Liminal Thinking

Conspiracy theories thrive within groups who feel that they don’t have control over their lives.

Just as one pair of hands cannot touch everything in the world, one pair of eyes cannot see everything in the world. One mind cannot know everything there is to know. We all can grasp some fragments of reality, but none of us have a grasp on reality as a whole.

People rarely test ideas for external validity when they don’t have internal coherence.

We construct our beliefs, mostly unconsciously, and thereafter they hold us captive. They can help us focus and make us more effective, but sadly, they also can limit us: they blind us to possibility and subject us to fog, fear, and doubt.

Liminal thinking is the art of creating change by understanding, shaping, and reframing beliefs.

Think of your attention as a very thin sliver of your overall experience, like a needle on a record player.

Most boundaries are convenient fictions.

You can test beliefs even if you don’t believe they are true. All you need to do is act as if they were true and see what happens. If you find something that works, do more of it.

If you give people facts without a story, they will explain it within their existing belief system. The best way to promote a new or different belief is not with facts, but with a story.

Beliefs are constructed hierarchically, using theories and judgments, which are based on selected facts and personal, subjective experiences.