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Want to radically expand beyond the limits of your mind? Try this. Read More
:)
Very encouraging post! :) Lester's Way makes life much more exciting! Have you met Mr. Levenson?
Thank you for this article!
-AP
re: Have I met Mr. Levenson?
I'm glad you found the post uplifting. It *is* a fun way to approach life. I never met Lester, except through stories others have told about him, his autobiography,and some audio and videotapes. You can go to www.youtube.com and type in Lester Levenson and a whole series of videos of Lester will come up. You might enjoy that. Thanks very much for your comment.
hope and possibility
I'd love to hear your comments about the difference between "hope" and "possibility".
Are they compatible? I have heard that using the word "hope" implies despair, and does not lead to the kind of action and real change that using "possibility" opens up...
thanks
re: the difference between hope and possibility
I've noticed that people mean different things by the words they use, so the most accurate answer to your question about the difference between hope and possibility is probably "It depends."
That said, I personally relate more to a "possiblity paradigm" than to a "hope paradigm." I don't think the word "hope" implies despair; nor does it necessarily lead to inaction or lack of "real change." But my perception and belief that "anything is possible" carries a particular energy for me that "hope" does not. It also allows me to do things that just "having hope" does not.
For me, the word and idea of "possibility" literally opens up a whole range of new possibilities, not just an outcome or possibility I hope for. When I am in this state of openness to possibilities, the next step is to actualize a possibility I prefer, which can be done through neutral, clear intention--if I am in an attention-free state of awareness. I will write more about how to do this sometime.
To me, this is quite different from hope. The Possibility Paradigm offers a way to deliberately choose and achieve--with minimal effort and a great deal of ease--outcomes that I prefer, even outcomes that might appear to be miraculous.
So, in that sense, what you say about hope might apply. Hope seems to be more of an attitude. "I hope this will happen." "I have hope for the future." I think hope can lead people to action because usually people don't take action unless they have some sense that their actions will make a difference, and "hope" carries or conveys that sense. Yet, to my mind, "hope" does not hold the same power to actualize possibilities as the word "intention" or "decision." Hope puts the locus of control outside oneself instead of inside. "Possibility" is more like a field of potential, with specific possibilities then actualizable by choice and decision.
That's how I experience some of the difference between "hope" and "possibility." How about you?
reminds me of...
A Course In Miracles, written by a psychologist, btw. Wonder if she ever met Lester?
dangerously exaggerates power of positive thinking
Are you actually suggesting that if we really, really believe we can fly by flapping our arms, and jump of the roof, then we will fly? Surely this takes the "power of positive thinking" too far?!
Yes, thinking positively can be a benefit. But it I'm afraid it can't make us fly. Or cure cancer. Or make us impervious to nuclear explosions.
One danger of this sort of nonsense is that it leads to blaming people for their own illnesses. If you're ill, it's your own fault! Banish those bad thoughts. You just need to *think* your way to health.
It's the same old nonsense faith healers and Christian Scientists have been serving up for decades. Any actual evidence for it all? Other than, say, a load of anecdotes, like your anecdote about Lester's illness and the robbery?
Agreed - "POPT" sounds like
Agreed - "POPT" sounds like pseudoscience. Its appeal seems to be analagous to the supernatural - our experiences would be more interesting if it were true, it would give us hope, and it cannot be directly disproven.
re: "dangerous" "positive thinking"
Your comment reminds me of the Music Man musical: "Oh we've got Trouble, right here in River City, with a capital T that rhymes with P and it stands for Pool!"
The mind takes something innocent, then goes down a path, step-by-step, and turns it into something very dangerous!
Thank you for saying what you did. I mean that sincerely--because your comments are a perfect illustration of what the mind naturally does when confronted with something beyond its capacity to take in.
You are not alone.
The mind cannot conceive of unlimited possibility--nor can it allow it. To the mind, it IS dangerous to allow unlimited possibility. The mind rightly knows that if it allowed for no limitation whatsoever, it would die. That's the death of the ego-mind. The sense of separation from the whole. When you operate, however, from another level of awareness, beyond the mind, virtually anything becomes possible.
And so, what you're saying is correct, from the point of view of the mind. I agree that positive thinking does not "make the impossible possible." But for infinite beingness, unlimited awareness, consciousness itself, the heart intelligence (as researched by the HeartMath Institute, for example)--whatever we choose to call this higher and broader awareness--anything's not only possible, it's easy.
I know that all sounds like gobbledygook to you (you call it "nonsense,") because you're looking at it from the point of view of the mind.
