal"
people under controlled circumstances.  Only fanatics of one kind
or another, such as faith healers or psychic surgeons, continued
the search for an understanding of these phenomena in an effort
to use the results.

Today, most people believe that to stay healthy you need to keep
fit, exercise, avoid "catching" any germs, and more importantly,
be lucky. Some others believe that health is a genetic
characteristic and that you have to live with what you inherited
from your parents.  A few are aware that certain types of
behavior can influence the type of disease you may experience--
for example, the executive who suffers from ulcers.  There is,
however, a small minority who believe that there is a connection
between expectation, thought processes and good health.  For this
minority, health could be a matter of one's belief system and
coping strategy.

                             ******

                          Chapter Three

                            My Story

Most of us learn best through our own experiences.  For me, an
important clue regarding the power of the mind over health
occurred when I was a child.  This is my story:

When I was very young, two older boys chased me home from school. 
My father was upset and promised to "whip" me if I ran away
again.  I didn't want to go to school the next day.  Panic set
in.  Alas, I didn't have to.  The next morning I was ill.  Days
later, the physician diagnosed rheumatic fever.  The physician
told my parents and me what to expect as the disease progressed
and that is pretty much what happened...at least for a while. 
After a year and a half, I distinctly remember deciding not to be
ill.  It was time to go out and play---to ride a bicycle---to say
hello to my first crush, to shoot marbles, and so forth.  I
decided to get well, and almost overnight I was well.

It is a popular misconception that tough guys pick on the weaker
individuals who cannot fight back.  Most of the tough guys I know
will pick a fight with the "leader of the pack" just to prove
their superiority.  So, when I went back to school, the tough
guys did not bother me anymore for I was a poor skinny kid who
had been ill with a mysterious disease for more than a year and a
half.

Time passed, and soon I was growing by leaps and bounds, reaching
almost my full height very early.  My father, who carried a gun
for some fifty years because he spent his entire life either in
the military or in some form of law enforcement, had no patience
for a sissy of a boy whose name was the same as his.  He paid for
a health club where I learned self-defense.  By the time I was in
the sixth grade, all those tough kids wanted to bully or fight me
again.  Pretty soon I was fighting very frequently.  Then I found
myself in a no-win situation, for suddenly my father spoke to me
as if I were scum--trouble waiting to happen, always fighting.  I
had thought he wanted me to be tough, but my ability to fight was
rewarded with acts or words of condemnation.  I was confused. 
First my father had told me never to run from anyone and that if
I did he would beat me, and then he treated me as though I were a
juvenile delinquent for not running!  

I am sure that my father was equally confused--or perhaps I just
never understood him.  I am certain that he did not intend to
place me in that situation.  However, the aim of this story is
not to place blame on anyone, but to show you the choices I made.

As children we all have a need to please our parents.  Suddenly I
had a relapse of rheumatic fever.  I distinctly remember being
aware that I was no longer a threat to anyone, in fact, many of
the kids who would have been possible threats to me formerly,
felt sympathy for me instead.  At that time it did not occur to
me that there was a connection between my becoming ill and the
need I had to avoid conflict.  While I was sick I did not have to
work out how to please my father, whether by fighting or by
running away.  This sudden relapse occurred when I was in my
teens, at my fittest, involved in sports, scouting, and other
outdoor activities.  No physical warning--just a relapse.  The
heart murmur that my mother said I had after the first bout with
the disease suddenly returned.  For all intents and purposes, the
disease took me back, or rather I should say, I took myself back
to the circumstances where my parents had lavished me with care
and attention and the outside world held no threat to me.

Fortunately for me it was not long before this subconscious
strategy again failed to produce the desired result.  I say
fortunate because I could well have never recovered entirely. 
Once again, when I said I had had enough of being ill, I regained
my good health.  I wanted to enjoy life, and at that point
athletics were important to me.  Then, one night after a
basketball game in which I had played all four quarters without
substitution, the coach arranged for physicals.  I was nervous. 
If I did not pass the physical, I would not be allowed to
continue playing.  Somewhat to my surprise, not only did I not
have a heart  murmur or any other difficulties but one of my
friends who seemed fit as the proverbial fiddle, was diagnosed
with high blood pressure.  He was benched--but not me!

Years later a physician friend of mine examined me in a routine
physical.  No heart murmur.  When I told him of the history of
rheumatic fever he explained that back in the fifties physicians
had often misdiagnosed many diseases as rheumatic fever.  That
was the answer--total and complete.

Years passed, and one day I fell prey to the usual seasonal
influenza.  At home, ill, pampering myself, I received a phone
call that required immediate attention.  I decided to exert a
little "mind over matter" and make myself well.  By the time I
had traveled across town, most of the symptoms were gone. 
Suddenly, I began to realize that perhaps I was taking some
active part in the choice of what disease I might contract and
when and where I might contract it.

At this time in my life I was interested in eastern metaphysics,
and I kept coming across the idea that we had the ability to heal
ourselves.  I reasoned that if you could make yourself well, you
must also be able to make yourself ill--even if it was somehow
done unconsciously.  Was this really possible?  If so, how?  I
searched the library.  There were hundreds of stories, just like
the one I have shared with you about my own health, and vast
volumes of historical information about a time in history when
there were many Asclepiad healing centers and people were cured
with drama, humor, physical exercise, and dreams!  These
Asclepiad healing centers began with the ancient Greeks and
spread throughout most of our western civilizations.  And of
course there were very many stories, too many to count, from
religious persons of every faith who had experienced seemingly
miraculous cures.  Surprisingly, at least to me, there were also
a number of scientific papers, articles and books that also
suggested a mind-body connection.  I began to wonder if the
popular views on dis-ease were really true.  What if disease was
not something you "caught" but was sometimes a behavioral
strategy?  There was certainly enough evidence from my own life
to support such a theory.  

                             ******

                          Chapter Four

                    A Two-Way Communication?

Most of us are aware of, even if we have not ourselves witnessed,
certain forms of hypnotic phenomena that defy traditional
definition.  One such unforgettable phenomenon I witnessed was
performed by the late Professor Carl Leprecht.  While teaching a
course to lie-detection examiners, he placed himself in wide-eyed
hypnosis.  On cue his body became rigid, and two officers picked
him up and suspended him between two chairs.  His head rested at
mid-skull on one chair, and his ankles rested on the other.  A
complete body catalepsy, and he continued to lecture!  If I had
not seen this with my own eyes, I would have doubted nearly
anyone who might have told me the story.  But there, in front of
approximately thirty law enforcement people, was Leprecht doing
things with his body that defied possibility; but how can
anything defy possibility and still be possible?  How could
simple words or thoughts turn the human body into a rigid bar? 
Further, how could the cells of the body process these messages?

One of the pioneers in lie detection was Cleve Baxter.  He
demonstrated that plants not only are sensitive to their
surroundings but can literally identify an individual. This
phenomenon challenges many of our ideas about consciousness.  

While speaking at the Ohio Academy I met a fellow presenter who
had taken some of Baxter's work a step further.  Dr. Bruce Lipton
is a researcher and teacher at Stanford School of Medicine.  For
years his specialty was cellular biology.  Bruce told me of an
experiment where cells of the body were removed and transported
to distances as much as five miles away from the host organ, or
person.  Both were closely monitored.  When one was traumatized,
the other responded sympathetically regardless of the distance. 
Conversely, when the cells were traumatized, the body responded.
In other words,  one of your cells five miles away from you, will
respond immediately when you are hurt!  Somehow the distance does
not separate the cell from the larger body of cells from which it
was removed. 

Is this an example of cell consciousness?  If it is, is it
possible for the cell to cause behavior?  That is, could the
cells of the body actually provide the impetus for behavior in
contrast to the classic belief where behavior originates in the
brain and the body just goes along with whatever the brain
decides?  Could there be a two-way system?  That sometimes both
operate to produce behavior?  That they even cooperate?  The
cells cooperating with the brain to produce an illness or disease
that meets some need of the "stuff" we call consciousness or
mind?  Again, going back to the story of when I was a child, the
cells of my body were certainly being very cooperative when they
developed an illness, thus giving my mind an alternative to
having to face a situation it could not (or did not want to)
handle.  The questions remain.  Does the mind have a role in dis-
ease and does the body imitate the mind's expectation?  Further,
can we even ask these questions as though we might get answers or
be able to do something about what we find?

The investigator in me decided to go back a little further into
the recent history of the mind's role in wellness to see if I
could uncover some more clues.

                             ******

                          Chapter Five

                   Some Interesting Phenomena

In 1765 Franz Anton Mesmer used magnets to produce miraculous
cures.  Later it was said by most critics that the results Mesmer
obtained were due to the power of suggestion or hypnosis. One
single idea, on its own, could produce the phenomenon
demonstrated by Mesmer, or so some argued.  There were also those
who used imagination and imitation to produce an altered state of
consciousness, and so healed the blind and the terminally ill.  

It is amazing how ideas change over time.  With recent
developments in technology, we are not far from believing that it
may have been the influence of hypnosis, imagination, imitation,
and the magnets that worked the miracles of Mesmer's time.  For
years Mesmer and his followers cured patients of a large number
of different illnesses.  In time Mesmer was disgraced, and he
died in obscurity.  The disgrace was due in part to the
scientific community's inability to understand Mesmer's work. 
The magnets alone did not cure; nevertheless, something did. 
Mesmer may have had his theories wrong, but the ill who had been
cured remained for the most part cured.  Why was this fact
overlooked?  Mesmer was politically unpopular, but that was
unimportant to those he treated and cured.  Of course, other
factors were involved here, but the fact remains that something
totally out of the ordinary process of mechanical medicine was at
work.  Words that could heal?

In the 1880s, Jean Martin Charcot regularly demonstrated one of
his favorite hypnotic procedures to medical personnel at the
Salpetriere hospital in France.  Under hypnosis, a patient
suffering from hysterical paralysis (paralysis for which there is
no physical cause) would stand and walk on Charcot's command. 
Out of hypnosis the same person would "crumple to the ground." 
Were the hypnotic suggestions causing the cells to remember, and
thus causing a change in physiology, or wellness?  Were they
removing the psychological barriers that caused the dysfunction
in the first place?  Freud theorized before the end of his career
that "emotions not expressed in words or actions would find
expression in some sort of physical ailment."  Did the words used
in hypnosis alter the emotion?

