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The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton “Book Review”

The Biology of Belief by Bruce H Lipton

Before starting to talk about the book “The Biology of Belief” stunning new scientific discoveries about the biochemical effects of the brain’s functioning show that all the cells of your body are affected by your thoughts. Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., a renowned cell biologist, describes the precise molecular pathways through which this occurs. Using simple language, illustrations, humor, and everyday examples, he demonstrates how the new science of epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of the link between mind and matter, and the profound effects it has on our personal lives and the collective life of our species.

About Bruce Lipton:

Lipton received a B.A. in biology from C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in 1966 and a PhD in developmental biology from the University of Virginia in 1971. From 1973 to 1982, he taught anatomy at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, before joining St. George’s University School of Medicine as a professor of anatomy for three years. Lipton has said that sometime in the 1980s, he rejected atheism and came to believe that the way cells function demonstrates the existence of God.

From 1987 to 1992, Lipton was involved in research at Pennsylvania State University and Stanford University Medical Center. Since 1993, he has been teaching in non-tenured positions at primarily alternative and chiropractic colleges and schools.

Lipton has said, “When I first started back in the ’70s and my research was coming out, it was the golden age of genes. My research irritated a lot of people. I always thought of them as lemmings running off the cliff of DNA, and I’m standing there on the side with the results from my stem-cell studies thinking, ‘Oh my God, you’re all going the wrong way.’ At some point I realized that they marginalized my work because it didn’t conform to their conventional beliefs and I thought, well, they’re not even being scientists. And I just left the system. I realized the message is more important for the average person than it is to argue in the halls of science”.

Lipton has received the 2009 Goi Peace Award.

Joleen Halloran wrote about The Biology of Belief by Bruce H Lipton:

This book’s subtitle is Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles, so as an avid reader on matters related to spirituality and consciousness, I was excited to read it. The book also had two pages of endorsements within the front cover by several prestigious sources as well as a high number of positive reviews on Amazon. I approached my reading with high expectations after such raving reviews. In the spirit of full disclosure on my mindset for spirituality, I am a firm believer in Original Cause and appreciate scientific theories/studies that harmoniously unite the two mindsets of science and spirituality. I am also a firm believer that you can and should believe in both and more information should be made available to support their complementary nature as opposed to their segmented viewpoints. I admire and encourage the scientific community that is brave enough to come forward within this context.

On the other hand, I am also a book critic who at the very least expects authors to provide at least a thread of content in their book as it relates to the title. I think that perhaps using Understanding instead of Unleashing in the book’s subtitle may have been much more appropriate. At the end of the day, I found no content that provided suggestions, theories, practices, or methods for Unleashing anything other than a long drawn out and somewhat repetitive explanation of cellular structure and functionality.

I consider myself to be fairly smart and I wanted to understand the correlation between the cells, their membranes, and how this might all relate to consciousness, but the level of detail that Lipton chose to share in this book was way over the top. Unless this book was intended to be part of the curriculum for a high school or early college biology course, there is just no need to go into the level of specifics about how our cell’s amino acids are assembled or providing diagrams on the molecular composition of different protein molecules. I tell you it took every ounce of effort I had and a few cups of coffee to get through the 5 out of 7 chapters in this book that dealt with biological details that I will never remember and that could have been described within a page or two to support the author’s viewpoints.

I did appreciate the author’s attempt to present this dry and specific material in a lighter and conversational manner than most would find in a textbook, but nevertheless, the material was extensively detailed for a book that ultimately intended to talk about consciousness and spirituality. I did enjoy the chapter Lipton wrote about Conscious Parenting, entitled: Conscious Parenting: Parents as Genetic Engineers. Don’t let the chapter title scare you too much, in this chapter I actually found some theories and studies explained in more general terms which helped to get the author’s points across.

Social Statements Included:

I am not a fan of authors using a book to push their social agenda when the book is categorized as something else. Regardless of whether I believe in the social statement or not is the point. The book is about one thing (according to the title and book description) and should not be used to gather a captive audience to get on a soapbox about some societal issue. If you want to talk about that issue, write a book about it that clearly informs the reader about your content.

I’m sure Lipton intends this viewpoint to be a part of his unleashing of consciousness and a responsible topic to discuss (the statement he is making at the end of the book is about how humans are destroying the earth and each other and we are destined to annihilation if we don’t change our conscious behaviors) – but in my viewpoint, this is a topic best discussed as part of a venue where your audience is receptive to these viewpoints, not captive. Additionally, what makes this stand out as a social ideological platform rather than a highly generic solution to expanded consciousness was the contradictions in his own theories. Either you believe in global limitations (human destruction of the planet) or your believe in cellular infinite adaptation (constantly expanding based on biological and spiritual variables.)

Summary about The Biology of Belief:

For a reader looking to gain insights about how science and spirituality co-mingle and combine into a harmonious relationship, this book (The Biology of Belief) is for you only if you enjoy the high end of the science portion of this equation. For me, someone who enjoys exploring scientific and spiritual concepts and getting background on the concepts presented, this book was way too detailed on the science side of things and very weak on the spirituality side of things. I was able to get his point overall about cellular behavior based on environmental input, but by getting so granular into the science of the cellular structure, I lost interest overall. Frankly, I only finished the book so that I could review it. I would not be able to recommend this book to readers that are interested primarily in consciousness as it relates to both science and spirituality.

I did find the writers style and presentment to be easy to read, but if you are presenting material that is dry and over saturating, your casual writing style gets eaten up by your love of hearing yourself talk about details no one cares about or will ever remember (unless you are also a scientist). Finally, the readers do not ever really get a sense of how we might improve our biology of belief, even though the authors state several times we can and that he, in fact, has.

About Joleen Halloran:

Joleen Halloran is an executive for ZoomIT Marketing, an internet, mobile, and social marketing company. Joleen has extensive business experience in project management, leadership, and specializes in motivational techniques and corporate culture.

Beyond Joleen’s professional life, she is an avid reader and researcher of books and other materials related to her profession, but also to her special passion, which is metaphysical and spirituality topics. Ms. Halloran has read over 100 books related to metaphysics, spirituality, Western and Eastern religion, and the law of attraction. Joleen is currently working on her how the book, Finding Home – Breaking Free from Limits, which she hopes to have finished later this summer.

World Religions

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