The Brain

From the time of our physical ancestors, the size of the brain has increased enormously. This of course is in major part due to the fall of man and the consequent over-cultivation of the intellect. The brain changes therefore would have to be examined before and after the fall of man. The fall of man, with the consequent over-cultivation of the intellectual part of the brain led with time into a physical adaptation to this increased function and increased in size accordingly. Because man in his physical body used more of the area of his brain concerned with the production of thoughts and the intellect, this area also automatically became subject to the law of adaptation and increased in size in response to this increased use, to this increased load brought upon it by the decision of most human beings to use this part of the brain in making their basic decisions. This law of adaptation is basic in the world of matter and applies to all creatures. Its effect is so clear to us that it does not need further clarification.

The adaptational changes in the brain before the fall of man would include those we have already mentioned in relation to speech, which indeed was conditioned by the spirit and was something necessary for the expression of the volition of the spirit in the world of matter. A most important adaptational change in the brain would involve that which has to do with posture and balance. The upright posture and its maintenance is known to have been developed to a high degree only in the human and that part of the brain responsible for the control of posture is the cerebellum. A further increase in size and the reorganisation of this part of the brain would have occurred in early man to permit what is most necessary for the human being which is the upright posture and its maintenance. Another part of the brain which also would have undergone an early change are areas associated with the control of voluntary muscular activity which involves part of the cerebral cortex.

In human evolution, from the time of the earliest Homo sapiens the cerebellum has increased in size only to a limited degree. What has, however, increased in size to a tremendous degree is the cerebrum, which is now about ten times the weight of the cerebellum. Therefore, over millions of years, the cerebellum has increased in size only a little and it is doubtful whether it has doubled its size, whereas the cerebrum which can be considered as a counterpart because of the extreme similarity between the two has more than quadrupled in size. The present primates have a cerebellum only several grams smaller than that of the human, whereas their cerebrum is many times smaller than that of humans. Because of these observations and the fact that as such only the cerebrum have achieved differential growth, it is easy to extrapolate that the two parts of the brains in early man were almost of equal size if not absolutely equal.

Our direct physical ancestors therefore most probably had cerebrums and cerebellums of equal sizes. This is proven by the fact that only the cerebrum as such saw a great increase in its size whereas the cerebellum saw an increase to a much smaller extent. Therefore, we had a situation where at the beginning the two parts of the brain were of equal size but with the advent of man a differential growth set in which saw an enormous increase in the size of the cerebrum. It has been shown that this increase is very recent; not lasting more than a few hundred thousand to a few million years. The detailed study of the skull has shown that its growth from the Australopithecus to the present man has only been in the frontal, parietal and temporal areas which would correspond to those areas of the brain which have increased enormously in size. A correspondingly lesser degree of growth can be seen in the occipital area which overlies the cerebellum. Before we go further let us consider some anatomical details and compare the cerebellum with the cerebrum to see whether they are independent but closely related parts of the brain.

The brain, according to contemporary anatomy is divided into

The fore brain, which includes the cerebrum with its hemispheres and a deeper central part called the diencephalon which includes the thalamus and the hypothalamus.
The midbrain which is a small part that serves to connect the fore brain with the hindbrain.
The hind brain, which consists of the pons, medulla oblongata and the cerebellum. The midbrain, the medulla and the pons together form the brainstem.

Anatomically, the cerebrum has two hemispheres just like the cerebellum and it is divided into lobes: the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe and the occipital lobe. Generally speaking, the frontal lobe is said to be responsible for intellectual functions, memory, speech, concentration and the elaboration of thoughts. The parietal lobe is said to control the movements of all the muscles of the body and all the parts of the body is said to be represented in this area, the part of this area for the control of the movement of the hand is particularly well-developed and this is not surprising considering the superior manipulative ability of the hand. This area is said to receive input from all the muscles of the body and as a feedback nerves descend to control the movement of these muscles. The temporal lobes basically control hearing and it also houses the very important Wernicke's area which is a general interpretative area in that all the information from surrounding areas converge here for integration and interpretation. We then have the occipital lobe which is where visual impulses are received and integrated. This area therefore controls vision.