Now wait a minute.  How can the mind, or memory, or emotion play
such a significant role in curative powers?  And if this is real,
why hasn't it been exhaustively studied by science?

                             ******

                           Chapter Six

                           Personality

Many health care professionals tend to treat personality in
physical wellness issues as though it were always constant, but
if there are no variations, what accounts for "normal"
personalities and "pathological" personalities?  It is important
to understand that there are indeed great variations in
personality before we can understand the human condition.  In
fact, personality is a feature that is not unique to humans, for
we all know that animals each have their own personalities.  Does
personality have anything to do with illness?

I asked these questions.  To the library I ventured, but instead
of discovering a scarcity of evidence I found that the literature
bulged with experiments and observations showing clearly that
personality does have a connection with illness.  In fact, the
"seven psychosomatic ailments"--peptic ulcers, ulcerative
colitis, hypertension, hyperthyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis,
neurodermatitis, and asthma are thought to occur mainly in
certain personality types.  One of the most convincing evidences
that personality contributes to body processes were the reports
of multiple personality patients.  One personality may be totally
normal in every physiological sense, and yet with the sudden
shift of personalities, some as quick as the snap of a finger,
the second personality may be hypoglycemic.  Blood chemistry
altering in seconds? How does a personality shift alter body
chemistry in seconds?  Other such patients have demonstrated
everything from eye color change to having one menstruation cycle
per month for every personality within the patient.   

A personal belief system, such as personality, capable of causing
an instant change in the way the cells behave?  What mechanism
allows for such a sudden and dramatic shift in the person's blood
chemistry?  What "trigger" makes that possible?

I looked further and found that herpes has been linked to
loneliness; positive mood, hope, and social support was linked to
cancer survival;  tough mindedness and a will to live with
survival of AIDS.  Could that all be true?

Madeline Visintaines of the University of Pennsylvania linked
helplessness to cancer.  She concluded that helplessness is
somehow interpreted by the body as an absence of "the ability of
the organism to resist tumor development."

Researchers at Duke University showed hostility and mistrust to
be key predictors of heart disease and early death.  H. J.
Eysenck summarized a group of European studies and found the
following:

1.   "Individuals who tended to repress their emotions in the
face of stress were far likelier than others to die of cancer."

2.   "Those who rated high on emotional frustration and
aggression had a high rate of cardiac related deaths."

3.   "Personality variables were more predictive than smoking in
the occurrence of lung cancer.  For example, smoking was
virtually a pre-requisite for getting lung cancer, but of the
smokers, only the emotionally repressive types seemed to contract
the disease."  

I looked further.  Personality was tied to literally clusters of
diseases.  At Georgia State University, researchers discovered
that people with eating and drinking disorders frequently
suffered from depression, indecision, chronic fatigue, low self-
esteem, physical weakness, and hopelessness.  At the University
of Texas at Austin, higher cancer rates in mice were linked to
blocked emotional expressiveness and under-stimulation.  

Karl Goodkin of Stanford University School of Medicine believes,
from the evidence of studies of women prone to cancer, that the
usual cancer personality is;
     1.   overly cooperative,
     2.   extremely self-sacrificing,
     3.   overly optimistic to the extent of being in denial of
          reality, and
     4.   sociable to a fault.
In contrast, however, women who developed cervical cancer were
characterized as;
     1.   hostile,
     2.   quite fearless,
     3.   unusually hard-headed,
     4.   punitive toward others, and
     5.   very blunt in social situations.

But wait a minute.  What are we discovering from all these
personality models, which seem to contradict each other?  A quick
review reveals a similarity in the description "extreme"--
extreme self-sacrifice, extreme bluntness, and so forth.

I quickly learned that personality profile characteristics have
been developed for many illnesses besides cancer.  Personality
could indeed one day become a significant means of predicting
which illnesses an individual could suffer from.  Emotional
states such as grief have been shown to lower the immune
response, and positive emotions have been shown to improve the
immune response.  In fact, epinephrine and norepinephrine, which
act to turn up or down the immune system, have repeatedly been
shown to be linked to mood states.  For example, Dr. Ziad Kronfol
found that the immune systems in depressed patients were less
responsive than those of normal individuals, and he believes that
is due to stress hormones in the body.

                             ******

                          Chapter Seven

                             Stress


Satisfied that I was not going in circles, I continued to pore
over the literature.  Stress as a factor in disease began to
appear more and more frequently.  But what is stress?  Is
conflict stress?  What about the kind of conflict that arises as
a result of choice?  Is indecision a stressful matter?  What role
does mind play in stress?  

An Ohio State University researcher reported that marital
discontent weakened the immune response.  George Soloman of UCLA
reported that the stress and strain of life crises diminished the
immune response.  

Ted Melnechuk, director of research communications for the
Institute For The Advancement Of Health adds the following
observation:

1.  Men married to dying women have a lowered immune response.

2.  Monkeys separated from their mothers experience immune
suppression.
3.  Visual imagery has been shown to decrease tumor growth.

4.  Nerve cells have been shown to travel from the brain to the
thymus and back to the brain demonstrating a two way
communication with this important relay station for immune
substances.  

It was time for me to apply some of this information.  In 1988
and 1989 Dr. Robert Youngblood, a cosmetic surgeon, used a
subliminal audio cassette I created for reducing stress and
anxiety in patients about to undergo surgical operations.  He
examined the records of the 360 previous patients who had
undergone the same or similar surgical operations to determine
the average anesthetic requirements.  We reasoned that lowering
patient stress, anxiety, and other related feelings would result
in lowering anesthetic requirements.  We were right.  The audio
cassette was used before, during, and after surgery.  The overall
anesthetic requirement was lowered by 32% in the patient group
that received the subliminal tape as compared with the 360
previous patients who had not been exposed to the subliminal
tape.  Interestingly enough, post-secondary care was also
substantially reduced.

Hypnosis, as we have seen, has been shown to be effective in
matters of health.  In fact, it has been demonstrated effective
in the care or treatment of asthma, hypertension, bleeding,
dermatitis, and various emotional states, in speeding the rate of
healing, as an aid to breast enlargement, and much more.  In
fact, one of the studies I participated in was at a medical
facility in Nevada.  This facility offers a number of different
"high tech" medical testing procedures, including magnetic
resonance imaging, or MRI.  This procedure is designed to look at
soft tissue and requires that one be "loaded down a skid into a
chamber," to use the words of one of the technicians, that is
very small in diameter.  One problem they frequently came across
was emotional stress and a fear of confined places.  Another
problem they often had to deal with was relative to the anxiety
attached to this type of testing.  This meant that in some
instances, they had to medicate a patient even for the less
frightening CAT scan.

The medical facility asked us to create an audio program that
would help these conditions.  We used a combination of special
frequencies for altering brain wave activity while stimulating
certain effects and added subliminal messages and guided imagery
or hypnosis. The results were significant.  According to a senior
technician, patient refusals to undergo the testing were
completely eliminated when the tape was used.

In 1991, Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh reported a study that links emotional stress to the
common cold.  Cohen's group found that the rates of respiratory
infection and colds were directly related to stress levels, even
when allowances were made for various influences on the immune
system such as age, sex, education, allergies, weight, viral
status prior to the study, cigarette and alcohol use, exercise,
diet, quality of sleep, number of housemates, and the number of
times the housemates suffered from infections.  The relationship
between stress and colds was also shown not to be affected by
personality types.  Could it really be that the common cold is
stress-related?

Candace Pert, chief of brain biochemistry for the National
Institute of Mental Health, suggests that "emotions are the key
to health."  In fact, she and her colleague Michael Ruff have
been working with Peptide T, one of the messenger molecules in
the body that apparently converts emotions into biological
happenings.  Drs. Pert and Ruff have found that this substance
can help alleviate AIDS symptoms, stop the spread of the HIV
virus and, in some cases, even neutralize its toxicity.  Dr. Pert
also asserts that "the same chemicals that control mood in the
brain control tissue integrity of the body." Many of the
messenger molecules which are associated with emotion have been
discovered to be strategically located throughout the body. 
Brain chemicals centered in the body?  One of these molecules,
CCK, forms a lining from the esophagus throughout the intestines
and, according to Pert, may "explain why some people talk about
gut feelings".  Additionally, and all-important as a clue, Pert
insists that placebo analgesia, analgesia triggered by
suggestion, is an altered state dependent on messenger molecules.

Sorting through all the data, doing my own research, I continued
to add new clues.

                             ******

                          Chapter Eight

                          Conditioning


Most people have heard of Pavlov's dogs and know that they were
trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.  This occurred
because the dogs were delivered food whenever a bell was rung. 
Over time, with sufficient repetitions, the dogs came to expect
food whenever they heard the bell.  This is known as classical
conditioning.  In the mid-1970s Robert Ader conducted some
classical Pavlovian conditioning with rats, trying to train them
to dislike saccharin-flavored water.  After the animals drank the
water, Ader injected them with a drug which made the rats
nauseated.  During the experiment many of the rats died.  That
was totally unexpected but, after careful review, Ader discovered
that the drug was a powerful immunosuppressant, that is, it
prevented the immune system from functioning.  Was it possible
that while Ader was conditioning his rats to dislike saccharin
that he had accidentally conditioned their immune system?  Was it
possible to condition the immune system to stop working?  Ader
decided  yes and later discovered that two Soviet scientists had
conditioned a guinea pig "to release antibodies when they
scratched its skin."   Classical conditioning of the immune
system?  Is it possible that we may have "conditioned" responses
to certain diseases?  Could a person's expectation actually be
the conditioning mechanism?

Could it be that one of the reasons many of us do not experience
miraculous healing, extended life spans and good health is due to
some conditioning, some other enculturation.  Does the television
condition us to expect a cold's season?  Do we learn to be ill? 
Although we know the pathogens that "cause" illness are "real," 
does the individual have the ultimate control as to how the body
will respond?  If so, how?  And after all, to what extent?

