by David Icke

May 2000

from DavidIcke Website

recovered through WayBackMachine Website

Spanish version
 

 

 

The Reptilian Brain.

The Key to Understand The Illuminati

and the World We line In?

"To know the Illuminati, Mr. David,

you must study the Reptile"

Credo Mutwa

 

 


I had a message from someone recently claiming that what I say about humans having a reptilian brain is not true. In fact it was one of the most provable pieces of information I have written, as anyone who studies the brain will confirm.

But I thank the questioner because it prompted me to put together this package of information which not only shows that the reptilian brain exists - but also how vital it is to the manipulation of the world by the Illuminati-reptilian bloodlines.

 

As Credo Mutwa, the Zulu shaman, told me:

"To know the Illuminati, Mr. David, you must study the reptile."

It is important for people to know the basics about the reptilian brain because it,

(a) reveals where the character and attitudes of the Illuminati come from

(b) how and why we are manipulated mentally and emotionally in the way that we are through television and other imagery

It is to do with the manipulation of the reptilian part of the human brain.

There are three articles detailing the reptilian brain presented for you here… and my comments are in (italics.)

 

 

 

 

THE REPTILIAN BRAIN

 

Now we go below the surface "reality" of the neocortex and into parts of our brains which are still a great mystery to the infant "upstairs."

 

These intelligence centers have enabled life to survive in varied forms for millions of years. They are not to be discounted even if they don’t speak the language of the neocortex.

Again, I will be general.

 

The reptilian brain is the most ancient of the brains. It has two hemispheres, just like the neocortex, and it may be that they relate functionally to the left and right hemispheres of the neocortex.

 

The reptilian brain consists of the upper part of the spinal cord and the basal ganglia, the diencephalon, and parts of the midbrain - all of which sits atop the spinal column like a knob in the middle of our heads.

It is thought to represent a fundamental core of the nervous system and derives from a form of mammal-like reptile that once ranged widely over the world but disappeared during the Triassic period having provided the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and mammals. All modern mammals have this reptilian complex, including humans.
 


(It was the interbreeding or fusing of reptilian DNA to mammal DNA which created the Illuminati reptilian-human hybrid bloodlines and allows the "purest" of this breed to move between human and reptilian form.)
 


First and foremost among the traits generated through the reptilian brain is the drive to establish and defend territory. This is fueled by an extremely potent "will-to-power", exemplified among lizards by the ritual behavior of two rainbow lizards competing for dominance. These animals have beautiful colors and like many lizards, use headbobbing and pushups in assertive, aggressive, courtship and greeting displays.

 

In a contest, once the gauntlet is thrown down, the aggressive displays give way to violent combat, and the struggle is unrelenting. In victory, they are tyrannical dictators in the extreme. In defeat, they lose their majestic colors, lapse into a kind of depression, and die two weeks later.
 


(This is classic Illuminati behaviour. Fighting each other and humanity to the death to impose their will and dominance. Winner takes it all)
 


At least five human behaviors originate in the reptilian brain. These have been denoted as isopraxic, preservative, re-enactment, tropistic, and deceptive.

 

Without defining them, I shall simply say that in human activities they find expression in:

  • obsessive-compulsive behavior

  • personal day-to-day rituals and superstitious acts

  • slavish conformance to old ways of doing things

  • ceremonial re-enactments

  • obeisance to precedent, as in legal, religious, cultural, and other matters

  • responding to partial representations (coloration, "strangeness," etc.), whether alive or inanimate

  • and all manner of deception

 

(If I had to do a quick summary of Illuminati behavior, it would be something like the above - the traits of the reptilian brain. Look at The Biggest Secret, my talk videos, and this website. They expose all of the consequences of this behavior - obsessively, compulsively, advancing their agenda at all costs; the obsession with rituals, ceremony, and symbolism; and…yes, yes… all manner of deception!)
 


All movies and television likely are a projection of the reptilian brain. How so? Movies and television (video games, etc.) are all undeniably dreamlike, not only in their presentation of symbolic-reality, but also in that humans experiencing movies, etc. have the same brain wave patterns as when they are dreaming. And guess where dreaming originates in your head? In the reptilian brain (although other parts of our brains are involved).
 


(The movie and television industry is not only controlled by the reptilian bloodlines, it was created by them in the first place. The Illuminati are controlled by the traits of their reptilian brain and they seek to manipulate humanity through the manipulation and stimulation of the reptilian part of our brain.)
 


