3 Case Studies That Will Make You
Question The Nature Of Reality
The way your mind affects your performance has been widely documented.
In
everything from sports to medicine, we have seen people achieve remarkable
things by imagining and believing them with clarity and conviction.
It might
have even happened to you already… Have you ever imagined something so clearly
that it eventually became true? Well, whether you were doing it consciously or
not, the science shows that you were giving yourself a big advantage.
Here are
the three most astonishing case studies we’ve heard about that will remind you
of the power of your own mind and the flexible nature of your reality.
Case Study #1 — Soviet Olympians
Dr.
Charles Garfield, former NASA researcher and current president of The
Performance-Science Institute in Berkeley, California, talks about a startling
experiment conducted by Soviet sports scientists.
The study
examined the effect of mental training, including visualization, on four groups
of world-class athletes just prior to the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New
York.
The four groups of elite athletes were divided as follows:
- Group 1 did 100% physical training.
- Group 2 did 75% physical training, 25% mental training.
- Group 3 did 50% physical training, 50% mental training.
- Group 4 did 25% physical training, 75% mental training.
What the
researchers found was that Group 4 — the group with the most mental training —
had shown significantly greater improvement than Group 3.
Likewise,
Group 3 showed more improvement than Group 2, and Group 2 showed more
improvement than Group 1.
Athletes
that did the most mental training improved the fastest.
The
trainers were astonished.
Dr.
Garfield said, “During mental rehearsal, athletes create mental images of
the exact movements they want to emulate in their sport. Use of this skill
substantially increases the effectiveness of goal-setting, which up until then
had been little more than a dull listing procedure.”
If mental
exercises and visualization could have such a profound impact on athletes, what
kind of impact could it have on you?
Can you
use the same principle to improve your attitudes, confidence and skills? Could
it impact your learning ability; your golf swing; your ability to shed weight
and stick to a diet?
The
answer is yes.
We will
explore this topic in our upcoming Masterclass on Advanced Creative
Visualization with Vishen Lakhiani and Lisa Nichols.
Case Study #2 — A Miracle Cancer Cure
In 1950, a
new drug called Krebiozen had received sensational national publicity as a
“cure” for cancer and was being tested by the American Medical Association
(AMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). One of the researchers
involved in this testing was a doctor named Bruno Klopfer.
One of
Dr. Klopfer’s patients, Mr. Wright, was suffering from cancer of the lymph
nodes. All standard treatments had been exhausted, and Wright appeared to have
little time left. His neck, armpits, chest, abdomen and groin were filled with
tumors the size of oranges, and his spleen and liver were so enlarged that two
quarts of milky fluid had to be drained out of his body each day.
An Experimental Drug — Krebiozen
When
Wright discovered that Dr. Klopfer was involved in research on Krebiozen, he
begged to be given Krebiozen treatments.
At first
his doctor refused because the drug was untested and only being tried on people
with a life expectancy of at least three months.
Wright
begged so hard, however, that Klopfer decided to give him one injection on
Friday, though he secretly suspected Wright would not last the weekend.
Dr.
Klopfer was in for a big surprise.
On the
following Monday, Klopfer found Wright out of bed and walking around. Klopfer
reported that his tumors had “melted like snowballs on a hot stove” and
were half their original size. This was a far more rapid decrease in size than
even the strongest X-ray treatments could have accomplished.
Ten days
after Wright’s first Krebiozen treatment, he left the hospital and, as far as
his doctors could tell, with no signs of cancer. When he entered the hospital,
he had needed an oxygen mask to breathe, but when he left he was well enough to
fly his own plane at 12,000 feet with no discomfort.
The Drug Turned Out To Be Ineffective
Wright
remained well for about two months, but then articles began to appear asserting
that Krebiozen actually had no effect on cancer of the lymph nodes. Wright, who
was rigidly logical and scientific in his thinking, became very depressed,
suffered a relapse, and was readmitted to the hospital. This time, his
physician decided to try an experiment.
Dr.
Klopfer told Wright that Krebiozen was every bit as effective as it had seemed,
but that some of the initial supplies of the drug had deteriorated during
shipping. He explained, however, that he had a new highly-concentrated version
of the drug and could treat Wright with this. Of course, the physician did not
have a new version of the drug and intended to inject Wright with nothing more
than plain sterile water.
Again,
the results were dramatic. The tumor masses melted, chest fluid had vanished,
and Wright was quickly back on his feet and feeling great. Yet he had been
injected with nothing more than sterile water.
