6. The Influence Of Space On The Mind

In the previous chapter, we presented a parallel between Greco-Roman civilisation and modern civilisation, perhaps surprising for some. It has been found that comparable events, situated at about the same point of the curve, occur at an interval of 2160 years, most often in a range of about thirty years. That is an accuracy of almost 99%.

However, even with the elements we have given so far, namely a fair understanding of the nature of alternation, and a precise duration of the cycle, there are nevertheless a number of anomalies for which we have only hypotheses which we submit with reserve.

Remember that we do not consider the fact that a civilisation knows a golden age in different periods of the peaks or troughs of the curves as anomalies. Indeed, as with men, we think, like Hegel, Oswald Spengler and many others that people and nations are psychic personalities with a particular soul, qualities and defects, which resonate with a particular point of the curve, live their golden age, and put themselves on standby the rest of the time. However, the characteristics and methods of development of these cultures-civilisations, should logically, remain in synchronicity with the periods of the curve where they are located. In other words, the earth should live by the rhythm of the alternation that we have described, for we have no reason at the moment to suppose that this rhythm varies according to geographical places.

But it seems that it is not always the case. Oswald Spengler had already noticed this phenomenon, especially when he compared the civilisations of Europe to those which are the most distant geographically, namely those of Mexico and Central America. He noted that “each period of Mexican culture follows the corresponding period of Arab culture by about 200 years and precedes that of Western culture by about 700 years”. If we place on our curve the different civilisations which succeeded one another in this part of the world, we derive the following figure.

The first known civilisation in this part of the world is the Olmec civilisation which began around 1500 BC. The little we know shows that it had a developed urbanisation as well as an extensive knowledge in astronomy and mathematics. Between the end of the 1st century and the 10th century, several other civilisations flourished: the ancient Mayan Empire, the Zapotecs, and the most famous of them, the civilisation of Teotihuacan, who disappeared suddenly in 650. The period between 950 and the arrival of the Spaniards in the middle of the 15th century was marked by the Toltec civilisation (987/1168) who, settling in Tula, claimed its affiliation with Teotihuacan. It was prolonged with an almost egalitarian society and, as it has been said, through a brutal, bloodthirsty and warlike civilisation: that of the Aztecs.

If we follow the historians who called the period extending generally from the 2nd to the 9th century “classic”, we should admit a gap of more than six centuries with the classical Greco-Latin period, between Pericles and the advent of the Low Roman Empire. We do not have enough knowledge about these civilisations to offer an explanation. However, we imagine a parallel between Arab civilisation and the evolution of Central American civilisation: the Olmecs would be comparable to the Greeks, the Maya Empire to Rome, and the Toltecs and Aztecs would echo the magical Arab culture. This hypothesis must be confirmed or invalidated by subsequent work.

If we turn now to the East, we find this gap that we have already mentioned for the Chinese civilisation, but this time with 200 years of advance over the Western civilisation. The advent of the Auguste Huang Di, which ended the period of the Combatant States by creating the unified Empire, took place in 221 BC, nearly 200 years before the Roman Augustus. Similarly, the reinterpretation of the classics of Confucianism at the beginning of the Song Dynasty (960/1279), or Neo-Confucianism – in Chinese, “logic of reality” or “doctrine of faith” – can be compared to the movement that occupied European scholastics two centuries later in their attempt to harmonise the Greco-Roman heritage with the doctrines of Christian theology. However, this gap seems far from uniform throughout history, and we can hardly draw any conclusion.

If the existence of this gap were to be demonstrated – what remains to be done – we could consider two explanations for this phenomenon. Either the events which are at the origin of the phenomenon of alternation act differently according to the geographical places. We think this hypothesis very unlikely, whether this cause is for example a force field or the composition of the atmosphere acting on the human brain, it has no reason to present variations of intensity from one part of the earth to the other.

Or people, like individuals, are more or less receptive to the variations of these fields. That is, the Earth, through its electromagnetic structure, would sufficiently influence living beings to reveal variations in receptivity. Although it seems rather strange, it is this second hypothesis that we propose to retain by reformulating it in the following way: the earth behaves exactly like a human being whose skull is at the North Pole and whose coccyx is located at the bottom of the Andes Cordillera. Whose rational left brain would be to the West and whose right, intuitive brain to the East.

This hypothesis could make us smile, but it goes in the direction of the Gaia hypothesis which proposes to consider the earth as a living organism. (Gaia, a new look at life on Earth. J.E. Lovelock). It can also find its justification in the theory that tends to consider the universe as a hologram, both for space and time. Or, at least, that the universe has properties similar to those of a hologram.

We recall that a hologram is the photograph of interferences resulting, on the one hand, from light emanating from an object illuminated by a coherent light source and, on the other hand, from light emanating directly from this same source. The result is not a reproduction of the object, but a medium that contains all the necessary information – amplitudes and phases – to the reconstitution of the object. The latter is restored by illuminating the hologram with a beam of parallel and monochromatic light.