The "language" of the reptilian brain is visual imagery. All communications transferred by reptiles are done so by visual symbolic representations, each having specific meaning.
 


(Exactly. And what have I exposed again and again in my books and talks? How the Illuminati communicate with each other and to the human subconscious with endless symbolism and visual codes.)
 


Reptiles do not dream, but animals which have evolved from the reptiles (mammals & birds) do dream. Why? Because the reptilian mind is still operating in them and we humans call that mental state "dreaming." There is no "dreamstate" in reptiles because this mentality is their waking state.

 

It is repressed during our waking hours (but still functioning --- it never sleeps) by chemicals released neocortically--- then the reptilian is allowed to function during sleep and dream, when the left hemisphere is in turn repressed. But obviously, the reptilian brain is not satisfied being relegated to the "nightwatch" of an inert body. It wants far more than that.

Humans invented rituals and ceremonies, and then, theater. Now where do you suppose those revelations came from? Theater, with its famous theorem of the "suspension of disbelief" (which is simply another way of saying, "Put your left brain to sleep.") is a re-invention of the reptilian mental-state "out-there".

 

And of course, now we have excellent duplication of the reptilian mindset with movies and television, etc.--- which by some estimates, occupies up to 16-18 hours of our time per day, when you add in sleep-dream time.

Ritual, ceremony, theater, movies, television, video games, etc.; all of which was created out of the territoriality need-compulsion and the will-to-power of the reptilian brain.
 


(All confirmation that the reptilian part of the human brain is the "battlefield" on which control of our reality and this planet is being contested.)
 


This "territoriality" and "will-to-power" is manifested in a variety of ways in human behavior, as are other reptilian traits. Let me give some examples, though you will soon realize that an abundance of examples is present in our civilization. "He" wants to marry her, and "She" might very well be interested, but they agree that before marriage can be considered, he must have a "good job" with a steady income and a "good future".

 

"They" are rainbow lizards (or any number of other reptiles, birds & mammals) whose "courtship" consists of the male showing his ability to establish and protect a certain "space" before he will be considered a suitable mate... in short, this kind of compulsion/obsession is reptilian, no matter how much rationale the left brain of the neocortex applies to justify it.
 


(On the Leading Edge website, traits and consequences of the reptilian brain are listed as: consume, seek a mate, get married, breed, reproduce, fight, riot, obey, eat, kill, fear, worship, buy, drink, drugs, hate, compete, get more, guilt, sin, don’t cooperate, seek differences, sleep. http://www.trufax.org)
 


As you will see, "territoriality" extends far beyond a patch of earth in humans--- and "will-to-power" has many masks. "Us" attack "Them" because of their skin color. It is the color display that "Us" attack. "Us" are cock lizards (& countless other reptiles). All racism is reptilian.
 


(The Illuminati are obsessed with race and bloodline. This is one reason why they have interbred so obsessively over thousands of years. They are incredibly racist, which is why they are using "population control", famine, war, and disease to attack the populations of non-white countries, and indeed, to undermine the white peoples who are not part of their reptilian genetic network.)
 


"B. All" is attracted to "N. Doll" because "N. Doll" wears red lipstick. When "N. Doll" wears blue lipstick, "B. All" is uninterested. "B. All" is attracted to coloration - but color is not the only physical display involved in this compulsion. It could be any physical characteristic.

 

"B. All" could be addicted to warts. "N. Doll" could be mesmerized by a certain walk.

And what about Mr. "B. All" who digs big breasts and tight buns? Or Miss "N. Doll" who likes big dicks and biceps? They are green anolis lizards who can only respond to some physical display - like a flared collar or a slim chassis. B.

 

All and N. Doll are impotent without a hot mirage in front of their eyes. They can’t get off without Hollywood or Madison Avenue controlling their hormonal traffic; they don’t go cruising, they go vogue-ing. They are into drive-by orgasms. They are turned on and off by traffic lights.

So who’s doing the driving here?

All compulsive reactions of either attraction or aggression based on any physical display or representation is originated in the reptilian brain.


"Goo Rue" lives in a shallow cave on the top of an isolated mountain. "Goo Rue" follows a very simple daily routine from which he never strays. Most of his day is spent in prayer, basking in the radiation of his god (which, being "beyond words," is imaged at his altar as a serpent spiraling up a rod).

