The Power of Thought - Grand Master Julie Scott: transcript

past imperator ralph lewis wrote each day we intentionally or indifferently sow a seed these seeds are our daily thoughts and actions nature nurtures them alike time will reveal their harvest will it be what we sought from life end quote together we're going to explore some of the science behind how the thoughts that we hold create the lives that we are living and how they influence others as well we will also plant some seeds for more joy health and ease in our lives let's start with the following excerpt

from a rosicrucian manuscript it states the vision we have of objects is due to the projection toward us of the light vibrations that they receive from the sun or from some other source of natural or artificial light the interpretation of the material things we see is not based upon those things themselves it is based on the vibrations emanating from them accordingly it is impossible to know the exact character of the world surrounding us because we interpret what our surrounding environment seems to be rather than what it truly is end quote the light that falls onto our eyes is actually

meaningless it could mean anything this is true for information in general as well there is no inherent meaning in information we give it meaning now we're going to try an experiment i first saw this on a ted talk featuring bo lotto and a similar phenomena is also described in beautiful detail in robin wall kimmer's book braiding sweetgrass braiding sweetgrass which i highly recommend so i'm going to share my screen with you now so that we can look at an image so just glance at the image the two images that you see in the bottom this is a desert scene that's just mirrored onto itself and now for 30 seconds

look at the dot that's between the two colored blocks at the top of this screen so i'll tell you when 30 seconds is up but keep your focus on that dot that is between the red and the green squares that you see at the top keep your eyes relaxed but look there don't look away now look at the two images on the bottom

again look at the two desert images you may have noticed that the images on the bottom no longer look like they looked before you may see very vibrant colors purples and different colors in the clouds that weren't there before your brain learned that the left side of your visual field was under red illumination and the right side of your visual field was under green illumination so your brain was looking at the same information after you stared at the dot between the two colored blocks when it looked back down at the two desert images again your brain was looking at that same information

as though the left image was still under red light and the right image was still under green light it became your new normal then when you looked down at those at the desert with the clouds underneath and it was different colors for you your brain was very was probably very proud of itself thinking that it had adapted very quickly during evolution our brains developed an ability to find relationships or patterns and to associate those relationships with a behavioral meaning and with this experiment you could see how quickly that happened how many of you saw the the how many of you the bottom image looked different after you had stared at the the lights above at the colors above so your brain just quickly said okay those images below are now permanently under these new colors

this helps with our survival our brain quickly reprograms itself for rapid response the next time however sometimes this influences us later when it's not so helpful or applicable often resulting in an overreaction so again the material world exists the material world only exists for us because of our ability to perceive and interpret the vibrations emanating constantly from it the way in which we interpret material things depends on our culture education beliefs and life experiences physicist david baum said quote ordinarily we aim for a literal picture of the world but in fact we create a world according to our mode of participation

and we create ourselves accordingly if we think in our present way we will create the kind of world that we have created then if we think in another way we might create a different world and different people meaning us as well end quote this resonates with albert einstein's words we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them our culture and families often influence our beliefs about ourselves and our world much more than we know two examples in which there has been extensive study are how what others believe about us can influence our behavior and beliefs and how what we believe influences what we manifest in our lives

first how do our actions reflect the images that others have of us numerous studies carried out in classrooms with school children demonstrate the power that another person's image of us can have in shaping our performance it has been widely documented that teachers often have different expectations of boy students and girl students especially in subjects such as math and science this ref these reflect invisible bias and systems that confer dominance to certain groups in this case to boys and we'll talk about this in a minute researchers discovered that teacher teachers often responded to students in line with what they believed about a student's potential and ability if the teacher believed that a student

is smart and competent their body language was encouraging and the words they used were encouraging and supportive on the other hand the teacher's interactions with those thought to be less capable were much more curt and dismissive follow-up many years later showed that this image affected the students far into their future the same can be anticipated with images held by parents or bosses or other authority figures it was actually proven that the image that the teacher held of the student was a more powerful predictor of a child's performance than were iq scores home environment or past performance as i mentioned there are invisible systems

that confer dominance to certain groups for example there have been 115 supreme court justices in the history of the united states all but seven of those 115 since the year 1787 have been white men there have been 46 presidents of the united states all have been men all except one have been white men and all but three have been white men with ancestry from the british isles here's another example of this invisible system when soldiers when u.s soldiers reser returned from serving in the military in world war ii women were fired from their employment

