Mental body

“ Can we state more distinctly still the manner in which the mental life seems to intervene between impressions made from without upon the body, and reactions of the body upon the outer world again? Let us look at a few facts. ”

“ We know from medical science that the whole body is traversed by a network of nerves which serve as the channels of communication between the indwelling spiritual ego, which we call mind, and the functions of the external organism. ”

“ We often find proofs of this separateness of the physical and mental bodies from acts which present themselves in our daily life; we fail to cognize the experiences of our body or even of our senses when our mind absent from them and absorbed in some other direction. ”

“ The presence of the external body,—the organic change, which he conceives to be a sort of motion of the small febrils of the nerves and brain,—and the affection of the mind, which he expressly asserts to have no resemblance whatever to the motion that gave occasion to it,—these are all which he conceives to constitute the process of perception, without any idea, as a thing distinct,—a fourth thing intervening between the organic and the mental change. ”

“ The convertibility of physical forces and correlation of these with the vital and the intricacy of that nexus between mental and bodily activity which cannot be analyzed, all lead upwards towards one and the same conclusion—the source of all power is mind. ”

“ To the mind of those who have contented themselves with merely the superficial aspects of things, these two things—mind and body; and mental states and physical conditions—seem to be as far apart as the two poles; seem to be opposites and contradictories impossible of reconciliation. ”

“ And, so the problem of Life, Health and Disease once more loses its simplicity, and the mystery again deepens. The deeper we dig into the subject, the more do we become impressed with the idea of the universal principle of Action and Reaction so apparent in all phenomena. The Mind acts upon the Body; the Body reacts upon the Mind ”

“ And what do we mean by the unseen side of life? First, the thought forces, the mental and emotional conditions in the atmosphere about us that are generated by those manifesting on the physical plane through the agency of physical bodies. Second, the same forces generated by those who have dropped the physical body, or from whom it has been struck away, and who are now manifesting through the agency of bodies of a different nature. ”

“ Modern psychology has rendered a service of far-reaching practical benefit in showing more definitely the intimate connection between the brain and mental action. In this connection of body and soul the two are correlated; the brain is organic to the functions of the soul. ”

“ This line of investigation will lead us to a fuller understanding of the influence of the mental states upon the health or disease of the organs and parts. It will be seen that Mental Healing has a sound biological as well as a psychological basis of truth, and that it is not necessary to invade the fields of metaphysics or theology in order to find an explanation of the effect of mind over body. ”

“ In the present life, mind and body are intimately connected by nervous matter. In this dual constitution, the spiritual mental, and animal functions are made inseparable, and modify [pg 119] one another. The ultimate tendencies of each extreme exist, not absolutely for themselves, but for qualifying purposes, to establish a basis for the deeper economy of life. By the employment of reason, animal and spiritual experiences are mutually benefited, and the consciousness rendered accountable. The bodily and mental workings are in many senses one, and help to interpret each other. ”

“ The dependence of the mind (like any other mode of energy) upon physical conditions, is further proved by the fact that the mental and moral states of a man are largely governed by sensation; if the latter is unhealthy it makes the mind so, and it makes some difference what the part of the body is in which the sensation exists ”

“ Our mental attitudes are mirrored in our Instinctive Mind, and as that principle of mind has direct control of the physical body, it may readily be understood just how the mental state takes form in the physical action of functioning. ”

“ May not sensation and cognition be the result of the union of matter and spirit; and if so, may not their mutual affections, their common sympathies, be the necessary conditions of sensation and cognition in the present life? A reciprocal relation between body and mind appears in all mental phenomena. A certain proportion in this relation is called mental health. A deviation from it is termed disease. This proportion is by no means an equilibrium, but the perfect adaptation of the body, without injury to its integrity, to the purposes of the mind. ”

“ Not only do the feelings share with the intellectual processes in making up our mental life as a whole, but they also show themselves in certain bodily changes, which are so important that we shall return to them at greater length in the next chapter. ”

“ "Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a man's bodily instrument depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind. Through pressure of instincts from past lives, strengths or weaknesses percolate gradually into human consciousness. They express as habits, which in turn ossify into a desirable or an undesirable body. Outward frailty has mental origin; in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the mind. ”

“ And how can we draw the line between the intellectual and physiological phenomena of our life? At times it seems to me as though I suffered from a mysterious, but purely physical, malady which influences my mental phases. ”

“ WHERE CONSCIOUSNESS RESIDES
I—the conscious self—dwell somewhere in this body, but where? When my finger tips touch the object I wish to examine, I seem to be in them. When the brain grows weary from overstudy, I seem to be in it. When the heart throbs, the breath comes quick, and the muscles grow tense from noble resolve or strong emotion, I seem to be in them all. When, filled with the buoyant life of vigorous youth, every fiber and nerve is a-tingle with health and enthusiasm, I live in every part of my marvelous body. ”

“ Modern psychology, finding definite psycho-physical connections to hold good, assumes as a convenient hypothesis that the dependence of mental states upon bodily conditions must be thorough-going and complete. ”

“ WHATEVER that thing, fact, function, or idea which we call mind may be, or whether the brain, as is generally believed, is or is not its sole organ of manifestation, it is universally admitted that varying bodily conditions are accompanied by related variations of mental states. ”

“ It is, however, becoming the settled opinion, among all well-informed persons, that the soul, during the time of its connection with a material system in this life, performs many of those functions which we class as mental, through the medium, or instrumentality, in some mysterious way, of material organs, just as we all know is the case with the sensations—that is, the impressions made through the organs of sense ”

“ Whereas we can act on the external world only through our muscles; in ourselves we are aware of things belonging to a totally different category, with which muscle and movement and energy appear to have nothing to do,—such things as thought, purpose, desire, humour, affection, consciousness, will. These mental faculties seem intimately associated with, and are displayed by, our bodily mechanism ”

“ But whatever may be the arbitrary division or arrangement which we may form either of our sensations themselves, or of the organs that are previously affected, the susceptibility of the mind, by which it is capable of being affected by the changes of state in our mere bodily organs, must be regarded as, in every sense of the word, of primary value in our mental constitution. ”

“ How these influences of the mind on the body are accomplished is a portion of that larger mystery of the influence of mind, or soul, or principle of life, on the material elements of which our body is composed. ”

“ This is no place, and at present we have no need, for a psychological theory of the origin or of the causes of what is called activity, but as a fact, you have in your mental life a sort of consciousness accompanying the processes by which, as the psychologists are accustomed to say, you adjust your organism to its environment ”

“ Some think they make the notion of it clearer by calling the mental state and the brain the inner and outer 'aspects,' respectively, of 'One and the Same Reality.' Others consider the mental state as the 'reaction' of a unitary being, the Soul, upon the multiple activities which the brain presents. ”

“ For, however certain we may be of the immateriality of the soul in its essence, it is a perfectly well established fact that all its operations and functions, as an animating spirit in the human body, are fulfilled through the workings of material organs in the brain; that these organs are in childhood in an exceedingly immature, tender, and delicate condition; and that all sudden, sharp, and, especially, painful emotions, greatly excite, and sometimes cruelly irritate them. ”

“ Contemplate, then, if you can, a duplex intelligent brain, in a state of activity, but cut off from all communication with the external world through the media of the senses and from all control over the body;—in fact, an isolated, self-acting, self-contained mechanism, the organ of intelligence and emotion. ”

“ It is the Life, or the Life Force within, acting under the direction and guidance of the subconscious or subjective mind that is the agency through which this continually new cell-formation process is going on. The subconscious mind is, nevertheless, always subject to suggestions and impressions that are conveyed to it by the conscious or sense mind; and here lies the great fact, the one all-important fact for us so far as desirable or undesirable, so far as healthy or unhealthy, so far as normal or aging body-building is concerned. ”

“ In the first place, you will understand the bodily mechanism through which the mind operates, and a knowledge of this mechanism is bound to enlighten you as to the character of the mental processes themselves. ”

“ For instance, we can prescribe a conflict between the subconsciousness and the personal consciousness, between a subconscious wish and a conscious wish, or volition, and observe the resultant mental and physical behavior, which may be inhibition of thought, hallucinations, amnesia, motor phenomena, etc. The possibilities and limitations of subconscious influences can in this way be experimentally studied. Subconscious personalities, therefore, afford a valuable means for studying the mechanism of the mind. ”

“ The life and experience of every man attest the fact that thought and emotion, and the body in which the organs of thought and feeling are placed, are inter-related in such a way and to such an extent that the mind and body control, to a very great extent, the activity of each other. ”

“ It requires of him to watch over the state of his body—the partial derangement of whose functions so often confuses the mind—that, by preserving a vigorous and animated condition of the corporeal system, he may secure vigour and vivacity of mind. ”

“ The psychical principles of association, indeed, and the physiological principles of nutrition, simply express—the former in terms of mind, the latter in terms of brain—the universally admitted fact that any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself ”

“ Whether the remainder of our mental states are similarly dependent on physical conditions, is one of the vexatæ questiones in the science of human nature. It is still disputed whether our thoughts, emotions, and volitions are generated through the intervention of material mechanism; whether we have organs of thought and of emotion, in the same sense in which we have organs of sensation. Many eminent physiologists hold the affirmative. These contend that a thought (for example) is as much the result of nervous agency, as a sensation ”

“ Many people think that our nature is a combination of two realities, a soul and a body, and that the mind belongs to the soul, which is immaterial or spiritual, while the brain belongs to the body, which is material. ”

“ That our mental states can affect, not only our spirits and our points of view, but actually the physical structure of our bodies, is demonstrable in a hundred different ways, and appears either to be proved or merely suggested according to the bias and temperament of the one to whom the demonstration is made. ”

“ We all recognize that involuntarily certain bodily effects take place. We blush when we do not wish to; we betray our fears by our blanched faces. Some other factors of mind than the conscious mental processes have charge, and rule certain functions. ”

“ Yet when we consider that the brain, the physical brain, is the exceedingly delicate organ by means of which we think and feel and desire, love and hate and worship, it is not surprising that that organ should be modified by the work it has to do; to put the matter picturesquely, it is as if every familiar train of thought made a rut in the nervous substance of the brain into which the thoughts run lightly of their own accord, and out of which they can only be got by an effort of will. ”

“ When we speak of the 'mental' condition of a person, we refer to his senses, his perceptions, his consciousness, his ideas. If his mental condition is perfect, his will, his memory, his understanding are perfect, and connected with a healthy bodily organization. ”