The enormous enlargement of the brain over the recent thousands of years is to be seen in virtually all parts of the brain, especially the frontal, parietal and the temporal areas. This is seen mainly in the multiplication of the cells which is a response to the demands made on these areas. The enlargement of the other lobes is nothing more than a natural response to the enlargement of the area used for thinking which is the frontal lobe and the Wernicke's area in the upper portion of the temporal lobe. The increased demand on this called for a proportional increase in the size of the other parts since these basically belong to the same part of the brain called the cerebrum. The enlargement of the other parts therefore must be seen as being under the control of the frontal lobe and occurred as a response to this. The proof of this is in the fact that there are extensive interconnections between the lobes of the same hemisphere and also between the lobes of the two hemispheres. These extensive interconnections guarantee the passage of information from one part of the hemisphere to the other, thereby facilitating a mutual interdependence.

The cerebellum is also basically divided into two hemispheres similar to what we have with the cerebrum. It is divided into an anterior lobe, a posterior lobe and a flocculonodular lobe. The different parts of the body too are represented in the cerebellum just as we have noted with the cerebrum. What has been discovered so far about the cerebellum is that it is concerned with the control of posture and movement. There are extensive interconnections between the cerebellum and the cerebrum and this would indicate that information constantly passes from one to the other. The cerebrum and the cerebellum are so similar in appearance that many people over the years have generally referred to it as the "small brain". Most of the functions of the cerebellum, however, are not known. Very fine precise movements are known to be controlled by the cerebellum and its damage can lead to widespread lack of co-ordination of movements.

The cerebellum is the spiritual receptive part of the brain which receives impulses from the spirit and passes it on to the cerebrum for further processing. Over the course of hundred of thousands of years this function was neglected through the fall of man and as a result the cerebellum because of evolutionary adaptation to its disuse shrunk progressively in size or even failed to develop altogether while the cerebrum which was constantly in use increased dramatically in size. Since all our decisions were now made without due reference to the spirit which would have brought the cerebellum into play since this was the gateway to it, this implement, the cerebellum was as a consequence deprived of the principal part of its activity and as a consequence naturally had to shrink in size.

If looked at objectively, the cerebellum can be seen to be a brain in its own right having all the properties and the functional capabilities of a full brain. The cerebellum, for example, has more neurons than the cerebrum and has as many foldings as the latter. These are evidences that given the necessary stimulation it could come to grow equally in size to the cerebrum since it has the neuronal capacity for this. Its growth, however, would automatically lead to a relative corresponding decrease in the size of the cerebrum because the latter has only grown at its expense. It failed to grow due to lack of spiritual activity among human beings, instead what we have is a pronounced intellectual activity which is conditioned by the discrepancies in the growth of the two brains. A strong cerebellum would allow spiritual works to be seen on earth because being a bridge to the spirit, it is able to receive from the latter and pass it down to the cerebrum.

From Abd-ru-shin, we read "The specific quality of the cerebellum is needed in order to receive the vibrations of the spirit. It is impossible to bypass it, for the work of the frontal brain is to prepare their transition to the World of Fine Gross Matter, and therefore it is of a quite different and much coarser nature." Further, "The frontal brain is absolutely dependent on the full activity of the cerebellum, to which it stands next in succession according to God's Will, in order to properly fulfil the task assigned to it." A dominant cerebrum, however, allows only intellectual works to be seen and this is the reason we have more of the intellectual works on earth today and has interfered in those things which are basically spiritual-human affairs.

The cerebrum, which is the seat of the intellect has been used to make all kinds of decisions, including not only in earthly but also in spiritual-human matters. This has led to chaos and confusion because the intellect is closely bound up with the physical body which has its origin only on earth and as such would do very well if it were to confine itself to making decisions of an earthly nature, but if it also wants to decide on matters which go beyond the earthly as, for example, human spiritual matters such as the family, religion and so on, it must fail because these belong to the ambit of the other brain, the cerebellum which is able to receive directions for matters of spiritual purport from the spirit itself.

This is indeed a logical and natural arrangement and the rightness of it must convince him who gives these matters a little thought. We are therefore given an intellectual brain on the one hand and a spiritual brain on the other and the two brains according to Abd-ru-shin "should have been developed absolutely equally, for joint harmonious activity". The cerebrum has convolutions which are foldings, the cerebellum too has these same convolutions; the cerebrum has two hemispheres, the cerebellum has the same; the cerebrum has all parts of the body represented on it, the cerebellum has the same and when looked at closely it has all the characteristics of a shrivelled brain. This has happened through thousands of years of disuse. In summary, what we have is a cerebrum that has outpaced the cerebellum in growth since the fall of man which was an event that occurred many thousands of years ago.

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