In order to understand what I'm saying, you have to move to a different level of awareness. It is possible to access this larger awareness through certain kinds of processes.
Since I wrote that column, I started experimenting with Lester Levenson's process, as taught by Larry Crane. (Some of Crane's approach and marketing materials can turn people off, but underneath it is a simple and direct process that works.)
I've also used some other processes--which in the past I have taught as "the Querencia Processes"--and they do something similar to Lester's method. They, too, have made the seemingly impossible happen, time and time again.
There are other processes that can be used as well.
When you move into your own larger awareness, you begin naturally to understand how anything can be possible--and you begin to experience it.
Until then, the mind will continue to beat you (and me) up if you dare to even ask the question, "What if it might be possible?"
I would say that imagining another thought framework in which anything might be possible isn't likely to allow you to fly. However, it can start to quiet your mind enough to allow awareness to begin to enter. At that point, new things can happen...
I don't expect you to believe or accept any of this. Not at all. What I'm aiming to do is plant seeds in the collective consciousness, so that those who are willing and able to consider new--even unlimited--possibilities can join me in playing a new game on Earth: the What Else Is Possible game.
(The thought-framework that I approach possibilities with is quantum-physics based. It's able to explain what looks impossible from other scientific frameworks.)
When you start to ask an open-ended question like What else is possible?--and don't look for an answer with your mind--something wonderful happens. Just ask the question, to no one at all, and let it be...and see what happens.
By the way, I know a healing practitioner who has made many people's cancers disappear. You could say it's not possible, but why on Earth would you do that? If a family member of yours had a cancerous tumor and it showed up on multiple x-rays, and then it disappeared, why would you say it didn't happen? Why would you try to convince them it was nonsense? Especially if it happened over and over again with the same practitioner?
Why not simply open your mind to new possibilities, and allow yourself to entertain a larger framework that can explain the phenomenon?
By the way #2, if people can levitate--as has been demonstrated--then why shouldn't they be able to fly?
The mind will clamp shut at that--because it is committed to limitation.
What I'm saying is, What if it's possible? And wouldn't it be fun to find out?
Flying?
This is 'men who stare at goats' territory, surely?
I dare say it's fun thinking about what might be possible - surely everyone does? - but let's not fly before we can levitate.
As for these ideas being harmful, it must be obvious that they *could* be. If everyone wandered around insensitive to their surroundings like the students in the diner, harm would soon come to them.
no--not obvious
No, it is not obvious that these ideas *could* be harmful.
The danger of these ideas is only a fiction of the mind.
You wrote: "If everyone wandered around insensitive to their surroundings like the students in the diner, harm would soon come to them."
When you operate from a larger awareness, you are not more vulnerable to danger, but less vulnerable.
I'll say to you what I will say to everyone else who has made similar comments about this article:
Try what it suggests and see for yourself.
Until you've done that, your objections are meaningless.
you might try what the column suggests
And by "try what it [my article] suggests" I mean exactly what I wrote in it:
"...next time you hear something you're tempted to dismiss as "Impossible!" why not try a Lester on it? Spend some time playfully brainstorming all the ways that explain how it might possibly, just maybe *could* occur...if your own mind were expanded enough to let it in."
A physicist friend of mine actually did that--thought of some ways that what Lester said about not being affected by a nuclear bomb-- *could possibly* be true (though he argued against my using the Lester example because his scientist friends wouldn't believe it and would then just dismiss the whole possibility idea that I'm proposing, just as some on this thread have done). He thought I should make a distinction between what's probable and what's possible. Yes, it might be possible, but it's highly improbable.
I appreciate that viewpoint, although from a Possibility Paradigm point of view, whether something is probable or not is not so relevant. The point is simply to expand the mind, open to more and more possibilities, and then, from there, take the next steps into actually creating new possibilities in our external world.
Thanks for the reply Dr
Thanks for the reply Dr Gerloff, but you seem to be contradicting yourself. In the piece you said:
... but now you say:
So you're denying what you said in the piece, and that in fact they *were* aware of the gunman, but, I don't know, pretending not to be?
I like to think I do operate on a level that allows for all sorts of possibilities, but I'll look more closely at what is suggested and see if I can do better. But perhaps if we don't see the effects you describe (a larger awareness, rather than myopia!), we could be doing it wrong? Are there objective tests to confirm these effects, do you know, or just first person reports?
clarification
I know that my statement that "When you operate from a larger awareness, you are not more vulnerable to danger, but less vulnerable" can sound contradictory to what I wrote in the article. It's not, though.
