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January/February 2004 Featured Stories
We Are Not Genetically Determined

Dr. Bruce Lipton interviewed by Dr. Dennis Perman

Dr. Bruce Lipton

This is an extract from MasterTalk (Volume 3, Number 9), a recorded interview of Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. by Dennis Perman, DC. The Oregon Doctors of Chiropractic (ODOC) are bringing Bruce Lipton back to Portland March 13-14, 2004 and offer this information as, hopefully, an inspiration to attend the full weekend with Dr. Lipton.

Dennis: I just had the extraordinary experience of three hours with one of the most brilliant presentations I have had in recent memory. The gentleman I am about to introduce to you is an absolute treasure in chiropractic. Remarkably, he is not a chiropractor. But he is someone who got turned on to the chiropractic message in a very unique way and has something so significant to offer…This is future Nobel Prize stuff, people…Let me introduce to the MasterTalk audience, Dr. Bruce Lipton.

Bruce: Thank you so much.

Dennis: Bruce, to try and encapsulate your research in a brief interview is near impossible, but could you give us a little synopsis of the influence of the environment vs. the previous understanding of the primacy of DNA so I can use it as a jumping off point for the rest of the interview.

Bruce: Absolutely. The basic question we bring up is that our current belief or nature is that we believe that we are genetic automatons…that the concept of genetic determinism wherein our genes control our biology, our behavior, our emotions so that we become more or less a machine, and the character and quality of the machine is based on heredity, so that we become more or less a victim, I guess. If we got good stuff we are very happy and if we have negative characteristics we attribute that to things out of our control…our genes.

Dennis: Now, this idea of the signal that turns on what makes us tick, makes us work, being from the outside rather from the inside is a revolution! It is opposite of what has been "established" in organized science. I would like to spend some time talking about perception and belief, and how those factors contribute to the internal environment that leads to better and better function.

Bruce: Yes, so basically the old idea was that genes controlled it, but the new idea recognizes a new idea, a new process called epigenetics, and that means control above the genes. This is all within about the last decade or so. It is such a radical departure from our belief because it shows that genes don’t actually control anything, but that genes are responsive to the environment. So the cells have perception molecules that read the environment and then adjust the genes. The nature of it is very dynamic. Basically, it says that the genes would never know the plan for the future. So the belief that we are genetically determined is really fallacious, because how could a system know what was going to happen next and already plan for it. The system is dynamic, the genes turn on and off as they’re needed, and the response of the gene matches the need of the environment. So all of a sudden we realize that there, between the genes and expression, is the perception. Well, the relevance of perception is that it is in real-time, as I am perceiving the environment right now. The interesting part about perceptions, is that these perceptions are then interpreted by the body, which then adjusts the behavior and the genes of the system to meet the demands or needs of the environment.

There are two levels of perception. One level of perception is that which we have learned over time. Once it is learned, we don’t have to relearn it again and again and again. Thus, when the stimulus shows up, instead of going through our cognition and awareness, it just bypasses that and goes right to the learned behavior. In chiropractic, that is called "The Educated Mind." The Educated Mind is a very good thing because all the small details are taken care of, and therefore it allows our mind not to have to focus on everything at once.

This is a good thing, but it has potential for messing with us, the reason being that we acquire the "Education" through our experiences. Therefore, the experiences we have had may be good experiences, or bad experiences. Whatever way they are, we learn them, so that a negative experience could become an educated process that runs our biology. Then, instead of doing an adjustment that is a benefit to us, we adjust ourselves out of sync with the environment. And since it is "Educated," we don’t even see that, and as a result the unfoldment of our life is controlled by our past experience.

Dennis: So this is the contrast you were talking about between the subconscious programming and the conscious decision-making.

Bruce: Yes, and the conscious decision-making says: I am observing my behavior and the old way I used to do this. I used to make stupid mistakes, castigate myself or problems and be mad at myself. Now, with consciousness, when I observe that behavior, I have the power to say, "Don’t play that tape, let’s play a different one, a new tape. So I begin to learn, and as I learn I can re-educate the "Educated."

So the problem I was trying to bring out in today’s lecture was very importantly this: that the Educated tapes that run our lives were acquired in our earliest formative period, during our fetal development and through the first six years of our life. These are not tapes that we created with consciousness; these are observed behaviors in our environments. We observed how our parents handled their lives, how they handled each other and all the nuances of dealing with the community. We "download" those exactly. The relevance is that when we are not paying attention, by definition, the Educated runs our system. Therefore, when we are not paying attention, we are exercising and expressing behaviors that are not ours from our conscious belief, and maybe conflict with our conscious beliefs.

But if we were raised in a family situation where the parents always expressed "win-win" situations, where they were always in balance with the environment and all that. Then just think about it, our Educated Mind would be programmed with all those types of programs. Therefore, in the rest of our lives, even if we weren’t conscious, that Educated process would always lead us to success, even without us paying attention.

