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Indelible
Records of the Soul’s Evolution
Renato
Costa
Published on the RIE
Model
proposed by American neurologist Paul MacLean helps us to understand
our history
The
American neurologist Paul MacLean has theorized that our brain
mirrors its evolution throughout the ages.
MacLean believes that our skull contains not one but three brains,
each of them being the record of a different stage of our evolution.
He calls his paradigm “The Triune Brain.”
According to him, the three brains operate like interconnected
biological computers, each with its own special intelligence, its
own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space and its own
memory. Each of the three brains is connected to the other two but
operates as an individual brain with its own capacity.
The oldest of the three brains is situated in the core layer. The
most recent is the outermost layer. The intermediate is the middle
layer.
The oldest of the three is the reptilian, primitive or archipallium
brain, which MacLean also calls the “R-complex”. It corresponds
to the brain stem (midbrain, pons and medulla) and the cerebellum.
It is responsible for the self-preservation processes, like
respiration, heart beating and sleep, as well as for the
unchangeable rituals of approaching, attacking, flight and mating.
None of those processes require conscious control but they are
essential to the animal’s life as can be shown by the fact that
the reptilian brain never stops working not even during deep sleep.
The reptilian brain never changes and never learns from experience.
It is almost identical to the brain of present day reptiles, having
been present in the reptiles that preceded the first mammals about
240 million years ago. The reptilian brain responds to the
mechanical, purely instinctive behavior.
Most mammals share with us the paleomammalian (old mammalian) brain,
which corresponds to the limbic system, the middle part of the
brain. MacLean believes that it appeared after the reptilian brain
and was added to it at about 60 million years ago. Primitive mammals
had a brain that was basically the reptilian brain plus the limbic
system. The paleomammalian brain contains the hypothalamus, the
thalamus, the hippocampus and the amygdala, which are considered
responsible for emotions and emotional instincts like behaviors
associated to feeding, competition and sex. Such emotions are
important to the survival of the animal and its species. The
paleomammalian brain is able to learn since it keeps memories of
emotions that result from experiences where the animal felt pleasure
or pain with more or less intensity. The paleomammalian brain is
responsible for the emotional behavior.
The cerebrum, neocortex, cortex or neopalium is the main brain of
the primates, which were among the latest mammals to appear. It
represents about five-sixths of the human brain, having evolved
along the last million years. MacLean calls it the neomammalian (new
mammal) brain. All mammals have neocortex but it is particularly
important only in primates and cetaceans. The neomammalian brain is
responsible for the noblest cognitive functions, like language and
reasoning. The neocortex corresponds to the rational behavior.
As we have seen, all three brains act together to produce the
behavior of the mammals and of man in particular, which, according
to circumstances, can be predominately mechanical, emotional or
rational.
In order to better understand to what extent MacLean’s theory says
about the soul’s evolution, we must have in mind the organizing
function of the perispirit (subtle body). This subtle body we have,
which, added to the soul, from which it never moves apart, form the
Spirit, functions as a wonderful transpersonal memory keeping record
of all the events lived by the being in its innumerous physical
lives and of the effects of those events according to the Law of
Causality.
Being so, if we find a reptilian brain in the physical brain that
means that there is a reptilian subtle brain in the perispirit
serving as its model. Furthermore, that reptilian subtle brain
present in the perispirit is the indelible record of the soul’s
history.
Following this line of thought we could ask, if one is to accept the
hypothesis of man’s evolution coming from a lower realm species,
why shouldn’t the record of other species previous to a reptile be
present in the human brain. The answer to that question can be
found, to our view, in the thesis presented by André Luiz and
developed by Jorge Andréa, according to which individuality is
defined when the first cells of the pineal gland start to show up in
an animal.
Many fish, all reptiles, birds and mammals that live today have a
pineal gland. Such however may have not been true 240 million years
ago in the Mezozoic Era, when scientists believe reptiles originated
the first mammals. The Tuatara is a small reptile living nowadays in
some islands north of
New Zealand
, which has a third eye linked to its
primitive pineal gland. The Tuatara is a living fossil belonging to
a family that existed during the Mezozoic Era, making it possible
for us to infer, if we use the thesis proposed by Jorge Andréa,
that the reptiles from which mammals originated had a pineal gland
about as primitive as it has. Furthermore, it allows us to conclude
that no species in the evolution history of those reptiles before
they became reptiles had a pineal gland at all.
Before the pineal gland was present in the animal, as Jorge Andréa
explains, the soul-group-of-the-species dominated over the incipient
individual vortexes. So, it is natural that events previous to the
moment the individuality was established had to be recorded in the
organizing model of the soul-group of the species from which the
individuality would originate. This explains why there is no record
of them in the present triune brain.
As we have seen, the model proposed by MacLean is rather elegant and
useful, serving to explain, in a clear and didactic way, how human
evolution occurred, from the most primitive instincts of an
autonomous life to the use of mind’s noblest functions, reason and
consciousness, passing by the intermediate stage of learning in
order to adapt to the environment. Another interesting
characteristic of MacLean’s model is that it allows us to imagine
the appearance of new layers in our brain, as we further climb the
steps that lead us to perfection.
When we reach the next stage, as occurred at previous transitions,
the brain we now call neomammalian no longer will be responsible for
mind’s noblest functions. Such noble functions, which will
certainly no longer be the same that we call “noble” nowadays,
will be processed in the new layers that will appear.That view seems
compatible with the fact that highly evolved Spirits are incapable
of doing bad deeds. Maybe the fact that they only do good deeds only
reflects what has come to be an instinctive behavior. Unfortunately
Science never bothered to examine the brain of saints, dedicating
only to study the brains of important politicians, artists or
scientists. Would examining the brain of Saint Theresa D’Avilla,
the Mahatma Ghandi or Chico Xavier have revealed the existence of a
tetraune brain? Would it have revealed a triune brain having 7 and
not 6 layers in its neocortex? Those are questions whose answers we
still ignore.
The
author is an engineer and a spiritist lecturer in Rio de Janeiro/RJ
Bibliography
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MILLER, Richard Alan. The Biological Function of the Third Eye.
February 2003. www.bleehoney.org/ThirdEye.htm
SCARUFFI, Piero. Book review of Paul MacLean’s The Triune Brain in
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