The reason is a bit complex--too much for this email discussion, so I'll leave it at that.
I stand by the statement that living from awareness is safer than living from the mind.
I'll agree that when you
I'll agree that when you operate from a "larger awareness", you are less vulnerable. That is because awareness == paying attention. What the students were doing in the diner was deliberately NOT paying attention, presuming they were completely unaware of the robbery until it was well over.
BTW, nice bullet-dodge there. "The reason is… too much for this email discussion". What your doing is saying "I will make grandiose claims about the nature of reality and how we can exercise some measure of control over it with positive thinking. However, it is far too complex an idea to explain to skeptics." I refer to the principle: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Offhandedly mentioning a couple of anecdotes with no corroborating evidence does not a proof make.
I appreciate what you're trying to achieve here, I just think you might be misleading the more… credulous… among your readers.
P.S. By the Way #3
By the way, #3:
Lester Levenson was a physicist, then an engineer, then a businessman. He had a scientific mindset, which is what allowed him to experiment on himself and make his great discoveries. He didn't go home and resign himself to die when all the conventional wisdom of science and medicine told him that's what he had to do. He basically asked, What else is possible?, and then proceeded to find out.
Lester once said, "The impossible immediately becomes possible when you are fully released on it." ("Fully released" is a specific term used in his method.)Lester demonstrated the possibility of "the impossible" all the time.
My own approach has been similar to Lester's. Many years ago I didn't think as I do now. I began to examine new frameworks only when I got sick and found traditional medical approaches unable to help me. Of necessity, I began to examine and experiment with other frameworks. Lo and behold, I found some that helped me. Prior to that, I had wanted to significantly change how we educate children. But when I finished graduate school, I found that I didn't know how to change the huge and resistant institution we call "education". At the same time, I was noticing that certain forms of alternative healing were able to do things that regular medicine couldn't do--and that their approaches seemed to hold keys to change that usual approaches to "educational reform" or institutional change couldn't match.
I'm now at the point where I feel I have the tools and the understanding to move forward in creating something genuinely new and different in the world of education.
We start by asking "What else is possible?"
I'm now connecting with others who are asking the same questions and taking action.
Which would you rather do? Experience new possibilities that you've never experienced before or live inside a box that insists that what I--and others--are experiencing is not possible?
Ay, it's the Law of
Ay, it's the Law of Attraction at work, isn't it? Completely believable to me.
Well, let me know when you
Well, let me know when you are "fully released" and can withstand nuclear blasts with the power of your mind, Pamela.
Positive thinking can be helpful. And there's certainly nothing wrong with asking "What else is possible?" In fact, it's often a good idea.
But this questioning approach is being used here as cover for the introduction of a load of standard New Age, "Law of Attraction" blather packed out with the usual Deepak-Chopra-type references to quantum mechanics, etc. I'm surprised we didn't hear "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy".
I'm afraid this checks many of the boxes for being an "intellectual black hole". Which is why I'm annoyed. See: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028160.200-a-field-guide-to-bull...
re: nuclear annoyance
I am not personally fearful of nuclear disaster. However, I see no reason whatsoever to have nuclear power plants. If we really asked, collectively, What else is possible? and began to seriously pursue other solutions to our planet's energy requirements, we'd have no need for nuclear power. That's the point (which you seem to have missed) of the Anything Is Possible framework. We set aside our old paradigms, everything we think we know as "truth," "fact," or "necessity," and ask "What else is possible?" "What if this seemingly outrageous thing could be true?" "What then would be possible?" We ask all this because it opens our mind to something new--not because it is "true" or "untrue." This is how great discoveries are made. This is how new possibilities are born. I approach possibility playfully and joyfully, as is my style. It's like brainstorming. In a brainstorming process, it is counterproductive for people in the room to continually raise objections while wild ideas are tossed out. It closes down possibilities, rather than opens them.
Your annoyance I think comes from your misunderstanding of the nature of the Possibility Game. You think it's arguing about what is true or untrue. You think it's about planting or preventing dangerous falsehoods in the minds of impressionable readers. (Where is your evidence that anything I have said has caused someone to jump off a building and die? Can you show me some real-life evidence that any demonstrable, provable harm has actually ensued from this column?)
The Lester example in the article was playfully offered to suggest an approach we could all productively take, which is:
When something seems patently untrue to us, don't automatically close our minds to it.
