Use All of Me

BACK when Frank Sinatra wooed audiences with the song “All of Me,” and psychoanalyst Theodor Reik was writing Listening with the Third Ear, we were still on the fringes of holistic medicine – and the received wisdom was that our brains are the only source of consciousness.

A century earlier the Voice of the Silence taught two kinds of sentience – the brain or “Eye Doctrine,” and the feelings or “Heart Doctrine.”  Robert Crosbie, Founder of the United Lodge of Theosophists, described concepts for connecting these separated systems.

Spiritual Vibrations

Our perceptions come not only from the brain, he says, but also “from the impressions of the organs or cells of the body.”

The Friendly Philosopher continues:

“The Doctrine of the Eye is that of the brain consciousness, composed largely of external impressions. The Doctrine of the Heart is of the spiritual consciousness of the Ego – not perceived by the brain consciousness until right thought, and right action which sooner or later follows it – attune certain centers in the brain in accord with the spiritual vibration.”

Where do these “spiritual vibrations” originate? We know from experimental evidence from researchers at The Institute of HeartMath, that this “inner ruler” is the Heart. But how does right thought and action attune the brain, cells and other organs of the body to its master vibrations?

Gut Feeling?

Recently, scientists uncovered cognitive neuronal components in other organs besides the brain. They found an “instinctive brain” in our digestive system, and a “feeling brain” in our heart. Who can say where consciousness will show up next? H. P. Blavatsky taught every cell in the body has a brain and memory.

“Memory has no seat, no special organ of its own in the human brain,” she wrote in Psychic & Noetic Action, “it has seats in every organ of the body.” Further she says:

“The seat of memory, then, is assuredly neither here nor there, but everywhere throughout the human body. To locate its organ in the brain is to limit and dwarf the Universal Mind and its countless Rays…which informs every rational mortal.”

The “second brain” in our digestive tract, explains Professor W. Prinz of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich, “consists of about 100 billion nerve cells …. a greater number than those in the spinal cord.”

Like the brain in our gut, we also have a brain in our heart. The heart-brain “may also act independently of the brain in the head,” writes psychotherapist Gabriella Kortsch, Ph.D., a psychotherapist in Marbella, Spain. “Studies…have shown that the consistency of the rhythm found in the heart brain,” she reports, “is capable of changing—sometimes in spectacular fashion—how effectively the thinking brain functions.”

“In theory, this means that what occurs on a feeling level has the capacity to deeply influence what occurs on a thinking level.”

A Mind of Its Own

The website The Psychology, Transformation & Freedom Papers this week, reports on the work of neuro-biologist Michael Gershon, of New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, author of The Second Brain:

When asked if the brain in our heads influences our second brain, he replied that it does, and that we get butterflies in the stomach when the brain sends a message of anxiety to the gut. This, in turn, sends messages back to the brain that it is not happy. However – and this is perhaps the most riveting part of it – the brain in the gut can also work in isolation.

Holistic Knowing

Could it be what is called “Savantism” is, in reality, the ability to synthesize and harness multiple centers of consciousness throughout the human body? A dramatic example of brain-in-the-head defying ability is from a clip of the British documentary film about the savant Daniel Tammet.

Daniel Tammet – The Boy With The Incredible Brain [1_5]

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The Third Brain

A so-called “third brain” was discovered in the heart, The Psychology Transformation website reports:

With his revolutionary research the University of Montreal’s pioneer neurocardiologist Dr. J. Andrew Armour first introduced the concept of a functional heart brain in the 1990′s. This brain in the heart – just as the brain in the digestive tract – may also act independently of the brain in the head.

“The size of this brain, according to Boulder Creek, California’s Institute of HeartMath, is as great as a number of the principle areas of the brain in the head.”

“The brain is such a complex thing, both physically and metaphysically,” Blavatsky wrote, that …

“… it is like a tree whose bark you can uncover layer by layer, each layer being different from all the others, each having its own special work, function and properties.”

The Knowing Cell

Probing deeper, Blavatsky, the Mother of the New Age, taught that “consciousness is universal,” and that “every cell and organ in our body has a consciousness of its own.” (Transactions):-

“Every cell in the human body (as in every animal) is endowed with its own peculiar discrimination, instinct, and, speaking relatively, with intelligence – [there are] well authenticated cases, such as those of clairvoyants, who can perceive by the pit of the stomach, that the threshold of consciousness is capable of a very wide extension, far wider than we are accustomed to give to it, both upwards and downwards.”