 

The rest of "Goo Rue’s" day is spent patiently foraging for food and "living on the moment." Frequently, "Goo" is visited by followers from near-by villages who prostrate themselves before him. "Goo Rue" speaks of "timelessness & body-lessness & regeneration."

 

After eating, or after giving a particularly inspiring speech, "Goo Rue" has uncontrollable sexual urges, of which only young girls of the villages are aware. "Goo Rue" is a Komodo Dragon.

"Double-O-Dahlmer" is cool and emotionless. "Double-O-Dahlmer" is "Goo Rue’s" brother and lives on the flipside of his mountain. "Double-O-Dahlmer" lives in isolation also, and follows a rigid daily routine, which includes stalking and lying in wait for boys who stray from the village.

 

Once his prey is lured to his cave, "Double-O-Dahlmer" feeds his needs by sexually dominating the boys and then mechanically dismembering them. He keeps their body parts in his refrigerator. "Double-O-Dahlmer" is a "cold-blooded, emotionless killer." "Double-O-Dahlmer" is also a Komodo Dragon.

Komodo Dragons are suspected to be the closest of living reptiles that may resemble one of the carnivorous mammal-like reptiles that gave us our proto-reptilian brain. Komodo Dragon hatchlings take to the trees as soon as possible to avoid being cannibalized by adult Dragons. Remember this, for it will take on symbolic meaning later.

All of these behaviors originate in impulses at the reptilian brain or lower in the body, and are modified by the "higher" brains. The reptilian brain is a powerful source of human behavior - primarily because it is hidden. It is deceptive. It is a secret from our conscious. But we do "know" it emotionally, intuitively. It is the slithering serpent in darkness! It is The Unconscious. Zairian saying: "If you kill a snake, you’re still afraid of it."
 


(And this subconscious "secrecy" manifests physically as the Illuminati secrecy which has been unfolding an agenda for thousands of years while the people have remained oblivious of its existence.

 

But because we are in the closing years of the current energy cycle, our sub-conscious is becoming conscious.

 

As it does so, its physical expression (the Illuminati agenda) also becomes conscious and that is one key reason why the agenda is now being exposed for the first time on this scale. It is a process that cannot be stopped.

 

Sorry, Henry, mate, the game is up because the veil is up.)
 


Isopraxic refers to behavior in which two or more individuals engage in the same kind of activity. It cannot be overemphasized that isopraxis is basic to maintaining the identity of a species or a social group. The human fetus is in a perpetual dream-state (reptilian mentality). Newborn babies spend more than half their sleep time in REM dreamstate.

 

In earliest childhood, our mental state is controlled almost completely by the reptilian brain (along with the later evolved paleomammalian brain and the right hemisphere of the neocortex - the left hemisphere is underdeveloped in earliest childhood).
 

 

 

 

There is a striking correlation between penile and clitoral erection during dreamstate, even without sexual dream content. Why? In the reptilian brain, sex and aggression and territoriality are the same.
 


(This is one outstanding reason why the Illuminati are so obsessed with sex and, in particular, violent sex, as exposed in my books and those of victims of this like Cathy O’Brien (Trance Formation Of America), Arizona Wilder (Revelations of a Mother Goddess) and gathering numbers of others.)

 


The following is an explanation of the reptilian brain by Manfred Davidman.

 

A much longer description of brain function by Mr Davidman can be found HERE.
 

Reptilian Brain

 

Innermost in our brain is what is called the reptilian brain, its oldest and most primitive part. The reptilian brain appears to be largely unchanged by evolution and we share it with all other animals which have a backbone.

This reptilian brain controls body functions required for sustaining life such as breathing and body temperature. Reptiles are cold-blooded animals which are warmed by the daylight sun and conserve energy by restricting activities when it is dark. The biological clock (controller) for their activity-rest cycle is located in the eye itself {10}.

At this level of evolution, behavior relating to survival of the species, such as sexual behavior, is instinctive and responses are automatic. Territory is acquired by force and defended. Might is right.
 


(Might is right: The very basic foundation of the attitudes which motivate the actions of the Illuminati).
 



Mammalian Brain

 

Next to evolve from the reptilian brain was the mammalian brain. An enormous change took place as mammals evolved from reptiles, the mammalian brain containing organs {11, 12}:

  • For the automatic control of body functions such as digestion, the fluid balance, body temperature and blood pressure (autonomic nervous system, hypothalamus)

  • For filing new experiences as they happen and so creating a store of experience-based memories (hippocampus)

  • For experience-based recognition of danger and for responding to this according to past experience. And for some conscious feelings about events (amygdala)

To this extent the mammal is more consciously aware of itself in relation to the environment.