Instead, try playing with it. Try asking questions: What if this could possibly true? How might it be true? What might that suggest to help solve this problem I'm addressing?
These ideas are meant to open and expand our minds.
I, for one, want to see huge change on this planet in my lifetime.
For that, we need a whole lot of possibility-minded people. As Dr. Dain Heer said, "Closed minded people don't change the world."
I want to change the world.
Goodness me. You do talk a
Goodness me. You do talk a load of nonsense, don't you?
Imagination may be limitless, but not sure reality is...
This is quite something. I'm pretty sure it's damaging to suggest that imaginations alone can render the hitherto impossible, possible. I think either more data's required to show how private thoughts can protect against nuclear explosions, or more explanation's needed as to why believing this fantasy is advantageous to the believer. Whilst I admire the spirit of the likes of Voyager test-pilot Dick Rutan in his playful rejection of the laws of physics - "Never look at limitations as something you comply with. Never. Only look at it as an opportunity for greatness." (in An Optimist's Guide to the Future, 2011) - I'm not sure it's only his subconscious doubt that's impeding his ambition to travel faster than the speed of light. Positive thinking's fine, but fantastical thinking will always present problems when it rubs up against reality. Anyway...
Possibility Pamela: "In
Possibility Pamela: "In recent years scientific and metaphysical frameworks have emerged that provide plausible explanations for how such seemingly unbelievable things might occur--to be saved, of course, for another post" ~ I will keep an eye open for that post, but I do not expect that you will be able to deliver anything except the usual Chopra woo
If you want to believe that mere wishes will materialise in the physical world, then good luck to you ~ it's your life. But, anyone toting around an "Ed.D" & who has earned the right to a "Dr." in their name should not push this stuff so carelessly ~ some poor fool may listen to you & try to walk off a roof or stop medicating their mental illness. If you have a new insight that breaks from the accepted laws of physics (you were not clear), then get it peer reviewed ~ otherwise bear in mind that you could cause harm in the real world to real fragile people.
Measure your words & provide evidence
"In essence, they gave their
"In essence, they gave their left-brain, logical mind ..."
Modern neuroscience disavows the pop psychology, phrenology based hemispherical differences of that sort. Yay for brain scans.
re: left brain
You are correct that the emerging view in neuroscience is that there is no "right-brain, left-brain" distinction of that sort. Most people, though, hold it as a concept in their awareness, so I wrote it that way. It would have probably been better to just say "logical mind" -- or perhaps even "mind" or "ego-mind." I stand corrected on that.
But don't make the mistake that a neuroscience view is automatically "correct." That's part of my point. People take current views in science--and medicine and education and politics and economics and religion and nearly everything else--as "truth." Consensus views are not truth. They are emerging viewpoints. The views of science are changing all the time. ALL THE TIME. Somewhere in school, kids learn to stop questioning and exploring. They turn into fundamentalist scientists (or fundamentalist economists or fundamentalist educators, etc), similar to fundamentalist religionists.
I say, "What if we could widen the limits of our minds?" Ooooohhhhhh, that's DANGEROUS!, shout some of the commenters on this site.
How absurd is THAT?
Who's shouting?
Thanks for this Dr Gerloff.
It's interesting that you feel shouted at and have chosen to caricature the discussion. I'm all for the accumulation and refinement of knowledge - even the odd paradigm shift - but only as a data driven process. If you have no data, then you only have hypotheses; so when taking the discussion of expanding minds to a territory that violates the known laws of physics, then it is only appropriate that these views aren't nodded through uncritically surely?? If you were describing cognitive exercises for self-belief in everyday life challenges (e.g. job interviews, educational pursuits, feats of physical endurance, recovery from physical or emotional problems), then I'm sure the responses would have been different, but it was you who brought up the minds potential against nuclear blasts at point blank range.
And just for the record, I'm quite happy to accept that time and space are inter-related, a quantum particle can be in two places at once, eating a little bit of a disease can give you immunity against that disease, everything we see is in the past, I share an ancestor with llamas and daffodils, and there's no noise in nature without hearing devices. So it's not like I'm naturally close-minded to the instinctively implausible?
Not sure what you think?
re: shouting
Perhaps another word would have been preferable to "shout."
"Shriek," maybe?
"Squeal," maybe?
"Seriously intone," maybe?
"Fearfully utter," maybe?
I wasn't characterizing the discussion, just attempting to convey how that "It's dangerous" formulation that a number of commenters have used comes across to me.