In ordinary photography, a point in the photo corresponds to a point on the object. With a hologram, each point of the object diffuses light that covers the entire hologram. Thus, if we break the hologram, the object can be reconstructed using any part. In other words, and without going into the problem of the loss of information, each part of the hologram contains the entire object.

If we admit that the universe has similar properties, it would mean that every human being is organised according to the same energy model as the universe and that the Earth is organised according to the same model as man. Even if it remains to be demonstrated, this hypothesis is perhaps not as absurd as it may seem, because it echoes the oldest intuitions of humanity. Even though we may not be able to prove, we can at least note that the observations that we make tend to validate this hypothesis. We will start by focusing on space. We will see in a later chapter how we will apply this hypothesis to time.

In the vertical axis, it is relatively easy to follow, from the north to the south of our planet, a succession comparable to that of the main levels of man: the mental being in the head, the feeling in the solar plexus, and vitality in the belly. Of course, we do not consider the colonisations of the last two centuries here, as they are of a negligible duration in terms of terrestrial populations and are not stabilised yet.

North of the earth, we find the most cerebral people-, often cut off from their feelings and even their bodies. The farther south we go, the more the expression of emotions grows, whether it is in an externalised form in the West, or in a more internalised manner, in Asia. Below the Tropic of Cancer, the people of North Africa or South East Asia show the same refinement in their expression of feelings. Finally, in the south, people in whom vitality holds the most important place have developed: the people- of Africa or South America, who, in the eyes of the so-called Nordic people, often seem backward in their mental development, although they are secretly jealous of their joy of living and their ease of emotional and corporal expression. Remember that this feeling of superiority is mainly the fruit of the separative period, during which reason and the individual are strongly favoured at the expense of feeling and vitality of the family and of the social group. Our mechanistic and cold civilisation is typical of a peak of the curve which gives more importance to the head, to the mind.

It may be necessary to remember that it was during the fusional period, between 800 and 1600, that the civilisations of Black Africa realised their golden age. Ghana, Central Sudan, the Empire of Mali (1150/1599) and the Kingdom of Benin (1150/1684) amazed Western travellers by their power and their splendor.

In the East-West axis, the realtivity with the two brains, the West with the left brain, the East with the right brain, is equally striking. To explain this, we must make a long detour to recall what is known about the functions of the two brains – brought to light by Mac Lean, as early as 1949, and specified by Sperry’s work – who put this knowledge in correspondence with the two fundamental forces of separation and fusion that are the basis of our work (Sperry, Neuropsychologist, 1981 Nobel Prize).

During the millennia of the animal development of man, three distinct brains have been successively constituted, or, if one prefers, three successive layers. The oldest and most primitive brain is the reptilian brain; it is not dualised, and the last born of the sequence of nervous developments that presided over the passage from the plant to the animal. Reproduction, which is assured in the vegetable kingdom by external agents – the wind or the marine currents, had to be gradually internalised. The first two “worries” of this brain were therefore the individual and above all the collective survival of the species in an animal world that appropriated space. This brain reacts under the effect of stimuli by automatic and repetitive sequences, without any possibility of adaptation, if not over immense periods of time with respect to human life.

The second brain, called the limbic brain, allowed the animal, who is not individualised yet, to manage its adaptation to the environment and to the group. It is the tool that manages all the nuances of “this is good for me, this is bad for me”, in the field of survival and sociability. It deals with the emotional field, the ultimate adaptive plan, from the most primary emotions that are simple reactions to the environment, to the beginnings of feeling. It also deals with all social power relations. In order to manage the levels of individual survival – collective security – and reproduction, it controls the most basic functions that are at their origin: repetition, and the attraction/repulsion phenomenon. The limbic brain is dualised according to the two main force currents that we have explained in the previous chapters:

• The left limbic brain is, at the vital level, the tool of execution at the service of the separative force current, which must lead all forms of life towards the perfection of its fulfilment. Its first task was therefore the survival of the form. For this, it created repetitive processes based on memory. Its role has been to sort, classify, list the sensations and create links between them to organise them into perceptions. To these processes, it applied a tension towards the perfection of the field of forces that it expresses: reliability, perfection of detail. It is at the origin of fears. Any change is a source of insecurity. It is therefore conservative in essence, but also a source of progress for the sole purpose of improving safety and comfort.
• The right limbic brain is, at the vital level, the tool at the service of the fusional forces, responsible for maintaining any expression of life in contact with the unity of the universe. It is therefore essentially a receptive and relational tool whose primary expression is instinct, which is the basic form of intuition. Instinct is indeed that faculty which, allows one to resonate with everything, through contact with one’s essence, also perceives all the information contained in the field on which the attention is focused. This brain is the gregarious power, the source that drives all life towards its congeners. At its first level, the emotions, the primary powers of reaction are still unrefined by the mind and the feelings that flow from them are still rough. Image is its tool.

