The Fate of Mankind
Chapter 19
The brain is not the ultimate seat for sensory perception
As I have said above, the total physical experience of the individual occurs through an interplay of the six bodies of manifestation of the I. Of these the sixth constitutes that one in which memory has its seat. He must of course understand that memory is definitely not situated in the physical brain, as is generally assumed. It is true that there are centres in the brain for this as well as for all the other spiritual faculties, but these are not in any case whatsoever the ultimate seat for the above-mentioned faculties, but constitute, on the contrary, micro-organs for the transformation or metamorphosis of physical energy into spiritual energy. Spiritual energy is in turn, from a physical point of view, the same as "electrical" energy. And under this form all physical energy passes into the spiritual bodies, which are all, without exception, of an electrical nature and can be connected to the I only through this nature. That this is indeed the case makes itself known, among other ways, by the fact that all physical sensory organs, such as sight, hearing, sense of smell and so on, are each connected to the brain by a nerve. If this is cut the physical reaction in the organs take place, that is, the formation of the images on the retina of the eye and the effect of sound on the eardrum and so on still occur, but the individual experiences no sensory perception through the organ in question. As the opposite is most certainly the case when the nerve is not cut, it is thus a fact that the reactions travel in from the organs through the nerve. The nerve is thus identical to a wire for carrying energy. But an energy that can travel along a solid wire can only be of an electrical nature, which, as stated above, in the absolute sense means a spiritual nature. From the organs the physical effects on the senses in the form of electrical waves are carried from the nerves to the brain and from there further transferred to the special spiritual bodies in the total structure of the I to which they belong. Only then do the reactions turn into the experience of life for the individual.