 

Millions of neural pathways connect the hippocampal and amygdala structures to the reptilian brain and behavior is less rigidly controlled by instincts. It seems that feelings such as attachment, anger and fear have emerged with associated behavioral response patterns of care, fight or flight. {4}

 


Human Brain

 

And the mammalian brain became the human brain by adding the massive grey matter (neocortex) which envelopes most of the earlier brain and amounts to about 85 per cent of the human brain mass.

This massive addition consists mostly of two hemispheres which are covered by an outer layer and interconnected by a string of nerve fibers. {13}

The brain is actually divided into its ’hemispheres’ by a prominent groove. At the base of this groove lies the thick bundle of nerve fibers which enable these two halves of the brain to communicate with each other.
 


(The aim of the Illuminati-reptilians has been to disconnect as much as possible the functions of these two distinct parts of the brain so we can be manipulated through the right brain while only being conscious of the left.

 

They plant thoughts, responses, and images through the right brain (the dream-state, the non-conscious, through symbolism and subliminal imagery) while imprisoning the human conscious level in the left brain - the world of can I touch it, smell it, taste it, see it, hear it, OK it must exist.

 

This is why the "education" system, and "science" is designed to talk to the left brain. This way, the Illuminati can enter the human brain through the right side, undetected, and these images and subliminals then enter the left brain as conscious, this world, thoughts and reactions, which people take to be their own.

This is why if you look you will find so many words like imagination, imagine, dream, and so on used in advertising of all kinds.

 

They know if they can get you in that right brain non-conscious, day-dream state, they can enter your mind with imagery and then tell your left brain how to decode it into conscious language. i.e. "I want to buy that car", "I think we need to give the police more power to stop crime" , "I need to take Viagra so I can be a proper man", "a world government is what we need."

 

This is why most television programs are about a fantasy world of make-believe in endless forms. It is to open up the unconscious right brain and allow the reptilian brain access through that to the conscious mind.

Music is used in the same way. Nothing wrong with music in itself, of course. As with everything, it is the way it is manipulated that I am talking about. And who controls the music industry? The same people who control Hollywood and the global media in general - the Illuminati. The biggest music operation in the world, for instance, is Universal Music, owned by the Bronfman family of Canada, a major Illuminati family, who are mentioned widely on this site and in my books.)
 


But the left hemisphere usually controls movement and sensation in the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere similarly controls the left side of the body.

 

We saw that with the mammalian brain emerged feelings such as attachment, fear and anger and associated behavioral response patterns. And human emotional responses depend on neuronal pathways which link the right hemisphere to the mammalian brain {4} which in turn is linked to the even older reptilian brain.

Fascinating is the way in which work is divided between the two halves of the brain, their different functions and the way in which they supplement and co-operate with each other.

Most people (about 80 per cent) are right-handed and in the vast majority of right-handed people, the ability to organize speech and the ability to speak are predominantly localized in the left side of the brain.

 

But the right side can understand written and spoken language to some extent at least. {14}

"Appreciating spatial perceptions depends more on the right hemisphere, although there is a left hemisphere contribution. This is especially true when handling objects" {14} and concerning abstract geometric shapes and music.

Roger Sperry, Michael Gazzaniga and their colleagues found that, when presented with a stimulus, both hemispheres were active and could recognize the nature of visual stimuli as well as spoken words.

But while the left hemisphere can express itself by verbally describing a stimulus, the right hemisphere can express itself non-verbally by selecting the matching stimulus. The left hemisphere deals with word choice, rules of grammar, and the meaning of words. The right hemisphere apparently determines the emotional content of speech. {14}

So a general overview of the functional division of activities between the two hemispheres would be:

 

  • Left Hemisphere


    Communicates by using words, has highly developed verbal abilities, is logical and systematic, concerned with matters as they are.
     

  • Right Hemisphere


    Communicates using images (pictures), has highly developed spatial abilities, is intuitive and imaginative, concerned with emotions and feelings.

 

But the two hemispheres are interconnected and communicate, the human mind brings together these abilities and skills into a comprehensive whole whose operation depends on the way in which its parts contribute and co-operate with each other.

