Summary of The Subtle Body ||
Part II: Human Anatomy
(7.) The Nervous System
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Cyndi Dale continues the encyclopedia with addressing how the physical body is like the subtle body as it is also composed of energies. Dale describes how we see ourselves in a physical aspect, which is made of slow moving particles that we can see, touch, hear, and sense. This part of the encyclopedia acknowledges how the body is not only made of flesh and blood of the physical, but it the body is made of light that is actually invisible to our eyes. The energies that compose the physical body and move slower with a lesser intensity and vibration, and this is primary focus of part two exploring the major physical systems that make-up the human body. It is intended to offer a basic grounding into our anatomical structures and processes, while beginning to investigate the energetic nature of the human body.
Biochemistry of Emotions and Endocrine Glands
'It's all in your head.' A common phrase that has subjected us to an unknowing realization of the difference between feelings and emotions. Since the 1990s, researcher Daniel G. Amen, MD, used a brainscanning machine called SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography). SPECT measured cerebral blood flow and metabolic activity patterns. Cydni Dale offers background about how Dr. Amen's work has revealed that specific brain patterns correlate with distractibility, obsessiveness, depression, violence, and other emotional issues. The deep limbic system has become the focus by energy healers for understanding brain patterns and emotional states.
Dale states how the limbic system governs our ability to bond, which operates as a "mood control center." The limbic system is the size of a walnut and the system includes the hypothalamus, thalamic structures, and the surrounding structures. "Amen has discovered that this portion the brain manages emotional memories, emotional coloring, appetite and sleep cycles, and libido; it sets emotional tone, whether positive or negative" (Dale 2009, p. 57). With his discovery, Dr. Amen determined that when the system is more actie, the more negative an individual's outlook. Further, the less active the system, the more positive an individual's attitude. Overall, Dr. Amen's knowledge offered a conceptual framework for future pioneers to gather information about the science of emotions in the body.
The Biochemical Side of Emotions
The defining of emotions has become a focus for energy healers in order to understand the science of how humans experience the sensory and subtle body. "On one level, emotions are not 'feelings'; they are streams of biochemical properties that interact with the brain, producing feelings" (Dale 2009, p. 57). While addressing a variation between feelings and emotions, pioneers of energy and energy healing have developed individual perspectives about the conceptions of the head and heart.
Dale introduces research by Candice Pert, PhD, author of Molecules of Emotion. Dr. Pert's research demonstrates that internal chemicals (such as neuropeptides and their receptors) are the "biological underpinnings of our awareness, manifesting as our emotions, beliefs, and expectations" (ibid. 2009, p. 57). As a means to simplify the neurological framework of Dr. Pert's research, Dale defines biological terms:
- Receptors: molecules made up of proteins
- Ligands: substances that bind to receptors on the cell surface
1. Neurotransmitters (such as histamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine)
2. Steroids (sex hormones testosterone, progesterone, and estrogen)
3. Peptides (made up of strings of amino acids)
- Peptides: informational substances that make-up most of the body's ligands
Dr. Pert's research particularly involves neuropeptide receptors, which are molecules that function as scanners, i.e. "sensing molecules," that hover in cell membranes. Neuropeptides are small peptides that are active within neural tissue and polypeptides are larger, which contain about ten to one hundred amino acids. "Pert uses the analogy of cells as the engine and receptors as buttons on the control panel. Ligands act as fingers that push the button to start the engine" (2009, p. 58). This analogy has allowed scholars and healers to understand the process of the physical elements of emotions. The relationship between molecules and substances are important to understand how the physical and subtlye body relate with each other.
The study of emotions in Dr. Pert's research has offered knowledge about how neuropeptides and peptide ligands influence the way we experience and respond to our world. She found that emotions are "carried around the body by peptide ligands and that change cells' chemical properties by binding the receptor sites located on the cells" (ibid., p. 59). Since they also carry electrical charges, they change the electrical frequency of the cells. According to Dr. Pert, the brain constantly transmits and receives electoral signals as a form of vibrations. Therefore, our experience of feelings is understood as "vibrational dance," which occurs when peptides bind to receptors, allowing the brain to interpret different vibrations as differing feelings.
Dale continues with describing how certain cells become "addicted" when it comes to certain ligands. "If we have been angry a long time, cellular receptors learn to accept only the 'angry vibrations' and reject those that might cause happiness" (ibid.). This idea has led many holistic practitioners to believe that cells can actually reject ligands and healthy nutrients, prefering instead negative ones. Therefore, Dale and other energy healers suggest that the process of generating negative emotions can led tomood disorders and other illnesses. The question of how these illiness can be treated and progessively healed is a topic that is very important to consider in relation to the endocrined system, as explored in the next section.
The Electromagnetic Properties of the Pineal and Pituitary Glands
The body emits heat, light, sound, and electromagnetic fields which have a gravitational field like all other matter. Dale focuses on two dominant glands in the endocrine system, which have demonstrated that "the body is a source of electromagnetism, producing effects ranging from 'tuning in' to the environment to 'tuning in' to the paranormal...reveal[ing] the surprising importance of magnetism to the body" (2009, p. 59). This has led to new discoveries about the magentic properties of the body and particularly how the heart emits electromagnetic fields.
