Three Brains/Nervous Systems
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Action on the material plane of the fourth energy zone is relative, especially as it relates to sexual energy through the three brains/nervous systems. For example, the ecstatic response in the sexual center (2nd subtle center) and sexual organs/glands, and the motor brain (instinct), neural data interpreted at the point of stimuli, and the distillation of sexual energy into life-force essence in a higher point of flux/flow at the 7th subtle center. Thus the three brains/nervous systems warrant some description for the aspirant of the Hermetic Art of Ecstatic Alchemy. In brief, when the microcosmic orbit is opened/cleared the energy flows in a circuit between the two poles (1st and 7th subtle centers) via the central energy channel within the spinal cord linking vital organs to subtle centers which vitalize them. The human instrument is used optimally to absorb (receive), assimilate (transform), conserve (retain), cultivate, circulate (cycle), transmute and transfigure, vital and sexual life-force energies, distilling its essence, and crystallizing the human instrument as pure light.
The cerebrospinal or central nervous system (mental brain) is formed by the two hemispheres of the cerebrum (the crown of the head at which is an aperture considered the central point or positive pole of the human spiral), the cerebellum, and the medulla oblongata or sacred spinal medulla, which communes with the pituitary and pineal glands (it is the pineal gland which must be activated to restore the crown and for energy travel (in/out) macrocosmically). The medulla connects the cerebellum with the sacred spinal medulla, and is the cerebral cortex and seat of the pineal gland, the point of hormone control, the altar of sacrificing the “me” and distillation of the “I AM,” the center of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. It is typical to oscillate between the two hemispheres of the brain, the right side masculine or objective/active, and the feminine subjective/passive, the feminine being the creative. The medulla communes with the frontal part of the brain between the eye-brows, at the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, making up the autonomic nervous system, where consciousness is turned outward from the medulla (and vulnerable to ego identification).
The pons varoli is a part of the brain stem situated above the medulla oblongata, and centered below the two hemispheres of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla. The pons varoli is the location of the mind. It is small in size (1”x 1” x 1 ½”), and contains the ascending and descending motor tracts that connect the brain to the rest of the body through which travel through a dense network of nerve cells (cells of endless thought). This is called the reticular formation, whose function is to arouse to activity the rest of the brain, and to regulate the 24 hour cycle of sleep and waking. The pons varoli contains a particular structure, the blue space, a small concentrated cluster of cells, containing norepinephrine, a chemical substance that stimulates mobilization that prepares the body to action, this structure is involved in arousal, dreaming, sleep, and mood. The primary channels/canals of the energetic grand sympathetic nervous system (emotional brain) and the parasympathetic nervous system (physical brain) stimulates the hemispheres of the brain. This is controlled by breath flow, the right nostril stimulates the left side of the brain, and the left nostril stimulates the right side of the brain.
Deep breathing opens eight cranial bones allowing energy to circulate to the highest subtle center at the crown which is responsible for production and function of the cerebrospinal fluid, and transmutation-formation of super-sexual life-force essence. Relaxed deep abdominal breathing, besides calming the gross physical body, cleanses the lungs, heart, and other organs, and purifies channels of currents of energy in the subtle and gross nervous systems. Deep breathing can cure disease, and automatically induces the process of transmutation of conserved vital and sexual energy into pure life-force essence, the circulation of which rarifies the mental, emotional, and physical bodies, awakening the higher subtle centers to the flux/flow of energy, and crystallizes.
The grand sympathetic nervous system is the negative pole located in the heart (while it is true that the 1st subtle center is the negative pole of the microcosmic orbit). The heart is a brain, not just a simple pump. It is in fact a highly complex, self-organized, information processing center, and approximately 60-65% of the cells of the heart are actually neural cells identical to the neural cells in the brain, not muscle cells. They operate through the same connecting links called ganglia, whose ganglia are linked to every major organ in the body and the entire muscle spindle system that uniquely enables humans to express their emotions. The heart has the same axonal and dendritic connections that take place in the brain, as well as the very same kinds of neurotransmitters found in the brain. The heart is the nucleus, analogous to a tube torus (symbolized by a mobius strip), the causal link wherein the action of the lower-mind manifests in the physical body. The heart channels correlate with nerves that emanate from the spinal cord and the highest path corresponding to the entire complex of cranial nerves (and bones). The nerves emanating from the spinal cord primarily deal with touch and feeling. Cranial nerves primarily deal with sight, hearing, taste and smell, each nerve of the heart being a channel which the mind exerts control over and by which the mind is reached (silenced and stilled). The heart provides the vital life-force energy to the three brains/nervous systems. The heart is in two-way communication with the lower-mind, both continuously influencing the other. The heart communicates with the brain in four major ways: neurologically (through the transmission of nerve impulses), bio-chemically (via hormones and neurotransmitters), bio-physically (through pressure waves), and energetically (through EMF interactions). This communication along these conduits significantly affects the brain activity.
