Book Two Chapter Five

FIVE

Ups and Downs

We are familiar with dualities in our physical realm; indeed, we are familiar with the duality that each of us is, in ourselves. For we know that the condition of the body affects the condition of the mind, and in no less degree or fashion, the condition of the mind affects the condition of the body. Similarly, the mind and body taken as a whole are affected by the soul, and vice versa. I have often thought of the mind as a two-way street. The physical/emotional traffic passes from the brain to the mind. The spiritual/creative traffic passes from the mind to the brain. There is an interaction between our brains and our minds that we would be hard-pressed to do without.

In all of our physical world, we find ‘sets of three’. Such a set consists of two equalities, and the interaction, or unanimity, that connects them. Examples: legs, arms, feet, hands, eyes, seeds, directions, the brain itself. If we are appended to a spiritual counterpart, then the mind may be the brain within our angelic other.

The investigation of spirituality must necessarily examine the nature of things mental. The question must be asked: does mentality rightfully fall within the corporeal or the spiritual realm? My investigations into the word of God have shown a marked affinity between spiritual and mental

mechanisms.

See, for example, Joel 2:28, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”

The saturation of the corporeal with the spiritual, as mentioned in Joel, may well speak of a better connection between the brain and the mind, for all the activities listed above employ some degree of conscious or unconscious mentality. In such activities, the mind leads and the brain follows suit. Furthermore, these activities are not the result of our natural state but are the result of augmentation.

See John 20:22, “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”

Presently, corporeal proof of spiritual connections is, at best, a mixed bag. People identify themselves with solid flesh; the workings of both thought and emotion seem a real extension of a real body. Evidence that does not fall within the boundaries of preconception does not always count for proof. We notice, for instance, that even when looking directly at a spiritual event, the Hebrews still had to be ‘sold’ on the experience. Much of the Old Testament is like having to explain the punch line of a joke.

The Hebrews just didn’t get it. Evidence being explained is seen in Deuteronomy 11:2, “And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, and His stretched out arm.”

Now notice the things that people will notice, and this may explain God’s salesmanship, in Isaiah 26:11, “Lord, when Thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of Thine enemies shall devour them.”

In personal relations between two individuals, spiritual events are often a cause for misunderstanding. A person will do or say something totally off the wall; he or she will take our sense of the natural order of things and just toss it out the window. We will ask ourselves: “Where’d that come from?”

Spirit is invisible; proofs of it are meager. It takes a trained eye to discern it.

Jesus gave this explanation in John 3:8, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

It is much like hearing a foreign language: you hear the man speak, but you don’t know where he’s coming from, and you certainly don’t know where he’s going with all his jabber. To you, it is only a noise; and while the net result is irritability, a connection of a mental order has been made. You recognized the noise as a language, an attempt at communication.

I have set forth a model of the fulcrum theory, but I have done so mainly from the mechanical point of view. I have added the extra dimension of the ‘fulcrum effect’ in that the gain in one is a loss in the other. I have reiterated that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The representation is of the crossbar of a scale: a line that can be either even, or up on one end and down

on the other. In the image of a scale, the plates, or weight trays are opposing. The connection between them is a simple pivot, or fulcrum, that allows mobility. There is a mobility of the scale upon which ‘mind’ and ‘brain’ are weighted trays.

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, “he’s got a lot on his plate.” Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, “heavy traffic.” In our total make-up, the brain (our corporeal identity) is a plate hanging on one end of a scale. On the opposing end hangs the plate of the mind (our spiritual identity). The crossbar is the two-way traffic.

See Psalms 147:6, “The Lord lifteth up the meek: He casteth the wicked down to the ground.”

When I look at this verse, I see the mind of the meek and the brain of the wicked. I take note of the heavy traffic on either end. When the brain of the proud man is exalted, the mind of the meek man is low over on the spiritual side. When this occurs, God makes a correction that exalts the mind of the meek. The result is that the proud and the lofty on this plane come crashing down. It is an adjustment; it is an action initiated on the spiritual plane that has an effect on corporeality.

See Isaiah 2:12, “For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.”