Psychologist Ernest Rossi's research convinced him that "human
beings cannot always rely on nature to reinstate health because
certain short-term responses can become habitual and
pathological."  Habituation is surely an outward manifestation of
expectation.  Also, Rossi believes that certain mental events can
become imprinted in the body as disease and chronic conditions--
memorized, if you will.  Originally, this "learned-state" helped
us cope with a particular situation, Rossi theorizes.  Later,
when similar situations occur, we react the way we did the first
time, even though there is no longer a "need."  For example, to
avoid a particular situation, an individual becomes ill.  Rather
than relate the illness to the need to avoid a situation,
however, the individual could relate it to the time of year, a
certain food, a particular fragrance, etc.  The seasonal cold a
person experiences may therefore be due more to a memory
triggering off the illness than to the change in external
temperature.  This process of "state-dependent learning," or
responding as a result of a state or condition, is bounded by
amnesia, which is simply to say that we are no longer consciously
aware of it.

How can we undo this conditioning?  Are we any closer to solving
the mystery?

                             ******

                          Chapter Nine

                  What We Expect Is What We Get


In 1990, I attended the annual SKY Foundation's convention in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I met a fellow presenter, Dr.
Joel Posner, who was speaking on the subject of yoga and
longevity. Dr. Posner, a professor of physiology, stated that
research clearly shows that the cells of the body should live for
144 years.  The body should therefore not die for at least 144
years unless the mind somehow interferes with the natural pattern
of the cell.  

Research has also clearly shown that when subjects in their
seventies exercise at the same minimal level as subjects in their
twenties, the muscle mass generation (growth) is the same for
both groups.  This supports the old saying, "Use it or lose it." 
But what conditions us to accept age as being the decay of the
body?  And what can be done to un-condition this learning?  What
experiences, including expectation or attitude, cause us to alter
the natural cellular programming (life expectancy)?  Why is it
that we are so familiar with some of the answers related to diet,
sunlight, drugs, and so on and yet still so in the dark about the
essential mental contributors to good health and long life?  Or
are we?

Many traditional and historical myths cause us to believe in the
idea of miraculous healing.  The stories speak of a time when men
lived to be hundreds of years old, of a time when everyone
expected to be well.  Is that it?  Is it possible that the myth
of disease has replaced the myth of wellness?  Do most of us
expect to get sick, become ill, and then die at some point in our
lives?  Is this a form of the self-fulfilling prophecy that
reduces our time here on earth to a fraction of the at least 144
years the cell is expected to maintain perfect life?  How many of
us expect to be sick as a normal course of events in our lives? 
How many of us expect to be ill each year?  How many of us expect
to live to the age of 144?  How much of an investment do each of
us and our society at large have in the "illness" paradigm?  Is
it possible to be well all of your life---for whatever period of
time that may naturally be?  Is it even responsible to suggest
such an idea?  What would happen if all of us suddenly changed
our beliefs, energies, and other investments entirely, so that we
expected to be well?  Is that an irresponsible question?  

It is fun to imagine a world where there are no television
commercials selling remedies for the dreaded annual illnesses and
other maladies.  No more constipation commercials.  No more
hemorrhoid commercials.  No more television, or radio, or print
media, or conversation about preparing for illness, physical and
mental disabilities, and so forth as we grow older.  What would
it be like if we didn't have a world of afflictions to discuss,
think about, or otherwise invest our energies in?  Does all of
that really even matter?  Is it relevant to health and wellness? 
Truly relevant?

The Sufis have a story about time and pomegranates that may shed
a little anecdotal light on our questions:  Once upon a time, in
a land far away, there was a young man who wanted to become a
healer.  He knew of a legendary healer under whom he wished to
train.  He therefore set out on a journey to find the healer and
learn the secrets of his practice and ways.  

After a long and trying period he finally found the healer and
without hesitation went up to him.  The healer saw that the boy
was sincere and decided to take him on as a student.  

After weeks of training, the two were sitting on the porch of the
healer's modest home one day when a stranger approached from the
distance.  He was crumpled over and moved in an odd and peculiar
way.  
     
The healer said to his student, "See that man coming up the path-
-what he needs is pomegranates."  The young man watched as the
healer listened to the patient tell an agonizing tale of woeful
experiences with his affliction, including the struggle he had
gone through just to make the journey to the healer's doorstep. 
Finally, the healer put his hand on the patient's shoulder and
spoke softly. "Yes, I can see you have suffered.  I can see you
are ready to leave your illness behind.  My friend, I am certain
that your disease is due to a shortage of a particular substance
available in high concentrations in pomegranates.  Eat three
pomegranates a day for the next week and your health will
return."

The patient left and within a couple of weeks returned standing
erect with a basket of food for the healer and the blessings of a
deeply grateful self and family.

A short time later another stranger came down the road to the
healer's home.  He also walked in the same odd and peculiar way
and was all bent over as he approached.  The student noticed the
stranger and excitedly said, "What he needs is pomegranates." 
The healer nodded in agreement without really looking up from his
porch chair.  The student then pleaded with the healer to allow
him to treat the patient.  Finally the healer agreed, and the
student went out to meet the patient and tell him of his cure. 
Approaching the man, the student blurted out, "What you need is
pomegranates!"  The stranger stopped.  He looked at the student
and said, "I came all this way for this non-sense!  Pomegranates-
--rubbish!  Some healer you are," and he turned and went away.

One aspect to this story has to do with the expectation of the
patient.  Another is that the student did not understand the
necessity of time and pomegranates.  The afflicted person's
expectation of the great healer and his ability to tell of his
suffering and finally find relief were entirely overlooked by the
student.  The student had taken only a mechanical learning from
the healer and assumed that pomegranates alone would cure.  For
that reason, both the student healer and the patient were
disappointed in the end.

In the spring of 1991 I conducted a survey among physicians who
had consented to their patients using a special experimental
subliminal program for cancer remission.  The aim of the study
was to look at life expectancy in comparison with the actual
mortality rates of patients with cancer who used the subliminal
program.  The questionnaire went to physicians whose patients had
received the subliminal program two to four years earlier. The
twelve questions were rated on a scale of 1 to 5: 
     1. strongly disagree,
     2. disagree,
     3. neutral, 
     4. agree, and 
     5. strongly agree.  

The twelve questions consisted of four general categories:
     1. the patient's attitude toward their disease before they
     used the program,
     2. the patient's attitude toward their disease after they
     used the program,
     3. the patient's survival and quality of life, and 
     4. how the physician felt about the patient's believing
     health could be affected by the patient's mind.
This survey revealed many interesting findings including
significant remission rates, for 38% of the so-called terminal
patients are in remission at the time of this writing.  One other
interesting and overwhelmingly obvious result was found that may
surprise you.  Of the four subcategories, which do you think
would be the most consistent factor affecting the life expectancy
or remission rate in the patient?  

Most people believe that it is the patient's attitude, even
though those same people would say that a terminal disease such
as cancer cannot be affected just by changing the patient's
attitude.  It wasn't the patient's attitude, however, but the
physician's attitude that was the most important factor in
determining whether the patient lived or died.

If the physician did not believe that the patient's involvement
with the subliminal tape or the patient's attitude could affect
the cancer, the patient died, regardless of which treatment
procedure was used--radiation, chemotherapy, and so on. The
patient died regardless of the patient's own attitude toward the
disease or its ultimate outcome.  The one factor present in
virtually every case was the physician's attitude.  

Taking into account only those patients whose physicians agreed,
to varying degrees, that the mind played a role in the patient's
health, then the survival/remission rate increases to 46%.  If we
look at those physicians who strongly agreed that the mind or
attitude of the patient is important to health and/or health
care, the survival/remission rate increases to 60%.  Narrowing
the field still further, where both the patient and the physician
tended to believe strongly that the mind played a role in
wellness, the rate of survival/remission increased to 100%.

Is it possible that we are being conditioned into ill health by
the attitudes of those in authority around us?  Is it possible
that a physician's sentence of "terminal without hope" is the
actual cause of death?  Do we rely so totally on the opinion of
professionals that we prove them to be correct, even if that
means suffering and death?  Does the data from our study suggest
that the answer to health care is a positive cooperation between
the patient and the physician?  What is this power of authority
about?  How do we learn to imitate or act so that pleasing an
authority is a priority more important than life?  Or do we? 
After all, maybe this was just a fluke finding.  Maybe this is
just an extension of the well-known placebo effect, only
reversed.  Still, a placebo works because of our expectation.  Is
our "inverted" belief the crux of wellness?  If emotion,
learning, behavior, and personality are all tied up in wellness,
then how we learn how and what to believe is crucial.

Our self-talk is indicative of our attitudes.  Norman Cousins
writes in The Anatomy of an Illness that he healed himself of a
terminal illness using positive self-talk and laughter.  The
story of this wonderful man is worth retelling.  Mr. Cousins
learned he was terminally ill with cancer.  "How could this be,"
he questioned.  He had always been careful with his health. 
Finally his physician suggested that the illness may have taken a
foothold because of the stress and negative emotions in Cousin's
life.  The answer was obvious to Norman Cousins.  If negative
feelings could produce dis-ease, then positive emotions would
cure the dis-ease.  He therefore systematically obtained every
funny film available.  Old Laurel and Hardy movies and the like
had Mr. Cousins laughing away most of every day.  It wasn't long,
and laughter had healed.  Norman Cousins left the hospital to
share his experience with everyone.

Dr. Gerald Jampolski states in both of his works, Love Is Letting
Go of Fear and Teach Only Love, that a person's attitude can and
does heal.  His attitudinal healing center in California has
become famous for just this type of healing.  In fact, Jampolski
points out that patients in incredible pain "forget" their pain
when they help another patient in an urgent situation.  

My own work has suggested what I have referred to as "the warm,
fuzzy, fully feeling human experience," a term used to describe
the way all of us feel when we go to the aid of an injured life
form.  At that moment, we are so aware of the "warm and fuzzy"
feeling that glows within us that we forget all about ourselves,
immersed, if you will, in our concern for another.  Not only do
we forget about the fear of pain and discomfort when we are in
this situation, but the memory lives on in us as being the best
that we can ever be.  In short, it feels so good, so natural, so
"warm and fuzzy," that it is generally the most rewarding part
when that activity is viewed in 20/20 hindsight.

                             ******

                           Chapter Ten

                     A Trip Down Memory Lane

One of the clues that kept "popping out" at me may surprise you,
and that is the involvement of memory in health and wellness.

