CYCLE THIRTY-SEVEN

1. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. Given our fourfold subdivisions of the brain, it should be feasible to equate writing with the left midbrain on account of its intellectual essence; reading with the backbrain on account of its emotional essence; speaking with the right midbrain on account of its sensual essence; and thinking with the forebrain on account of its spiritual essence. More correctly, I should like to distinguish between the intellectual essence per se of writing, the quasi-emotional essence of reading, the quasi-sensual essence of speaking, and the quasi-spiritual essence of thinking, since it seems to me that whilst intellectuality per se is of the brain, particularly in its left-midbrain manifestation, emotionality per se is of the heart, sensuality per se of the body (flesh), and spirituality per se of the lungs, in consequence of which the cerebral modes of the qualities in question can only be 'quasi'. Thus while writing correlates with the intellect per se, the other modes of 'intellectual' activity are really less intellectual than quasi-emotional (reading), quasi-sensual (speaking), and quasi-spiritual (thinking), as though the brain or, rather, the subdivisions thereof to which I believe they appertain ... were striving to ape the bodily organs which are the genuine manifestations of emotionality, sensuality, and spirituality. Indeed, it could be that an emotional person, dominated by his heart, would be more disposed to reading, in consequence of his emotional bent, just as a sensual person would be more disposed to speaking, on account of his (bodily) sensuality, and a spiritual person ... more disposed to thinking, on account of his spirituality, as centred in the lungs. Yet it must also follow that when a civilization is overwhelmingly intellectual, as in the case of Western civilization traditionally, the 'quasi' qualities will be less manifestations of an alternative bent than ... 'bovaryized' manifestations of the intellect, as though a reflection of trinitarian and Marian distinctions within the overall brain, whose correlation with the moon would confirm the kind of 'purgatorial' civilization, necessarily Christian, we have in mind.

2. LUNAR CORRELATION OF THE BRAIN. In regard to the above, I should like to advance the theory that there is indeed a correlation between the brain and the moon (not to mention between the heart and Venus, the flesh and the Earth, and the lungs and Saturn), and that the left midbrain corresponds to the 'dark side' of the moon, the side which is turned away from the Earth, while the backbrain corresponds to the side of the moon which is turned towards Venus and is therefore less intellectual than quasi-emotional; that the right midbrain corresponds to the side of the moon which is turned towards the Earth and is therefore less emotional than quasi-sensual, while the forebrain corresponds to the side of the moon which is turned towards Saturn and is therefore less sensual than quasi-spiritual. Hence we would have to accept that only the left midbrain corresponds to the side of the moon directly turned away from the Earth, the 'dark side' as we have called it, whereas the backbrain, the right midbrain, and the forebrain correspond to those sides or aspects of the moon which are turned towards either Venus, the Earth, or Saturn, as the case may be. Hence the intellect per se corresponds, in its writerly essence, to the 'dark side' of the moon, which is the side more correlative with the left midbrain. The other sides of 'intellectual' activity are only secondary qualities within the overall brain which ape, though never surpass, Venus, the Earth, and Saturn. The intellectual per se is a writer, not a reader, a speaker, or a thinker. He it is who is more categorically of the brain (in its specifically left-midbrain manifestation) than of the heart, the body, or the lungs.

3. PLANETARY CORRELATIONS OF BODILY ORGANS. If there is a correlation between the brain and the moon, as I happen to believe, then it should follow, as hinted above, that correlations also exist between, for example, the heart and Venus, the body and the Earth, and the lungs and Saturn, since Venus is the most emotional planet, the Earth the most sensual, and Saturn the most spiritual, and the heart is nothing if not emotional, the body nothing if not sensual, and the lungs nothing if not spiritual. Hence the emotional person per se would be one whose orientation is towards Venus, the sensual person per se one who is most of the Earth, and the spiritual person per se one whose orientation is towards Saturn, just as the intellectual person per se, the writer, is one whose orientation is towards the moon or, at any rate, its 'dark side'. How one defines 'orientation' is arguably a moot point. Though I would guess that build, temperament, race, class, gender, and nationality all have something, in one degree or another, to do with it, as does environment, both natural and artificial, with due regard, in addition, to climatic differentials between one country or continent and another. In fact, I hold to the view that, on account of its intellectual bias, Europe has traditionally been orientated towards the moon, whereas America would seem, in its emotional bias, to be orientated towards Venus (if not also, in its fiery explosiveness, towards the sun); and Africa, in its sensual bias, to be orientated towards or, rather, of the Earth per se, with Asia, in its spiritual bias, orientated towards Saturn. Certainly the distinction between the West and the East, America and Asia, suggests a parallel with the orbital relationship between the sun and/or Venus and Saturn, fieriness and/or emotionality and spirituality, while the distinction between the North and the South, Europe and Africa, suggests a parallel between the moon and the Earth, intellectuality and sensuality. Doubtless sensuality, being germane to the Earth, is more genuinely of the World than is either emotionality or spirituality, bearing in mind their correlations with Venus and Saturn, but even these qualities are genuine compared with their 'intellectual' counterparts in the quasi-emotional realm of reading and the quasi-spiritual realm of thinking. The man who 'pumps heart' through soul music is more genuinely emotional than the one who vicariously experiences emotions through books, just as the man who is into his lungs through yoga-inspired breathing exercises is more genuinely spiritual than the one who meditates through prayer. And if this is partly if not largely down to a West/North as opposed, in the second instance, to an East/North distinction, then so be it! We have free will, to be sure, but our free will is also subject, in varying degrees, to natural determinism, both within and without the world.