Dennis: So you would conclude that putting yourself in a positive environment that consistently re-enforces conscious decision-making of a positive nature, would probably make it easier for someone to succeed.

Bruce: Not probably…would! Therefore, what you have to do is find yourself an environment that supports you, that sends you environmental signals of how qualified you are, how good you are and all that, rather than the kind of signals from a dysfunctional family, like, "you’re a stupid child" or " you’re not good at these things," or that you don’t deserve something.

Dennis: That really takes us to the next topic I would like for us to talk about, which is the Love and Fear Continuum. You made an amazing comment about survival and the relationship between amount of energy that goes into growth vs. the amount that goes into protection. Would you elaborate on that a bit?

Bruce: Very basically then, if I look at the biological functions, the simplest thing you can say about any living system is that it has two main behaviors, growth and protection. Both of these are required for survival. The problem is that the system was designed for only short or acute responses of protection, and to be in growth most of the time. Yet the world that we live in has us in such fear of everything that we are spending more and more time in protection. Biologically, the cells don’t have the luxury to be both in growth and protection. At the simple level, they respond either to one signal or the other. If we live in a threatening environment, we send signals to our cells that they need to be in protection; but they don’t grow in that aspect, and as a result, we start short-changing our physiology by not supporting our own growth and maintenance. You need to grow every day of your life. Every day you are losing billions and billions of cells. If growth is what replaces them and you are in protection, then when you lose those cells, there are no new cells to replace them. And if you stay in protection for some period of time, this chronic nature will cause a depletion of the support of the system. Then, disease is rampant in the biology. It requires that we undo our need for protection. We find that most of these are beliefs and are not really substantiated at all.

Dennis: Now comment on the effects of joy and stress on the system you just described.

Bruce: The interesting part is that we talk about a continuum, with growth on one end and protection at the other end. Stress puts us into protection. When a healer in any way says, all I have to do is just remove the stress, then we have that scale with stress at one end and you remove it. But now, you are in the middle of the scale, at a zero point…one direction is growth and the other is still the stress you just came out of. If you are at zero, you are still not in growth; you have the removing of stress without the enhancement of joy, which is the feeling you would have when everything is working in harmony. Joy encourages growth…stress encourages protection. The removal of stress takes you to zero; it doesn’t mean you have any growth but that you just have less stress. Now you are on that very narrow pivot point, zero, which is real close to falling off into disease again. So, you want to enhance the system, you want it to support itself, encourage its growth and maintenance. You need to add something besides just removing stress. You need to add wholeness and wellness back in, which is the wonderful part of chiropractic. It is not just about trying to remove stress, but also about showing a fuller, more whole, more complete picture of how to live.

Dennis: Boy, oh boy, we could talk a couple of hours on that one!

Bruce: We sure could, maybe twelve, in fact.

Dennis: Yes, in fact, the twelve hours of your complete presentation, which everyone should make it their business to hear…it’s spectacular!

Dennis: I want you to talk about community. It is critically important. You made some very interesting comments about cells deferring their own perspective to become part of a central voice, a central way of looking at things. Please talk about that.

Bruce: I was saying that every cell has its own Innate Intelligence, and that survival is based on awareness. So when we look at evolution, as you go up the evolutionary scale you see there is more and more awareness in each system. Well, each system is still made out of cells. Every cell is still the intelligent unit. So, what is the difference between a cell living on its own and a cell living in an organism as a community? What is the difference? The answer is that, when you are alone you only have your own awareness to survive by. When you are in a community, you share awareness, so every member of the community brings in an additional piece of awareness. Since survival is in direct proportion to awareness, a person who lives alone is threatening his own survival as compared to someone who participates in the community. Why? Because the community enhances the support of all…one for all and all for one is the nature of the community. Therefore, you get the benefits of being in an environment that provides you with more options, alternatives and visions than the individual alone can find. By coming into a community that endorses and supports and encourages the labors you are involved with, then your work is a lot easier because, with all this additional information being shared through the community, it is not incumbent upon you to carry all the weight anymore.

Dennis: So this is true macrocosm about the entire chiropractic profession, indeed about the world.

Bruce: About the world, and the nature from anything from a cell going into an organism, to a human that’s in relationship, or a human as a cell in a larger organism or organization…it is all the same thing. That is why Nature has always promoted the formation of communities, because it showed there are limitations on awareness of the individual but no limitations on awareness of groups of individuals. It’s as simple as that.

Dennis: Yes! That sounds simple, but amazingly profound. I wish everyone knew what you just said. Thank you, Dr. Bruce Lipton, so very much for the work that you do.

Dr. Lipton’s seminar, entitled "The Biology of Belief" will be held in Portland on March 13^th & 14^th, 2004. For more information you can visit the website of the Oregon Doctors of Chiropractic, www.oregonchiropractic.org. Bruce Lipton’s website is www.brucelipton.com.