A distinguished physician, Dr. Deepak Chopra, believes that
memory, as well as the attitude of a person, plays a large part
in wellness and spontaneous remission.  Dr. Chopra argues in his
marvelous book Quantum Healing that patients at the edge of
despair, struggling for hope, can replace fear and uncertainty
with the memory of health.  As soon as "the memory returns . . .
with enough power to last a lifetime," they experience
spontaneous regression of their disease.

Then, while reading a biography of Milton Erickson, I came across
some evidence that supports this line of thinking.  When he was
seventeen, Erickson suffered from a bout of polio which left him
almost totally paralyzed.  One day his family forgot they had
left him alone, tied into the rocking chair they had adapted into
a primitive potty.  The chair had been placed in the middle of
the room, which left Erickson looking longingly at the window,
wishing he could at least look out at the farm.  Suddenly he
became aware that the chair had begun to rock slightly.  Was that
an accident, or had his wishing to be closer to the window
actually stimulated some minimal body movement to set the chair
rocking?

In the weeks and months that followed, Erickson focused on
remembering how to move, how his fingers felt when grasping a
pitch fork, how his body moved when he used to climb trees. 
Slowly, what had started with the "accidental" rocking of his
chair became movements he could consciously control.

After eleven months of intensive self-training, Erickson was
walking with the aid of crutches.

The evidence for the importance of memory in health and wellness
accumulated when a friend of mine brought me an article.  He knew
that I was scheduled to give a presentation in Israel on Memory-
Dependent Wellness and that I had started a research project on
remembering youth.  The heading of the article was "Reversing the
Clock."  It described a landmark research project by Dr. Ellen
Langer that reversed certain characteristics of aging.  

Dr. Langer of Harvard University took "old people" into the
country where they were isolated for one week.  The older persons
were exposed to "photographs, newspapers, radio (music and
advertising) and discussions that were strictly limited to topics
current twenty years earlier. At the end of the week, the group
became younger looking by three years, gained weight, behaved
more independently, and could actually hear better."  Memory--
relived!

The most convincing final piece of evidence for me that proved
memory to be the magical key to health and wellness was an
article I read in Mind Brain Bulletin.  The article stated that
neuroscientists had confirmed with PET scans that the
hippocampus, a specific area in the brain, played a crucial role
in memory.  To understand the importance of this finding, you
need to know that the hippocampus is the area of the brain which,
together with the limbic system, modulates the immune system. 
Therefore, there is a definite hard-wire connection between
memory, emotion, expectation, and wellness.


                             ******

                         Chapter Eleven

                       The Power of Belief


So far the clues to the mind's role in wellness and longevity
include;
     1.  the memory of health,
     2.  positive emotions, and
     3.  a hopeful versus helpless attitude.

Now we need to look at hope.  Everyone knows what helplessness
is, but what is hopeful?  Not false hope, but good, sound,
productive hope.  Stories indicate that people who have hope and
look at life from the perspective that all will ultimately work
out for the best are indeed happier and healthier.

In all the cases of remission, extended good health, miraculous
healings, and the like, one thing seems to be present, and that
is belief.  For some, this is belief in their own higher power:
for others, it is an act of knowing wellness will return; for
still others, it has been the touch of a healer; and so on; but
always, there is TRUE BELIEF. Hope is belief.

Belief is not some unchanging this, that, or the other.  Belief
is dynamic.  It is revealed daily in the way we live our life. 
It can be referred to as active expectation.  It is re-enforced
over and over again when relied upon each day.  It is the one
factor each of us can thoroughly instill in ourselves--and no one
else can do it for us.  Now some may argue that all this sounds
like a placebo but that is simply nonsense.  The fact is, you can
experience medication, or for that matter, any other treatment,
and as a result know something happened.  Something out of the
ordinary.  Something not experienced routinely or without the
medication or care.  This experience effects belief--it's that
simple.

Now belief may produce the magic of what many refer to as
placebo, or the infamous sugar pill effect. These so-called
infamous effects are absolutely real nevertheless. One is not
sick and then suddenly well due to the influence of a sugar pill. 
In the true sense of placebo findings, one is indeed physically
ill, their body chemistry proves this; and yet the belief in the
"pill" as some new and powerful medication produces a complete
reversal in the body. The individual is healed.

To discount such marvelous human abilities with comments like "it
only works if you believe it", is to condemn ourselves to a
mechanical reality that limits our own ability to experience the
full potential of humanness.  So remember, good scientific double
blind studies, clinical findings and other hard science, that so
many of us have to have, show clearly the mind-body reality in
wellness and longevity.  Adding the power of belief to that
science is just what you have been doing with old antiquated
versions of the mind-body relationship to health.  Each of us can
just as well begin today to power the new model, wellness, with
the same force of belief!

                             ******

                         Chapter Twelve

                      The Pragmatist Within

So from a childhood story of myself to scientific findings with
multiple personality patients who display different physiological
conditions for each personality, to such miraculous healings as
those of the ancient temples of Asclepias with their arts and
entertainment programs, to the attitudinal work of men like
Jampolski and Cousins, to the viewpoint of such cellular
specialists as Lipton, and more, we have looked at the mind-body
connection as it relates to wellness and longevity.  What can we
say for certain?  If the fundamental truth  of science is that
the body is mechanical and works to create health totally
independent of the mind, then we have a whole lot of interesting
phenomena that we are going to have to ignore.

Perhaps some of us will do just that---ignore!  Perhaps it's okay
to behave as the whimpering shocked dog Seligman discovered in
his research.  What Martin Seligman of the University of
Pennsylvania found was that dogs, conditioned with electric shock
under circumstances where they could not escape, did not try to
escape when they were shocked in a pen where they could have
indeed escaped.  They simply accepted the conditioning, and
whimpered a lot but made no attempt to help themselves.  Dogs
that had not been so conditioned would move a few feet, removing
themselves from the area where they received  the shock.  And, as
you may have guessed, the animals whose conditioning caused a
"helpless" behavior, also experienced a reduction in their immune
system.   Maybe here we can find a possible explanation for our
finding regarding the physician's attitude and the patient's life
expectancy.  The conditioned patient has become hopeless/helpless
just like the shocked whimpering dog.  So let's add to our clues,
helplessness, or in a positive sense, lack of helplessness.

What would happen if, as the alternative to helplessness, one
took the position I did, that of the pragmatist who says, "The
proof is in the pudding, and what have I got to lose?"  Can we
expect to experience a life of health and wellness?  What happens
if we try accepting the responsibility for our own well-being and
ask ourselves simple questions if we sense or feel a sickness
coming on?  The best three I have found is "WHAT AM I GETTING OUT
OF THIS?", "WHO DO I WISH TO BLAME OR PUNISH," and "WHAT IS THE
CONFLICT?"  Now, there are some people that may think a simple
question procedure like this one is silly.  However, it's amazing
the ease with which the answers come, even with the most
difficult of diseases.  Just by way of example, let me share with
you some of the responses I have received from cancer patients in
our most recent and current follow up study to this question: "DO
YOU HAVE A BELIEF ABOUT WHY YOU HAVE CANCER?"
Respondent #1
"I have a history of feeling unworthy, and disappointed in life. 
I had a miscarriage, my dog was shot six months before my
diagnosis, and my daughter decided to live with her father
again."
Respondent #2
"I have had breast cancer five times since 1983.  Every time I
have been under a tremendous amount of stress.  Consequently, I
believe stress causes cancer in my case."
Respondent #3
"Husband committed suicide 12/83.  I had mastectomy 2/84."
Respondent #4
"My brother-in-law has cancer.  He is a marvelous teacher and
human being.  I used to tell God that I'd take his illness if he
would make my brother-in-law well.  Now we're a two cancer
family!"
Respondent #5
"I do not believe I caused the cancer.  I have a genetic
predisposition according to the experts.  Circumstances of my
life and subsequent ambivalence about living allowed it to
develop and resulted also in a lay period of denial.  I finally
took action when I found a reason to continue living."
Respondent #6
"Too sensitive, worried too much, felt like a victim when I was
married with two children.  I couldn't leave.  He finally left
me.  I thought things would get better when we retired.  I hated
my husband for almost a year approximately twenty-four years ago-
-my best dear friend (mother) died in 1986.  It was terrible!"
Respondent #7
"Family situation which I could not tolerate and had no ability
to change: Mother-in-law moved in with us and adult son moved in
with us.  Mother-in-law ill, adult son depressed, unable to work,
and I felt I had no support from husband.  I could "feel" myself
"dying" a little bit every day."

I came to a point where I decided that maybe I was at least
partially responsible for many of my illnesses, especially those
pesky regular bouts with sore throats, colds, influenza, etc. As
a pragmatist, I decided the proof was in the pudding.  Maybe I
was creating, at some level of my being, discomfort known as
illness and then it occurred to me, hey--wait a minute, am I
really ready to give up all those comforts that accompany the
sickness?  All those advantages such as added attention from
loved ones, time off with pay while lying around with a good book
or a good movie, some soaking in the tub, and doing nothing?  Did
I really want to give all that up?  And then, from answering this
type of question, I could see that sickness was not all bad. 
There were some benefits to being ill!

Still, just because one recognizes that there may be benefits
from illness, that doesn't mean one can control illness. Or, does
it?  After all, many of the conflicts dealt with in life get
shuffled into matters that become submerged in the subconscious. 
How can I alter that?  How can I take charge of something out of
my awareness?

Well, in 1982 I decided to try.  I employed what I call the Seven
Fundamentals.  I share these principles with everyone, in nearly
all of my writings and presentations, and later I'll share them
with you.  Only twice since 1982 have I been ill.  In both
instances, I was able to source a reason and remember wellness,
employ the fundamentals, and leave the illness behind in only a
fraction of the time considered normal.  In 1982 I decided, just
for me, that if I wanted to take a break, to take time off, to
bring an end to conflict, to hide from something or someone, to
punish myself or others, to get some special attention, and so
on, that there were many more productive and fun ways to enjoy
these pleasures then getting sick.  My annual average of four to
six bouts with this and that affliction stopped.  That's a lot of
remedies that I haven't bought in the past decade.  That's a lot
of kleenex that I haven't taken to the trash.  But this could be
a fluke---right?

Well, here's another true story that still does not cease to
amaze me:
In 1987 a concerned father flew in to see me with a story about
his boy, Vic, who was confined to a wheelchair.  His father had
access to the best of medical care and yet nothing was helping
Vic.

