"Mind over matter" is a phrase that has been used in several contexts, such as mind-centric spiritual doctrines, parapsychology, and philosophy. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines mind as "the element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons" and mind over matter as able to; "a situation in which someone is able to control a physical condition, problem, etc., by using the mind".

Origin

The phrase "mind over matter" first appeared in 1863 in ''The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man'' by

Sir Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known as the author of ''Principles of Geolo ...

(1797–1875) and was first used to refer to the increasing status and evolutionary growth of the minds of animals and man throughout Earth history. Another related saying, "the mind drives the mass", was coined almost two millennia earlier in 19 B.C. by the poet

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

in his work ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...

'', book 6, line 727.

Parapsychology

In the field of

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

, the phrase has been used to describe

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

phenomena such as

psychokinesis Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...

Mao Zedong

"Mind over matter" was also

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

's idea that rural peasants could be "proletarianized" so they could lead the

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

and China could move from

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

through

New Democracy New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a concept based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that was decisively distinc ...

. According to some, it departs from Leninism in that the revolutionaries are peasants, instead of the urban proletariat.

Controlling pain

The phrase also relates to the ability to control the perception of pain that one may or may not be experiencing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mind Over Matter Paranormal terminology Philosophical phrases Psychokinesis Spirituality 1860s neologisms Quotations from literature Quotations from philosophy English phrases