to make room for these men and this has had lasting effects this bias is often invisible to those who hold and benefit from it for example a white privilege which certainly benefits me or male privilege barry deutsch has written the male privilege checklist in which he makes statements that he thinks that he believes just by being a male a lot of men accept these privileges from the male privilege checklist and please keep in mind when listening to these that most men don't know that they hold these beliefs and of course some men don't hold these beliefs and women may have different beliefs from the male privilege checklist

the odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible most men assume that this is true they don't even think about being sexually harassed in their minds it's a given that they won't be the responses are different from gay men and this is not the case for most women again from the male privilege checklist my uh this is this would be a male writing this from a male privileged perspective my odds of being hired for a job when competing against female applicants are probably skewed in my favor the more prestigious the job the larger the odds are skewed if i fail in my job or career i can feel sure that this won't be seen as a mark

against my entire sexes capabilities every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex even god in most major religions is usually pictured as being male still from the male privilege checklist complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to smile i have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege these are privileges are often just taken granted for taken for granted by those who benefit from them and again there are similar checklists for white privilege or other privilege for example it's not in my mind that the color of my skin might negatively

impact my ability to get a job or a loan or to live where i want to live that's an invisible system that confers dominance to a certain group and in this case it benefits me and even if you don't feel like you've gotten special breaks or support because of one of these groups that you belong to the invisible system has conferred that dominance to you it wants to perpetuate itself it seems valuable to shed some light on these systems now let's approach this from another perspective can you think of a time when someone held an image of you that was more inspiring or capable than the image you had of yourself has that ever happened to you that

someone else had more faith in you than you had in yourself how did that make you feel have you ever seen someone else is more capable than they saw themself how did that influence them our images of ourselves also yield powerful results one example is the placebo effect studies that began in the mid-1950s show the impact of our minds on our bodies although the placebo phenomena has been controversial most of the medical profession now accepts the fact that anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of all patients will show marked physiological and emotional improvement in symptoms simply by believing that they are being given

an effective treatment further the effect is even more powerful if the doctor prescribing the medicine or treatment also believes that it will help norman cousins help to popularize the idea that a person's mental state impacts his or her health in his book anatomy of an illness and others he wrote of the therapeutic value of hope faith love the will to live cheerfulness humor creativity playfulness confidence and great expectations all of which contribute to the body's healing system in her book entitled molecules of emotion neuroscientist candace pert documented how chemicals inside our bodies

form a dynamic infra information network linking mind and body she described in detail the physiological changes in our bodies caused by thoughts and how hope is communicated by messenger molecules to the entire body our monographs present similar information all of this research confirms the timeless wisdom of the rosicrucian teachings again scientists have helped us learn more about how our thoughts affect our bodies heart surgery patients were observed before their surgery their comments were coded as either positive or negative statements studies demonstrated that those who approached the operation with a feeling that their doctor was the best available the medical techniques used were proven and safe and their chances of being well again were excellent

recovered at a much greater rate than those who approached the operation with feelings dominated by fear and concern in six independent studies the patients whose comments were more positive recovered better and more quickly as a matter of fact the difference was those with the best results after surgery made two positive comments for everyone that was negative whereas those whose results were not as good only made one positive statement for every negative one when dr barbara frederickson a professor of psychology at the university of michigan first began studying this subject several decades ago she discovered that there had been 44 000 studies done by the american psychological association

on depression anger stress conflict subjects like that and you know how many they had done on joy inspiration and hope again 44 000 studies on anger and depression and stress only 300 studies had been done on joy inspiration and hope so dr frederickson decided to study joy inspiration and hope she found that intervention strategies that cultivate positive emotions are particularly suited for preventing and treating problems rooted in negative emotions such as anxiety depression aggression and stress-related health problems according to her broaden and build model the form and function of positive and

negative emotions are distinct and complementary negative emotions for example fear anger and sadness narrow an individual's momentary thought action repertoire towards specific actions that serve the ancestral function of promoting survival so negative emotions for example fear narrow the thoughts that will come into our mind and this promoted survival narrowed it down by contrast positive emotions for example joy interest and contentment broaden the options available to us they brought in an individual's momentary thought action repertoire what we have at our hands to do which in turn can build that individual's enduring

