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My name is Sean Connelly, and I've gone by the pseudo-name Peebrain while on PsiPog.net. This blog was a running stream of my thoughts, beliefs, and experiences about PsiPog and psychic abilities in general.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Conflicting Beliefs

In the previous post, Mr. Shields left a comment to inform me that Steve Pavlina linked to PsiPog.net in one of his blogs. This started a chain reaction. First, I went to the site, and read the blog (duh). Then I became excited, because Steve is going to address his ideas on psychic development in the future, and he's a smart guy who will get me thinking. Then a few more things happened that I don't remember, but eventually I came upon his Podcasts. I've listened to some in the past, but he had added a few since my last visit.

So I decided to listen to a few more. Eventually I got down to #013, on Beyond Religion. I knew Steve would have some cool ideas, but I wasn't really expecting anything mind blowing.

I'm not sure if the content of the podcast was actually mind blowing, or just that it was something I needed to hear at that specific moment... but Steve presents an awesome idea, that I've kind of run with. The idea is that we can hold conflicting beliefs in our mind with no problems at all. He uses the analogy of a computer... just like a computer can run different software (Word processor, Spreadsheet, Game, etc), we can run different beliefs in our consciousness.

As a result, we can be Christian, Athiest, Buddhist, Agnostic, and New Age at the same time. I visualize a computer screen... I maximize the Athiest screen when I want to be Athiest... then I can minimize it, and pull up the Christian program, when I want to feel Christian. I can have both pieces of "software" on my "computer", and it doesn't matter if they are in conflict with each other.

This plugs into a crazy story I read in Tony Robbins' book, Awaken the Giant Within (p. 76).

Beliefs are not limited to impacting our emotions or actions. They can literally change our bodies in a matter of moments. I had the pleasure of interviewing Yale professor and best-selling author Dr. Bernie Siegel. As we began to speak about the power of beleif, Bernie shared with me some of the research he'd done on people with Multiple Personality Disorders. Incredibly, the potency of these people's beliefs that they had become a different person resulted in an unquestioned command to their nervous system to make measurable changes in their biochemistry. The results? Their bodies would literally transform before the researchers' eyes and begin to reflect a new identity at a moment's notice. Studies document such remarkable occurrences as patients' eye color actually changing as their personality changes, or physical marks disppearing and reappearing! Even diseases such as diabettes or high blood pressure come and go depending on the person's belief as to which personality they're manifesting.

Can we tap into this same power without having to go crazy? Yes!

So how does this apply to psionics?

Not_Important (NI) and myself have talked a lot about beliefs with each other in the past. See, the problem is that whatever we believe really alters our entire reality. So we come up with some solutions to that problem, so that we can accomplish what we want. One of my solutions is to convince yourself that whatever you want to accomplish actually isn't in conflict with your beliefs. I.e., you leave all your beliefs the same, you just relabel your goals so that they are in alignment with your beliefs. This works. NI's solution, in response, is to alter your beliefs so that they are insanely flexible. I.e., change your beliefs so that they can adapt when needed. This works too.

Steve's solution, as outlined in his Beyond Religion podcast, is to change your meta-beliefs - i.e., change your beliefs about beliefs. Specifically, Steve targets the meta-belief that "I can only believe in things that aren't in conflict with each other", or worded differently, "All my beliefs must be in agreement with each other". NI and myself have been working on ways to navigate one system of limiting belief. Steve shows that we can also install multiple belief systems, so that if we want to bypass a limiting belief in one system, we just switch systems!

This releases a lot of tension. Instead of constantly trying to figure everything out, and create one master belief system, I can just let my beliefs relax. I can be a hardcore skeptic that thinks psychic abilities are silly. But when I'm in a situation where that belief system no longer serves me (for example, when I'm trying to do something psychic), I can minimize that belief, and pull up the PsiPog belief system. Or a New Age belief system. Or even a Wiccan belief system, if I feel that would be a better decision. I consciously choose what system to work in, based on the pro's and con's of that system.

Does this work!? Yes! After I listened to Steve's podcast, I layed down in bed to just think about it. I'm going to get a little religious here, so be prepared. I'm someone who has a lot of conflict with the Christian belief system. I know a lot about it, but constantly argue with it, and fight against it. With Steve's idea thumping through my head, I came to the conclusion: if I can hold multiple belief systems, then I can install the Christian belief system that I already know a lot about, and even though a lot of my normal beliefs are in conflict with it, I should still be able to feel Christian when I choose to. If I don't want to be Christian, I should be able to just minimize that program, and pull up another one.

