1 result for (book:tps4 AND heading:"delet session decemb 12 1977" AND stemmed:belief)
[... 6 paragraphs ...]
Give us a moment.... In historical times as you think of them, pre-industrial man had no need of those particular devices. He dealt with reality differently. It is not necessary to say his way was better, but it was vastly different. Some of this is most difficult to explain in any terms that will make sense, because the entire belief system of your times bears physical evidence of course, that such inoculations work.
The belief has been in the miraculous quality of science, under whose banner such inoculations began. There are, as I told you, literally endless ways of relating to the body and to the world; each one will work—at least enough so that the system seems to hold.
Specific inoculations are given under various conditions. They are bound to affect the biological system. The people who take such inoculations within your own culture, now, usually do so because they do not want the disease specified, and they believe that the inoculation will prevent it. It is impossible to tell ahead of time how many of those individuals would come down with the disease otherwise, yet diseases do come and go whether or not inoculations are given. The mechanisms operate in such a fashion that by now overall belief has come to such a point that the same results would almost be effected if an inoculation of no particular value were given instead. The mind is as effective against viruses as anything else—and in such hypothetical cases immune reactions would be set up biologically, through the mind’s beliefs.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
It seems that it is a fact that certain diseases are so transmitted. It seems the sheerest nonsense, on the other hand, to believe that illnesses are caused by spirits or demons. In each system of belief, the evidence however is overwhelming, and in the vast nature of reality both notions are equally beside the point, and one is no truer or more false than the other—a hard pill to swallow for modern man.
The same applies in your treatment of animals. Animals respond to your feeling, your intent. You do not assign beliefs to animals. It seems inconceivable to grant to them anything approaching opinion or belief. It seems they are innocent of both. Animals in fact suffer greatly, for they often become so terrified of modern methods of medicine that an inoculation against one disease promptly brings about the occurrence of another.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
A child is quite aware of its parents’ beliefs, and quite aware of the parents’ and the doctor’s authority. Inoculations have great magical effect upon children in that regard. Infants carry a strong telepathic connection with the mother, which is not severed for some time, so that inoculations given the infant can work in that regard, even as a child can also be protected in other systems when the mother calls upon the appropriate spirit.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
Individual belief systems come into strong play, of course. You had difficulties yourself with the Salk (polio) vaccines. You were afraid to take the treatment and afraid not to. You each had complications. On another occasion you received inoculations—I believe a rabies treatment in California.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
You would not have had difficulty without the inoculation. At the time you did suffer a state of shock initially, but the body could handle that. You need general inoculations now, in the society at large, with children’s diseases and so forth, because the belief in the inoculations is so strong.
[... 31 paragraphs ...]