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Edna Lister October 3, 1938 Buffalo, New York Since Reason and Intuition are the latest products of evolution, perhaps the best way to understand what they are and how they work is to trace the outstanding steps by which they gradually developed. Let us start at the beginning with the energy of the spiritual ego striving to realize that function in the Cosmic Plan for which God called it into being, which is the driving force behind every soul. We will follow through to the present manifestation of Reason and Intuition in the human form. All life-forms manifest the urge to fill in their individual blueprint as the struggle to survive and to be something. The desire for "significance" is the oldest of all the impulses with which the Creator endows the soul. The thought elements built into the desire body by experiences, which give additional energy to this most deep seated of all tendencies, are called "power elements." These power elements, in their expression, produce two primeval desires of opposite polarity, just as the ego evolves a positive and negative soul. In our physical universe, positive and negative charges of electricity, such as protons and electrons, are the building blocks of which all the elements of matter are composed. Early experimental work in psychology has determined that the unconscious mind of man will give up life, or even sacrifice his offspring, rather than consider himself inferior. Nevertheless love of life and the impulse to perpetuate that life is so strongly built into the desire body as a part of itself, that is, as an essential portion of the thought elements of which it is composed, that is impossible to suppress their energy. Three hereditary drives motivate every person, and all lower forms of life: The drive for significance, sometimes called the "will to power," the drive for "race preservation," and the drive for "self-preservation." The drive for significance is the original source of energy, behind all the elemental thoughts of which the desire body is composed. Still, the reproductive and nutritive drives enter their construction, even as protons and electrons enter the construction of all matter. We say they are hereditary because every living creature is born with them. The soul has acquired them throughout its past stages, coincident with those processes that built up the desire body form. We each encompass ten families of reproductive and nutritive desires: Power elements, domestic elements, intellectual elements, social elements, aggressive elements, religious elements, safety elements, individualistic elements, utopian elements, and universal welfare elements. Think for a moment of the underlying law that determines how experiences combine in the unconscious mind that enables it, when the process has evolved sufficiently, to express Reason and Intuition. A simple sensation is a disturbance at the end of a receptor, or sensory nerve, which results in an etheric movement, called a nerve discharge, being sent along the nerve to the cells in the brain, where it gives up its motion. This electric motion communicates energy to the desire body in that compartment relating to such experiences, and where there is recognition that it has some relation to previously acquired motions residing in the thought cells there, it is then felt as a sensation. If the etheric motions in the physical brain cells also vibrate with the energy communicated to the desire form, objective consciousness of the sensation results. Yet when the etheric motions of the sensation subside, all objective consciousness of it ceases. Sensations commonly are the stimuli which produce physical motions. Different organic "wires" or nerves, specially constructed to transmit messages, or electric motions, from the body to the central station or brain, are called afferent, or ingoing nerves. The afferent nerves ensure that the reports of the senses may not be confused with the executive orders based, by the soul, the unconscious mind, or even the objective mind, upon these reports and upon the reports of long ago. Those parallel wires so constructed as to carry messages from the central station, or from those substations called plexuses, back to the same point are called efferent or outgoing nerves. Material science commonly recognizes only five senses, whose relative accuracy we determine by experience. However, the ancient sages recognized seven physical senses and seven psychic senses by which the soul could apprize itself of conditions in its environment. We can determine the reliability of these psychic senses only by carefully checking their reports against experience. The report of a psychic sense (inspirational work, etc.) does not register directly on the cells of the physical brain, because it does not come in over a physical nerve, or by means of etheric motion. A "vibration" carries its motions to the "thought cells" of the desire body. Perception is an awareness of sensation. An apperception is a contribution of the mind, of the stellar molecules ("cells") in the desire body. Preperception is an anticipatory mental image, attention, conception, or Intuition. What the individual is aware of is not just one sensation, but various impressions that reach him from the environment. We call the awareness of a sensation, or of a combination of sensations, perception. We have already established the whole relation between sensation and objective phenomena through a process of trial and error. The infant reaches for the Moon and cries for it, but later experience teaches him that certain objects are too far away to be touched. A child also learns that other objects, which look very pleasing, when reached for, lead to pain. The soul has been gathering sensation memories since it came into existence. We retain the energy of these sensations, which we call memory when brought into objective consciousness, in our desire body thought-cells. An incoming sensation stirs up the desire body thought-cells with which it becomes associated, and these give up some of their memory energy to the physical brain cells. Thus, the awareness of a sensation, the perception, is never simply the recognition of the energy that has come in over the nerves, for we always add to this energy the associated experiences which we have stored in the thought-cells of the unconscious mind. An apperception is the contribution of the mind, of the stellar cells in the desire body, based upon previous perceptions. The apperception contributes more to any perception than does the action of the stimulus upon the sense organ at the time. In other words, how an object looks, feels, tastes, smells or sounds to us, depends more upon the experiences stored away in the thought cells of our unconscious mind that upon the report of the sense organ then active. A savage looking at a beautiful painting may see only a few daubs of color, where an artist will view a living scene of glory. The perspective of this or any picture is simply an appeal to the apperception. It depends for its efficacy upon the facts that the observer has had innumerable experiences viewing objects. Similarly, those with the eye of vision opened, see the energy of the planets’ influence transmitted to earth as a definite light. It varies in color and luminosity even as the sunlight does, and seems to be the all-pervading medium of vision for those who have left the physical plane and now live in distant stellar realms. Why do planetary influences range in seven distinct kinds, one kind being transmitted by each of seven planets anciently known? Why are there seven tones in music, the eighth being a higher expression of the first? Why does sunlight, when passed through a prism, or as seen in a rainbow, dissolve itself into seven distinct colors? Why do the chemical elements also tend to follow nature’s laws? The atomic weight, determined by the number of negative electrons, expresses on higher or lower octaves, as witnessed in bromine, iodine, chlorine, and fluorine, which each express qualities common to all but with greater or less activity. The impulses and thoughts of man, likewise, are susceptible to a grouping of seven well-marked families. Apperception, while commonly helping the correct appraisal of environment, also may cause errors in perception. Writers for instance, find it difficult to proofread their own mental output. They know how it should read, so they see their copy as they intended to write, rather than as it really is. A preperception is an anticipatory mental image. As an example, one may make an outline drawing of a cube seem to stand on one edge, or one may make it stand on its bottom at will, by expecting the position it will assume while steadily looking at it. Similarly, an outline drawing of interlaced rings may seem to be of solid rings, interlinked. Visual images are more important to humanity than are auditory. The sense of hearing is subject to the same laws of perception. Vibrations of the air, strike the ear drum, and thus communicate motion to three little bones, to the liquid and otoliths in the vestibule, and thence to the membrane and nerves leading to the brain. The disturbance which impresses consciousness really occurs within the head. But through apperception and pre-perception it is referred to as a definite location in the external world. |
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