So I tested it out. I minimized all my negative beliefs about Christianity, and asked for Jesus to come into my heart (sounds crazy now that I'm typing it

). Low and behold, my body went through a change. I could feel my heart pulsating, and I couldn't stop smiling. After laying in bed smiling for a few minutes, I decided to minimize the belief system. So I minimized my entire Christian experience, and pulled up my old belief system. I felt normal, and even a little silly that I had experienced that! Then I minimized that belief system, and pulled up my Zen Buddhist belief system. I didn't feel silly, but I felt more wise for figuring this out (with Steve's help). I minimized that belief system, then brought up Christianity again... and I could feel the pulsation in my heart again.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to explain this to my Dad. I have been saved, under the Christian belief system. When I pull up that belief system, I become happy that I'm saved, and am excited that I'll see my Dad in heaven. When I minimize the belief system, and pull up a New Age belief system, I go back to the thought that heaven is silly, and I can't wait to see my Dad out-of-body to show him that I was right all along about life after death. But then I can just minimize that, and pull up the Athiest belief system, and I immediately think this is all so stupid!

Logically, the systems are in conflict with each other. But who says we can't hold conflicting beliefs? Why are we forced to feel stressed out when we are in conflict? Why must we choose ONE BELIEF RIGHT NOW that defines us? Why not have multiple systems installed on our consciousness harddrive that we can pull up whenever we choose to?

How does this apply to psionics. Easy. Instead of trying to figure out one master belief system where everything under the sun is possible, we can simplify the problem. All we need are seperate belief systems that work for each skill. If I want to do PK, I pull up the PK belief system, and have no problems. Who cares if my experiences with PK are in conflict with my energy manipulation (EM) belief system. When I want to be skeptical, I pull up that belief system. The skeptical belief system can be deadly to PK results... but it's useful for challenging crazy thoughts. If I want to challenge some crazy thoughts, I pull up the skeptic belief system. If I want to stop caring about that, and just do some PK for fun, I minimize it... and pull up the PK belief system.

This all happened last night, and I'm really excited to get some results with this. I already tried bending a spoon, and I'm not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it did look like I was getting results. Once I get some tangible results, I will most definitly be able to finish my next eBook on this same subject. I can't wait!

~Sean

Monday, May 15, 2006, 10:33 AM — 8 comments

8 Comments:

On May 15, 2006 4:20 PM, Youseff said...: Hey Man,

All really cool stuff, I wish I could be around to talk to you about it.

You know, I've been thinking something of this, even though I haven't been reading anything online lately. I notice, that when I see people posting certain things on the message board like the "limits" of psi, which came up recently I went to a "not everything is possible belief", but it had a twist, that "everything" is possible, if you can prove that the steps to everything are possible as well :-P. It's like growth kind of thing, with your beliefs. If you can move a pencil, then you might try a book, if you can move a book you might try a larger object, until EVERYTHING is possible.

But, a really good read, I'll think about it and read it again later.
On May 15, 2006 5:16 PM, Anonymous said...: This multiple belief system is completely ridiculous. I'm sorry I've been to steve's site and I found him to be an idiot my own eyes. I hate that personal development crap. Development is subjective, if I shit my pants I could consider that personal development. Conflicting beliefs are bad. Why? Because you want your personal philosophy to be in as much accordance with what you objectivley experience as possible. One idea such as heaven cannot be both true and false. You should re-think this peebrain.
On May 15, 2006 11:04 PM, Peebrain said...: "Because you want your personal philosophy to be in as much accordance with what you objectivley experience as possible."

This sounds like a wonderful and logical idea. However, when you change your beliefs, you will notice that this supposably static objective reality also changes. How can that be?

But you are right, I certainly need to think about this some more, and test some ideas out that I have. If using these ideas I can advance my PK skills, then I will have to consider them even more seriously. Right now, in this blog, I am presenting the idea without much evidence. If I can produce evidence, then I encourage you to re-think your position. If I can't produce evidence, then I will be forced to re-think mine.
On May 16, 2006 8:05 PM, Anonymous said...: Objective reality does change it is true, I read recently that some universal constants are shifting. Personally I think you should have no beliefs. Sounds easy huh? It really isn't you have to think about your daily assumptions about everything: socially, politically, scientifically and especially religiously. After you strip yourself of as much value-bias as possible your perspective is much clearer and you willingly conform to our changing realities. This has the same effect as believing everything because if you believe everything you ultimatley believe nothing but simply believing in nothing allows greater flexibility.
On May 17, 2006 8:42 AM, cowboy said...: if all goes well, a new era of psionics will come. peebrain, i think ur gonna open the pandora box of human-meta-physics/psionics...
On May 17, 2006 12:09 PM, Peebrain said...: "Personally I think you should have no beliefs."

So you believe you shouldn't have beliefs? I think it's impossible to have no beliefs without turning into an inanimate object. ;-P
On May 18, 2006 6:06 AM, 0160 said...: Reality -> sensory organs -> mind + beliefs = our perception of reality (and self-created boundaries of it). Changing beliefs around is like changing the color of sunglasses.
On May 19, 2006 12:13 AM, sophiophile said...: The peebrain is finally starting to reprogram itself. Now you can start thinning the rift between yourself and your actions. Continue your (now meta-)conception from out of the nominal and ordinal!

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Monday, May 15, 2006

Conflicting Beliefs

8 Comments: