Belief and Truth: Reflections on John Lilly’s Maxim
“What one believes either is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experimentally and experientially; in the province of the mind there are no limits.” — John Lilly [i]
INTRODUCTION: THE TERRITORY BETWEEN BELIEF AND TRUTH
Our belief systems define for us the kind of universe we inhabit. They influence what we notice, what we dismiss, where we locate meaning, and how we interpret experience. Beliefs also reveal our implicit philosophy—our assumptions about the nature of the world and our place within it.
Using John Lilly’s famous maxim as a point of departure, this essay explores the complex relationship between what we believe to be true and what is actually true. This involves three basic and intertwined philosophical questions:
- What is truth? (epistemology; how we know what we know)
- What is real? (ontology)
- What is the relationship between mind and world? (metaphysics)
This inquiry will be neither academic nor abstract; it is grounded in experience, clinical observation, and the lived reality of how beliefs shape our consciousness.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- Belief Does Not Create Reality—But It Does Shape Experience
Simply believing something does not make it true. Children intuitively lean toward this misunderstanding. In Peter Pan, the audience claps to keep Tinkerbell alive—a charming demonstration of what is now called the “Tinkerbell effect.” But no matter how fervently we believe in fairies, belief alone does not conjure them into existence.
And yet, there is an undeniable sense in which beliefs do shape what unfolds. Self-fulfilling prophecies are a familiar example: expectations guide perception, behavior, and interpretation in ways that often bring about their own confirmation.
When we ask, “Is this idea I have truth or belief?” or “How do I know this is true?” we find that the boundary between belief and reality is anything but clear. Consciousness participates in constructing the world we experience. Disentangling experience from fact becomes a matter of careful, ongoing attention.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- The Intertwining of Subjective and Objective
The core philosophical conundrum emerges: subjective and objective are not separate or distinct — they are inseparable. Our subjective experience is our only access to the external world, and anything we call “objective” depends on a subject to perceive it. Subjective and objective are entangled,
In practical terms, engaging with Lilly’s maxim entails a challenge each of us must navigate:
- To what extent do our beliefs influence what transpires in our lived reality?
- Can we intentionally influence what happens to us by altering what we believe?
- Where are the limits?
These questions are best answered both experimentally and experientially—precisely as Lilly suggested.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- Clinical Lessons: The Power and Limits of Belief
I stumbled upon the clinical significance of these questions early on in my psychotherapy career. A morbidly obese woman came to me for weight management. She explained that she had been reciting affirmations such as, “Ham sandwiches make me thin.” Although the absurdity of this particular example is self-evident, affirmations exist on a continuum with many practices aimed at intentionally shaping inner experience.
Guided imagery, hypnosis, and related techniques employ “creative visualization”—evoking vivid sensory images of desired outcomes. This method is widely used in athletics, self-help, and psychotherapy. People vary greatly in their capacity to visualize, but most can learn to generate mental imagery that influences mood, motivation, and behavior.
Some claims push the boundary into the extraordinary. In one written account I read recently, the author described increasing her bone density by imagining that her bones were made of “stretchy steel”.[ii] Although anecdotal data is not scientific proof, such accounts raise essential questions about how mind and body interface, and what role belief plays in how the body responds.
And here we return to the deeper issue: reality, including the body, is not wholly independent of mind. What we encounter is filtered through an interface shaped by consciousness.
A discussion of belief, mind, and body would not be complete without mentioning the work of the biologist Bruce Lipton[iii]. His central claim—that biology is shaped more by environment and perception than by genes—draws inspiration from legitimate epigenetic principles. But his conclusions often extend beyond what empirical evidence can support.
Still, Lipton’s popularity underscores the human longing to understand how mind influences matter, and how belief participates in the life of the body.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- Extreme Cases: Voodoo, Stress, and the Mind-Body Threshold
One striking example of belief shaping physiological outcomes is found in accounts of voodoo. Historically rooted in West and Central African traditions, voodoo rituals are said to exert powerful effects—even causing death.
The most plausible explanation is that belief in the power of a curse can trigger a catastrophic physiological stress response, including cardiovascular collapse. The effect is not “magic” but an extreme demonstration of the mind-body system operating at the edge of its capacities.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- Delusion, Conviction, and the Shadow Side of Belief
Belief is not always benign. The emotional energies and attachments that connect us to what we believe makes us vulnerable to delusional thinking: holding views held with conviction despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. We are mildly deluded when we cling to mistaken or unexamined assumptions. Some delusions may garner consensual support from others, even to the extent of gaining a wide following of fanatic believers—as with flat-earthers or Q’Anon.
In psychotherapy, delusional beliefs are not rare. Before challenging a client’s belief, I first try to understand empathically why they believe what they do. Within any delusional view, there is a “core of subjective truth”—a point argued persuasively by psychoanalyst George Atwood.[iv]
Exploring belief is one of psychotherapy’s defining benefits. Much of what we believe is not consciously known to us. Some beliefs have simply never been examined; others reside in the shadow realm of the unconscious.
Illuminating the assumptive paradigm is, to my mind, one of the central goals of psychotherapy.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- Encounters With the Non-Ordinary: A Clinician’s Stance
In clinical work, I regularly hear accounts of non-ordinary experiences—magical, mystical, paranormal, transcendent, esoteric. These include divination; distance healing; past-life narratives; astral travel; and trance channeling.
Long ago, I recognized that it served no purpose for me to believe in anything I had not directly experienced (unless empirically verified). Instead, I cultivate a stance of suspended belief and disbelief—a position equidistant from both. This stance allows me to stay close to the client’s lived reality while at the same time remaining grounded.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
- A Dynamic View of Belief and Reality
Belief is not static. Nor is it binary. Instead of framing belief as true vs. false or subjective vs. objective, it is more fruitful to adopt a perspective of both/and.
Belief is profoundly responsive to our state of consciousness. Both what we perceive and what we believe changes as we change. Human reality is partly socially generated and maintained, woven into our shared systems of meaning.
Our experience is not a mirror of the external world but a co-creation between the world and consciousness. Even physics acknowledges this: the observer plays a role in what becomes real. The sense of an “objective world out there” and a “subjective self in here” are themselves models generated by the mind.
The pivotal insight is this:
We never encounter reality “itself.” We encounter only a reality mediated, enacted, and stabilized by consciousness.
As Joseph Chilton Pearce famously stated, “man’s mind mirrors a universe that mirrors man’s mind.”[v]
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
CONCLUSION: LIVING WITH THE MYSTERY
In the end, Lilly’s maxim should be understood not as a literal statement about belief creating reality, but as a reminder of the profound interplay between mind and world. Although belief does not conjure facts into existence, it powerfully shapes how reality is perceived, interpreted, and lived.
Beliefs guide us, mislead us, protect us, and sometimes imprison us. But they can also illuminate, transform, and open us to new ways of being.
The work—clinically, personally, and spiritually—is to explore our beliefs with honesty and curiosity, discerning which are generative, progressive, or beneficial and which are limiting or even dysfunctional.
In this sense, we are indeed what we believe. And the world we experience reflects an ongoing process of meaning-making.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
[i ] John Lilly (1975) Simulations of God: The Science of Belief. Bantam Books, NY
[ii] Levine, Lyn (2024) https://www.lynlevine.com/
[iii] Lipton,B. (2008) The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles. Hay House, Inc.
[iv] Atwood, G.E. (2011) The Abyss of Madness (Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series). Routledge Press, NY
[v] Pearce, J.C. (1974) The Crack in the Cosmic Egg.