Vic had been born with a minor birth defect which was corrected,
via a tracheotomy, at the age of two.  Soon after he had regained
his health a younger sister was born.  She, of course, now became
the center of attention.  Because illness had provided the means
for getting attention from birth until two years of age, and
because his present disease started within just a few months
after the birth of his younger sister, I theorized that this
boy's illness could be his way to regain the attention he had
experienced at birth and lost when his sister was born.  

With this theory (you can find the case study and details in my
book Subliminal Learning), we decided to try a subliminal
intervention program.  We had Vic listen to the subliminal tapes
which bombarded his subconscious mind with the idea that he was
whole and well.  After Vic listened to these tapes for
approximately two weeks, and after his subconscious mind had
accepted the fact that he was indeed whole and well--guess what? 
Vic became whole and well.  Through the use of these subliminals
a true regression in the young man was created, where he returned
physically and mentally to the time in his life when he suffered
from his birth defect.  The regression was so complete that
circumstances were created where a second tracheotomy was
required.  Just as with the first tracheotomy at age two, the
surgery was followed by continuing recovery.  

Today Vic leads a healthy life.  He sent me a photograph that I
will always treasure of himself standing beside his new
automobile.  

Coincidence?  A subconscious motive was treated with a
subconscious modality -- that of subliminal communication.  Even
though I witnessed the event, even planned the approach, it still
intrigued and amazed me.  Is this healing process possible for
everyone, I asked?  I believe it is.

                             ******

                        Chapter Thirteen

                      The Scientist Emerges

As a scientist, I work to bring information together into a
usable formula.  I'll try to do that now in simple,
straightforward terms.  Let's use what we have learned to
generate a formula and then make predictions and test our
hypothesis.  

First of all, what have we learned?  

1.  Without a doubt, the mind is connected to health.  Further,
the personality, mood states, and attitude of an individual are
related directly to various forms of illness.  

2. The amount of responsibility a patient takes for the illness
directly relates to recovery.  

3.  The expectation factor, whether of the physician to the
patient or of the patient independent of the health care
provider, is directly related to wellness and recovery.  

4.  For health to be restored, the individual must often return
"mentally" to the point before the illness was learned, as in the
example of Dr. Milton Erickson or the young man who regressed to
the conditions present after his first tracheotomy. Memories of
wellness are thereby regenerated.

Memory appears to be an all-important factor in wellness.  One
should be encouraged to remember wellness during any period of
disease.  In fact, my work has led me to believe that there is a
psychological reason behind most diseases.  A psychological
situation that causes the illness to occur for some reason, even
if that reason is self-punishment.  And for what it is worth,
hypnotic work that has been shown to work for certain diseases,
will most certainly work better if it includes regression to the
memories of good health as part of the therapy.  

In my opinion, then, we could create a formula for the mind's
relationship with the body.  The formula would use W to represent
wellness, E to represent expectation (which is an ever-changing
form of true belief) and M to represent memory.  Expressed as a
formula, W=EM, or Wellness equals Expectation multiplied by, or
at one with, Memory of wellness.  To multiply in this equation,
the memory of wellness should be fully brought to mind and placed
solidly into expectation.  

It may be that the hit-and-miss record of the visualization, or
mental imaging  process, is due to the ability to remember. 
Perhaps an artificial experience created during visualization
actually becomes real for some because of the inclusion of memory
and fails for others because of the absence of enough detail
(memory) for it to become real.  

These are some of my opinions, but bear with me for a moment. For
years I used forensic hypnosis in investigations.  On many
occasions I saw experiences remembered so completely that it
caused a reaction in the body.  One such experience I can still
see vividly was that of a young man who had been held up at
gunpoint.  The only thing he could tell the detectives at Sandy
City police department following the robbery was that a "very big
gun" was shoved in his face.  Under hypnosis, I had him replay
the incident in his mind, in slow motion, freezing some frames,
just as you would on a videotape.  In this state of consciousness
we were able to obtain detailed descriptions of the suspects and
their automobile.  But here is my point: when the replay in his
mind came to the sequence in which the gun was in the victim's
face, I thought his jugular would jump out of his throat.  I had
to fast-forward the sequence in his mind and assure him that it
was only a replay, for it appeared that he could literally have
had a heart attack under the stress of the memory, for that is
indeed what we were dealing with.  So when I say revivify a
memory, I mean bring it fully alive and into the present, just as
if it were taking place right now--only make it one of your
positive memories!  

Alright, so much for what we have learned.  This formula has an
implicit hypothesis, and that is: within each of us there resides
an incredible healing power.  To test the hypothesis we can begin
as I did, by simply applying the formula in our lives.

                             ******

                        Chapter Fourteen

                    Owning Your Own Controls

How does one apply our simple formula?  Alas, perhaps this
question super-imposed on the faces of individuals I have seen
suffer with disease, was why the investigator in me was still not
satisfied?  Why did I feel that a piece of the puzzle was still
missing?  There were questions still to be answered.  For
instance, what makes the difference between two children raised
in the same environment with the same parents when one ends up a
neurosurgeon and the other a hardened violent criminal?  What
makes the difference between two patients suffering in a hospice
center from identical conditions when one requires very little
medication and is liked by all, whereas the other suffers
bitterly regardless of the medication and is very unpleasant to
be around?  What are the subtle differences that seem to allow
one person to live a certain life-style free of illness, whereas
another doing the same things becomes ill as a result?  What
defines a stimulus as stressful to one while the same exact
stimulus is welcomed with excitement by another?  To me, the
answer was so simple it was overly obvious.

In my work, I have had the opportunity to work with a wide range
of individuals in differing settings, ranging from the inmate
incarcerated in maximum security to the terminally ill patient in
the hospice center.  Over the years my observations ultimately
led to this hypothesis:  the persons who seem to suffer most
consider themselves to be victims.  The classic victim scenario
in the prison generally goes something like this: but for the
grace of God, there go you.  Translated by the inmate population,
this means something like, "What would you do?  Where would you
be?  After all, my daddy was an alcoholic, my mother was a
prostitute, and the neighbor boy hung heroin on me when I was
only eight."

The fact is, our environment and circumstance do imprint us in
profound ways.  Our very ability to cope depends in large part on
our choices, and they are predetermined in large, by our
enculturation process.  Thus, what else could the victim of these
tragedies do?

We all grow up with some substantially similar ideas and notions
about what is fair and acceptable. We all tend to say such things
as, "When I'm a parent, I'll do it differently";  and yet, when
our children act in some way that meets with our disapproval, we
respond just as our parents did.  Psychologists call this process
imprinting.  In very simple terms, if you raise a duckling with
chickens, it will behave as a chicken.  

A marvelous story illustrates this point:

One day an eagle flew over a chicken coop.  To his amazement,
pecking in the yard below, was a large gathering of chickens and
a lone, beautiful female eagle.  He swooped down for a closer
look, and the chickens together with the eagle fled to the
chicken house.  For days the eagle watched the chickens from a
distance until one day he was certain that he could stop the
beautiful eagle before she reached the chicken house.  With the
prowess of an eagle, he was suddenly between the eagle and the
chicken house.  She trembled.  He spoke. "What are you doing
living down here like a chicken."  She answered, "I am a
chicken."  He argued, showing her the similarities between
himself and her.  He told her of what it was like to be an eagle
and soar high above the earth.  His stories only frightened her. 
Finally she said, "Well, if I'm an eagle, then you will not harm
me."  He responded in the affirmative.  She said, "Then step back
and show me."  As he stepped back, she ran into the chicken
house.  When the other chickens questioned her, she told them how
she had outsmarted the eagle.  Of course, all the chickens
commended her for tricking the eagle.

Many of us are like the female eagle.  We outsmart ourselves with
betrayals of who we really are.  Our choices are predicated on
our beliefs, and our beliefs have been adopted from the same
process inherent to the story about the chickens and the eagle. 
Here is another example of how this kind of reason pervades who
and what we are.

One day a man walking the streets of Manhattan passed beneath a
high-rise complex of very expensive condominiums.  As he passed
under the balcony of one of the two-story units a flower pot that
had been placed precariously close to the balcony edge crashed
down on his head.  Now imagine this man's choices.  What could he
do?  What would be the normal thing to do?  He could take the
broken pot back to its owners and administer a beating to the
idiot that put the flower pot too close to the edge.  That's what
most people respond with as their first thought when I have
presented this scenario to audiences.  

What else could he do?  He could be metaphysical--you know,
kismet, what's to be will be; after all, maybe the blow to his
head rearranged some neurons and now he will experience higher
consciousness.  So be metaphysical, act as if it was supposed to
happen, and just go on down the road.  
What else could he do?  He could be an opportunist.  That flower
pot fell from a wealthy person's ledge.  Whip lash, concussion,
something like that---sue the sucker!

What else could he do?  How about taking the flower to a florist,
repotting it, and returning it as a gift of love?  Could he just
as well do that?  

Of all the possibilities, which one do you think would produce
the best outcome for happiness, wholeness, and even health?

The fact is, the normal person has been trained to behave in a
normal manner.  Normal means that the person has a right to
become angry and exact punishment.  Robert Laing, in his book The
Politics of Experience,  said that normal man has educated
himself to be normal and thus to become absurd.  The emotional
reaction termed anger is just one such absurdity.  What happens
to the body when one becomes normal is no less than a weakening
of the immune system; further, suspended states of fight or
flight, or, as we know it in modern man, anxiety and depression,
literally produce chemistry that is toxic to the human condition. 
As we discussed earlier, these hostile emotions--victim feelings,
if you will--literally can condition the body in the direction of
disease as well as produce certain diseases in and of themselves.

The correct answer in our flower pot analogy, is of course, repot
the flower and return it as a gift.  The idea is not foreign as a
possible alternative and yet it is seldom ever considered.  Our
choices arise from our definitions, and they have been incubated
all too often in chicken houses.  But let's stop for a moment and
look at one of the preferred enculturated choices from the human
chicken house.  My work and research has demonstrated that for
every fear there is an anger response.  Sometimes the anger is
withheld, sometimes it is turned in, and sometimes it is acted
out.  Nevertheless, there is no such thing as anger without some
fear underpinning it!  Now, what exactly is anger?  My
examination of this cycle of fear and anger has given rise to an
acronym that I often use when describing anger.  A---a,
N---nasty, G---getting, E---even, R---response. A nasty getting
even response.  If fear and anger are circular, what gives rise
to feeling frightened, anxious, or nervous, becoming angry, and
then responding in a fight/flight way when the stimulus is
something like the way my employer speaks to me, the way my
significant other looks at me, or just the stuff one feels when
cut off in five o'clock traffic.  Not one of these things is
truly life-threatening and, after all, isn't that what the
fight/flight functions are wired in for, the preservation of the
species?

