Machinery of the Mind, part 1 - Dion Fortune

 

Introduction

Originally given as a popular lecture course, this little book does not pretend to be a contribution to the formidable array of psychological literature. It is intended for those who have neither the time nor the training necessary to assimilate the standard works on the subject, but who want to know its elements; and to understand the principles on which our characters are formed and the means by which the process of thought is carried on, not so much from the scholastic point of view, as in relation to the problems of everyday life. It is hoped that many will find herein the key to things that have puzzled them in their own natures, for only those who hold such unsolved problems in their hearts can know how crippling and tormenting they are.This book does not aim so much at an orderly setting forth of the elements of psychology as at planting certain fundamental concepts in untrained minds so that they may serve as a basis for future studies. To this end the writer has adopted a pictorial, almost diagrammatic method of presentation in order that a framework of general ideas may be formed into which details may subsequently be fitted, having found this to be the best way to convey novel concepts to minds untrained in metaphysical subtleties.The teachings of no special school of psychology are adhered to; the writer is indebted to all, but loyal to none, holding that in the absence of any accepted standard of authority in psychological science each student must review the doctrines offered for his adherence in the light of his own experience.This book is essentially practical in aim, written in response to a practical need. In her experience of remedial psychology, the writer saw that many cases of mental and nervous trouble would never have developed if their victims had had an elementary knowledge of the workings of the mind; she also found that many patients required nothing but an explanation of these principles to put them on the road to recovery, and that even when more than this was needed to effect a cure, such a knowledge greatly expedited the treatment by enabling the patient to co-operate intelligently.So far as she is aware, there is no book that deals with psychopathology, not from the point of view of the student, but from that of the patient who needs an elementary knowledge of the laws of the mind in order to enable him to think hygienically. This book is written to fulfill that need; it is not only applicable, however, to those who are sick in mind or estate, but to those also who desire to develop their latent capacities by means of the practical application of the laws of thought and character.

Chapter 1: The Physical Vehicle of Consciousness

In order to arrive at an adequate understanding of mental processes it is necessary to have some idea of the machinery whereby the mind makes contact with the body.Throughout every inch of our organism is a network of specialized fibers whose function it is to carry nervous impulses from the sense organs to the central nervous system of brain and spinal cord, and from thence out again to the muscles, glands, and other organs of reaction. The sense organs act as receivers of sensation, the nerve fibers as transmitters, the central nervous system as a general telephone exchange, and the muscles, glands, and organs as the executants of the impulses of the mind.Sense organs consist of cells, or sets of cells, specialized for the reception of particular kinds of impressions. That is to say, if the particular kind of stimulus they are fitted to receive is administered to them, a change, probably of a chemical type, takes place in their substance, which, it is thought, gives rise to energy of an electrical nature, which runs along the nerve fiber as along a wire. At the present moment, however, our knowledge of the nature of the nervous impulse is tentative and hypothetical.Like all other living tissue, the nervous system is built up of millions of specialized cells. These cells consist of a main cell body with prolongations, usually two in number. One of these has a mass of branching fibers like the root of a plant, and is called the DENDR0N; the other consists of a long thread, the end of which is frayed out into strands as the end of a piece of worsted may be unraveled. This process is called the AXON.The thread-like branches of the axon of one cell interlace with these of the dendron of another cell, and a nervous impulse, running down the nerve fibers, jumps the gap in the same way as the electric current jumps the space between the terminals of an arc lamp.It will readily be seen that these interlacing fibrils, millions in number, ramifying throughout every portion of the body, form a most wonderful system of communication; the brain and spinal cord acting as a central telephone exchange.Muscles are composed of long, spindle-shaped cells which are capable of contraction. Chemical changes are constantly going on in their substance. The blood and lymph which bathe them bring food materials and carry away the waste products of their activity.These food substances, which are highly organized chemical compounds, are stored in the body of the cell. When a nervous impulse is received, these food globules, as it were, explode; that is to say, they break down into their component chemical parts, and the energy which went to build them up is set free in the process and performs the work for which the muscle is designed.The glands are the chemists of the body, and in the crucibles of their minute cells carry out the wonderful processes of living chemistry upon which our vital functions are based. The quantity and quality of their output is controlled by the nervous system, which acts as regulator of every process of the body.

Chapter 2: The Evolution of the Nervous System

The easiest way to grasp the organization of our complex nervous structure is to study its evolution from its humble beginnings in the simplest forms of life.In single-celled animalculæ, the most primitive type of living creatures, a single cell performs all the functions of life; it moves, breathes, assimilates, excretes, and feels. With the development of multicellular organisms, however, different cells are given different work to do, and made to do that, and nothing else.It then becomes necessary that co-ordination should be maintained between the sense organs that perceive the prey and the muscles that move to its capture, and for this purpose other cells are told off to specialize in communication.Thus it will be seen that the functional unit of the nervous system is not the nerve cell, but what is called the SENSORI-MOTOR ARC, consisting of a nerve carrying the incoming sensation from a sense organ and making contact with another nerve which carries the outgoing impulse to a muscle or organ.When a multiplicity of muscles becomes available for movement, it is necessary to further link up the sensori-motor arcs, so that other parts of the structure may be brought into play, and the response not be confined to one muscle alone; so nerve cells form loops upon the arcs, and loops upon the loops, with further intercommunications among themselves, the organization becoming more and more elaborate, admitting of more and more complex reactions to stimulus, till finally the wonderful complications of the human brain are achieved.

Chapter 3: How an Idea Enters the Mind

When an impression is made on a sense organ, the sensation derived from it is telegraphed up the connecting nerve fiber to the brain, and there translated, by a process of which we know nothing, from a sensation to a thought.We believe that the mind learns by experience to associate certain kinds of sensation with certain objects or conditions in the environment, and when it feels these particular sensations, deduces that certain objects are present, and forms mental images, or thought models, intended to represent these objects.The truth of our percepts is determined by the closeness with which our thought model corresponds to its original. An exact copy is a true concept, an imperfect copy an inaccurate concept.We “recognize” an object by a process of classification, noting its likeness or unlikeness to other objects already known. When an unfamiliar object attracts our attention, we put it through a process of comparison until we find to which compartment in our concept-pictures it should be assigned, and if we cannot find a perfect match, we put it in the most suitable compartment we can discover, and then partition off a little subclass for it, thus admitting its identity in essentials, but its difference in details from the other occupants of that compartment. For example, supposing we were to land on an island and an object on the shore attracted our attention, we should try to see what class of things of which we already had experience it most closely resembled. We should observe its movements, and assign it to the class of living creatures; see its four limbs and hair, and conclude it was an animal. Note its upright attitude, clothes, and weapons, and recognize these as characteristic of humanity; but perceiving that its skin differed in color from that of any human being we had ever seen before, we should partition off a fresh subdivision in the department of our mind in which our ideas connected with humanity were stored, place it there, and probably give it a distinguishing name by means of which we could indicate it to other human beings.Supposing, however, we presently come across another object of the same nature, we should not have to make a fresh subdivision for it, but would classify it with the previously examined specimen, and thus we should feel this time that we “knew what it was.” In fact, the process of “knowing” is a process of classification, and we feel that we “know ” a thing when we have assigned it to a satisfactory pigeon-hole among our concepts.

~ by occult texts on October 24, 2007.