Do you control what you believe?

[Something completely different]

Many of them, yes. But can you get your body to release certain hormones on command, or stop your reflexes?

One could castrate himself, go into brutal 1950s style hormon pheraphy (like it was forced onto Alan Turing), remove certain parts of your brain, or cause massive damage to the receptors on your braincells through a heroin addiction - which (as usual with opiat addictions) will cause a incapablillity to feel joy, or just gain a massive case of mercury poisoning which will damage your brain so subsequently that you are no longer capable to learn, at a young age - eaven basic stuff (like keeping your hand from the stove because it hurts). If you like radical solutions.

Anything that is voluntaary can be controlled by the conscious mind. I am only referring to the involuntary.

if with involuntary you mean for example: the urge to eat in order not to starve, the urge to go to the toilet in order not to shit yourself, the urge to keep your hand out of the woodshredder because it hurts. I guess yes, you can train yourself to ignore those urges, or eaven loose these through serious illneses like mercury poisoning or altzheimers or just being a hopeless masochist - but whats the point when your not a hopeless masochist?

I don't think you are right, a heard on the radio a while ago on one of the science programmes on BBC radio 4 that some research was now showing that the conscious mind seemingly is not making decisions, but seems to be just justifying the decisions of the unconscious mind. I haven't found links, but somebody might.

the concious mind is doing nothing more than justifying the decisions of the unconcious mind?

"Yeah I know it`s your girlfriend - but my subconciousnes is telling me that it`s alright."

I think it depends quite on the personality of the subject, the more selfcontrol and awareness the subject has over his or her subconciousnes
,the more controled his or her actions will be. And I believe in most cases, most people use their conciousnes to justify why they dont do what their subconciousnes tells them to do.
The question of what is conciousnes also must be asked, state of mental or physical health, education, sociatal norms, "the chance to get away with something" actualy the general conditions of the situation in which a individual finds himself are factors which contribute into a individuals process of decisionmaking.
On the subject of how big the surroundings have an influence on a individuals decisionmaking, some people would go so far as to state that due to these influences and thought-processes "free will" doesn`t exist.
like german neurologist professor Wolf Singer:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Singer

or biologist Gerhar Roth:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Roth_(Biologe)

I wouldn`t go so far but still am convinced that the conciousnes has the supirior hand over the subconciousnes, when it comes to decisionmaking.
And that it can be trained to gain a extreme amount of control over ones subconciousnes. Ever heard of "Lucid dream"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream

now reaching such a state of control over ones subconciousnes wouldn`t be possible if the subconciousnes had more influence on your personality than your conciousnes.