The Harried Mystic

When studying in the mid-80’s for my doctorate in psychology, we considered it a fact that brain cells are the only ones in the body that do not regenerate. At the time, I thought it an odd feature of physiology given the centrality of the brain over the course of human evolution. It seemed absurd that brain cells would be so fragile and irreplaceable given their adaptive significance.

Two years ago, then 20 years after the doctorate, I took a post-graduate course in biological psychology as a refresher, and everything had changed: a change that is continuing and accelerating. Now, thanks to improved technology such as fMRI (fluorescent magnetic resonance imaging) it is the overwhelming weight of the evidence that neuroplasticity is fundamental to brain physiology. In other words, neural networks and pathways are freshly laid down and altered as we learn and grow and as we are challenged muscularly, emotionally, and cognitively each day.

“Positive neuroplasticity” is the capacity of the brain to regenerate functioning that has been impaired by stroke, dementia and the aging process, severe head trauma, or as a consequence of other CNS ( Central Nervous System)  diseases. There are now cognitive training exercises that neuropsychologists present to patients that can significantly improve diverse functioning, including balance in the elderly, memory functioning, and even offer support in the self-regulation of chronic pain.

All this being said, I am thinking about the alchemical treatise attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, The Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes. Sources of this document are traceable to 650 AD. It was regarded as the central document of the Hermetic tradition.

In it, one passage has especially captured my imagination as I consider the revelations of brain science.

It reads:

That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, to perform the miracles of the one thing.

This ancient alchemical principle adds further framing to a better understanding of the mirroring in human nature of the core nature of the Cosmos. If the “above is as that which is below,” then neuroplasticity is an epiphenomenon of  Cosmic Mind. In other words, what we are learning about the temporal mind tells us something about the infinitely extensive and timeless “neuroverse”.

We know, for example, that the hippocampus is an essential signal station for the formation and storage of memory. However, it would be incorrect to identify this structure as the seat of memory given the thoroughly entwined connections of information flow between the hippocampus and the cortex. In fact, the exquisitely complex mass action within the brain suggests that all of our experiences dynamically shape not only brain functioning but structures as well ( e.g., the density of dendrites, axons, axon fibers and glial cells).

If it is so in the finite mind, a cosmic analogue is more than reasonable to expect. Anything less would be a willful rejection of the continuously well substantiated demonstration of inter-being across the sciences, and for millennia, in the reported mystical experiences of saints, sages and adepts of all persuasions.

As we follow this logic down the rabbit hole of mystery, we arrive at a wonderful and quite powerful recognition.

As all that we experience affects all aspects of neural physiology, so too what happens in the universe must also be similarly “innervated” in ways that make the seemingly unfathomable distances insignificant. The Universe is Mind. The farthest reaches are not far at all if we fold space-time. As the hippocampus is densely connected across the cortex, known for its odd appearance of many folds, so finite and infinite mind are similarly densely interwoven. While we are powered chemo-electrically, we are in essence photonic ( i.e., light) beings, true children of the stars.

As I muse about such mysteries, I consider the other postulates that are consistent with the central premise of inter-connectivity made possible by light, the medium of the Divine, and the alchemical equation of the Emerald Tablet that what is loosed on Earth is enacted in “Heaven.”

• The bio-field is measurable around all living things and is itself a physically verifiable phenomenon;
• Prayer and intentional healing have been shown to raise the energy level in the bio-field;
• Space as measured through distance and time collapse in matters of consciousness and its hologramic-like properties ( a reference to the notion of the Hologramic Brain);
• The planets are the principal forces of gravitational influence within the solar system. In ancient thought, their observed qualities inspired poetic metaphors that coalesced around mythic tales to help explain the seasons of life and its challenges;
• The unusual usefulness of what arises from abstract mathematical machinations attests to the connection of finite mind to Universal Mind;
• Human interpretations capture some of what is real in intuiting the nuances of sacred action in the universe, and the divergent manifestations of the Sacred ( like decomposing white light through a prism to show the constituent spectrum of color);
• Light preceded matter and so we are incarnate Light Bodies, souls in transit;
• Apropos my earlier Post ( Practice #128: Portents), astrology offers a ready and perhaps especially apt model by which to study the movement of a dynamic system of complex interactions toward the Teilhardian Omega point of ultimate fullness in the Beloved;
• The next step in the evolution of christianity is to break free from all denominational frameworks and embrace the full meaning of the “Cosmic Christ”.

As C.G. Jung appreciated, alchemy was a spiritual discipline, first and foremost, predicated on the transmutation of substances. The spiritual quest is to evolve and be ourselves transfigured in following the path of the Teacher of Righteousness whose transfiguration and resurrection signifies the potential for authentic transcendent immortality.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.