personal resources resources that also serve the ancient are our ancestors function of promoting survival one implication of this broaden and build model is that positive emotions have an undoing effect on negative emotions dr frederickson documented that when people are in a state of hope they have better access to intelligence remember their options were broadened with positive emotions better access to intelligence for example decision-making capabilities and even iq now that's not so surprising we're looking forward to life we're more relaxed of course we perform better here is the amazing part when humans are traumatized it actually affects the physiology of the brain

it creates structures in our brain that are like scars that mark that event what dr frederickson discovered is that when our minds are expanding when we are inspired or joyful these patterns these these scars these structures in our brains are actually reversed it's like hitting an undo button on our computer our brain is actually healed she also found that as we cultivate hope inspiration and joy it accumulates and we are then better able to handle the normal challenges that come with life of course all of us have some positive and some negative thoughts when we put them all together though what is the predominant tone for you what are your guiding thoughts

think about that for a moment these guiding images our intentions show up in every conversation we have every image in our minds and with every action we take think about a challenging situation you encountered recently what was your guiding image was it understanding the other person in harmony or was it expressing your side of the situation or something else don't judge your intention just be aware of it even if things didn't turn out well you

did what you thought was best at that moment we can use our guiding image each morning we can imagine our day as we wanted seeing ourselves manifesting our ideal in detail and with feeling and then reflecting at the end of the day on how the events actually unfolded and our successes the ancient egyptians believed in a place of pure potentiality called the am dawat they believe that we journey there while we are asleep and at the end of our lives they also believe that that is where the sun goes when it appears to set it journeys to the omdawat where it is revitalized and then reappears the next morning just like an acorn contains the potential for a giant

oak tree the omdawat contains the potential for everything that manifests in the universe it's a magical manifestation chamber h spencer lewis stated that the basis for success in visualization is to attune with what we want to manifest in its not yet manifested state the state of pure potentiality then our thoughts activate it into manifestation our images of the future lead us to do what we do what we hold is possibility directs our present actions we can use the rosicrucian meditation techniques to stay balanced so we're

open to joy hope and inspiration of the moment we can use the tools of concentration and will to keep our minds to keep in our minds the guiding thoughts that we want to manifest we are manifesting our thoughts all the time these manifestations can be joyful and harmonious or filled with unhappiness and anxiety now i invite you to participate in a brief meditation please close your eyes and see yourself walking up to a freshly tilled garden bend down and hold the dark rich earth in your hands bring it to your nose and smell its

earthiness now in your visualization stand and near this garden you see a shelf with containers of seeds printed on each container is a word written in big letters what words do you see joy connection health happiness forgiveness peace or do you see worries resentments or mistakes if you see worry or something else that you don't want to manifest it may mean that something is weighing heavy on your mind and you don't feel that you can stop thinking about it yet you may find it helpful to see a container next to that one with the

seeds for resolution so you can focus on resolution instead of worry or mistakes now open one of these containers and take out the seed or seeds that you want to plant in your garden this is like journeying into the underworld the omdawat are using h spencer lewis's visualization technique to activate what is not yet manifested on this plane into existence you are choosing what you want to plant in the field of pure potentiality because that is what your consciousness is now approach your freshly tilled garden with reverence as though you are entering your celestial sanctum the highest plane of consciousness with

which we can attune mentally purify yourself before entering this place and now step into it sow your seed or seeds in whatever way you are inspired to do perhaps you tenderly plant one small seed at a time or you may grab handfuls of seeds and toss them in every direction as you cover them with soil send your intention for them to flourish now let's nourish them with the vowel

sounds ma and ra we'll in tone these together one time each ma and then raw ready inhale [Music] right now imagine yourself returning to this garden in a few months

at the time of the summer solstice on june 20th what do you see in your garden who is there with you benefiting from what you have planted what sounds do you hear what fragrances do you smell how do you feel experiencing the fruits

of what you have planted today please open your eyes as imperator ralph lewis said each day we intentionally or indifferently sow a seed these seeds are our daily thoughts and actions nature nurtures them alike time will reveal their harvest may it be what you seek from life so won't it be

you