The application of the brain in corporeal man is never without the concomitant issuance of mentality in the spiritual counterpart. But corporeal man may aggressively acquire and manipulate the spiritual mind, without understanding, and call it his own. He may use spirituality blindly, calling it a function of the brain. In doing so the man says, “By the chemical reactions and the firing of synapses in my brain, I and I alone have done such and such.” The spiritual/corporeal handshake becomes a thing out of balance wherein the mind is held captive to the will of corporeal man, who, in his richly exalted state, has cast his higher self into the dust of a Lazarus.

See Ezekiel 28:5, “By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart (will) is lifted up because of thy riches.”

In the above-cited verse, we see the corporeal identity (the ‘heart’) exalted through limited, though lucrative, application. It is like the man who learns Kung Fu only for violence, wholly disregarding the deeper disciplines. He may call himself a master, but he has only usurped the title. Likewise in corporeal man, there are states of exaltation that attempt to usurp God’s place. Corporeal man, even when not directly making the claim, nonetheless claims indirectly that he is ‘equal to or greater than’. I am of course contrasting the corporeal ‘brain’ with the spiritual ‘mind’, the use of either term being equal to the use of the older term ‘heart’.

In the next verse, one initially sees the use of two separate and distinct terms. That was something we just had to accept and deal with when our tools were more primitive. But now we know that in the old usage, heart and mind were interchangeable. Replace ‘heart’ with ‘mind’ in the next reference, and it becomes clear that the writing style simply followed the poetic style of repetition as found in Psalms.

Daniel 5:20, “But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.”

It is the same identity, but the second phrase simply further explains the first phrase. When God created man, it is said that a “living soul” was created. That may well reference the connection between corporeal and spiritual. Man started with a body and a brain, then spirituality was added.

See back to John 20:22 for the receiving of spirituality by breath. If it may be asserted that man’s body houses his brain, what then may we assert to be the spiritual counterpart housing the mind? Might not that spiritual body be the soul? Our corporeal identity, you may be sure, is much more than the brain; that identity includes the body into a more or less whole sense of self. However, any sense of spiritual self (as being whole) must necessarily come through the sense of a higher corporeal self: the corporeal identity plus. In the next reference, the sense of a spiritual wholeness is viewed as more the ‘blade’ than the ‘full corn in the ear’. Even so, we may see that a wrongness on our plane incurs a concomitant wrongness on the other plane.

Habakkuk 2:4, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.”

By that, we more easily understand our spiritual condition.

See James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.”

I have put forth that the fall of man is an adjustment whereby God exalts our spiritual identity. However, when we, as corporeal beings, have been taken behind the woodshed to be punished for our grandiose usurpations, seeing our lowered state, we may only be aware of the smarting of our newly boxed ears. At that point, a reciprocal adjustment may be indicated. For, if a wrongness on our plane incurs a concomitant wrongness on the other plane, then also, a righting or a correction on that other plane should incur a righting on our plane.

See Job 22:29, “When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and He shall save the humble person.”

The spiritual/corporeal handshake may then be seen as the reciprocal adjustments that are made when the corporeal brain follows suit with the spiritual mind. If, when looking into the mirror, you frown, you get a frown back; but when you smile, you get a smile back.

Note reciprocity in Zechariah 1:3, “Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto Me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Of mental states and spiritual states, there is a definite connection. When I think of connections, I think of transit terminals that provide ‘connections to’. I can think of the mezzanine in a department store with escalator connections to the first and second floors. But a clearer image for me is of two lava lamps. One is on the corporeal plane and one is on the spiritual plane. The connection is a linear orientation of the one to the other: on at least one level, our rising is their settling. However, it may well be that we could not be raised up at all but for the power within the opposing exalted state. If you place a large resting pillar between two upright pillars, the reclining pillar may then be winched upright.

For an indication of such, see James 5:15, “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

Of course, we are looking at the opposing sides of the interface: the spiritual and corporeal.

For that, see John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the

Spirit is spirit.”

But, we are also looking at a real link between the physical and the spiritual.

For that, see James 2:20, “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?”

No verse states more clearly spirituality’s need for corporeality, or corporeality’s need for spirituality than James 2:20. The handshake is a union; it is a marriage. We may imagine ‘mind’ as the groom, and ‘brain’ as the bride. The fruit of that union will draw from the best of both. If the handshake should turn into a kiss; if the connection between spirit and flesh be toward a relational union, then the mind must be up and the brain must be submissive.