Dr. Carl LePrecht used to speak of the four drives--the four
"F's"-- in his introductory lectures to basic psychology.  These
four primitive drives were the basis for most behavior.  In fact,
it was Carl who first suggested to me that perhaps the highest
act of human consciousness was cortical inhibition--overriding
the wired-in responses that can occur in the primitive brain. 
The four "F's" are easy to remember because they are oriented to
species preservation:  fight, flight, feeding, and---well, the
propagation of the species.

Why then a fight/flight response to synthetic stimuli--that is,
stimuli that are not life threatening?  What special lens do we
attach to certain events in life that give rise to a perception
of threat when indeed the threat is not a tiger in hot pursuit? 
My early hypothesis regarding the fear/anger loop eventually led
me to the conclusion that perceived threats were rejection
oriented.  In other words, our individual intrinsic value was
denied.  Interestingly, though, for most of us, the normal
strategy for avoiding rejection is itself the ultimate rejection. 
There are two ways to be tied up in the world.  One is to be
literally bound with heavy ropes or chains, and another is simply
to be tethered to a thread, refusing either to pull hard enough
to break it or to let it go.  Many of our beliefs are like the
thread.   We refuse to let them go.  Like the eagle raised by the
chickens, we know what we are expected to do and define our
behavior accordingly.  Thus, to resolve conflict we establish
strategies designed to protect us from rejection.  Among these
strategies our defense mechanisms function, as well as our
attitudes, toward everything we will ever know in our lives.

When I was a boy my definitions included labels and what I have
termed for years as the no-don't syndrome.  In my many lectures
throughout America and Europe, the audience has repeatedly
verified that my experience was not unique.  Indeed, it was the
rule.  If this generalization applies, then most of us were
raised with statements like, "You're not old enough," "You're
stupid," or "That's stupid," "Children are to be seen and not
heard," "Don't do this," "You can't do that," and so forth, as
well as a host of labels such as four-eyes, nigger, spick, jew,
and so on.

At a very early age I was wearing glasses and my best friend was
black.  My early definitions were in direct conflict with my
experience; still, various strategies for coping with this
conflict developed, albeit most unconsciously.

It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I learned that not only
did I wear glasses and have black friends, but my grandfather was
Jewish and my great-grandmother was Native American.  For years I
had coped by demonstrating that I was "tough enough" to wear
glasses and not get called four-eyes and to stand up for what
just inherently seemed wrong and later became known to me as
bigotry and racism.  In other words, my defense strategy was
compensatory--aggression would align my innerself with the
outerself.  My experience with my training as a child was to
avoid conflict by simply becoming too tough for someone to
challenge my behavior or too ill to fight.

The result was devastating.  Not only did I poison myself but the
never ending quest to justify my actions produced increasing
needs for aggression.  My relationships deteriorated or were
destroyed, and--well, you can just imagine the havoc wreaked in
my own life.  The method of choice for conflict in my particular
upbringing was aggressive--and hostility was the norm.  

What I have found over the years of life and work is that this
was not a unique pattern.  Oh, the circumstances may vary from
individual to individual, but not the essence of the lesson.  The
result for many of us is a mechanism called blame.  We become
helpless victims.  It's not our fault.  Ah, but remember
Seligman's whimpering dogs?  Is blame analogous to whimpering? 
That brings us right back to the prison inmate whose daddy was an
alcoholic and so forth.  A light went on that set years of work
and research into perspective, at least for me.

Now here is the bottom line: as long as individuals blame
anything or anyone, they are effectively tied up.  There is
nothing they can do.  They are victims of their circumstances. 
They can only but whimper.  As victims, they are helpless.  As
victims, perhaps they are even due such benefits as sympathy,
attention, special care, and so on.  But as victims, they are not
in charge of their circumstances or their responses.

Applying this theory, I discovered that regardless of the
circumstances, from hospice to prison, the suffering was directly
related to blame or "victimhood."  What is more, I discovered
that on the opposite side of this continuum rested the self-
responsible, the person who assumed control of his or her own
life and found creative solutions for difficult
situations--returning the flower, if you will, replanted in a new
flower pot.

These responsible individuals were in charge of their own inner
environments.  Their secret was simple: they did not become angry
and involved in blame.  Oh, they did not necessarily accept
everyone or anything--in fact, quite the contrary in some
instances--but they did not waste time eliminating their
possibilities by divesting their power via blame.  They took the
initiative to resolve situations positively and assumed the
responsibility for doing so.  Unlike the whimpering victim, they
accepted the truth that they were what they made of the stuff of
life.  (For a self-quiz that may offer you some insight as to
your own willingness to accept responsibility, E-Mail your
mailing address to CompuServe 73534,1171).

Again, remember the whimpering shocked dog experiment we
discussed earlier?  From the results of his experiment, Seligman
suggests that many of us have learned that nothing can be done in
many circumstances to make a difference.  We have already seen
that this sense or conditioned belief in victimhood has been
demonstrated to affect the immune system in a negative manner. 
"Nothing I could do"--"helplessness"--"victimhood"--this side of
the responsibility equation is among the worst mental processes
one can adopt, regardless of its source.  Don't forget the
results I obtained from the survey of physicians whose patients
had used the "Cancer Remission" program.  The results of this
survey suggested that individuals must fully accept the
responsibility for their own lives and mental processes even if
that means guarding against the influence of another.  I cannot
overemphasize this point.

What, then, is the pragmatic way to overcome or, I prefer, to
outgrow this early conditioning.   Once again, it's so simple as
to be difficult--difficult to believe and difficult to do.  The
answer is, Forgive!  In my research we began applying three
messages in our tape programs as cognitive tools to untie the
victim.  They are called the Forgiveness Set and consist of these
three statements:

     I forgive myself,
     I forgive all others, and
     I am forgiven.

When you forgive, you cannot blame.  If there is no one or
nothing to blame, you can't be a victim.  If you do not blame,
it's exceedingly difficult to become angry.  What you cannot
become angry about, you do not fear.  When there is nothing to
fear, there is nothing to become angry about and no one to blame. 
Life is simply a miracle, and living is the process of maximizing
the miraculous experience.  Every thought or deed becomes,
therefore, differently oriented.  When you accept responsibility
for everything in your universe, you gain the power to make
changes.  The real changes are made in you and thus your
experience of life and self become qualitatively different almost
immediately.  

You are in charge of your inner environment, and your beliefs,
attitudes, and emotions do matter to you.  Your health, your
enjoyment of life, your ability to become all that you are is
inescapably involved in your ability to forgive and let go.

But, you may say, that's all too simple, and further, life sucks
and then we die.  I am sure you can find many who will agree. 
Still, if you want to see the barnyard from the sky, spread your
wings, and see for yourself.  Seeing is believing.  Try it---I
promise, you'll like it.  And if necessary, fake it until you
make it.  

                             ******

                         Chapter Fifteen

                       Making It All Work

With the clues assembled in a simple formula, and now
understanding the role of self-responsibility, as far as I am
concerned, the case for the mind-body connection is made.  But
how can we use all of the information obtained to improve the
quality of our lives and our health today?

First, pick a time in your life when life was wonderful.  You
felt great.  It was an optimal period of well-being.  Remember,
this is your memory of a time that you are going to remember and
enrich with feelings and emotion appropriate to that time.  If
you have pictures, recordings, or what-not of that period, get
them out and surround yourself with them.  I found music
selections from the sixties, and the next thing I knew, I was
bouncing around like a teenager in the heyday of rock-n-roll.  Of
course I felt good--every cell in my body was enthused and vital. 
You try it with your own period of time, but remember, choose an
optimal period.  Merge a few years -- and remember, fully
revivify an era where you were at your best!

Second, laugh and smile.  Do whatever you need to do.  Play old
funny movies, watch a standup comic, go to the park and play with
your dog, or so on; but laugh.  Start by smiling even if you have
to force it.  The brain doesn't know you are faking the smile. 
The pure mechanics of contorting the face into a smile causes the
brain to release chemicals that naturally improve the way you
feel.  That is why I said at the conclusion of the last chapter,
"So fake it until you make it, if necessary, but smile!"

Third, get some sunlight and fresh air as you did when you were a
child.  Breathe deeply and evenly.  Take a walk, do some
exercise, but get outdoors.  Remember your youth.

Fourth, and finally, do your emotional work.  Let go of blame,
shame, guilt, and the like.  Be happy.  Use the Seven
Fundamentals discussed in detail ahead in Chapter 16.  Make them
part and parcel of your life.  They are;
     1.  You,
     2.  Thoughts are things,
     3.  Forgive and let go,
     4.  Love cancels fear,
     5.  Acceptance is mastery,
     6.  Interdependence, and
     7.  Do it now!

Remember, as long as you blame, you give your power away.  Blame
provides the excuse that creates victims, who are powerless to do
anything because ultimately it is somebody or something else that
is at fault.  Letting go of these negative feelings empowers you
to do, to act, to change.  Forgiving and letting go can be as
easy as writing a letter, expressing your feelings, ending the
letter with something sincere and positive like, "I see good in
you," and then disposing of the letter.  In other words, if you
are angry, you can release the anger and blame in this simple
manner without ever confronting the person you're angry with. 
Forgiving releases you to take control of your life now.  

There is also another fun technique you can use.  A psychologist
friend of mine in Italy, Dr. Monty Renov, suggested to me that I
include rhyme in the affirmations used in some of my self-help
programs.  The theory behind this is simple.  Most of us have
experienced hearing a song in the morning and having it go round
and round in our heads all day.  That seems to me to be a pretty
effective way of altering self-talk.  By altering self-talk, we
alter the way we think, which in turn alters the way we view the
world, and therefore changes behavior.  Since rhyme is what we
seem to recall with relative ease, why not replace those old
negative thought patterns with something like this:


     The thoughts in my mind
          Can be endless like time
               Why not have the kind 
                    With a helpful rhyme?