Between them, these two brains are trying to organise social life, each pulling their own way. The result is a primary, tribal, social life, where the law of the clan does not have opponents. In principle, man has gone beyond this level of organisation since a long time. One can imagine what the type of functioning can exist at this level by observing the behaviour of the gangs of American children, engaged in cruel and ruthless wars.

The third and last brain, the cortical brain, is the mental tool par excellence, a tool of individuation, which enables the fulfilment of the personality by putting itself at the service of the central being. It is the tool that we know best, at least in its separative part, the left logical brain.

• The left cortical brain is, at the mental level, the tool serving the separating force current. It produces what we call reason or intellect. It’s role is to perform. It’s fulfilment is discernment. It seeks knowledge. It claims power. It develops all the processes of separation and classification within the thought. It proceeds by deduction, induction, inference. It is thirsty for progress, but, out of a need to security, it can submit to the exigency of the limbic brain and reject new ideas. It claims to know; it implicates, doubts, and criticises. Main tool of the ego, it help to build individuation. It constantly plans, mobilises the will for action. It is based on the concrete, on the external senses.
• It’s problem is that, having developed for over nearly 13,000 years to the detriment of the right cortical brain, it got caught in its own games. Believing itself to be totally separated from the rest of the cosmos, it caused man to lose contact with Unity. The change in dominant hemispheres, which also seems to be taking place in our time, was called “the fall” in certain traditions: it was, seen by seers or wise beings who had understood the process of which we speak, the announcement of the gradual loss of contact with the divine, or with the Real.
• The right cortical brain is, at the mental level, the tool serving the fusional force current. It is the support of what we call Intuition, it can reach the consciousness unspoilt by any disruptive influence, which in fact is in contact with Unity, with Reality, with the Truth. Intuition supports faith, not as a belief – which is more of the domain of the limbic brain – but as an expectation. In contact with the Real, the essence of the world and of the becoming, it is therefore the support of new manifestations. It’s tool is vision: that of great visionaries, seers, mediums, creators and poets. It’s base is the silence of the mind. It’s means of expression, the symbolic image. Intuition proceeds using knowledge by identity: it therefore has a character of certainty, independence, immediacy and carries with it the force of Truth. Much more pragmatically, and applied to the concrete, the right brain is said to be global and synthetic, with a strategic aspect that comes from the perception of the natural evolution of things, especially from an exact perception of spatial links and harmony.

If we have dwelt a little on this representation of the brain according to its four hemispheres, it is because we think that the East and the West, like men and women, are sensitive to opposite currents that give them both their own and complementary characteristics. In the West, the left cortical brain is most active, and therefore most sensitive during the periods when the separative phase of the alternation manifests itself. In the East, where the right cortical brain dominates, people flourish further during the fusional period of the cycle.

The West, under the influx of the left brain, builds a divine world separated from man, eternal, immutable. Using thought, it attempts to organize the social life according to models, and its creativity is drawn by the sky. It embodies the powers of progress in the separative periods. It tends to view man as immutable in a world of changing structures.

The East, conversely, is the receptacle of ideas of change and mutation, in a world of structures that it wishes to be immutable. Its creativity is addressed to the earth, with perfection in details.

This may help to better understand how the East built its philosophy around impermanence. This is how the Yi Jing, the Classic of Changes, gained such notoriety; still today, Chinese writing is built around pictorial symbols (remember that the right brain works more readily with images), and is written from top to bottom, from the sky to the earth. How the East is so easily seduced by planning and why the Far East is characterised by a refusal of change and progress, a religious sustainability coupled with a social sustainability. Why the East does not separate the human from the divine. How finally, China, never ceased to rewrite history and, considering everything innovative as a rebellion as it disturbs the established order, attributed the invention of the trigrams to the legendary and mythical Fu Xi, which dates back to the Han period (-206/+221).

The organisation of the brain that we have presented in this chapter will no doubt help us understand, in the context of our hypothesis, how the more intuitive East has been able to perceive the evolution of the force fields before the West, and how, on the contrary, the people of Central America and Mexico reacted with some delay to these variations. However, much remains to be done, especially in the different functioning of the two brains in the East and in the West, in order to achieve a more exact understanding of the phenomena. A Japanese researcher, Tadanobu Tsunoda, studying brain dominance in the East and the West, came to formulate the following assumptions: “The switching mechanism (dominance) is also in close relationship with the revolution of the earth, the movement of the moon, and maybe other cosmic activities. It is subject to modifications whose causes are for the moment mysterious. The connection that is established with cosmic activity might suggest that there is a miniature cosmos in the human brain. If prehistoric man was undoubtedly able to feel it, it is an ability that we lost in the downward spiral of civilisation” (Tadanobu Tsunoda in Les énigmes du cerveau, Yves Christen-Kenneth Klivington, Ed Bordas Hologramme 1989).