Measuring the magnetic body has offered a large amount of knowledge about emissions from organs and endocrine glands. During the late 1960s, the fields emitted by the heart were being measured in numerous labs. Physicist David Cohen drew from research dating back from 1929, which allowled him to measure the fields that are produced by electrical activities particularly of the brain. This was pioneering research that measured the brain in this way for the first time, which was aided by an extremely sensitive magnetism dector. The magnetic fields produced by electrical activites were ultimately measured by a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID).
By the early 1970s, scholars and researchers were starting to understand and record the magnetic fields that resonate from other bodily organs. With a focus on studying electrial activitty, more recently the magnetoencephalogram (MEG) has been considered to be a more accurate method of measuring electrical activites in the brain. This is because magentic fields pass through the brain and skull undistorted, unlike electrical signals via cerebrospinal fluid. The magentic field around the around the heart is considered to be the strongest, but the field around the human head is also pulsing. Dale states are there seems to be a reason for this, which she explores during the following discussion on the pineal and pituitary glands.
THE PITUITARY GLAND
This is a key gland to the endocrine system. The pituitary gland stores hormones and works with a portion of the brain known as the hypothalamus, as a means to fire off a large amount of physical actions. This gland contains magnetite which scientists have known to be a magnetically sensitive compound of oxygen and iron. This compound exists in animals, and living creatures from bacteria to mammals. Dale states how magnetite assists birds in migration when "finding north," while healing homing pigeons when finding their way home.
In the 1990s, scientists used high-resolution transmission electron microscopy to study magnetite crystals in humans. Scientists focused on a group of nerves that are in front of the pituitary gland and also behind the ethmoid sinus, which is a perforated bone in the skull, forming specific parts of the eye socket and nasal cavity. This cluster of crystals help to explain a complex magnetic field that resonates around the head. The SQUID machine had detected these magnetite crystals, which allowed for a possible explanation to our sensitivity to magentic fields; this occurs whether the fields emanate from skies, the earth, or other people.
THE PINEAL GLAND
This gland serves as an electromagentic sensor which regulates all kinds of states, such as mood or ESP as Dale explains. The pineal gland prodcues melatonin, which is known to regulate sleep. Researchers Peretz Lavie and Iris Haimov found that when individuals have a dysfunctional pineal gland they have a challenging time sensing and relaying information via the electromagentic fields. This of course then creates great difficulty falling asleep and other help problems that are associated with a daily cycle.
Dale associates the the pineal gland with the seventh chakra, while other healers have associated this gland with the sixth chakra. The seventh chakra is known as a plane of consciousness and represnts an opening to divine energies. Dale states: "It is also the endocrine gland associate with the rising of the kundalini—a spiritualization process involved in chakra work. The pineal gland's role in enlightenment is tied to biochemical and electromagnetic interactions" (2009, p. 61).
Biochemically, this endocrine gland orchestrates a "pecking order" of steps, which involves synthesis from an amino acid known as tryptophan. This amino acid interacts with substances during the presence of light on several stages of the synthesis. Dale places the order of the orchestration as sequenced: "tryptophan, serotonin, melatonin, pinoline, 5-methoxy-dimethyl-tryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), and dimethyltryptamine (DMT)" (ibid., 61). These chemicals all play a role in the process of bodily functions that allow for a balance in the energies.
Tryptophan, as an essential amino acid, is found within most protein-based foods and dietary proteins. Melatonin is made at night and regulates circadian rhythm. Serotonin is made during the day, as a neurotransmitter that regulares body temperature, appetite, emotions, and sleep. Pinoline is a neurochemical, which is implicated in consciousness. 5-MeO-DMT is a psychedlic tryptamine and is found in plants, seeds, bark resin, and certain toad venom. DMT is both a naturally occurring neurotransmitter and tryptamine.
These chemicals have been linked to mystical and psychic experience by a portion of the scientific and spiritual community. Serena M. Roney-Dougal, PhD, of the Psi Research Centre in Glastonbury, England, presented a body of anthropological and neurochemical evidence that suggest the pineal gland as producing pinoline; this is may enhance a psychic-conductive state of consciousness. Pinoline is theorized to act on serotonin as a means to trigger dreaming. With this in mind, it has hallucinogenic properties. Pinoline's chemical structure is found to be similar to chemicals that are in a psychotropic plant within the Amazon Rainforest. Further studies have suggested that the dream state is when we are more likely to have anomalous psychic experiences.
Lastly, DMT is refered to as the "spirit molecule," due to its potiental to produce psychedelic states that are generated by the pineal gland. Among other researchers, Dr. Rick Strassman suggest that during specific conditions, like a near-death experience, certain meditative states, or the use of shamanic psychedlics, the pineal gland is likely tp produce DMT. This is believed to lift us to different states of consciousness; thus, these and other studies regarding the pineal gland have focused on the idea of connecting with spirit. Dale concludes this section with stating how these studies suggest that the pineal gland is truly the "spirit gland," as it is considered to be within various mystical schools.
References:
Dale, Cydni. (2009). "Human Energy Fields." The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, Part III, chapter 27. Publisher: Sounds True.
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