 

 

 

 

(Precisely. The Illuminati seek to control the way the two sides communicate with each other, so they secretly talk to the right brain through symbolism and subliminals, while the person is only conscious of his or her left brain activity - the physical view of the world.)
 


The right hemisphere links to the primitive older part of the brain, and I consider that it communicates using images with its primitive ’unconscious’ functions. Thinking in pictures is fast. Think of how long it takes to describe a picture, a scene, in words and compare this with the speed of taking it in by looking at it. But images may be described, or transformed into a narrative, by the left hemisphere.
 


(Here we have my point again. You enter the mind though the right brain with imagery and symbolism - for instance horrific pictures from war zones or terrorist bombings.

 

You then use your media to tell the peoples’ left brains how to interpret those images - the pictures are "transformed into a narrative" by the media.

 

In fact, the media is acting as a collective left brain, interpreting right brain images for the masses, so they do not do it for themselves. This is why the media is awash with left-brain-dominated "journalists".

 

That’s their function, though 95% have no idea they are being used in this way because they are left-brain prisoners themselves. This manipulation of left brain interpretation of right brain images is happening every time you read a paper, magazine, or book, watch television or listen to the radio.

 

It is SO important, therefore, to filter such information and allow our left brain to make up its OWN mind on how to interpret right brain images.)
 


Language is both spoken as well as written, verbal and visual.

 

And speech and language and associated pictures, images and memories appear to be located all over the brain. Cognition of meaning (knowing and understanding sentences, for example) is high level processing which includes both semantic and visual processing. And behavior involves the integration of activities in many different parts of the brain.

So now the human brain includes the processing and memorizing of images and of their components. And the development of language and corresponding mental processing connected with memory and memorizing.

 

As well as the development of a wide range of emotions, of feelings, of care and affection, and the capability for objective and logical thinking and evaluation. And the later development of written languages and artificial images.
 


(The reptilian bloodlines are obviously far more dominated by the traits of the reptilian brain and so the extreme expressions of this are not balanced by feelings of care, affection, etc., as they are in the mammal characteristics of most humans. Hence this mentality can create a war with 55 million casualties or sacrifice a little child without the emotional surge of horror which the mammalian characteristics would stimulate.)

 

 

Finally, here is an interview with Dr. Elaine De Beauport on these same subjects:


An Interview with Dr. Elaine De Beauport
by Steve Williamson

"It’s a very powerful time... The kinks are coming from the human mind - which happens to emanate from three brain systems, not just one.

 

These three brains can be educated, although only one half of one, the left hemisphere of the neocortex, is now being educated. We see the left brain’s specialty of technology going haywire. My work is toward a much fuller education of all our intelligences."

Elaine De Beauport is one of the foremost educators in the world.

 

She studied at Smith and Georgetown, and received her Ed.D. from Farleigh Dickinson. She has taught every age from preschool through graduate school; this great range is represented in her thinking and writing. She founded the innovative Mead School for Human Development in Greenwich, CT, K through 9. Of more than 260 alternative schools founded in the 60’s and 70’s, Mead is one of four to have survived.

While she was director of the Mead School, she became interested in the emerging scientific work on how the right and left hemispheres of the brain give rise to different modes of learning.

 

With further study, she became aware that there was more to the brain than the left and right hemispheres, that it was full of structures - an extraordinary complex of systems--and she reasoned these systems must have profound effects on the way humans learn and the way they behave.

She encountered the work of Dr. Paul MacLean, Chief of the Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior at the National Institutes of Health. He had been researching and writing in technical journals on what he called the "triune" structure of the brain.

 

But MacLean believed his work provided insight into social and psychological problems in humans, and should not be left in the laboratory or limited to specialists. He reached out to the public in a famous lecture, "A Meeting of Minds," given at an educators’ convention in the late 1970’s.

MacLean said there are essentially three brains, each of which developed during a particular stage of evolutionary history. The earlier part of the brain, found in reptiles, could be called the reptilian brain, or R-complex. In mammals another structure appeared: the paleomammalian brain, with a new range of particularly mammalian behavior - care of the young, affection, mutual grooming, etc.

 

This is the home of the limbic system and the capacity for feeling and emotion, for the sense of smell and sexuality. With the development of human beings came the most recent evolutionary structure, the neomammalian brain - with a hugely expanded neocortex in the prefrontal lobes.

 

The neomammalian or "thinking" brain brought with it the capacity for language, visualization, and symbolic skills unique to human beings.