     Like roses are red
          And violets are blue
               Life is sure sweet
                    And living is good too!

     Or, up in the morning
          And out of the bed
               Today is my day
                    For moving ahead.
     I'll do it with vigor
          I'll do it with zest
               I'll know at day's end
                    I gave it my best!

     All through today
          My strength will prevail
               Within me the power 
                    To create destiny's tale.

     So with Love in my heart 
          And Life in my hands
               I set my own course
                    To magical lands.

     And I'll do it with vigor
          I'll do it with zest
               I'll know at day's end
                    I GAVE IT MY BEST.  

                             ******

                         Chapter Sixteen

                     The Seven Fundamentals


I promised to share with you what I refer to as the Seven
Fundamentals.  These fundamentals were realized after
investigating such questions as, What is success? Why are some
people unhappy despite their incomes, possessions, or status? 
Why do other people seem to have the Midas touch with
everything--their relationships, their children, their health,
their work, their homes? Why is it that for some, everything
works, and for others, nothing works?

Have you ever observed two people with essentially the same
opportunities, but one person is happy and the other one is
miserable? Isn't happiness the fundamental pursuit of living?
Indeed, is it not happiness that constitutes the true meaning of
success?

Success is happiness! Truly successful people are happy. Many of
their material successes are due to this fundamental secret of
the ages: when you are happy and whole in yourself, all good
things follow.

Where do happiness and wholeness come from? How does a person who
experiences frustrations in life become whole? If a person
becomes whole, will he or she become successful? Can personal
wholeness provide happiness, improve self-esteem, and lead to
riches and fame, peace, balance, and harmony? Can relationships
with family, friends, and associates be improved because one
person assumes the responsibility to be personally whole, takes
the initiative to exude joy and happiness, seizes the opportunity
to empower his or her own life by using the secret of the ages?

The answers to all these questions lie in the Seven Fundamentals
of the Master Secret.

Fundamental 1
     
The first fundamental is you, the absolutely awesome and
incredible you. Not the you of self-doubt, not the you that fears
rejection or failure, not the you that questions your abilities,
but the real you. Those other yous are not you. They are
synthetic yous built upon limited and false notions of who you
are and what you may become. For most of us those false notions
originate as we mature. In our very early attempts to achieve
acceptance, we often trade off our real selves. The desire to be
loved is so strong that many of us give up love or respect for
ourselves to obtain security. That trade-off never works, because
what we are insecure about in the first place exists within
ourselves. The usual response, however, is to find some wise
person, guru, or mentor to solve our problems, to show us the
way. Consequently the last place we search for serenity,
fulfillment, and happiness is within. We are all too often too
involved in our out-there search to look within ourselves.

Happiness is a state of mind. The kingdom is within. The real you
is a higher you, a higher power that resides within you or is
available to you whenever you ask or seek. The fact is, it is
your birthright to manifest the glory of the incredible you. You
absolutely have the power and ability to experience all the
bounties of life, to experience many literal miracles in your
life -- for you yourself are a miracle, and all that you are or
can ever be is a gift.

So the first fundamental is you. The power resides within you. No
one else can do it for you. Your thoughts are reflections of your
expectations. What has been sown in your subconscious mind is
what you reap. Doubt produces failure, fear yields anger, and
belief in limitation is the greatest of all self-fulfilling
prophecies.

For eons the sages have advised the development of mind power.
All things seem possible for the person who somehow masters this
feat. History bears witness to the techniques and teachings that
aim solely at controlling the mind to find the higher self
within. From yoga to hypnosis, the objective is always first to
contact the power within. Some seekers have been successful in
contacting that power, but most have met with only partial
success. Why? It isn't because the theory is in error or even
because the method is necessarily flawed. It is because only you
can do it for you. For most seekers, the years of training, the
time-consuming rituals, and the rigorous effort ultimately have
sufficiently discouraged them, and their attempts have ended in
just another failure.

The exploration of the ultimate frontier, the human mind, has
changed all of this. Today you can tap your own unlimited
potential, creating productive realizations of your real
self--the self that you know is inside of you, the self that can
succeed and is entitled to joy and happiness. And you can do that
in an almost effortless way with many of today's audio and video
tools.

The Asclepiads of ancient Greece altered the subconscious
language of those whose lives were shallow or incomplete or
missing health and happiness by offering experiences that taught
the inherent truth: you are what you think yourself to be. 
Healing and wholeness were restored in Asclepiad centers through
realizations that emerged from the language of the
subconscious--usually dreams.

Today the advantage of technology makes near-magical visits to
the healing centers of well-being possible in your own home and
at your own convenience- private, not intrusive, and self-paced. 
The subconscious beliefs that have programmed you to failure and
misery, the subconscious beliefs that fill your mind with
self-doubt and fear, can be accessed and changed. Negative
subconscious learning can be unlearned, freeing your subconscious
mind to create positive acceptances of the real you and thereby
liberate you to experience the highest and best of yourself.

Fundamental 2
     
The second fundamental is that thoughts are things. The thoughts
we have reveal the beliefs we have about ourselves.

Listen to how we talk to ourselves. Is the language from the
inside reflecting optimism, or is it filled with negative and
self-limiting ideas? Is luck merely happenstance, or is it mental
preparedness meeting opportunity? One of the most successful men
in American asks every potential executive this question: Are you
a lucky person? If the answer is no, the self-fulfilling prophecy
is most definitely true, at least regarding advancement in this
executive's empire. So I ask you again: do you consider yourself
to be a lucky or an unlucky person? Do you expect good in your
life? Do you expect your children to succeed? Your spouse to
bring joy to your relationship? Your boss to recognize your
efforts? Your fellow workers to admire and respect you? Your
neighbors to love you? The guy in traffic to slow down and let
you in? Or do you really expect him to flip you off?

What you expect is what you get. Science refers to this
phenomenon as the Pygmalion effect. It is a fact: if you expect
the worst, you get it. And some of us  must love it, because we
keep on getting it.  Oh, we may complain about it, we may yell
and scream when it happens, but what do most of us do about it?
Most of us speak and act as though there is absolutely nothing we
can do about it. After all, isn't life full of "normal" events
that produce "normal" responses? Isn't it normal to become angry
for being cut off in five o'clock traffic? Isn't it normal to
become fearful when the boss speaks harshly? Isn't it normal to
be frustrated with a child's lack of respect or
self-responsibility? Isn't it normal to become stuck or just fed
up?

Such reactions may be normal, but are they appropriate or
conducive to happiness? Has anger ever produced a peaceful sense
of harmony within you? Has it ever solved a problem or led to
anything other than more anger, guilt, and feelings of being out
of control? Such reactions may be normal, but another word for
normal is average, which can be defined as the best of the worst
and the worst of the best. Neither end of this definition is the
highest best of who you really are.

You are your thoughts. You manifest your thoughts, your
subconscious beliefs, in everything you experience. Do you
believe you deserve happiness, wholeness, and success? You must
truly know at all levels of your being that all good things are
yours in order for them ever to be yours. You create your own
realities. Events are not pivotal points in your life, you are
the pivotal point in your life. When your thoughts are in
agreement with your desires, your desires will magically
materialize.

Fundamental 3
     
The third fundamental is to forgive and let go. That idea may be
a bit startling at first, but think about it for a minute. Do you
consider yourself to be a victim? A victim of your circumstances?
Or are you willing to assume responsibility for who you are? As I
stated earlier, there are two ways to be tied up. One is to be
tied, literally, by someone else, and the other is to tie
yourself, figuratively, by refusing to let go of beliefs that
limit your expression of the whole and complete being you are. In
other words, as long as you shift responsibility by blaming
someone or something for who and what you are, you remove from
yourself the power to be anything other than partial and
incomplete.

All behavior is the result of choice. Sometimes our choices are
made at an unconscious or a subconscious level. For example, we
choose to avoid conflict by repressing our true feelings. Later
our true feelings become so strong that we can no longer suppress
them, and some small incident triggers an overkill response. That
is a reactive model- we have lost control. When we assume
responsibility for every aspect of our lives, we get in touch
with our deepest fears and feelings. The power we gain over our
former, reactive behavior provides us with the ability to respond
appropriately to all stimuli. That is a proactive model--we are
always in control.

The idea was offered earlier that the highest act of
consciousness is inhibition of animal stimulus-response
conditioning. When we accept responsibility for our every thought
and action, we empower ourselves by performing the highest act of
consciousness: inhibiting the natural stimulus-response reaction.
But that means we no longer have anyone to blame.

In fact, as long as we blame, we effectively eliminate our
ability to grow, to be in control, or to experience peace,
balance, and harmony. Power to grow resides in forgiveness.
Forgiving and letting go will set us free. Forgiving everyone,
including ourselves, provides the opportunity to become more than
we have been, which for many is but a mere shadow of our real
selves. And the irony is that most of us know that we are much
more than we have acted out our lives to be!

Fundamental 4

The most powerful force in the world is love. Love cancels fear.
Fear is the only obstacle that must be overcome in order for all
of our experiences to take on new dimensions of meaning and joy.
This love is not romantic love between lovers but the
unconditional love that we give our children. We are all children
in some relative stage of development, learning how to live in
joy and happiness. When we truly understand this truth, it
becomes easy to forgive another for acts that are selfish and
self-centered--and forgive ourselves, as well. "Above all else,
respect thyself," said Pythagoras. To love others, we must first
love ourselves. We cannot pour from an empty container.

Contemporary studies of behavioral dysfunctions ranging from
learning difficulties to criminal activity indicate one common
denominator: low self-esteem. Low self-esteem grows out of fear
of rejection--rejection by a loved one, an employer, a stranger,
anyone who might laugh at our efforts or who would misunderstand
or disapprove. On the other hand, high self-esteem grows out of
self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is self-love. Self-esteem comes
from self-love. We cannot love anyone unless we love ourselves.

Most addictions are the result of low self-esteem and the manner
in which we choose to cope with our fears of rejection. Once we
get past the inability to love ourselves, we find the ability to
love everyone in an unconditional way. That unconditional love
does not mean that we necessarily approve of everything everyone
says or does, only that we have sense enough to assume
responsibility to change what we can change and let be what we
cannot change.