How silly is it that a playful column on possibility, citing something that seems totally unbelievable and implausible, is projected forward to be a VERY DANGEROUS column because vulnerable readers are likely to immediately stop taking their meds and flap their wings and jump off buildings and...maybe hop on a plane over to Japan to soak up some nuclear fallout?
I'm trying to respond to all comments, but may not get to all of them for awhile. I'll be back.
Thanks to you and everybody else for posting.
Re. Shouting
Thanks again Dr Gerloff
Though it is only you that's shouting 'DANGEROUS', and now 'VERY DANGEROUS'. I'm also not sure where people suggested your column has led to anyone stopping their meds, jumping of buildings or deliberately soaking up nuclear radiation (??); though I have seen it implied that this kind of thinking is certainly conducive to those sort of acts. It's essentially saying don't trust reality and conventional wisdom, entertain and pursue other possibilities - regardless of the counter-evidence - and call doubters absurd or close-minded. If your column was playful, then I feel this should have been made clear so that readers could separate the metaphor from the magic.
I should also add that I work with adults with learning disabilities where unadulterated empowerment and wild wishful thinking like this has had real negative consequences. (E.g. telling a 40 year old person with limited language and no reading or writing abilities, and their carers, that no one has the right to tell them they can't be a Police Officer, ...and the rejections keep coming)
You may also have come across neuroscientist David Eagleman's engaging angle on possibility - perhaps there's something in there for you: http://www.eagleman.com/eagleman-blog/93-poptech2010
Anyway, thanks for you time.
"think" yourself well.
Hello Pamela
You say: "I say, "What if we could widen the limits of our minds?" Ooooohhhhhh, that's DANGEROUS!, shout some of the commenters on this site. How aburd is THAT?"
You are attacking a straw man. No one has suggested we shouldn't open ourselves up to new ideas, consider new possibilities. No one has claimed that it is dangerous to do so.
However, some of us have suggested it might be dangerous to encourage people to think that they can just "think" themselves better. Particularly when you've supplied no evidence whatsoever to support that claim (a claim also made by Christian Science, etc. etc) other than testamonials and other anecdotes (also offered in bucket loads by Christian Science, etc. etc.).
In the case of Christian Science, the idea that we can "think" ourselves well has undoubtedly killed many children. See e.g. http://www.masskids.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=161...
re: Christian Science
Hi Stephen,
The link you provided above offers 14 anecdotes about Christian Science from the 1970s'through the 1980s, plus some other similar anecdotes from other faith denominations or healing systems--making a total of 28 anecdotal cases during the 1970s and '80s.
I am not a Christian Scientist, but I've seriously investigated their method of healing. I would think that the many many thousands of deaths per year (48,000 - 100,000 in the U.S.? Numbers vary, depending on the statistics gathered) resulting from infections acquired from improper hospital practices--one study put the numbers at more than the number of deaths per year from HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and auto accidents combined -- would be more of a danger to the populace than the small number of deaths associated with ineffective Christian Science treatment and my column on Possibility, combined.
Similarly for the number of deaths, cases of brain damage, long-term disability, and unnecessarily difficult recovery from surgery resulting from the fact that hospitals won't use brain monitors instead of heart monitors when they administer anesthesia.
Brain monitors cost about $20 a patient. Why don't hospitals use them? See the work of Dr. Barry Friedberg.
As you know, I am not suggesting that people can just "think" themselves better. Nor do I buy your assertion that my column presents any real and present danger to the health and well being of the citizens of the world.
But I appreciate your concern--and I don't mean that snidely. I actually do appreciate you and your comments. I recognize that you are expressing your wish to keep everyone safe and on the right track. You hold a certain viewpoint and a certain approach to getting at what's true. I don't share your viewpoint, but I see that you are sincere. As are the other commenters on this site.
Thanks for your contributions to the discussion.
gin gout
[PK QUOTE: I say, "What if we could widen the limits of our minds?" Ooooohhhhhh, that's DANGEROUS!, shout some of the commenters on this site. How absurd is THAT?]
That isn't all you are saying Pamela ~ you are talking about new physics that includes the mind performing what most people would consider to be miracles. I would love it to be true, but until your new science can be demonstrated to be fact-based it is irresponsible of you to suggest people make important decisions based on... fine words & no substance
Produce your evidence & please stop misrepresenting the statements of the people who are calling you out on your drivel
question
Michael,
What kind of "important decisions" do you think I am suggesting people make?
I've noticed that a number of people on this thread are misrepresenting the statements I made in my column.
-Pamela
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