But evolution is economical, it didn’t cast off the reptilian brain structure. It added the two more recent brains in layers one on top of the other. They are all intact in their evolutionary forms and functions.

Although many problems arise because of a lack of coordination between what were originally three different brain systems, MacLean stressed that these structures are not separate, but rather are three systems integrated into one--hence, "triune."

MacLean argued that all the old structures are active in determining behavior, and that from these different-but-connected brains come not only different behaviors, but also many of the problems human beings face every day.

Human behavior is similar to behavior observed in animals because it arises from those parts of the brain system, like the reptilian brain, that humans and animals share.

 

Human beings share primal patterns of behavior with other animals, just as they share those brain structures. MacLean provided a list of behaviors. Among his examples, #1 is selection and preparation of home site, #2 is establishment of territory, #6 is patrolling the territory.

Understanding that these tendencies exist helps to explain seemingly irrational behavior, such as teenage territorial violence, that otherwise seems to make no sense. If one understands that the brain contains these older structures, Dr. De Beauport would say, you have a better chance of recognizing and dealing with them.

So, what Elaine and many others see is that while the older parts of the brain are necessary (they provide the drive for life and survival), they are not often integrated properly with the other brain structures. In Elaine’s view, MacLean’s physiological model of the brain has provided at least part of a psychological model or metaphor by which we can better understand our behavior.

The practicality of Dr. De Beauport’s work was demonstrated when it was incorporated as "Self Care" into the standard orientation program for nurses under enormous stress at busy Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Elaine has lived in Caracas for the last several years. Her first book appeared in 1995 in Spanish, and an English-language version of The Three Faces of the Mind will be published by Quest Books in December 1996.

 

She teaches frequent workshops throughout the US and in Venezuela. Contact info is found below.

 



INTERVIEW:

SW: When you founded the Mead School you began with a focus on working with children, but then you shifted to adults, why?

ED: Well, there is a really profound philosophy behind that. We did some extraordinary things at Mead School in terms of expanding learning capacities and extending consciousness, but we noticed that our struggle was always with the parents.... The child wanted to be loved by the parents and please the parents.

 

It became very evident that the limiting horizon was in the adult’s mind, because anything we did with the child’s mind was limited by what the parents would be able to grasp or appreciate and encourage -- all of the above.

So I like to say the future of the world is not in changing the children, the future of the world is in changing the adult mind.
 


SW: So at the same time you began presenting workshops, you were also going into MacLean’s work more deeply. What happened?

ED: If we have these other two brain structures inside us as MacLean suggests, the educational game is about how you get in there. And even in terms of psychology, it would be much more dynamic to understand and communicate with the limbic (emotional, feeling) part of the brain as a learning structure.

 

It offers a perspective that is much larger; it isn’t just about your relationship with your mother and father you have to get a grip on. It is really about developing your emotional quality of life. That is what interests me--that people can be educated to know they have an emotional brain and know they have a behavioral (reptilian) brain that reacts and interacts and forms patterns.
 


SW: So whatever your upbringing, your family life, the background in which you are set, being human entails particular physiological structures as well as particular psychological problems?

ED: Let me put it this way: You know that you have a hand, you learn how you use your hand. Parents know you have a mind, so they send you to school. So you say, "Oh boy, I have a mind!" but they don’t tell you about the two other important parts of the mind, the older brain structures. You have a limbic brain structure and a basic reptilian brain structure. These have to go to school too.

I think the most original thing I did was to see the brain as energy. I think this is still the most important thing I am doing. All matter is energy. You and I are energy. Then I suppose you could say energy formed itself into a hand, an eye and nose and the three different brain systems.

 

Once you see the brain is really energy, then you can propose processes and those processes can go from the thick and very evident, to the thin which can be invisible. Then I proposed ten different intelligences, each of which behaves in its own way and each of which can be educated.

 

That’s what is set forth in the new book.

 

 

SW: Your work struck me as very original. What convinced you to work in this way?

ED: I worked with individuals two or three years old for many years, then with individuals all the way through graduate school. When you do this, the dominating question becomes: how do people learn? I was also interested in violence and peace and this also drew me toward my current work.
 


SW: How does the physiology of the brain help you do your work?

ED: Just about everything in life becomes different when you view it through the three different structures. On the first basic level, if you take MacLean’s model of the brain stem and add the spinal column you get what could better be called the nervous system brain. "Reptile" just doesn’t convey its significance.