When our attitude is one of love, the world fills our lives with
others who live the same way. We really do attract others into
our lives, almost as if we were mental and behavioral magnets.
Suddenly our attitude of love attracts the right people and the
right circumstances into our lives, and then the joy, the
happiness, and the success we have always been entitled to
flourishes.

Loving thoughts breed loving thoughts. Sinister thoughts breed
sinister thoughts. When we desire to be miserable, the last
person we seek company with is the one who is happy. The opposite
is equally true. Love is indeed the peace that passeth
understanding. Love is the creative force of life--and joy,
happiness, success, balance, and harmony are its natural fruits.

Fundamental 5

The fifth fundamental is that acceptance is mastery.  Loving
unconditionally suggests accepting others as they are.
Furthermore, loving unconditionally suggests accepting yourself
as a whole and complete being on the journey of learning we call
life.

Acceptance, love, and forgiveness are as necessarily interrelated
as each side of a triangle is to the triangle as a whole.
Acceptance is the natural process we knew as children. When light
faded into night, each of us accepted that this just was the way
it worked, and we learned to live accordingly. As we grew older,
we began to manipulate our world by means of electricity. Some
things in the world can and even should be manipulated to our
benefit--turning the dark into a bright space by flipping a light
switch may be one of them. But there are other elements in our
environment over which we have absolutely no control, nor should
we. Attempting to change other people into what we want them to
be by manipulating them is what many of us have spent our lives 
doing.

The best way in which each of us can influence our environment is
by example. When we accept other people for who and what they
are, we have taken the first step toward accepting ourselves and
contributing to the improvement of any condition or situation.
Krishnamurti once stated that "you are the world." When we
reflect peace and joy from an inner level of being, the world
mirrors it back to us. When we judge, condemn, hate, lust, and so
on, the world shows us these qualities. The world is a mirror,
for the principal function of the world is to provide us the
opportunity to learn.

What we resist, we often become. What we like least in another is
almost always a reflection of something in ourselves. When we
love and accept ourselves, we love and accept others. Each
individual who comes into our lives is a teacher. Each has
something to contribute to our learning. We in turn have
something to contribute to their learning. When viewed from this
perspective, our every transaction with another individual
transcends the limitations of manipulation.

The fifth fundamental has been called the Golden Rule. Treat
others as though they were you, and treat them according to the
best you there is. Then the rest just happens. What goes out is
what you get back. Just as the story in the Bible of the prodigal
son teaches us that God has already accepted and forgiven us, so
this fundamental suggests that for many of us the least of our
brothers and sisters has been ourselves. Accepting and loving
ourselves provides the ability to accept and love others, just as
accepting and loving others provides the ability to accept and
love ourselves.

Acceptance is grace, for acceptance cannot exist without
forgiveness and love. With this perspective as the mandate of our
experience, we empower ourselves and the world around us. We see
clearly that every experience in our lives has occurred to teach
us. We can choose to learn quickly and advance, or we can choose
to stick around to receive another of those not-so-favored
experiences until we do learn. Acceptance will accelerate our
personal growth and deeply enrich the quality of every
experience.

Thus we all can choose to examine each experience for the good.
Just as easily as we can complain and flail about, we can say to
ourselves, "I can't wait to find the good in this experience."

This thinking is not crazy or Pollyanna-like. Purely practical
logic teaches us that becoming angry or stressful has not and
does not produce happiness or joy. As a matter of fact, anger or
stress only produces more anger or stress--to say nothing of the
toxins such negatives generate in our bodies to slowly poison us.

Fundamental 6

Martin Luther King once said, "I can never be what I ought to be
until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you
ought to be until I am what I ought to be." He went on to say
that this mutually related network of reality is the fabric of
the human condition.

The sixth fundamental, then, is interdependence, the principle
that each of us is an aspect of the whole. Each of us invites
respect or disrespect according to what we give others, all
others. Down through the ages this concept has been given many
labels, including the popular label karma. It is called
reciprocity. What we sow is indeed what we reap.

Interdependence means individually assuming responsibility for
any condition that is contrary to the quality of humanness in its
highest form and then acting to produce, out of the condition or
situation, balance and harmony for all. That is not to say that
we take up causes and then shove them down someone else's throat.
It is to say that we can work in harmony through example and
right action to produce an environment that is loving and
nurturing for all.

Many people operate in a codependent manner. Their method of
assuming responsibility is to manipulate others by placing blame,
finding fault, or assuming a contractual posture that goes like
this: "If I do this, will you...?" or, "If you loved me, you
would..." or, "Don't you feel sorry that I feel..." or, "You need
me to...," and so on. Codependence is manipulating another person
to provide you with security, sensation, and power. If someone
else cannot live or function without you, then your self-worth
has been  validated--and vice versa. A codependent is a victim, a
victim both of his or her surroundings and of other people. The
need to control another person is a classic symptom of
codependency. Codependency grows out of insecurity. All
insecurities are externally oriented. The codependent sees
stimuli through the lens of expectation. Expectation is a
contract that goes like this: "I will behave this way, if you
behave this way;"  or, "If you behave that way, I will behave
that way." The fear of unfulfilled expectations gives rise to
internal conflict.

Happiness is a state of being. It exists moment to moment in the
eternal now. If happiness doesn't exist, conflict takes its
place, even if the conflict is only the difference between what
we think we should be experiencing and we are experiencing. In
other words, when we have what we desire, we experience joy.
Furthermore, when what we experience is unconditional, as opposed
to contractual, then we experience only joy.

Insecurity fuels fear, and fear is a very creative force. What we
fear most is therefore very often what we create as our
experience. Instead of accepting what is, we project what might
be or lament what might have been. We are responsible only for
ourselves individually. We must be whole before any event in our
lives will be.

Live in the now, for now is really all there ever is. Avoid
manufacturing illusions. Where you are is where you are, and that
will change only if you do. You, not others, are responsible for
your happiness. You are the world!

Fundamental 7

The seventh fundamental is the culmination of all the
fundamentals of success. That culminating principle is this: Do
it now!  This is a world of action, not procrastination. For
anything to change, you must do the changing. Nothing happens
until you make it happen. Only you can do it for you. So do it
now.

Most desires for improvements and alternatives for action are
relegated to tomorrow--and tomorrow never comes. If you want
success, you must act.  Success will not just happen. An
excellent definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and
over again and somehow expecting a different outcome. To get off
the path that has never provided happiness, harmony, prosperity,
success, peace, or balance, you must get off the path. You must
do something different. Not to do so is insane.

Do it now. Each day do what you can do to produce the desired
objective, and do it with enthusiasm. Realize that you  are in
charge and that the fruits of your efforts today will be the food
of your being sooner than you might think.

If the world was a world of theory, then none of us would be
here. Nothing in this world stands still or waits. No action is
inaction. Not to act when an opportunity presents itself is to
choose to pass on the opportunity, regardless of its nature. Not
to know is one thing; to know and then to do nothing is another.
To know but then to fail to do is really a choice that says, "I
am already happy with everything; I'm perfect." More power to you
if this is so.

If it isn't, then when opportunity knocks, open the door, and be
willing to meet opportunity with preparedness. You will soon
discover that you are the luckiest person in the world. If you
seize every opportunity with a positive expression of joy and a
commitment to improve every day in some way, then luck and joy
are all that will ever knock. 

Do not put off until tomorrow what can be enjoyed today. Follow
the Seven Fundamentals, and wisdom will show you the way. You
will know what is in your best interest, and if you act, your
best interest will be realized. Trust yourself, believe in the
incredible you, power your thoughts with desire, accept, forgive,
love, let go, and the secret of success will yield its unlimited
cornucopia of joy.

Do it, and do it now!

                             ******

                            Epilogue

I have had the good fortune as author of this work to benefit
from the comments of several readers.  For example, one reported
a competitive rivalry in school with a younger brother.  When the
younger brother was criticized for under-achievement and poor
school work as compared with his older brother, he explained away
the problem by blaming it on poor eyesight.  His eyesight
immediately worsened to near blindness.  This condition reversed
itself when the two brothers were no longer in the same
situation, and today he doesn't even wear glasses.  The reader
that reported this episode had not seen the connection until he
read the book.  Often it is easier to see connections of this
nature in others as opposed to ourselves.  As such, let me
suggest that you jot down examples that you may see in others and
then evaluate your own history for such possible connections.

To conclude on a final and humorous note, let me share a letter
from actress Linda Hoy, a delightful friend and one of my
readers.  Linda, like many of us, may have suspected, or even
known at some level of her being, how to conduct her life and yet
forgets from time to time.  I suspect we all do.

     "First of all, let me say I consider Wellness: Just A
     State Of Mind? to be a blessing, a practical, hands-on,
     "kick-ass" blessing.

     I had read all but the last four chapters last evening
     intending to finish reading this morning.  Last night I
     attended a horrendous city council meeting regarding
     the Performing Arts Center where too little was decided
     in too long a time.  I was tired and awfully fussy this
     morning - the dog "peed" on my good bed-spread.  Oh my,
     I was blue.  I lamented that I was going to be 50 years
     old this year and couldn't maintain my present job, let
     alone add to it - starting a theater here in Big Bear. 
     I kicked the dog, slapped the cat and kissed Bill good-
     bye, then crawled back under "pee" drenched bed clothes
     with the last four chapters of the book.

     And thank goodness I did.  It was the wonderful healing
     I needed.  It picked me up by the scruff of the neck,
     dusted me off, and set me back on the road.  It was
     just what I needed to keep my head afloat long enough
     for my feet to touch solid ground.  And that solid
     ground was the Seven Fundamentals.  I knew this, but I
     got lost in the drama of "poor me," and lost sight of
     my goals.  My goal to be happy; to be loving; to
     surround myself with peace and laughter; my goal to lie
     on my back and watch the clouds go by, to run and fall
     down in the leaves.

     Thank you.

     I want to own this book.  I want to have one in my
     purse, one on my bed-stand and several to send to
     friends.

     Thank you again,

     Linda Hoy 

                             ******

                   OTHER BOOKS BY ELDON TAYLOR

Subliminal Learning
Subliminal Communication
Thinking Without Thinking
BE: Just a Little Cowboy Philosophy
Simple Things and Simple Thoughts
The Little Black Book
Exclusively Fabricated Illusions