Perceptions Dictate Reality

There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 2: Scene II

Also quoted in the preface of Science and Health  with a Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

Perceptions can define our reality.

One of my book mentors was a unique psychiatrist named Thomas Hora MD, whose professional explorations led him beyond any limited approaches to psychiatric theory and practice and it subsequently pointed him towards the infusion of philosophical and religious sources of wisdom and problem solving within his practice.

He offered his patients relevant philosophical and spiritually timeless attitudes and outlooks from world religions in insightful ways that served healing and wholeness.

He called his system, ”Existential Meta-Psychiatry,” to show that it was based on those  ideas and ideals that went beyond the diagnostic medical model, and that its emphasis on present truth incorporates symbolic metaphors.

He advised that the best thing we can do is avoid futile questions such as : Why? Or Why Me? In that way, one’s practice and one’s worldview can become a more philosophical and mythological one: Based on placing oneself in parables, stories, dreams, that regard the whole person and one’s interior life.

As an example of timeless wisdom applied to our mental and emotional issues, Dr. Hora, when quoting the wisdom found in Proverbs, would say to his students:

As thou seeest, so thou be-est” and as a “Man thinketh, so in his heart, is he.” What is the meaning of what appears to be?” He taught that how we look at ourselves and our world, and how we allow or permit our experiences to define us, is what or who we often do become.

Dr. Hora advises we have to be very careful about how we look at ourselves, and how we view others, what we allow to program or influence our perceptions, whether they are fearful and insecure or hopeful and optimistic, can influence our picture of reality… And consequently, those ways of seeing and perceiving can have either an adverse or a beneficial effect on our mental and emotional health!                                      

(the whole sermon with his 4 qualities of soul is available! Maybe I should consider publishing this sermon extract? Or at least the 4 qualities…