The Malleable Mind

   
The human brain is a mysterious organ which serves its host in a myriad of ways. Besides being a complicated data processing system, it can enhance healing; regulate body temperature, blood flow, translate sounds into data bits, convert optical patterns in recognizable features, as well as many other basic functions. During sleep when most of the body is at rest, the mind continues to function by regulating breathing, heart rate, and produces mental images we commonly refer to as dreams or visions. We don’t actually see anything, but our mind envisions places, people, stories, situations, dialogues, problem solving, etc., that we may never have consciously experienced before. There is much yet to learn about the human brain including the possible sensory perceptions between all forms of flora and fauna, as we continue to explore and discover.

Hypnosis is defined as a “key” that can unlock the deep recesses of the mind.  It is a noninvasive method of peering beyond the conscious mind to tap into the subconscious where hidden files are stored. The subconscious contains information that we didn’t know we had retained and through the use of hypnosis can be accessed and recalled. Hypnosis is a commonly used tool for a number of medical purposes, assisting law enforcement, addictive cessation, pain reduction, behavior modification, etc.  Under clinical conditions hypnosis is usually administered by a qualified person, although it can, with training, also be self-induced.

Through hypnosis, a delayed instruction can be given so that the person being treated will perform a task at some future time without a conscious awareness whenever a specific trigger or circumstance occurs.  These “post hypnotic suggestions” are useful tools for use in behavior modification and is commonly applied in situations where a person desires to stop smoking but lacks the conscious will, to do so.  Under hypnosis, the subject is given information that is stored in the subconscious describing the taste or smell of tobacco as being repugnant to the subject, so whenever the subject is in a tobacco environment, or experiences a desire to “light up,” the subliminally planted suggestion will counter their desire to participate and strengthen their resolve to quit smoking.

Hypnosis can condition the mind to accept what is not real. A hypnotic suggestion can cause a person to believe they are an animal and act accordingly; or it can cause a person to not see or recognize family or friends who are present in the same room (selective blindness); it can cause a person to hallucinate or imagine something that isn’t there. These hypnotic instructions are usually short term in duration, but with repeated imprinting, they can become permanent and realistic. Other related conditions that can influence perceptions of the mind are: the Stockholm Syndrome, Brain Washing, Mob Hysteria, Extreme or Religious Fervor, Torture, etc. The power to override the mind’s normal behavior and instructions is not completely understood but has been well documented.

Many species of animals have sufficient intelligence to be trained in a relative short time period to perform domestic service or tricks for entertainment, from fleas to whales. If at the end of their training and usefulness and there is a period of non-contact with their trainer or their trained environment, the animals will continue to retain some measure of their training. When, after a period of time, they are reunited with their trainer and/or prior use, they will still be able to perform a measure of their trained skills. Although this is the result of only a single generation of animal training, it is held in some point of memory until the animal dies.

Recently, a business engaged in training animals to detect and locate drugs, explosive material, or people buried by earthquake or avalanche debris, discovered a short-cut in the time usually required for animal training.  The usual training time required was significantly reduced when using pups from a mother who had been trained to these skills.  Each generation of pups required less time to learn the skills necessary to perform the task they were being trained for.

During the most recent hundred years, man has been able to increase his knowledge exponentially in the fields of human behavior, science, and the universe. We have expanded the knowledge base of our world more in the last 50 years than during the previous 100,000 years. Today we can read farther into our past and future than ever before. These wide screen visions have enabled us to answer more questions than our ancestors could ever dream of asking. We know more about our neighborhood in the universe, what everything is made of, and where the material came from. We know about the stages of development and growth of biology on this planet. We have excavated in every part of the globe to discover what our ancestors did, and why and when they did it. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we have far more answers and knowledge than any of our ancestors could have imagined.

For 100,000 years superstitious, yet seemingly intelligent humans have been conditioned to believe the only answers to unknown phenomena, whether good or bad, is the result of an invisible supernatural power who manipulates the universe as well as their daily lives. Orthodoxies have been developed by witchdoctors, shaman, prophets, priests, preachers, etc. in stories, myths and legends to appease these unknown powers to avoid future individual or cultural calamities. This training has not been instilled in only one generation, as in the case of the trained animal, but engrained over thousands of generations to the point that no one dares question the existence or influence of supernatural powers.

Every culture that has ever existed has met unknown natural phenomena with the same fears and superstitions. Stories were generated to answer the questions of creation; rules of behavior were established to minimize the risk of displeasing the supernatural powers who are able to do bad things to us. If you are not obedient to these rules and laws, you risk not only being ostracized and banished from the herd, and threatened with a curse to suffer everlasting and violent punishment in an afterlife. The instinctive will to survive has produced a fantasy afterlife to accommodate an innate desire for immortality. No matter where you live on the globe or how primitive or sophisticated the culture may be, all have produced questionable answers to perceived supernatural conditions. Many gods, many traditions, and many rules are the results of encounters with natural events that they did not understand and had no means of developing true or accurate answers.

Religions have constructed an artificial bridge between reality and superstitions which is reinforced from pulpits and lecterns in tabernacles, temples, and churches on a weekly, if not daily, basis.  Using unverifiable ancient texts written by unknown authors, handed down from oral traditions of mythology and legends as their sources of truth. Attendant minds subjected to this constant barrage continue to be conditioned to believe these stories to be truth.  The method to convert a myth into an acceptable sounding truth is by retelling it over, and over, and over, until there is no one to question or refute it.

The human mind is very malleable and has been shaped to traditions and customs of the cultures in which we live. A growing conflict exists between the traditions of stories based upon supernatural events, and the ever-increasing evidence of the history of our universe.  Religions that have been wholly based on ancient truths are increasingly challenged by the growing library of contemporary knowledge and experiencing a decay in membership which is torn between a loyalty to its ancient myths and a new reality of evidence that is emerging at an accelerating rate.  The “NONEs” are growing.

Dancing Bears
Bears in National Parks, do not dance, they live.
Bears in Zoos, do not dance, they exist.
Bears in traveling shows dance, because they are
incentivized by a false discipline - daily.

People, when free, thrive.

People under Oligarchy regimes, only exist.
People attend Glass Cathedrals, Shuls, & Temples
because they are incentivized by
3,000-year-old myths & legends - daily.

Minds are malleable and can be shaped by

treats, fear, threats, or Alternative Facts.

Epilogue:  No person, present or past, has ever produced any substantive evidence of supernatural forces defined as deities.  Religions that depend upon a philosophy of, “Just believing and having faith will make their stories a reality,” have crossed the threshold of the mind manipulation.

FAITH is the psychological state in which an individual holds a supernatural myth to be true.

FAITH is a multifaceted concept which does not require a basis in fact.

Does asking questions and considering the current wealth of accumulated knowledge make anyone an Atheist, Agnostic, or Possibilian (https://possibilian.com)?   OR, Just an Aboriginal Seeker of the 3^rd planet from a sun in only one solar system of the Milky Way Galaxy, among the billions of galaxies throughout the universe?

So, for now, we stand in the middle. We know too little to say a god does or does not exist; and we know too much about our past and future to continue to allow ancient superstitions to limit or control our pursuit of knowledge and truth.  None of the ancient texts remotely depicts or describes a power which has created a universe that has evolved over the past 13.8 billion years.

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