One of the crystal prism template’s key interfaces is the heart, a possible reciprocal and non-linear attunement. Thus, one must use psycho-genic (mind-generating) vital forces/energies to exert an influence on the grand sympathetic nervous system also known as the endocrine (glandular/hormonal) system, and the sex organs; this vital force is super-sexual life-force essence. Reabsorbing the constituent vital elements of semen and ovum, extracted and distilled from the reproductive/generative organs into its essence, the semen and ovum may be found to be the ultimate potent nutritional product of the body facilitating the crystallization and light body—super radiance.
There exists a link between thought or psychical activity and form or physical activity. Form is an intelligent structure preserved in memory by instrumentation upon the medium of “I”magination. This Hermetic Alchemy is for the program fulfillment of the meta-programming encoding the field, and all life, not ego fulfillment (ambition), but the consecration of all human activity (thoughts, words, deeds) sacrificing the ego to the co-creative work with the law. The ego-centric perspective is to imagine a fixed idea-point, a “me,” yet being is trans-personal (transcending the personal) The ego’s speculation into, and estimation of value (differentiated by wavelength) is based on a running commentary or lower-mind-tape (magnetic) rather than determining superiority by the hierarchy of forces (celestial, solar, lunar, terrestrial, vital). While it is true the mind-brain averages and arranges interlinking/penetrating waves into a continuity of reality, the difference is how the mind (unconditionally) and the ego (conditionally) experiences the vacillations of change. The human instrument, exposed to all wavelengths simultaneously, is emotionally wired, projecting the imagined idea, wave and particle. The emotional brain (cognitive) has direct, potentially unmediated, neural connections with the heart. The brain makes a qualitative evaluation of our experience of this world and sends that information moment by moment down to the heart. Arbitrary judgment qualifies, this is conditional, unconditional love does not qualify. Its only requirement is sincere receptivity. This is devotion, sincere receiving, not pious action but intense eagerness to serve as an instrument of the mind.
The vertebral spinal column has 33 vertebral chambers: 7 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5 lumbar, 5 sacrum, and 4 coccyx. The central energy channel (an ethereal spinal cord or cerebrospinal vertical axis), is the vertical power line that runs up and down the spine, and has seven subtle centers of consciousness with two opposing magnetic poles. The entire field is in the central energy channel, which runs through the length of the medullar canal from the 1st subtle center at the base of the spine to the 7th subtle center at the crown. Energy rises/raises up this central channel which controls the gross functions of all subtle centers although they are more a part of the subtler body(s) than the gross physical body. The central energy channel has three layers: an outer layer; a middle layer which provides the powers of expansion and contraction (ebb and flow of current), extending upward from the sacral center (2nd subtle center). An inner layer controls activities related to consciousness. The activities of the three layers are controlled primarily by the 7th subtle center of consciousness at the crown. The central energy channel is the sacred spine of the causal body (thought vibrations), a strong current of consciousness.
The location of the seven major subtle centers (chakras) correspond to the major nerve plexuses of the physical body, which has three brain(s) with nerve pairs forming plexuses at the cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccyx regions. This is a many-branched peripheral nervous system in which an ethereal condition of vibrations exists between the aperture at the crown of the head and the cervical center (opposite the throat). The subtle condition of vibration extends from the cervical center, through the dorsal center (opposite the heart) to the lumbar center (opposite the navel). A gross-physical condition of vibration extends from the lumbar center, through the sacral center (opposite the generative organs), to the coccyx center (at the base of the spine). The mundane activity of the nervous system mainly consists of electrical and chemical impulses that should pass unobstructed by sense impulses to the mind when not inhibited (resisted) by cycles of formed (conditioned) impulses which directly influence (and obstruct) the nervous system and the breath, habits of experience, emotions, and memories.