 

It permits me to look at the patterns of my own life in a more neutral way, with a kind of curiosity, to see this particular pattern of energy in the way this intelligence works in the oldest brain.

The three-brain model gives me a freedom... Knowing that there are three brain systems can eventually be the healing of guilt itself.

Another value is that it enables us to look at emotions without analyzing them. It’s so tremendous: you see emotions as energy, then you can enter the emotional energy without thinking you have to act on them or thinking you have to think about them; you just feel your feelings. Then you can get in touch with the symphony or jazz inside you. To free yourself from analyzing your emotions or... yourself.

I don’t know if I can get across how tremendous that is. To have the freedom to live your inner being without having to act it out, or analyze it, or intervene in it. I think this is the excitement...that emotions are really an energy scale from the subtlest and quietest to the most exuberant.

 

I believe that’s the only answer to violence. Because there is violence in all of us. It’s impacted energy that’s in there. This triune view allows us to access that impacted energy so that it doesn’t have to express itself violently.

These three brains are multiple systems of complex chemistry and all of us have the chemistry that makes us hot. All of us get our power checked. For example, I want more cider, but there isn’t any. Well, that frustrates me. The basic reptilian brain is our "power brain" really and when it gets checked, it gets frustrated.

 

And it happens as soon as we get up in the morning. It gets frustrated. If you don’t know you have a history of frustration, then you just level off at somebody, and then physically try to solve it. Well, I’ll just get rid of you, I’ll get you out of my way.

 

Knowing that we’ve got three separate brain structures is going to let us look and say that intensity is part and parcel of the chemistry of the brain and we have ways to channel and educate it.
 


SW: What do most people want to get from your book?

ED: That they don’t ever have to use the word "unconscious" again, that there are six ways into what they are now calling the unconscious, if they can learn them. That’s the most important thing I want to communicate.

 

They can also learn from the other intelligences that they can develop their own intuitional ability. To never live their life again based on one intelligence. You can never be happy based on only one intelligence.
 


SW: There seems to be such chaos, political and cultural, in the US, if not over the world.

ED: It’s all over the world. My perception is that the world is falling in on itself. The world is being drawn together in all senses: visually, economically, culturally drawn in, and in that falling in on itself there is hurt, violence, refusal and resistance. "Yes, a little of this, no, none of that." It’s a very powerful time, everyone trying to protect themselves, and yet not being able to really get away from being in the process.
 


SW: But yet, you’re optimistic.

ED: Oh yes, yes. There are ten pathways out of this - ten different intelligences we can develop. The kinks are coming from the human mind - which happens to emanate from three brain systems, not just one.

 

These three brains can be educated, although only one half of one, the left hemisphere of the neocortex, is now being educated. Hence we see something like the left brain’s specialty of technology going haywire. My work is toward a much fuller education of all our intelligences.

In the last chapter of my book I do two things: I focus on social philosophy and individual action. The section on social philosophy talks about what religion, government and education have to do. I think the most important thing religion has to do is to allow its values to be updated. Because of its tremendous impact, democracy has got to change.

 

It’s a talking brain, and now the talk can be seen on TV, and so the lack of action is very obvious. In terms of the three-brain system, there is a tremendous amount we have to say to government, particularly to democracy.

Living in Venezuela, one sees the impact the passionate limbic brain can have on democracy, with its long time pattern of dictatorship. In education, until every school system has a multiple intelligence center, a how-do-people-learn center, I don’t think education will change.
 


SW: What are you going to do next? Your book Three Faces of the Mind will come out in December 1996, what then?

ED: The book is an introduction to the adult curriculum I’ve been working towards since I left the Mead School.

 

What I’m playing with in my mind is that I’ve seen a way of creating an adult school on a "new school" model, to take the curriculum and set it out in a Club Mind format, instead of a Club Med. A place people would come for an extended experiential learning vacation.

 

A place where there is mastery, rather than just a little of this, a little of that. You’d know there was something more involved. That’s what has me going now.

 

Elaine de Beauport can be contacted through the New York office of the Mead Institute for Human Development, 2109 Broadway, New York City, NY 10023 (212) 866-4229, or through Diane Waller (212) 366-0065. Look for her book The Three Faces of the Mind published in March 1997.

A version of this interview originally appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of Dromenon Journal. Jane W. Prettyman, editor of "The Real News Page," was the founding publisher of Dromenon in 1978 and edited the magazine until 1983.

 

 

 

 

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Beyond the Reptilian Brain