Considering the evidence is not indoctrination, and I'm a pretty skeptical guy. But I'm willing to admit when I am wrong. My main point was that the mind is a product of the brain. Certainly, our experiences affect our behavior, but saying that the mind affects the body assumes a dualism that isn't there.

I must confess that I am confused by your use of "ego," as the way you use it sounds like the old "id" of psychoanalysis, but that, too, is something that has not held up well under scrutiny (just no evidence for it).

As for quantum mechanics, we can't measure atomic particles without interfering with them, but that doesn't mean that our mind brings them into existence. I suggest reading QUANTUM GODS by Victor J. Stenger for a refutation of that type of thinking by a distinguished scientist.

You have, in a strange way, validated much of what I wrote about in my posting. You speak from your ego mind, which is based in fear and ignorance. You call hogwash that which you don't understand, that which your fear rebels against, because it is safer to believe what you have been indoctrinated to believe.

To refer to hypnosis, biofeedback, and guided imagery as "anecdotal" tells me you have not done your research prior to attempting to invalidate what I wrote. These approaches are not anecdotal by any means. There is science behind them, there is data and empirical studies backing them up.

To say that the mind doesn't influence the body is nonsensical. It wasn't hogwash when Norman Cousins, after being told he had ankylosing spondylitis and he would be dead and that there was nothing they, the high priests of medicine, could do about it, started watching all sorts of comedies, flooded his mind with laughter, which generated endorphins in his brain, and reversed his terminal illness. He healed himself with his mind.

Just recently there have been several articles in mainstream magazines and journals about antidepressants being no better than placebos, and the power of the mind to convince people that they are taking powerful medicines which will heal them.

This is not anecdotal stuff. You should read about quantum mechanics which states that every possibility exists in a transitional reality space, and only after something is observed does one possibility versus another become real.

There is mind-boggling information out there that speaks to the incredibly primitive concepts we have about reality, the mind, consciousness, time, space, yada yada yada.

There is so much we don't know and there is so much for us to learn. But we won't get there if we close our mind and insist the world is flat and the sun rotates around the earth.

You expressed in your opening line what is referred to as "contempt prior to investigation." By that I mean, discrediting something without actually having investigated it first to see if there is any validity. The ego does this, to protect itself, to keep you believing that you are a body victimized by a hostile and chaotic universe.

As to suggesting my position subverts vegetarianism by stating that the body isn't real tells me that you didn't really read the posting I wrote, because i clearly stated: "... as long as we believe in bodies, as long as we identify with our ego mind, which is devoted to preserving the idea that bodies are real, and as long as we are unaware that everything we now see is a figment of our fear thoughts, it would be insane to not defend ourselves when we are attacked, and to not take antibiotics when we get sick."

What this means is that, as long as we believe we are bodies, it is wise to not toxify it. It is wise to not damage its immune system. It is wise to eat nutritiously. It is wise to consider vitamins and supplements.

Let me conclude by suggesting that you re-visit your comment "I hate to be critical." I would encourage you to be critical and to be proud of it. But being critical isn't the same thing as being negative and close-minded. That is what you should hate being. But don't hate criticism because it challenges everybody to look closer at the ideas they worship and it sparks innovation and creativity.

thank you for your gracious response. i still maintain that our thoughts create our reality and that the mind rules the body....

in terms of freudian terminology: the id, the ego and the superego are three distinct forces at play.i do not use the term ego the same way freud did and i do not equate my term ego with freud's term id. my usage of the ego comes from the book i mentioned in the post, A Course In Miracles. Its concepts are not easy for most people to get their mind around. It equates this "reality" we experience as an illusion, a nightmare in fact, like any nightmare we have when we sleep. and that when we wake up from this nightmare (when we become enlightened) we will appreciate that none of the horror of our existence ever really happened....

i don't actually put stock in any book on quantum mechanics because all scientific theories, quantum mechanics included, are ultimately fairy tales attempting to explain reality in terms that don't take into account the fact that time and space are illusory constructs of consciousness which is the prime mover of all things material.