In Search of the Miraculous

number five.

"When the 'table of hydrogens' has been sufficiently understood, it shows

immediately many new features in the work of the human machine, establishing

clearly before anything else the reasons for the differences between the centers and

their respective functions.

"The centers of the human machine work with different 'hydrogens.' This constitutes

their chief difference. The center working with a coarser, heavier, denser 'hydrogen'

works the slower. The center working with light, more mobile 'hydrogen' works the

quicker.

The thinking or intellectual center is the slowest of all the three centers we have

examined up to now. It works with 'hydrogen' 48 (according to the third scale of the

'table of hydrogens').

"The moving center works with 'hydrogen' 24. 'Hydrogen* 24 is many times

quicker and more mobile than 'hydrogen' 48. The intellectual center is never able to

follow the work of the moving center. We are unable to follow either our own

movements or other people's movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still

less are we able to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our

organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of

the moving center.

"The emotional center can work with 'hydrogen' 12. In reality, however, it very

seldom works with this fine 'hydrogen.' And in the majority of cases its work differs

little in intensity and speed from the work of the moving center or the instinctive

center.

"In order to understand the work of the human machine and its possibilities, one

must know that, apart from these three centers and those connected with them, we

have two more centers, fully developed and properly functioning, but they are not

connected with our usual life nor with the three centers in which we are aware of

ourselves.

"The existence of these higher centers in us is a greater riddle than the hidden

treasure which men who believe in the existence of the mysterious and the miraculous

have sought since the remotest times.

"All mystical and occult systems recognize the existence of higher forces and

capacities in man although, in many cases, they admit the existence of these forces

and capacities only in the form of possibilities, and speak of the necessity for

developing the hidden forces in man. This present teaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centers exist in man and are fully developed.

"It is the lower centers that are undeveloped. And it is precisely this lack of development, or the incomplete functioning, of the lower centers that prevents us from

making use of the work of the higher centers.

"As has been said earlier, there are two higher centers:

"The higher emotional center, working with hydrogen 12, and

"The higher thinking center, working with hydrogen 6.

"If we consider the work of the human machine from the point of view of the

'hydrogens' which work the centers, we shall see why the higher centers cannot be

connected with the lower ones.

"The intellectual center works with hydrogen 48; the moving center with hydrogen

24.

"If the emotional center were to work with hydrogen 12, its work would be

connected with the work of the higher emotional center. In those cases where the work

of the emotional center reaches the intensity and speed of existence which is given by

hydrogen 12, a temporary connection with the higher emotional center takes place and

man experiences new emotions, new impressions hitherto entirely unknown to him,

for the description of which he has neither words nor expressions. But in ordinary con-

ditions the difference between the speed of our usual emotions and the speed of the

higher emotional center is so great that no connection can take place and we fail to

hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from the higher

emotional center.

"The higher thinking center, working with hydrogen 6, is still further removed

from us, still less accessible. Connection with it is possible only through the higher

emotional center. It is only from descriptions of mystical experiences, ecstatic states,

and so on, that we know cases of such connections. These states can occur on the basis

of religious emotions, or, for short moments, through particular narcotics; or in certain pathological states such as epileptic fits or accidental traumatic injuries to the brain, in which cases it is difficult to say which is the cause and which is the effect, that is,

whether the pathological state results from this connection or is its cause.

"If we could connect the centers of our ordinary consciousness with the higher

thinking center deliberately and at will, it would be of no use to us whatever in our

present general state. In most cases where accidental contact with the higher thinking

center takes place a man becomes unconscious. The mind refuses to take in the flood

of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas which suddenly burst into it. And instead of