A Ramble About "Wizard's First Rule"

 A long time ago, I received the second book in Terry Goodkind's series about Richard Rahl/Cypher called "The Stone of Tears". Enjoying it, I went and picked up "Wizard's First Rule," which was the first book in the series, as well as the third and fourth books. In these first two books however, I was introduced to the "Wizard's First Rule," which I have never forgotten. The Wizard's First Rule is that a person will believe anything either if they want it to be true or if they're afraid it might be true. After watching the series "Leverage," I suppose this could also be termed the "Conman's first rule" as well. As much as I would like to argue against it, there is too much evidence among human beings to support its validity. In short, if something appeals either to one's fear or their craving (their malfunctioning survival responses: if something is perceived as a need or a threat), they are more likely to believe it than not. And this presents serious consequences for both the individual and society as a whole. Some may take this concept as "woowoo," but the evidence and documentation for the effect that what one is actually convinced of are legion.
       For the individual, there can be serious consequences to their health as, like I was told during my neurofeedback treatments, the brain will attempt to do whatever it believes you want it to do, which is roughly how neurofeedback works. It's well known that a person's mental health can and will seriously affect their physical health over time. A person who is in a depression feedback loop, for example, will start to have low dopamine. There are serious health consequences for low dopamine or imbalanced dopamine in the brain. Parkinson's disease, for example, has been linked to low dopamine in a particular part of the brain. There are many documented cases where what someone has believed about their surroundings (i.e. the person who froze to death locked in a freezer that was broken), to what they believe about their personal health (i.e. someone who believes they are sick or going to die will like end up just so even if there was no initial physical cause), to other outcomes both positive and negative. I have even seen some evidence of a person recovering from a paralyzing spinal injury just by belief alone. According to Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements," this is also more or less how "spells" or "curses" work in those cultures or belief systems that make use of them. The person "agrees" with the spell or curse, that is, they believe what is being said, and their brain essentially works out the rest of it.
       For society, the consequences are much the same except on a grander scale. What the collective group of human beings believe is usually what they try to make happen, consciously or unconsciously. If the collective group of human beings believe things are well and will get better, chances are good that they will. If the collective group of human beings believe things are bad will will get worse, chances are equally good they will find a way to make that happen.
     As I look out at human beings and society today, the vast majority of our problems stem from what we have convinced ourselves of, either what we're afraid of happening or what we want to happen, rather than what is actually happening in this present moment. As human beings, we have the option to choose to believe whatever we want, reality or not, but we must understand and accept the consequences of what we believe about ourselves and about society as a whole.