Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., author of The Biology of Belief and The Honeymoon Effect, is a stem cell biologist and internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. He is a visiting fellow lecturer on immunology at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic and participated in the Foundation for Conscious Evolution’s seventh Worldwide Meeting on Human Values, in Mexico. His research explains the interplay between individual consciousness and body biology.

Why do you start with epigenetics as a foundation for health?

Many people, programmed with the concept of genetic determinism, believe that genes in the fertilized egg at conception determine character and fate. Unable to pick our DNA genes, we are powerless to control our life, so that the only option is seeking help from someone in the biomedical community to fix our genes.

I introduced a new vision about the understanding of genes a half-century ago that is now the new science of epigenetics. Epimeans “above”. Here, we can realize control by regulating the environment in which we live and our perception of it, making us the master of our own genetics rather than a victim of heredity.

Do you believe epigenetics is the future of medicine?

Epigenetics is a revolution in our knowledge and awareness of heredity. This new concept of biology is so big that it promises radical change capable of revolutionizing civilization. Its dynamics are equivalent to the leap from Newtonian physics to quantum physics, which led to everything from computers and cell phones to Martian rovers. We are freed to abandon the belief that genes cause cancer, for instance. In changing our lifestyle, beliefs and perceptions, we also change our genetic expression.

Remember, this works because how we individually interpret our world is translated by the brain into chemical information that adjusts the behavior and genetics of cells to complement our perception. We could live in the healthiest environment, but if our mind perceives it as threatening and non-supportive, our biology will become less healthy and can generate disease. The cells’ response is based on the brain’s information, which actually is only an interpretation. Personal perceptions and the way we live, including our spiritual nature, adjust genes to manifest either a functional state of health or one of dysfunction.

Where is the “self” that makes people different?

No two people are the same biologically. If I inject my cells into another human, their immune system will recognize it as “not-self” and begin to eliminate them. On the surface of virtually all our cells are thousands of protein receptors that function like miniature antennae. They read and respond to environmental signals similar to the larger receptors on the skin’s surface, such as the eyes, ears and nose.

Each human also possesses a unique set of “identity” receptors, a subset of which are called “self-receptors” by the biomedical community, found on nearly all of our cells, with the primary exception of red blood cells. Self-receptors are unrelated to the cell’s function contributing to muscle, bone, brain or heart. Conventional medicine studies the physical aspect of self-receptors as being the source of “self” but overlook the environmental signals they receive. In other words, individual identity is linked to the signals received by the antennae.

When I reached this point in my research, I realized that we can’t die, because our real identity is represented by the invisible environment-derived “broadcast”, which might legitimately be referred to as spirit. My personal identity signal is received by each of my 50 trillion cells endowed with the unique set of “Bruce” self-receptors. While my physical body is like a TV, the “spiritual broadcast” representing the Bruce Show is an eternal, energetic element of the environment.

What is entrainment and why is it important today?

A group of heart cells in a Petri dish will each beat to its own vibrational frequency. After a couple of days, they start beating in synchrony, because the stronger heart cells control the tempo. The other cells organize their behavior to entrain with the more powerful one. This happens in women’s college dormitories when residents start the school year with different menstrual cycles, but later experience entrainment, with their cycles beginning and ending about the same time. They link to a pulse and a beat, just like the heart cells.

Humans become entrained to a higher force that’s an invisible broadcast of energy in harmony or in discordance. As more of us hold the intention for living a life of love and peace, the broadcast of that harmonic energy amplifies and those not yet there will eventually entrain to the stronger signal. This is the shift we need to make for conscious evolution to occur.

Linda Sechrist is a senior staff writer for Natural Awakenings. Connect at ItsAllAboutWe.com.