Wright’s Beliefs Were So Strong, He Could Make
Cancer Appears And Disappears At Will
Wright
remained symptom-free for another two months, but then the American Medical
Association announced that a nationwide study of Krebiozen had found the drug
worthless in the treatment of cancer. This time Wright’s faith was completely
shattered. His cancer blossomed anew and he died two days later.
Wright’s
story is tragic, but it contains a powerful message: When we are fortunate
enough to bypass our disbelief and tap the healing forces within us, we can
cause tumors to melt away overnight.
The
patient’s mind alone, independent of the value of the medication, produced his
recovery.
This
event proved that your mind is so powerful that it can literally bring
wonderful or tragic events to bear within days. Yet, most people do not learn
how to tap into and control this powerful force.
Many
people do have their minds working for them, but in negative ways. Doctors call
this “psychosomatic illness” — an illness caused by a person’s negative belief
system.
We will
explore this topic in our upcoming Masterclass on Advanced Creative
Visualization with Vishen Lakhiani and Lisa Nichols.
Case Study #3 — Creating Positive Coincidences
Okay, so
the effect of the mind on the body is pretty clear. Placebos can help our minds
heal illnesses and athletes who visualize their performance out-compete those
who don’t.
But can
the mind influence the world beyond your body?
In other
words, can the mind create coincidences and influence reality?
This a
story of one man who discovered the power of his mind in creating coincidences
when he became a household name in America because of the success of his work.
For the
purpose of this story, let’s call the man Scott. His full name will not be
revealed until the end to make this story more intriguing. This story was told
in a book Scott wrote in 1998.
In the
early 1980s, Scott had heard of a process called affirmations from a friend.
The process he learned was simple.
Visualize
what you want and write it down fifteen times in a row, once a day, until you
obtain it.
Scott Was A Left-brained And Logical Person
He was
told that the process did not require any faith or positive thinking for it to
work. Even more interesting was the suggestion that the technique would
influence the environment directly and not just make you more focused on your
goals.
In other
words, it would spawn amazing coincidences to move you toward your goals. The
coincidences could be things that were seemingly unconnected to you and beyond
your control.
He had
his doubts about the process but figured that there was no harm in trying.
“Within a
few weeks, coincidences started to happen to me,” wrote Scott.
“Amazing
coincidences, strings of them. I won’t mention the specific goal I was working
on, as it was a private matter, but within a few months the goal was
accomplished exactly as I had written it.”
But Scott Was Not Yet Convinced That Affirmations
Helped
Coincidences
do happen on their own and Scott considered the test inconclusive.
So Scott
picked another goal — to make some gains in the stock market. He wrote his
affirmation down every day and waited for some inspiration.
It came
to him in a dream.
He woke
up one night with the words “Buy Chrysler” repeating in his head.
He bought
shares in the inspired company during one of its most bleak periods, yet it
began to rise soon after and he made some good returns on it. He repeated the
experiment again and managed to pick another successful company, with stock
symbol “Ask.”
Armed
with this confidence in the power of affirmations Scott decided to apply it to
a more challenging goal — getting into the highly competitive MBA Program at
the University of California, Berkeley.
The
problem was that he had already taken the entrance exam, the G.M.A.T, and only
hit the 77th percentile score. He knew he needed to be above the 90th
percentile to at least have a chance of being accepted.
Scott
picked the outlandish target of 94 as his goal and again applied the
affirmation technique.
Despite
not being able to go much higher than the 77th percentile in the practice exams
Scott was surprised to learn that he did indeed hit the 94th percentile for the
G.M.A.T — just as he had written in his affirmations.
He Graduated With His Berkeley MBA In 1986
A few
years later, he tried pursuing a more serious goal — that of becoming a
syndicated cartoonist. He knew the odds of his cartoon submission being
accepted by a major newspaper were roughly one in 10,000.
He beat
those odds and his cartoon was accepted. He was soon earning a decent living
with his cartoon strip but he wanted to achieve something bigger.
He
decided he wanted the most successful comic strip on the planet. Scott felt
that the best measure of “most successful” would be number of books sold.
In June
1996, his book The Dilbert Principle hit the number one spot on the hardcover
nonfiction list of the New York Times. It stayed in the top three all summer.
In November, his second book, Dogbert’s TopSecret Management Handbook, also
made the bestseller list, giving Scott the number one and number two positions
simultaneously for one week.
For That Brief Period Of Time, Scott Had The “Most
Successful” Comic Strip On The Planet
As you
may have guessed, the person I’m talking about is Scott Adams, the creator of
the highly successful Dilbert comic strip.
Scott
writes about these experiences with affirmations in his book The Dilbert Future.
He does not profess to know why it works but leaves the conclusion to the
reader. You can buy Scott Adams’ hilarious Dilbert books at any
bookstore.
